"Oh, my!" said Laddie, quite as dolefully as Rose had spoken. "I--I don't see my new stick-pin. It isn't here. I--I just guess I have lost it, too."
Rose was almost in tears when she found that her watch was lost. But although Laddie felt very bad about his missing stick-pin, he would not cry. Just the same, he did not feel as though he could make a riddle out of it.
"Now, Rose, and you, Laddie," said Mother Bunker admonishingly, as she seated them before her in one of the double seats of the Pullman car in which they had their reservations, "I want to know all about how you came to forget the watch and the pin--and just where you forgot them?"
Although Mother Bunker was usually very cheerful and patient with the children, this was a serious matter. Carelessness and inattention were faults that Mother Bunker was always trying to correct. For those two faults, as she pointed out so frequently, led often to much trouble, as in this case. The loss of the wrist watch and the stick-pin could not be passed over lightly.
Laddie shook his head very sorrowfully. "That _is_ a riddle, Mother," he said. "I can forget things so easy that I forget how I forget them."
But Rose was thinking very hard, and she broke out with:
"Where?" asked Mrs. Bunker, while the other children stood in the aisle or knelt on the seat behind to listen at the conference. "Where didn't you have it?"
"At home, Mother. I--I guess I haven't seen that watch since we were at Captain Ben's."
"Oh!" shouted Laddie. "That is just it! I left my stick-pin at the bungalow. I left it sticking in that cushion on the bureau in that room where Russ and Mun Bun and I slept. Of course I did."
"Are you sure, Laddie?" asked Mrs. Bunker. "I remember that I did not go into that room to see if anything was left. I should have done so, but we were in such a hurry."
"My rememberer is all right now," declared Laddie, with conviction. "That is where I left the pin."
"I--I don't know for sure," admitted Rose. "I can't remember where I had the watch last--or when I wore it last. But I do not believe I had it at all when we came home to Pineville."
"Well, Laddie is positive, and I suspect that you were quite as careless as he was," Mrs. Bunker said. "You should not be, Rose, for you are older."