Aunt Barbara knew she could trust old Betty, and so, after getting
herself vaccinated in both arms, as a precaution against the smallpox,
and procuring various disinfecting agents, and having underpockets put
in all her dresses, by way of eluding pickpockets, the good woman
started one hot July morning on her mission in search of Ethie. But,
alas, finding Ethie, or anyone, in New York, was like "hunting for a
needle in a hay mow," as Aunt Barbara began to think after she had been
for four weeks or more an inmate of an uptown boarding house,
recommended as first-class, but terrible to Aunt Barbara, from the
contrast it presented to her own clean, roomy home beneath the maple
trees, which came up to her so vividly, with all its delicious coolness
and fragrance, and blossoming shrubs, and newly cut grass, with the dew
sparkling like diamonds upon it.
Aunt Barbara was terribly homesick from the first, but she would not
give up; so day after day she traversed one street after another,
looking wistfully in every face she met for the one she sought,
questioning children playing in the parks and squares as to whether they
knew any teacher by the name of Markham or Grant, ringing the door-bells
of every pretentious-looking house and putting the same question to the
servants, until the bombazine dress and black Stella shawl, and brown
Neapolitan hat, and old-fashioned lace veil, and large sun umbrella
became pretty well known in various parts of New York, while the owner
thereof grew to be a suspicious character, whom servants watched from
the basement and ladies from the parlor windows, and children shunned on
the sidewalk, while even the police were cautioned with regard to the
strange woman who went up and down day after day, sometimes in stages,
sometimes in cars, but oftener on foot, staring at everyone she met,
especially if they chanced to be young or pretty, and had any children
near them. Once down near Washington Square, as she was hurrying toward
a group of children, in the center of which stood a figure much like
Ethie's, a tall man in the blue uniform accosted her, inquiring into her
reasons for wandering about so constantly.
Aunt Barbara's honest face, which she turned full toward the officer,
was a sufficient voucher for her with the simple, straightforward
explanation which she made to the effect that her niece had left home
some time ago--run away, in fact--and she was hunting for her here in
New York, where her letter was dated. "But it's wearisome work for an
old woman like me, walking all over New York, as I have," Aunt Barbara
said, and her lip began to quiver as she sat down upon one of the seats
in the square, and looked helplessly up at the policeman. She was not
afraid of him, nor of the five others of the craft who knew her by
sight, and stopped to hear what she had to say. She never dreamed that
they could suspect her of wrong, and they did not when they heard her
story, and saw the truthful, motherly face. Perhaps they could help her,
they said, and they asked the name of the runaway.