For one long, dazed, dreadful minute Sara and Morton stood gazing at
each other, the boy's blue eyes large as saucers, and Sara's brown ones
turned to black by desperation; then the baby, frightened at the silence
and their strange expressions, began to cry and tug at Sara's dress,
demanding to be taken up.
This broke the spell. Molly gave way to an agony of crying; Morton said
brokenly, "Oh, what will we do?" and Sara, stooping mechanically to lift
the unconscious little cause of all this trouble, gave a long, quivering
sigh, and murmured helplessly, "God only knows!"
And, indeed, the prospect was dark enough. Those greenbacks meant the
savings of months, doubtless, put by bit by bit, for just this occasion,
and to have them thus destroyed in one careless instant seemed too
cruel!
After a little they could talk about it.
"Where could it have been?" sobbed Molly, making a dab at her eyes with
the potato, but remembering in time to substitute the corner of her
apron.
"I don't know," said Sara; "it was wrapped in brown paper, I think. Even
if we had seen it, we would have thought it but a twisted scrap. Did
either of you see Neddie when he picked it up?"
No one had, until Morton spied it on the way to his mouth, and all
conjectures were useless so long as the little fellow could not explain.
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