The occasional bursts of laughter that reached her were like personal affronts and, finally, she included everybody in her indignation at "Red" McGonnigle. But, as the time dragged, her mood changed perceptibly. Though she would not admit it in her secret heart, she wished that someone would come and coax her to reconsider. From this stage, while the tents were being dismantled and packed into the bed-wagon accompanied by much merriment, she came to a point where she tried to think of some excuse that would enable her to return without seeming to make any concession.
As it happened, the only person who gave Miss Mercy any thought as she waited forlornly by the roadside was Aunt Lizzie Philbrick. Although she and Miss Mercy had not been speaking since the episode of the butterfly, her tender conscience was troubled that she had not said good-bye to her. The more she thought about it the more strongly it urged her to be forgiving and magnanimous to the extent of wishing Miss Mercy a pleasant journey. With this purpose in view Aunt Lizzie left the others and started for the roadside. If she had not been otherwise engaged at the moment, Miss Mercy might have seen Aunt Lizzie's white sailor hat bobbing above the intervening bushes, but she was intent on learning the cause of a rustling she had heard in the leaves behind her. It was a snake, undoubtedly, and it flashed through Miss Mercy's mind that here was her opportunity not only to return to camp but to go back a heroine.
She set her fishnet bag on the stump she vacated and provided herself with a cudgel before starting to investigate. Advancing cautiously, she saw a bunch of tall grass wave in a suspicious manner. She smote the clump with her cudgel, and a large, warty toad jumped out into the open. It was stunned, and stood blinking as if trying to locate the danger.
"Nasty thing!" exclaimed Miss Mercy, viciously, and raised her club to finish it.
The blow landed, and Miss Mercy and the toad saw stars simultaneously, for Aunt Lizzie brought down a four-foot stick and crushed in the crown of Miss Mercy's alpine hat.
"You dread-ful woman!" Aunt Lizzie shrieked at her, and it was her purpose to strike again but the stick was rotten, and since only some six inches remained in her hand, she had to content herself with crying:
"You horrible creature! You unnatural woman! 'Shady' Lane—you belong in an asylum!"
Since Miss Mercy had been told this before, she resented it doubly, and no one can say what else might have happened if Wallie, hearing the disturbance, had not hurried forward to discover what was occurring.
"She was killing a hop-toad!" Aunt Lizzie screamed, hysterically. Then her legs collapsed, while Miss Mercy boomed that if she did, it was none of Aunt Lizzie's business—it was not her hop-toad.
The astounding news passed from mouth to mouth that Aunt Lizzie and Miss Mercy had been fighting in the brush with clubs, like Amazons, and everyone rushed forward to view the combatants and to learn the details, but the chugging of a motor sent Miss Mercy into the middle of the road to flag it before they could hear her side of the story.