“No, we can’t,” replied the girl. “You see, everybody was away at the time—at a picnic on the little island down the river.”
“Looks like spite to me,” observed the storekeeper. “Bet Lemuel Adams or his good-fer-nuthin’ son done it!”
“Lemuel Adams?” repeated Mary Louise. “Who is he? Any relation to Hattie Adams, who always waited on the table at Flicks’ Inn?”
“Yep—he’s her father. You ought to know him. He’s a farmer who lives up that hill, ’bout a couple of miles from Shady Nook. Well, he used to own all this ground around here, but he sold it cheap to a man named Hunter. The one who started the settlement at Shady Nook.”
“Yes, I knew him,” said Mary Louise. “He was Clifford Hunter’s father. But he died not long ago.”
“So I heard. Anyhow, this man Hunter got fancy prices for his building lots, and naterally old Lem Adams got sore. Always complainin’ how poor he is and how rich old Hunter got on his land. Reckon it got under his skin, and mebbe he decided to take revenge.”
“Oh!”
Mary Louise wanted to write the name of Lemuel Adams into her notebook then and there, but she didn’t like to. Should she add Hattie’s name too? Had the girl taken any part in the plot?
“What sort of looking man is Mr. Adams?” she inquired, thinking of the “tramp” whom the boys had mentioned seeing in the woods.
“Old man—with white hair. Has a bad leg—rheumatism, I reckon. He walks with a limp,” explained the storekeeper.