A LITTLE MAID IN CLOVER
"Do hurry, Madie, she may run away!" warned Cleo. They were hurrying
indeed, and the request seemed superfluous, for never did three girls
make more haste in crossing that stretch of meadow. In fact Grace and
Cleo were running, and now Madaline jumped to their pace.
"Do you think maybe they keep goats?" the latter managed to ask, and in
spite of their serious haste both Cleo and Grace shouted in laughter.
"Goats!" they both exclaimed.
"Because if they do I'm not going near the old place. I'm awfully
afraid of goats and geese."
"Because you're so nice and fat!" teased Cleo. "You're afraid they'll
take you for--for sausage. But--here we are! Don't let us frighten
the child," and her voice was now lowered to a whisper.
The little girl, with the long brown braids, sat in a bed of beautiful
pink clover, and with her back to the intruders she had not yet sensed
their approach. As before, she wore a white dress and no hat.
"Hello!" spoke Grace cautiously.
She sprang up, but Cleo placed her hand kindly on the basket of ferns
and clovers.
"Oh, don't go!" pleaded Cleo. "We want to talk to you."
"But I can't," faltered the child, and the rich cultured tone betrayed
her good breeding. In fact she used the long "a" in can't and the
girls at once decided she was English.
"Oh, why not?" Cleo followed up quickly. "Don't you want to know us?
We are strangers here."
"I should love to know you," the girl replied, and the tanned skin was
suffused with a conscious blush, "but I am not permitted to make
friends."
"But we are Girl Scouts," argued Grace, assuming her most cajoling air,
"and we are supposed to make friends with everybody," she finished.
Grace tactfully fondled a beautiful spray of clover that was making its
way out of Mary's basket. This action evidently pleased the child, for
she smiled, and handed the spray over to its admirer.
"I have read of Girl Scouts," answered the stranger, "and if only
granddaddy would allow me what a wonderful time we could have! Do you
all gather flowers in nature study, as your books say you should?"
"Oh, yes, indeed we do," replied Cleo heartily. "Do sit down on this
little mound where you were when we came along, and let us have a nice
quiet talk. No one is near to hear us!"
At that the strange girl glanced furtively toward a clump of blackberry
bushes and put her finger to her lips.
"Reda is there, my nurse, you know, and she is very strict. I could
win granddaddy over only for her," and the deep-set eyes seemed to
freeze over in that glassy stare the girls had noticed before.
"Quick, tell us, where do you live? May we go to your house? Perhaps
your grandfather would like us?" Cleo was crowding her questions, lest
the woman called Reda should suddenly pounce upon them.
"Perhaps," said the girl, now so dreamy and vague the girls almost felt
helpless to pursue their mission.
"Do tell us where, please!" pleaded Grace, watching the bushes swish
back from the place she felt Reda was concealed in.
"By the big twin chestnuts," replied the child.
"What is your name?" asked Cleo eagerly.
"Maid Mary!" again came an answer, but the little stranger was now
moving off in spite of all the efforts being made to detain her.
Madaline was almost too far away to take part in the conversation, she
was plainly afraid of the woman in the bushes.
"What is the rest of your name--Mary what?" insisted Grace.
"Reda says it is only Maid Mary, but I know the rest of it, and some
day I am going to tell it!" flashed the child with a sudden blaze of
defiance.
"Where are the twin chestnuts?" asked Cleo, determined not to thus
leave the clew they had so eagerly sought.
"Over the mountain by the lake," replied Mary, and "Good-by," she
almost sobbed. "I love you! There!" she cried, springing over the
little stream at their feet, just as the unwelcome figure of old Reda
emerged from the blackberry patch.
The girls stood staring at the fleeing child. They saw the old women
put her hand up to shade her eyes, that she might better see who they
were, for undoubtedly she suspected Mary had spoken to them. Then Cleo
whispered to Grace:
"Make believe picking something! Don't let her see us looking."
"Here are some more!" called Grace loudly to Madaline, waving a bunch
of quickly gathered daisies and clover. "Wait a minute, and see this
one."
The call was given to throw the old woman off the track, and give her
the impression that nothing more than flower gathering had been their
intent.
Madaline appeared glad enough to see Grace and Cleo coming toward her,
for at that very moment she had decided to run.
"Can you see what--the old woman is doing?" Grace asked Cleo. "Don't
look--back--directly but stop to pick up something, then you can see."
"She must be scolding," replied Cleo, "for she's wagging her head, and
shaking her old brown fist. Dear me, how I hated to let her swallow up
that lovely girl. Do you suppose we can ever rescue her?"
"Do I?" flaunted Grace. "I just can't wait to get at that rescuing. I
guess all our scouting will have to come back to a S.O.S., for never
was there a clearer case of need than this. That hateful old woman has
the child hoodooed, or hypnotized, or flimflammed," she declared,
giving a wide choice of active transitive verbs for Cleo to choose from.
"But isn't the girl a darling?" enthused Cleo. "I could just love her
like a picture in a book. And she said she loved us! Wasn't that
quaint!"
"Oh, Madaline! You missed it!" Grace charged the girl who was too
timid to interview Maid Mary. "We are going to find her house. And
she's just _wonderful_." This last was pronounced with that effusion
peculiar to the modern use of the word "wonderful." Nothing could
possibly be more or at least so superlative.
"Why didn't you lasso the old woman?" teased Madaline, referring to the
trick Grace played on another occasion told in our first volume.
"I would have, only you were too far away to pull the rope!" fired back
Grace. Nevertheless her tone implied she would not stop at rope or
swing, if she found such a feat necessary in the rescue of Maid Mary.
"What a queer name--Reda," Cleo reflected, when once again they started
over the rough road toward Cragsnook. "It ought to be pronounced as it
is spelled instead of 'ree'--she looks red enough in that blazing
outfit."
"But what a pretty accent the girl used," remarked Grace. "Do you
suppose she's English?"
"Maybe from Boston," suggested Cleo, "but the old woman, I should
judge, is a native of the whole geography, well beaten with an oceanic
egg beater, or if not that conglomeration, I should guess she owned an
entire island in the wildest ocean, where there were nothing but
ship-wrecked rummage sails and old crow squaks."
"That's bad enough, anyway," commented Madaline, who seemed a trifle
out of the picture, "and I think she is all of that and more."
"Just you watch the True-Treds make for the twin chestnuts!" orated
Cleo. "Old Lady Reda had better look out for her lace sun bonnet and
flowered petticoat. They may get mixed up in the shuffle."
"How about grandpop?" asked Grace. "What do you propose to do with
him?"
"Smother him in his 'yarbs' and roots," pronounced Cleo dramatically,
and when they entered the path to Cragsnook, busy brains were
concocting marvelously daring schemes to bring about the rescue of Maid
Mary.
"Do you think your Aunt Audrey will mind?" questioned Madaline, always
sure to find an alibi for anything too risky.
"No, indeed," stoutly declared Cleo. "I shouldn't wonder but she would
want to adopt Maid Mary for a model, with those Marguerite braids, and
her far-away eyes. Oh, isn't it too exciting? Do you think we need
tell Jennie?"
"I--wouldn't," replied Grace, fully conscious such a risk was not to be
even thought of.
Madaline was a nice little fat dimply girl, and no one could blame her
for not wanting to run from horrid old women up on mountain tops,
nevertheless she had never failed in her own peculiar way of performing
scout duties, and even the braver girls loved her baby ways of
accomplishing the tasks.