She looked about, but could see no one. Evidently the sound came from within the open door, so she ran to it quickly and peeped inside.
A white-haired man sat at a table with his back to her, so intent upon what he was doing that it could not have been he who had spoken. She had expected to see a kitchen, but found instead that the place was some sort of a workshop with strange intricate pieces of machinery standing, some of them under glass cases, on benches and shelves along the walls. The man must be Miss Miranda’s father, she concluded. She had heard her own father speak of him as quite a famous person, a scientist of long standing reputation. Yet it seemed a tiny, shabby place in which to find a great man! As she stood, wondering, upon the step, there came a hoarse chuckling from the shadows in the corner of the room and out came strutting and fluttering a big, black crow. He was not trying to talk now, but was cawing softly and clucking to himself as he advanced sideways, half spreading his wings and cocking his eye, first at the old gentleman, then at Betsey standing in the doorway. He had evidently some plot brewing in his wicked black head, for he fluttered to the edge of the table, sidled nearer and nearer and finally, with a sudden dart, pounced upon a pair of spectacles that lay on the blotter and flew out of the door over Elizabeth’s head.
The old gentleman looked up, startled and blinking.
“Miranda, oh Miranda,” he called helplessly. “That wretched Dick has stolen my spectacles again!”
Miss Miranda came running in from what must have been the kitchen, for she wore a blue apron and had a measuring cup still in her hand. Elizabeth saw at a glance that she was very pretty, with brown hair that curled and crinkled in spite of a streak or two of gray, and with cheeks that were pink from the heat of the fire.
“And I believe, my dear,” her father added vaguely, as she came in, “that there is some one at the door.”
It was astonishing to see what a strange effect this simple statement had, for Miss Miranda’s face turned suddenly white and she looked toward the door with startled, frightened eyes. Her smile, when she saw who it was, seemed as bright with relief as it was with welcome.
“I think your crow has carried the spectacles up into that apple tree,” announced Elizabeth, who had been watching the black thief and now saw him rocking on a high bough, cawing his triumph. “I can climb up and get them for you.”
She dropped her school books on the step and ran across the grass quite forgetting to explain who she was or why she had come.
The branches of the tree were so low that the climb was no difficult one for a person as agile as Betsey. The wicked Dick fluttered about her head, rasping out his harsh protests, as she clambered higher and higher, but he had wedged his prize so firmly in a crotch that he could not get it out and was forced to see her carry it away. He was too well-trained a pet to attempt to peck her, but he sat on the wall and voiced his loud displeasure long after she had disappeared into the house.