Abigail waved that aside. “Don’t fret over that. Just tell me when Noah vanished.” When Matthew held out her coat, she quickly put it on, keeping her eyes fixed on Mabel.
“He was just in his room; he went up there after lingering in the kitchen for a while. All the lightning bugs were out behind the house and the child could not stop watching them. It was not until they moved farther down the hill that he left. He said he was tired and since he is still growing he knows he should get his sleep at night.”
“Oh, dear.”
“What?” asked Matthew.
“I have begun to learn that when Noah mentions how he is growing, he is after something,” said Abbie, and she smiled apologetically at Matthew. “This was very nice, but I think I better go and see what the child has done.”
He took her arm and Mabel’s and started toward the door. “Ye have some idea of where the lad might be?”
“I think I might. I shall just have to have a look.”
“I will help ye look.”
She did not refuse the help for she just might need it. “Why come for me, Mabel?”
“Because the boy has taken to you. Thought you must have spent a lot of time with him so you might know what he has done.”
“Oh, I have a good idea, and it could well be the end of his ‘growing.’” Abigail smiled when Mabel laughed.
When they reached the house, Abbie asked Matthew to wait for her and hurried up the stairs to check the children’s rooms then her own. She trudged back down and headed for the kitchen. She knew the child had gone out after the lightning bugs, obviously forgetting there were all those nasty biting bugs out at night as well. It did not make her feel very kindly toward him that he was forcing her out into them just to find him.
“He came out here, didnae he?”
“He did. He loves the lightning bugs. Loves them so much he forgot about these,” she growled and slapped a mosquito that had landed on her arm.
She wandered down the hill and heard a scrambling noise in the brush. “Noah?”
“Abbie! Come see the bugs. There are so many of them.”
“I know,” she grumbled and accepted Matthew’s hand as she continued down the hill and kept slapping at the mosquitoes trying to feast on her.
She found the child crouched in the bushes, ajar in his hand already holding several lightning bugs. The fact that he had few mosquitoes around him annoyed her. The traitorous things left him and headed for her.
“What are you doing, young man?” She could tell by the way his small shoulders stiffened that he knew he was in trouble.
“Catching lightning bugs. My mother used to do it with me and then we would set the jar in my room and snuff the light out. It was nice.”
She gently touched his hair. “It sounds it. A very nice memory to have and hold close. But you should have told one of the adults that you were doing it. They thought you were in your room and got terribly worried when they could not find you.”
“Oh. I am sorry.”
“Well, I think you will have to say so to them.”
“Now?”
“Yes, because although you and Matthew don’t seem to be having any trouble with all these silly biting things . . .”
“Skeeters,” Noah said and grinned. “They are skeeters.”
“Fine. I see them as the Devil’s minions and they are feasting on me so we will go back inside.” When the boy did not immediately move she said, “Now.”
Noah got up with a heavy sigh and screwed the cap onto his jar tightly. To her annoyance, he scrambled up the hill with ease while she practically had to have Matthew drag her up. Once inside the kitchen she listened to Noah very politely apologize to Mabel as she took the time to help Abbie wash off her arms. Abbie took the damp cloth, rinsed it out, and carefully wiped her face. She did not look forward to tomorrow when all the bites she had gotten would begin to itch. As she dabbed herself dry and smoothed on some cream Mabel gave her she sent Noah up to bed promising she would be along in a moment.
“Those skeeters really liked you,” said Mabel, and Matthew grinned as he nodded.
“I know. Wretched things. Well, I thank you for a very nice evening, Matthew. Now I best go have a chat with Mr. I Am A Growing Boy.”
