Part 12 (1/2)
”It is quite understandable, dear,” Jessie said, with more composure than her chum could display at the moment ”So you came over here----”
”To pick strawberries Got a pail half full down there somewhere The thunder scared ht you was the Carter ha'nt sure enough”
”Let's have soan to bustle about She opened the two boxes they had brought and set the vacuum bottle of hot cocoa on the bench There were two cups and she insisted upon giving one of them to Henrietta
”I don't believe I could drink a drop or eat a morsel,” she said to Jessie, when the latter remonstrated ”I feel as if I was in the famine section of Ar!”
She insisted upon giving Henrietta the bulk of her own lunch and all the tidbits she could find in Jessie's lunchbox The freckle-faced girl began systematically to fill up the hollohich she was accredited It was evident that the good food et the so-called ha'nts
The rain continued to fall torrentially; the thunder ain the lightning flashed
Jessie Norwood fed the fire on the hearth until the war old kitchen She and Henrietta were fast becoain
”I wonder if Momsy was scared when the storm broke,” ruhtning”
”Nothing like that,” declared A set here and could talk to her----”
”Ow! What's that?”
Even Henrietta stopped eating, looked upward at the dusty ceiling, and listened for a repetition of the sound It ca about of so on the bare boards of the floor of the loft over the kitchen
”O-oh!” squealed A up from the table
”What _can_ it be?” demanded Jessie Norwood, and her face expressed fear likewise
Henrietta took another enormous bite of sandwich; from behind that barrier she said in a muffled tone:
”Guess it's the Carter ha'nt after all!”
HENRIETTA IS VALIANT
THE PRIZE IDEA
CHAPTER IX
HENRIETTA IS VALIANT
Jessie Norwood tried to reood example She should not show panic because of the mysterious noise in the loft of the abandoned Carter house