It was a beautiful evening, this of Stella Latham's birthday
party. It was not often that the climate gave the people of
Greensboro, this early in the season, such a soft and temperate
night.
There was no moon, but the stars plentifully besprinkled the
heavens, and their light bathed the area surrounding the Latham
house, beyond the radiance of the Japanese lanterns, sufficiently
for the three girls to see objects at some distance.
Before they reached the back door of the farmhouse, Amy cried
aloud:
"Oh, girls! What's that? A ghost?"
"Ghost your granny!" exclaimed Stella. "That is somebody running
along the hedge in a white skirt."
"It is a woman or a girl," Janice agreed, staring at the rapidly
moving figure. "Is there a path there?"
"That is the path to one tenant house. Wait till I ask Anna, the
cook."
She hurried to the back door, and her two friends, waiting at the
pasture-lane bars, heard her ask if the woman who had broken the
dish had gone.
"The awkward thing!" exclaimed Anna, the cook. "She's just this
minute left."
"What is her name, Anna?" asked Stella, knowing that Janice was
deeply interested.
"I don't know, Miss. Some outlandish Swedish name."
"Olga?"
"Humph! Maybe!"
"Olga Cedarstrom?"
"Goodness me! Don't ask me what else besides 'Olga' she is
named," said the irritable cook, "for I couldn't tell you. I
couldn't tell you my own name, scarcely, to-night. I'm that
flurried."
Hearing all this plainly, Janice murmured to Amy: "I wish I dared
follow her. Suppose it should be Olga?"
"Well, she is going right to that small house that belongs to Mr.
Latham. Stella says she lives there, whoever she is."
Just then a figure popped up beside them. Gummy's cheerful voice
demanded:
"What's the trouble, girls?"
"Oh!" cried Janice.
"Goodness!" said the boy's sister. "How you scare one, Gummy!
Why, it isn't near time to go home."
"I got off earlier than I expected. So I came out and have been
hanging around at the back here for half an hour."
"Oh. Gummy! did you see that woman?" Janice asked, seizing his
jacket sleeve.
"What woman?"
"See there?' cried his sister, pointing. "That white thing going
over the hill."
"Yes, I saw her. She came out of the kitchen, and she was
crying. They had a row in there."
"Oh, Gummy! What did she look like?" murmured Janice.
"Yes, Gummy, tell us quick!" urged his sister.
"I tell you she was crying, and she had her handkerchief up to
her face. So I did not see much of it. But her hair was 'lasses
color, and she had it bobbed back so tight that I guess she
couldn't shut her eyes until she undid it," chuckled Gummy.
"Oh, Amy!" ejaculated Janice, with clasped hands, "that is the
way Olga used to do her hair."
"Not Olga, the Swede, who robbed you?" demanded the boy,
interested at once.
"Yes. It might be Olga. If you had only seen her face--"
"I'll see her face all right," declared Gummy, starting off.
"I'll tell you just where she goes and what she looks like.
Don't you girls go home without me."
He was gone on the track of the flying woman like a dart. He was
out of sight, being in dark garments, before Stella came back
from the kitchen door.
"Don't tell her about Gummy," whispered Amy quickly. "She'll
think, maybe, that he's been hanging around like those strange
boys over the fence in front."
"Not a word," agreed Janice, smiling. "I wouldn't give Gummy
away."
"There isn't anybody in the kitchen who knows that girl very
well," said Stella, who was really showing herself interested in
Janice Day's trouble. "I asked them all. This girl, Olga, is
staying with Mrs. Johnson. Mrs. Johnson has a little baby to
care for and couldn't come to-night. So this friend of hers came
up to help. And she helped all right!" concluded Stella, with
emphasis. "That dish is in a thousand pieces."
"Isn't it too bad?" said Amy, sympathetically.
"It's a mean shame," Stella declared. "I bet she'd steal. You'd
better come over here tomorrow and find her. I'll bring you back
in the auto with me after I go shopping, and we'll ride around by
Mr. Johnson's house. He's one of father's farmers, you know."
"I'll tell daddy," Janice said, but in some doubt. "I'm awfully
much obliged to you, Stella. You are real kind."
This pleased Stella Latham. She liked being praised, and as long
as kindness did not cost her much of anything, she was glad to be
kind.
The entertainment of her boy and girl friends continued gaily,
despite the breaking of the big cutglass dish. It was almost
eleven o'clock when the party broke up and the guests began to
leave, shouting their congratulations to Stella as they went.
Janice and Amy Carringford found Gummy waiting for them at the
front gate.
"Oh, Gummy!" whispered Janice, "did you see her?"
"Sure," declared the boy. "That's what I went after, wasn't it?
A sight of the Swedish girl's phisamahogany?"
"Gummy!" remonstrated his sister.
"But was it Olga?" demanded Janice, too deeply interested in the
subject of Olga to be patient with sisterly reproof.
"Oh, say! How can I be sure of that? I never saw her before."
"Tell us all about it, Gummy," urged Janice.
"Why, you see," said the excited boy. "I ran's hard as I could
and I overbrook that girl at the took"
"What? What?" gasped Janice. "Say that again, Gummy."
"Oh--I--"
His sister went off into a gale of laughter. "Oh, Gummy!" she
cried, "you 'overbrook' her at the 'took,' did you? Your
tongue's twisted again."
"Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed Gummy. "Of course, I mean I overtook her
at the brook."
"That's better," giggled Amy. "But you did get awfully 'gummed
up,' Gummy, didn't you?"
"Huh!" he snorted.
"He's the most awful boy you ever saw, Janice. He is always
getting twisted in his talk."
"Like the young man in church who asked the girl if he could
'occupew a seat in this pie?'"
"Even worse than that," cried Amy, much to her brother's disgust.
"Why, years ago when we lived in Napsburg, where the twins were
born, he made an awful mistake--and to our minister, too."
"Aw," objected Gummy, "can't you keep anything to yourself?"
"Go on," urged Janice.
"Now, I say!" again protested the boy.
"Listen, Janice!" giggled Amy. "It's awfully funny. The minister
met Gummy on the street and asked him what we had decided to call
the twins.
"'You know, I expect to christen them, Gumswith,' he said to
Gummy, 'and I want to be sure to get the names right. What are
they?'
"And what do you suppose Gummy said?"
"I am sure I couldn't guess," Janice declared. "Let's see: the
twins are Sydney and Kate, aren't they?
"That is right," giggled Amy. "But Gummy told the minister we
had decided to call them 'Kidney and Steak'!"
Janice herself was convulsed with laughter at this. Gummy was
annoyed about it.
"Why don't you keep something to yourself once in a while, Amy?"
he growled to his sister. "Janice will think I'm a perfect
chump."
"Come on now, Gummy," Janice interrupted cheerily. "You are
keeping something to yourself that I very much want to know."
"Oh! About that Swede! Amy knocked it clear out of my head,"
declared the boy.
"Well, let us hear about it," urged Janice.
"Why, I overtook the girl at the brook," said Gummy, getting the
statement right this time. "She might be just the girl you are
looking for, from what you told me about her looks. I saw her
face plainly when I passed her."
"Where did she go?"
"To that little house at the end of the farm road, just where it
opens into the turnpike. Oh, I've seen the place before. I
drove out past there the other day for Mr. Harriman."
"That must be the Johnson's house," Janice said. "That is what
Stella said the tenant's name was."
"Well, she went in there," said Gummy. "She seemed in a dreadful
hurry. She pounded on the door, and she called to them in
Swedish. I waited behind the hedge until she got in and the
family was quieted down again."
"That's good! It's 'most sure to be Olga, Janice, and you can
see her to-morrow and get your box back--at least, find out where
it is," said Amy encouragingly.
"Well, I'll tell daddy," sighed Janice. "It may be the same
Olga. I hope so. And if she has got my box of treasures--well!
I'll forgive her anything if I only get back mother's picture and
daddy's letters."