"
The mother's fainting heart caught eagerly at this suggestion; and
Charley felt so much relieved by it that he was on the point of saying
he was sure it must have been either Moppet or a dogs' town-meeting that
lured Willie from the path he had pointed out to him. But everybody
looked too serious for jesting; and memory of his own fault quickly
repressed the momentary elasticity.
Countless were the times that the bereaved parents east wistful glances
over the prairie, with a vague hope of descrying Indians returning
with their child. The search was kept up for days and weeks. All the
neighbors, within a circuit of fifteen miles, entered zealously into
the work, and explored prairie and forest far and wide. At last these
efforts were given up as useless. Still Uncle George held out the
cheerful prospect that the Indians would bring him, when they returned
from their long hunting-excursion; and with this the mother tried to
sustain her sinking hopes. But month after month she saw the snowy
expanse of prairie gleaming in the moonlight, and no little footstep
broke its untrodden crust. Spring returned, and the sea of flowers again
rippled in waves, as if Flora and her train had sportively taken lessons
of the water-nymphs; but no little hands came laden with blossoms to
heap in Emma's lap. The birds twittered and warbled, but the responsive
whistle of the merry boy was silent; only its echo was left in the
melancholy halls of memory.
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