The two young people worked fast: at six o’clock, when Mrs. Gay drove back from the fair, they had the meal on the table.
“It certainly smells good, girls!” she exclaimed as she came through the kitchen door from the garage.
“Girls nothing!” retorted Freckles. “You mean ‘girl and boy,’ Mother. I did a lot of work for this meal.”
“That’s fine, dear,” replied Mrs. Gay. “But where’s Mary Lou?”
“She went over to Adams’ farm to see Hattie,” answered Jane. “And she hasn’t come back yet.”
“In all this heat? Oh, that’s too bad! She should have waited till I got home with the car. I didn’t know she was going.”
“She wasn’t sure of it herself. She was hoping to find Hattie over at the hotel. But evidently she didn’t, for she didn’t wait to play any tennis.”
“Well, I guess she’ll be along soon,” remarked Mrs. Gay cheerfully. “We’ll keep a plate hot for her. But let’s eat. We’re all hungry, and this food is too good to spoil by drying up.”
The meal passed off pleasantly; nobody thought of being worried by Mary Louise’s absence. But as the minutes went by and she did not come, Freckles was the first to become anxious. For he remembered the threat to the Ditmars on that coarse piece of paper that morning, and he knew that Mary Louise was involved in that same business.
When seven o’clock struck and still his sister had not put in an appearance, he suggested that his mother take the car and drive over to Adams’.