Benedicta ran to the window every time she caught the whir of a motor car, no matter what she was doing.
“He must be a very vacillating gentleman,” she commented, “not to do one thing or the other—I’d do something, if I were him!”
“I think he does one thing pretty thoroughly,” returned Dr. Abbe, coming up on the kitchen piazza in time for the housekeeper’s remark. “He certainly stays away and keeps us guessing.”
“He keeps me guessin’ what I’ll get to eat,” sniffed Benedicta. “I make something ’specially good, an’ then we eat every scrap, and that’s the way it keeps goin’. If he don’t arrive pretty soon, I shan’t care if he doesn’t have any eats at all.”
The Doctor passed on with a generous tribute to her cooking, and the advice not to expect “the minister” until he came.
Polly heard, smiled, and went on thinking of Dolly. Something must be done to interest the sorrowing little girl.
“After dinner we’ll go up in the woods,” Polly said, “and I’ll tell stories, and then we’ll have supper up there.”
All the little folks were smiling eagerly before Polly had finished planning aloud. Even Dolly Merrifield was mildly excited.
So up in the woods they went. Those that could not walk rode in wheel-chairs or in somebody’s arms, and when every one was comfortable the story-telling began.
They had heard about “How the Swallows Went to Bed,” “The Golden Horse” who told which way the wind blew and who after much trouble came at last to his own, and “Mother Graygobble’s Children” whose lives were saved by their parent’s wit and wisdom, when Benedicta appeared with her crocheting.