ON THE TRAIL
After all their preparations for burglars or other scary visitors, it
was rather disappointing to come down to breakfast next morning just as
calm and complaisant as usual; in fact it was calmer, for the absence
of Aunt Audrey was readily felt in something like loneliness. Madaline
was even threatened with a fit of homesickness.
Jennie brought the muffins, and it struck Cleo she was quieter than
usual. A snappy "good morning" in that tone that implies "eat in a
hurry and clear out," added another note to the already discordantly
charged atmosphere.
"Do you know, girls," announced Grace, pushing aside her grapefruit, "I
feel exactly as if something were surely going to happen to-day."
"So do I," spoke up Cleo; "I feel as if a nice early hike over the big
gray mountain is going to happen, and I am sure of it."
"But I mean something odd and queer," insisted Grace.
"Did you feel that way the day you tied the man to the tree?" teased
Cleo.
"If you did, I'm not going out with you," spoke up Madaline,
disregarding table manners to the extent of making a pyramid from her
yellow muffin crumbs. "I feel awfully queer, too, and I'm not going to
take a risk with Grace, if she's going to be reckless."
"Can't see why you should fear me, Madie." Then noticing the homesick
look on the usually dimpling face, Grace "broke out," as Cleo called
her spells of exhilaration. "I'll tell you," offered Grace. "We'll
take our mountain sticks, loaded water pistols, and I have Benny's air
gun, and we'll go hunting. Of course we wouldn't really shoot bunnies,
but--we'll shoo them. Andy Mack told me yesterday the woods are just
full of all kinds of young hunters now, but they are mostly from the
city, and after flowers. You can take a bag or a basket, Madaline, to
carry home your precious roots in, because you know what a time we
always have spoiling our hats that way."
Madaline gave a wan little smile, for her, and then surprised her chums
with declaring she believed she would stay home and help Jennie
transplant some lettuce, as she loved to do transplanting.
Whether or not the remark was overheard in the kitchen, Jennie swung
open the door as Madaline finished speaking, and as she confronted the
girls there was no mistaking the look on her closely lined face.
Jennie was mad!
"Lettuce!" she repeated. "Indeed we have none to transplant. My
beautiful bed is entirely destroyed!"
"Oh, how?" exclaimed the girls.
"I don't know," replied the maid, still seething with indignation, "but
I'm likely to think it wasn't a mountain rabbit that did the damage,
for the plants were yanked up by the roots, and bunnies just nibble the
tops!"
"Oh, that's such a shame!" declared Cleo, "and you were counting on
having it just right when Uncle Guy returns. Who would do that?"
"Well, there's some awful queer folks around here lately," went on
Jennie, as she slipped the breakfast dishes on the tray. "They don't
know anything about folks' rights. Think everything growing is common
property. There's one old woman who pretends she doesn't understand me
when I tell her to stop digging in the lawn, and what she digs is
nothing but old roots and weed stuff," and Jennie threw back her
shoulders, assuming an attitude of righteous indignation.
"What kind of looking woman is she?" asked Cleo, thinking, of course,
of the queer woman in the foreign costume.
"She looks like a circus parade," Jennie declared, "but she's no more
circus than I am. It's lots easier to hide mistakes when one pretends
she's foreign and doesn't understand."
"And has she a little girl with her?" questioned Grace. Even Madaline
was interested now.
"Yes, poor child. A half-scared-to-death little thing, that runs like
a bunnie if you speak to her," replied the maid.
"That's just whom we are looking for," declared Cleo. "We saw them the
day we came, and felt that the little girl needed friends. Then at the
Cross Country Run the other day she almost knocked Andy Mack down; she
jumped out so suddenly just as he turned into the last lap. She is
crazy, I think," finished Cleo.
"Then, I'm not going to hunt her," declared Madaline, "crazy folks are
dangerous."
Jennie laughed at their expressed fears. "That child isn't crazy," she
declared, "but it's a wonder she isn't, with that old woman tagging
around. Well, I don't suppose she stole my lettuce, but I'm going to
watch out for people on these grounds after this," and Jennie swung
herself through the double acting door with such energy, the portal
made a swift return trip on its hinges.
"There's some connection between buying roots in the drug store,
digging roots from the lawns, and--maybe she took the lettuce," figured
Cleo.
"Oh, come on," implored Grace. "I'm sure we will find that little
fairy out to-day, and I promise you, Madie, I won't do anything rash.
Come along, there's a dear," and Grace slipped her arms around the girl
who threatened to come down with a fit of lonesomeness. "Come on,
maybe we'll meet Andy's little brother."
"I'll go, not on account of the little brother though," quickly
explained Madaline, to forestall a laugh.
But it was the little brother, Malcolm by name and Mally by adoption,
who "happened to meet" the girls, just under the mountain.
"Where y'u goin'?" he inquired, winding up his kite string, regardless
of the trees between the kite and his hand.
"Hunting," answered Grace. "Want to come?"
"Huntin' what?" asked Mally.
"We're not sure, but we'll take anything we can find, even little
boys!" teased Cleo.
"Oh, will you!" Mally fired back. "You don't have to. Say, Madaline,
I know where there's some Jack-in-the-Pulpits," he added, sidling up to
Madaline. "The kind you were looking for the other day. Jack Hagan is
going to meet me over by the creek at ten, and if you girls want to
come along I'll show you where to hunt things."
"No bears?" protested Cleo.
"Well, there's weasles and mink in that creek, and you'd think they
were bears if one of those grabbed you," Mally declared.
"Lead the way!" ordered Grace, mounting her staff on her shoulder, and
the little hunters started off.
"Say, Mally," began Cleo, as they struck a clearance in the otherwise
tangled brush and bramble path, "do you ever see a little girl who has
big long braids, and never wears a hat?"
"Sure," replied the boy. "That's Mary. Her old granddad's a nut."
"Has she a granddad?" Cleo followed. "I knew it. A girl like that
always has. Where do they live?"
"Don't you know? Huh!" Mally answered scornfully. "Thought everybody
knew old Doc Benson. He's a nut on flowers and growin' things."
"But where does he live? Could we go near his house?" Grace asked
eagerly.
"If the old lady doesn't chase you," replied the boy, making a running
jump over a huge stone, one of the many bowlder rocks that continually
roll down the mountain.
"Suppose she does. She can't hurt us, can she?" pursued Cleo.
"One of the fellows said she hurt him all right," declared Mally. "She
shook him 'til he lost all his marbles. Hey, Jack!" he yelled, cupping
his hands to his red lips. "Here we are, over near the swamp!"
Jack evidently spied his chum at that moment, for although tall brush
obstructed his view of the hunters, he answered with a "Whoo-hoo," and
ran along in their direction. It took but a few moments for him to
reach the party.
"I'm late," he apologized, his grin and freckles supplying real local
color to the dramatic statement. "Had to dig a big fern root for Mary."
"Oh, for our Mary--the queer Mary?" exclaimed Grace.
"They call her Maid Mary," went on Jack, "but she ain't big enough to
be no maid. She couldn't cook nor nuthin'."
"Maid Mary!" repeated Cleo. "That's awfully romantic. Wherever did
she get the maid tacked on?"
"That's her name," insisted Jack. "She al'lus says it is, when you ask
her."
"But where is she now? We want to see her," said Grace.
"Come along then and I'll show you where she's diggin'. She's al'lus
diggin' roots."
Now, all keyed up, and plainly excited that Jack and Mally should lead
them so readily to their quarry, the girls followed the boys in
silence--the boys, however, did plenty of talking to fill in the
breach. They evidently cared less for Maid Mary than they did for
"Sunnies," and as the creek was their hunting ground for the wily
little fish and they were now going away from the pools and puddles
that ran and swelled into the creek, both lads were inclined to travel
faster than even scout girls could follow over the rough hills.
"There she is!" exclaimed Mally, pointing to a white speck in a green
field. "Better run up quiet or she'll dash off like a deer," and
making some mysterious sign to Jack, the erstwhile pathfinders darted
off themselves toward their clew.
"There she is," repeated Grace, "and as brother Benny would say, Now it
is up to us!"