SPOTTED SNAKE, THE WITCH
"What are they trying to do to that poor child?" repeated Jessie
Norwood, as the crowd swept down to the shore.
"Spotted snake! Spotted Snake!" yelled the crowd, and spread out to
keep the pursued from running back. The hump-backed little figure with
poke-bonnet and cane was chased out upon the broken landing.
"She will go overboard!" shrieked Jessie, and drove in her paddle
again to reach the wharf. Amy, who was in the bow sheered off, but
brought the side of the canoe skillfully against the rough planks.
"What are they doing to you, child?" Amy cried.
"Goin' to drown the witch! Goin' to drown the witch!" shrieked the
rabble in the rear. "Spotted Snake! Spotted Snake!"
"It's little Henrietta!" screamed Jessie suddenly. "Oh, Amy!"
Amy, who was strong and quick, reached over the gunwale of the canoe
and seized upon the crooked figure. She bore it inboard, knocking off
the old bonnet to reveal Henrietta's freckled little face. The cloak
and the hump under it were likewise torn off and went sailing away on
the current.
"For pity's sake, Henrietta!" gasped Jessie.
"Yes'm," said the child composedly. "Did you come to see me?"
"Not expecting to see you in this--this shape," hesitated Jessie.
Amy went off into a gale of laughter. She could not speak for a
minute. Jessie demanded:
"Who are those awful children, Henrietta?"
"Part Foleys, some McGuires, two Swansons, the Costeklo twins, and
Montmorency Shannon," was the literal reply.
"What were they trying to do to you?"
"Drown me," said Henrietta composedly. "But they ain't ever done it
yet. I always manage to get away. I'm cute, I am. But once they most
nearly burned me, and Mrs. Foley stopped _that_. So now they mostly
try to drown the witch."
"'The witch'?" murmured the amazed Jessie.
"Yep. That's me. Spotted Snake, the witch. That's cause I'm so
freckled. It's a great game."
"I should say it was," marveled Jessie, and immediately Amy began to
laugh again. "I don't see how you can, Amy," Jessie complained. "I
think it is really terrible."
"I don't mind it," said Henrietta complacently. "It keeps 'em busy
and out from under their mothers' feet."
"But they shriek and yell so."
"That don't hurt 'em. And there's plenty of outdoors here to yell in.
Where we moved from in town, folks complained of the Foleys because
they made so much noise. But nobody ever complains here in Dogtown."
As Amy said, when she could keep from laughing, it was a great
introduction to Henrietta's home. They went ashore, and Henrietta, who
seemed to have a good deal of influence with the children, ordered two
of the boys to watch the canoe and allow nobody to touch it. Then she
proudly led the way to one of the largest and certainly the most
decrepit looking of all the hovels in Dogtown.
Mrs. Foley, however, was a cheerful disappointment. She was, as Amy
whispered, a "bulgy" person, but her calico wrapper was fairly clean;
and although she sat down and took up her youngest to rock to sleep
while she talked (being too busy a woman to waste any time visiting)
she impressed the girls from Roselawn rather favorably.
"That child is the best young one in the world," Mrs. Foley confessed,
referring to "Spotted Snake, the Witch." "Sometimes I rant at her like
a good one. But she saves me a good bit, and if ever a child earned
her keep, Hen earns hers."
Jessie asked about the missing cousin, Bertha.
"Bertha Blair. Yes. A good and capable girl. Was out at service when
Hen's mother died and left her to me. Something's wrong with Bertha,
or she surely would have come here to see Hen before this."
"Did Bertha Blair work for a woman named Poole?" Jessie asked.
"That I couldn't tell you, Miss. But you take Hen up to see your
father, like you say you want to. The child's as sharp as a steel
knife. Maybe she'll think of something that will put him on the trace
of Bertha."
So they bore Spotted Snake away with them in the canoe, while the
Dogtown gang shrieked farewells from the old landing. Henrietta had
been dressed in a clean slip and the smartest hair ribbon she owned.
But she had no shoes and stockings, those being considered unnecessary
at Dogtown.
"I believe Nell could help us find something better for this child to
wear," Amy observed, with more thoughtfulness than she usually
displayed. "What do you think, Jess? Folks are always giving the
Stanleys half-worn clothes for little Sally, more than Sally can ever
make use of. And Hen is just about Sally Stanley's size."
"That might be arranged," agreed Jessie. "I guess you'd like to have a
new dress, wouldn't you, Henrietta?"
"Oh, my yes! I know just what I would like," sighed Henrietta,
clasping her clawlike hands. "You've seen them cape-suits that's come
into fashion this year, ain't you? _That's_ what I'd like."
"My dear!" gasped Amy explosively.
"I don't mind going barefooted," said Henrietta. "But if I could just
have _one_ dress in style! I expect you two girls wear lots of stylish
things when you ain't wearing sweaters and overall-pants like you did
the other day. I never had anything stylish in my life."
Amy burst into delighted giggles, but Jessie said:
"The poor little thing! There is a lot in that. How should we like to
wear nothing but second-hand clothes?"
"'Hand me downs'," giggled Amy. "But mind you! A cape-coat suit! Can
you beat it?"
"I saw pictures of 'em in a fashion book Mrs. McGuire sent for," went
on Henrietta. "They are awful taking."
Little Henrietta proved to be an interesting specimen for the Norwood
family that evening. Momsy took her wonted interest in so appealing a
child. The serving people were curious and attentive. Mr. Norwood
confessed that he was much amused by the young visitor.
A big dictionary placed in an armchair, raised little Henrietta to the
proper height at the Norwood dinner table. Nothing seemed to trouble
or astonish the visitor, either about the food or the service. And
Jessie and Momsy wondered at the really good manners the child
displayed.
Mrs. Foley had not wholly neglected her duty in Henrietta's case. And
there seemed to be, too, a natural refinement possessed by the girl
that aided her through what would have seemed a trying experience.
Best of all, Henrietta could give a good description of her missing
cousin. Her name was Bertha Blair, and that was the name of the girl
Mr. Norwood's clerk had interviewed before she had been whisked away
by Martha Poole and Sadie Bothwell.
In addition, Mr. Norwood had brought home photographs of the two
women, and both Jessie and Amy identified them as the women they had
seen in Dogtown Lane, forcing the strange girl into the automobile.
"It is a pretty clear case," the lawyer admitted. "We know the date
and the place where the missing witness was. But the thing is now to
trace the movements of those women and their prisoner after they drove
away from Dogtown Lane."
Nevertheless, he considered that every discovery, even a small one,
was important. Detectives would be started on the trail. Jessie and
Amy rode back to Dogtown in the Norwoods' car with the excited
Henrietta after dinner, leaving her at the Foleys' with the promise
that they would see her soon again.
"And if those folks you know have any clothes to give me," said
Henrietta, longingly, "I hope they'll be fashionable."