"See here, Jess, de ye think I’m a fool? G’long to bed. What’s happened to ye, anyway?"
"Please, daddy, don’t talk that way. Come and see for yourself."
"Where’s ye’r mother?" Abner suddenly asked.
"Why, isn’t she home?" Jess asked in surprise.
"Home! Guess not. I’d surely know it if she was."
"But she left before we did," Jess explained.
"She did! How’s that? Didn’t yez come in the same car?"
"No, you see——" Jess hesitated, and then stopped.
"I see, I see," and Abner nodded. "Ye needn’t explain."
Deep in his heart Abner was pleased that his wife was not present at this awkward moment, but he wondered what had become of her. Although Jess worried about her mother, she was anxious to change the subject which might lead to embarrassing questions.
"Won’t you tell me about those boys in my bed?" she asked. "Surely you must know where they came from."
Abner chuckled, and just then Belle appeared in the doorway.
"You do know," Jess insisted. "You’re laughing. I know you are. Come, confess everything."
It took Abner some time to relate his experience with the waifs of the night, and when he was through he ordered the girls off to bed.
"Yez kin sleep together," he told them, "unless yez want to set up an’ watch them beauties in there. I guess yez both’ll find some Social Service work to do in the mornin’."
"But what about mother?" Jess anxiously enquired. "I’m afraid something has happened to her."
"No," Jess somewhat reluctantly replied. "Mother left in Mrs. Dimock’s car ahead of us."
"An’ you two walked, I s’pose? My, yez must be fond of walkin’ all the way from Glucom at this time of night. Fer the good of ye’r health, no doubt. More Social Service idea, eh? I’ve heard of sich cases before. Tildy used to be fond of walkin’ before we was married. Said she liked it, ’specially when a man was along."
"Don’t make fun of us, daddy," Jess pleaded. "It is no time for joking when mother may be lying injured somewhere along the road."
"She can’t be between here an’ town, or you’d have seen her," Abner reasoned. "But mebbe yez didn’t, fer there’s a time in life when young people are blind an’ deaf, so I understand."
"Don’t you think we had better go and look for mother?" Jess insisted.
"Oh, she’ll turn up safe an’ sound, never fear. Ye couldn’t lose Tildy. Anyway, if Mrs. Ikey’s chafer has run away with her, he’ll soon bring her back. So git away to bed now, fer I’m most awful sleepy."