“Oh, Jess, you’re getting nervous,” said Fred. “There wasn’t anything there. We walked all around it.”
“It was inside,” replied Jess, glancing fearfully over her shoulder.
“There wasn’t a thing there—not a thing,” insisted Fred. “You imagined it. Come on now, let’s go pull up the cabbages and see if we’re going to be rich or poor. Then we’ll have the eats.”
“Jess,” whispered Polly, as they streamed out again, headed for the garden patch, “I thought I saw something in the summerhouse, too.”
CHAPTER V
TABLES TURNED
Jess and Polly looked over their shoulders as they walked to the garden, which was at one side of the house, but the others marched briskly along. In the summer Mr. Williamson had a flourishing “truck patch,” and even now there were some late vegetables still in the ground. The patch was protected from frost, and Fred sometimes boasted of getting cabbage or parsnips “from the garden” as late as Thanksgiving Day.
“Now, how do we do this stunt, Artie?” asked Fred, when they had reached the row of cabbages. “You pull one and show us.”
Artie pulled a fine large cabbage and exhibited its roots to the interested audience.
“Lots of dirt on it,” he pointed out—indeed, in his zeal, he had loosened perhaps half a peck of earth, most of which clung to the roots—“and that shows I will be very rich some day.”
“Maybe Fred will,” said Polly, mischievously. “That dirt is from his father’s garden.”