“They say if you turn and look a wild beast straight in the eye it will turn and slink away,” said Elizabeth.
“I wouldn’t like to try it,” returned Bert; “it might pounce on you while you were getting ready, and if it were dark it would not do any good.”
“Most wild beasts can see in the dark,” Elizabeth made answer. “I read of a man once who met some sort of wild beast and he couldn’t get away quickly enough so he just leaned over and looked at it between his legs; it scared the creature so that it ran away, for it didn’t recognize the strange-looking thing that was before it.”
“That was a good idea,” agreed Bert, at once beginning to practice this feat. “I could do that, but you couldn’t very well, because you have skirts on.”
Elizabeth admitted that this was a serious drawback but thought if one always carried an umbrella with a hideous face painted on and opened it suddenly it might serve as good a purpose. “I believe I will hunt up an old umbrella and paint a face on it, or I could get Kathie to do it for me or Miss Jewett could do it beautifully.”
“It wouldn’t do much good in the dark,” objected Bert.
“If it were done with that shining sort of stuff that they use for match safes and things it would be very horrible,” declared Elizabeth. “I would always carry it at night and one done with plain paint in the daytime.”
Bert thought this might do very well for a girl. “But I would carry a gun,” he declared; “then I could shoot in a minute.”
“They used to do that way in old times when there were Indians prowling about: they carried their guns to church so if they were attacked by wolves or Indians on the way they could defend their families, but father wouldn’t let you carry a gun to school, Bert.”
It was broad daylight and there did not appear to be much necessity for such a precaution, so Bert laughed. “I reckon I shan’t need one in this neighborhood,” he said.