“Isn’t there anybody else to help us around here? There must be other squatters.”
“I do not know of any. We chance to know the Jarleys—”
“Not I!” cried Bess, shaking her head. “I don’t know them–and I won’t know them.”
“All right. You and Grace and Percy take the pails and try for some berries in the woods yonder. I saw some ripe ones this morning. Fresh picked berries will add nicely to our bill-of-fare; isn’t that so, Mrs. Havel?”
“Quite so, my dear,” replied the widow, and buried herself in her book again, for, as she had told the girls, she had not come here to work; they must treat her as a guest.
“Are you going to stop with Mrs. Havel, Mina?” continued Wyn. “Then come along with me, Frank. We’ll go over and see if the Jarleys bite. Bess is afraid they will!”
“She was telling us all about John Jarley,” said Wyn’s chum, as the two left the camp on the green knoll. “Do you suppose he stole that motor boat and the box of silver statuettes?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” said Wyn, briskly. “But I know that he and Polly are very poor, and with a motor boat and five thousand dollars’ worth of silver, it looks to me as though they would be very foolish to suffer the privations they do. It’s nasty gossip, that’s all it is.”
“Well, Bess says the man stole from her father years ago—”