Mrs. Pepper met him on the lawn. She presented a terrifying sight, for the shawl, in which she had muffled her head, had slipped over one ear and gave her a reckless look. In her right hand she carried a hatchet—a “tomahawk” the excited Ward dubbed it—and this she waved fiercely.
“Where’d he go?” she demanded of the frightened children.
“Where’d what go?” stammered Jess, for Ward, as usual, had lost his breath.
“The turkey! I tipped the coop over—I’ve had him shut up for a week to give him the final fattening—and he was off like a streak. He came in this direction. I saw him fly over the hedge.”
“I heard glass breaking,” said Jess, doubtfully, turning to stare at the house.
Down the steps of the Marley house came Polly and Artie, and around from behind the car in front of their house, came Fred and Margy.
“Most ready?” they called. “Mother’s putting her hat on.”
“One of the parlor windows is broken,” said Jess, suddenly. “Do you suppose the turkey did that?”
CHAPTER X
IN CAMP AGAIN
Though Ward was sure a turkey couldn’t break a window pane and Fred and Polly and Margy and Artie, who joined them, were doubtful, Mrs. Pepper said that, for her part, she knew the turkey was in the Larue house.