"I shut the door on him. Rattled good and plenty I was by then. Back comes this silly old gardener--he'd gone with his hoe and was still gripping it. The neighbours down that way hadn't seen the kids. Back comes Tillie. One neighbour where she'd been had seen 'em climb on to a street car--only it wasn't going downtown but into the country; and this neighbour had said to herself that the boy would be likely to let some one have it in the eye with his gun, the careless way he was lugging it.
"Thank the Lord, that was a trace! I telephoned to the police and told 'em all about it. And I telephoned for a motor car for me and got into some clothes. Good and scared--yes! I caught sight of my face in the looking-glass, and, my! but it was pasty--it looked like one of these cheap apple pies you see in the window of a two-bit lunch place! And while I'm waiting for this motor car, what should come but a telegram from Mr. W.B. himself saying that the aunt was worse and he would go to New Jersey himself for the night! Some said this aunt was worth a good deal more than she was supposed to be. And I not knowing the name of this town in Jersey where they would all be!--it was East Something or West Something, and hard to remember, and I'd forgot it.
"I called the police again and they said descriptions was being sent out, and that probably I'd better not worry, because they often had cases like this. And I offered to bet them they hadn't a case since Yonkers was first thought of that had meant so much spot cash to 'em as this one would mean the minute I got a good grip on them kids. So this cop said mebbe they had better worry a little, after all, and they'd send out two cars of their own and scour the country, and try to find the conductor of this street car that the neighbour woman had seen the kids get on to.
"I r'ared round that house till the auto come that I'd ordered. It was late coming, naturally, and nearly dark when it got there; but we covered a lot of miles while the daylight lasted, with the man looking sharp out along the road, too, because he had three kids of his own that would do any living thing sometimes, though safe at home and asleep at that minute, thank God!