Little Take-a-Stitch pondered a moment what she had best do in order to find her grandfather and, having decided, made haste to dress. The cold water from the spigot in the corner refreshed her and seemed to clear her thoughts, but she did not stop to eat anything, though she offered a crust of the dry loaf to the dog. He, also, refused the food and the little girl understood why. Patting him on the head she exclaimed: "We both of us can't eat till he comes, can we, Bo'sn dear? Well, smart doggie, put on your sharpest smeller an' help to track him whichever way he went. You smell an' I'll look, an' 'twixt us we'll hunt him quick's-a-wink. Goin' to find grandpa, Bo'sn Beck! Come along an' find grandpa!" Up sprang the terrier, all his dejection gone, and leaped and barked as joyfully as if he fully understood what she had said. Then, waiting just long enough to lock the tiny door and hide the key in its accustomed place, so that if the captain came home before she did he could let himself in, she started down the Lane, running at highest speed with Bo'sn keeping pace. So running, she passed the basement window where Meg-Laundress was rubbing away at her tub full of clothes and tossed that good woman a merry kiss. "Guess the old cap'n's back, 'less Glory never 'd look that gay," thought Meg, and promptly reported her thought to Posy Jane who was just setting out for her day's business. She was already over-late and was glad to accept Meg's statement as fact and thus save the time it would have taken to visit the littlest house and learn there how matters really stood. It thus happened that neither of Glory's best friends knew the truth of the case nor that the child had set off on a hopeless quest, without food or money or anything save her own strong love and will to help her. "But we're goin' to find grandpa, Bo'sn, an' we don't mind a thing else. Don't take so very long to get to that old 'Harbor,' an' maybe he might have a bite o' somethin' saved up 'at he could give us, though we don't neither of us want to eat 'fore we get him back, do we, doggie?" cried the child as they sped along and trying not to notice that empty feeling in her stomach. But they had gone no further than the end of the Lane before they collided with Nick, the parson, just entering it. He had finished his morning's sale of papers and was feeling hungry for his own breakfast and, as Take-a-Stitch ran against him, demanded rather angrily, "What you mean, Goober Glory, knockin' a feller down that way?" "O Nick! Have you seen grandpa?" "Seen the cap'n? How should I? Ain't this his time o' workin' on his frames?"