the door, blowing with all his might;
"Too--hoo--too--hoo--too--hoo;" and then Orphy Smith, the next
neighbor, caught up _his_ horn, and blew, too; and then the next, and
the next; and, in a very short time, all the neighbors knew that Mr.
Moore wanted them to come to his log house, just as fast as their
horses legs could carry them.

So, in they flocked,--Orphy Smith, and Seth Jones, and Pete Parker, and
Jesse Jenkins, and Eph. Ellet, and a whole host more; and Mitty's
father told them that Desire Dibden's child (whose father had been
killed by the Indians,) was lost in the woods; and that was _enough_ to
say;--every man of them started off through the door, as if he had been
shot out of a pop-gun, to help find the child.

Certainly;--didn't I tell you that "_farmers had hearts_?" When a child
gets lost in the city, the fat old town crier (if he is paid for it)
"takes his time" and his bell, and crawls through the street, whining
out sleepily, "C-h-i-l-d l-o-s-t;" and the city folks pay about as much
attention to it, as if you told them that a six-days' kitten had
presumptuously stepped into a wash-tub.

You didn't catch the nice, big-hearted farmers acting that way; they
didn't say it was none of their business,--that their corn wanted
hoeing, and their hay wanted stacking, and their meadows wanted
ploughing! The sight of that poor weeping mother was enough. They
started right off in companies, to scour the woods for the poor,
little, lost boy, hoping to find him before night-fall.

There sat poor Desire, in the chimney corner, sobbing and wringing her
hands, and rocking her body to and fro. She wouldn't eat, though good,
kind, motherly Mrs. Moore, baked, on purpose for her, some of her most
tempting cakes; she wouldn't drink, though Mrs. Moore handed her a nice
hot cup of tea. She did nothing but cry fit to break her heart; while
sensible little Mitty whispered to her mother to know "if she hadn't
better go out of the way, for fear the sight of her, safe in her
mother's log house, might make poor Desire cry the harder."

Dinner time came; but the men didn't come back. Supper time;--then
evening came on, dark and chilly, and Desire's lips grew paler every
minute: still, no tidings yet of the boy. Through the long night she
listened--listened--listened, till every gust of wind made her tremble
like the leaves. Morning dawned,--noon came again,--then night. Then,
indeed, at last they heard the tramp of heavy feet.