"Or those funny, pale green squashes that are scalloped all around the edge like a dish," said Marjory.
"Or cucumbers," said Bettie. "I took Mrs. Crane a leaf, one day, and she said it might be cucumbers."
"Or watermelons," said Mabel. "Um-m! wouldn't it be grand if it should happen to be watermelons?"
"What I'm wondering is," said Jean, "whether there's any danger of the vine's going around the house and taking possession of the front yard, too. I could almost believe that this was a seedling of Jack's beanstalk except that it runs on the ground instead of up."
"If it tries to go around the corner," laughed Bettie, "we'll train it up the back of the house. Wouldn't it be fun to have pumpkins, or squashes, or cucumbers, or melons, or maybe all of them at once, growing on our roof?"
The day after Mrs. Milligan's visit, Laura, who was not invited to the party, and who found time heavy on her hands, watched the girls, after stopping for Marjory, set out in their pretty summer dresses to spend the afternoon at a young friend's house. Laura gazed after them enviously. There was no reason why she should have been invited, for she had never met the little girl who was giving the party, but she didn't think of that. Instead, she foolishly laid the unintentional slight at the little cottagers' door.
Mrs. Milligan was sewing on the doorstep and had given Laura a dish-towel to hem. Saying something about hunting for a thimble, Laura went to the kitchen, took the bread-knife from the table drawer, stole quietly out of the back door, and slipped between the bars of the back fence. Reaching the splendid vine that the girls loved so dearly, she parted the huge, rough leaves until she found the spot where the vine started from the ground. First looking about cautiously to make certain that no one was in sight, spiteful Laura drew the knife back and forth across the thick stem until, with a sudden, sharp crack, the sturdy vine parted from its root.
Two minutes later, Laura, looking the picture of propriety, sat on the Milligans' doorstep hemming her dish-towel.
Of course, when the girls made their next daily excursion about their garden they were almost broken-hearted at finding their beloved vine flat on the ground, all withered and dead.
"Oh," mourned Marjory, "now we'll never know what 'The Accident' was going to bear, pumpkins or squashes or—"