MOUNTAIN HOME -- Police have located the mother of a little girl found alone in Mountain Home Tuesday morning.
The department had asked for the public's help tracking down the girl's family after she was discovered walking towards the edge of town.
Mountain Home resident Phil Bonn saw 4-year-old Emily walking and realized she was probably not where she was supposed to be.
"It was all muddy and everything, and it sure wasn't a place for her, so I stopped and asked where she was going, and she told me she was going to school," Bonn said. "There is no school out that way so I asked her if I could take her to school with my son and we brought her to Hacker Middle School, I knew there would be a resource officer there who could help her."
Calls were made around the district to try and find where Emily went to school. But everyone soon realized she wasn't enrolled anywhere.
Turns out Emily saw her older brother go to school earlier in the morning, and so she decided she wanted to go too.
Emily was soon taken on a new adventure to the police station.
From there the department posted on Facebook that little Emily had been found safe, and that they needed help locating her parents.
That post was quickly shared over 3,000 times.
Mountain Home Police Chief Scott Conner thanked the social media community for helping to reunite Emily with her family.
"You saw the numbers of people that it actually reached and the number of times it was shared in the matter of just a couple of hours it was astonishing to me," Conner said. "It's a real good tool in terms of being able to share information with people in the community, we are happy it worked out."
Emily chatted and stayed with officers for about four hours before the department was able to get in touch with her mother.
The pair was reunited just before noon.
The mother told police that her daughter had gotten up with her brother when he got ready for school, then returned to bed. The woman said she believed the girl was napping, and did not realize she was missing.
The child's grandmother spotted Mountain Home Police's Facebook post, and alerted the girl's mother. Police say the mother will not face any charges.
Chief Conner says he appreciates the help from social media, but says he saw a lot of negative comments from people who assumed they knew everything. Conner says he hopes people will stay away from jumping to conclusions.
"You have to be cautious because it can happen to you, these children will sometimes wander off," Conner said. "Well meaning children, like I said, she was off on her way to school."