He was sure he had not come as yet, for he had kept an eye on the
road, and besides he would have heard the heavy rattle of the
wood-wagon. "Father 'll be real tickled when he sees the garden all
done," said Jerome, and he stopped whistling and bent all his young
spirit and body to his work. He never thought of feeling anxious
about his father.

At five o'clock the back door of the Edwards house opened. Elmira
came out with a shawl over her head and hurried up the hill. "Oh,
Jerome," she panted, when she got up to him. "You must stop working,
mother says, and go right straight off to the ten-acre lot. Father
'ain't come home yet, an' we're dreadful worried about him. She says
she's afraid something has happened to him."

Jerome stuck his spade upright in the ground and stared at her. "What
does she s'pose has happened?" he said, slowly. Jerome had no
imagination for disasters.

"She thinks maybe he's fell down, or some wood's fell on him, or
Peter's run away."

"Peter wouldn't ever run away; it's much as ever he'll walk lately,
an' father don't ever fall down."

Elmira fairly danced up and down in the fresh mould. She caught her
brother's arm and twitched it and pushed him fiercely. "Go along, go
along!" she cried. "Go right along, Jerome Edwards! I tell you
something dreadful has happened to father. Mother says so. Go right
along!"