[Illustration: IT WAS JACK, DAZED AND RUBBING HIS EYES]
KNOCK THREE
TIMES!
_BY_
MARION ST JOHN WEBB
AUTHOR OF ‘THE LITTLEST ONE’
‘THE GIRLS OF CHEQUERTREES’ ‘ELIZ’BETH PHIL AND ME’
ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
MARGARET W. TARRANT
[Illustration]
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Aunt Phœbe sends a Birthday Present 9
II The Adventure Begins 14
III The Other Side of the Tree 26
IV Why Old Nancy Slept through the Sunset Hour 38
V Which Explains who is Inside the Grey Pumpkin 44
VI The Black Leaf 55
VII Glan Opens the Gate in the Nick of Time 69
VIII Aunt Janet Puts on her Best Bonnet 84
IX Planning the Search 99
X Some One Meets Jack and Molly in the Third Green Lane 114
XI Trapped 130
XII The Goblin’s Heath 143
XIII Timothy Gives Them a Clue 158
XIV Mr Papingay’s House in the Orange Wood 169
XV Jack’s Misfortune 190
XVI Molly Accepts a Present 202
XVII A Warning 213
XVIII Molly Comes to Lake Desolate 230
XIX Molly Looks Through Miss Lydia’s Window 241
XX What Happened Outside Old Nancy’s Cottage 259
XXI The Grey Pumpkin’s Fate 272
XXII The Impossible World Again 282
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
IT WAS JACK, DAZED AND RUBBING HIS EYES _Frontispiece_
JACK AND MOLLY CLAMBERED OVER THE FENCE 20
THE LITTLE DWARF WAS LIFTED, STRUGGLING AND SCREAMING 50
THE HUGE GATE SWUNG BACK 74
“DO HAVE ONE!” 124
ONE AND ALL WERE SIMPLY PAINTED PEOPLE 178
“THANK GOODNESS YOU _’AVE_ WOKE UP!” 218
QUICK AS THOUGHT, SHE STRUCK ONE OF OLD NANCY’S MATCHES 256
_KNOCK THREE TIMES!_
CHAPTER I
_Aunt Phœbe sends a Birthday Present_
This story really begins with the arrival of a brown paper parcel
addressed to Molly, but while the postman is bringing it along the
road, there may be just time to explain about Jack and Molly’s
birthday, so that you will understand why Molly sat down to supper
wishing earnestly that silver bangles were considered useful and
necessary presents.
Jack and Molly were twins, and this was their ninth birthday. Such a
happy, exciting day it had been; it _felt_ like a birthday all day
long, so you can guess how jolly it was, and how special it made Jack
and Molly feel. Little did they guess what a weird and mysterious end
to the day was now approaching!
They had received a number of beautiful presents, and, to their
unbounded joy, a fine new bicycle each from Mother and Father. But
there was one particular thing that Molly had wanted for her birthday,
and that was a silver bangle.
“Like Mother’s,” she had told Jack, “only silver. One that nearly
slips off when I hang my hand down and that I have to push back up my
arm—and it jingles.”
As there happened also to be one other thing that Jack wanted
specially, a box of paints, the two children had decided some days ago
to write to their Aunt Phœbe, who always remembered their birthday, and
hint to her as delicately as possible what the most acceptable presents
would be. It had been a forlorn hope for Molly, because Aunt Phœbe
had fixed ideas about useless and useful presents. Probably she might
consider a box of paints useful to encourage Jack’s artistic leanings;
but a bangle——! Still, Molly sent her letter and hoped for the best.
On looking at Jack and Molly you would have noticed at once that
they both had the same kind of brown, curly hair and the same frank
expression about the eyes; but while Molly’s eyes were brown, and
her face often wistful and dreamy, Jack’s eyes were blue, and his
expression alert and full of energy; there was a certain reckless air
about Jack....
But the postman has reached their house, and is handing in two brown
paper parcels, and so the story really begins.
“It’s Aunt Phœbe’s handwriting!” Jack exclaimed, as he seized his
parcel.
“Yours looks flat—like a paint-box, Jack,” said Molly breathlessly,
tugging at the string of her parcel.
“Yours looks like something in a box too. Probably it will be a
bracelet,” Jack said encouragingly, hoping that it would be, for he
felt he should be almost as disappointed as Molly if it wasn’t.
Jack was the first to vanquish strings and paper, and with a yell of
delight he tore the wrapper off his parcel and disclosed a beautiful,
shiny black paint-box. For a few moments Mother and Father and Jack
were so engrossed in examining and admiring the box that they did not
notice that Molly had unwrapped her parcel, until her intense quietness
was borne in upon them, and they all three turned round.
Molly stood by the side of the table gazing tearfully at a round,
grey-looking thing half buried in a mass of tissue paper.
“What is it, dear?” asked Mother, crossing over to her side.
“It’s not——” began Molly, then stopped because of an uncomfortable
lump in her throat.
“Let me see,” said Mother, and she picked up the grey thing and turned
it over in her hands. On the other side was pinned a slip of paper, on
which was written:
FOR MOLLY
_Hoping she will be a good girl on her birthday and have many
happy returns. I thought this useful little thing would do for her
dressing-table._
_With love from_ AUNT PHŒBE
“Why, it’s a pincushion!” said Mother.
“What a beastly shame!” said Jack.
“Be quiet, Jack. It’s a very pretty one,” Mother added consolingly.
“Funny shape, isn’t it?” queried Father.
“It’s—let me see—why, it’s the shape of a—what do you call those
things?—pumpkins. It’s shaped like a pumpkin,” answered Mother.
“But it’s grey,” objected Father. “Why didn’t they make it yellow or
green while they were about it?”
“I suppose Aunt Phœbe thought grey would keep clean longer,” said Jack:
“that’s why she chose it.”
Had Aunt Phœbe known when she bought ‘this useful little thing’ what it
Really Was—could she have foreseen any of the mysterious happenings
that were to follow the arrival of her birthday present—she would have
preferred to send her niece half a dozen of the most jingly silver
bangles ever made; for she disapproved of adventures in any shape or
form, even more than she disapproved of bangles. Yet it was entirely
through Aunt Phœbe that Jack and Molly took part in the adventure of
the Grey Pumpkin at all.