Page:Poor Cecco - 1925.djvu/174

156 “But surely you remember? Where were you walking?”

“I was walking—I was walking everywhere!” said Bulka. Which was very nearly true. “I’d been all over the garden, and then it fell on me, and I ran—and I ran, and I couldn’t find you!”

“I call that silly!” said Jensina.

But Poor Cecco, seeing that Bulka was very near to tears—a thing that had not happened for a long time, for during his travels he had learned to be quite brave—said kindly: “Never mind, Bulka! Tubby’s in a tree, that we know, and we’ll hunt the garden over till we find her, if it takes us all night!”

All the others came running when they heard the glad news—even the Express Wagon rumbled along, in case he should be needed on ambulance duty—and together they set out to search the garden from end to end.

It took them a long while. They began with the smallest trees first—like the rose trees—because they were the easiest. Some of them were so small that it would hardly have been possible for the Easter Chicken, let alone Tubby, to have been hidden in them, but as Poor Cecco said, it was best to leave nothing untried. So at each one they peered and tapped and listened.

There was some discussion between Harlequin and the Wooden Engine as to whether the raspberry canes were trees or flowers, but this Poor Cecco decided. He said they