"Shut your eyes, Joan, and go to sleep or it will be morning before you know it."
"Oh!" Joan had seldom been more disappointed. "I don't think that's very interesting, do you? Perhaps it is to Granny," she added with tardy politeness, "but it isn't to me. I'll shut my eyes, Miss Wyman, but I can't seem to shut my mind to-night, and so I can't go to sleep. I have to think of Uncle Sam and Santa Claus and the big Mr. Simmons. It won't be my fault if it is morning before I know it!" she wailed.
Altogether it took some time as well as two songs before Joan could shut her mind as well as her eyes. Rebecca Mary straightened the counterpane and looked at the flushed little face on the pillow. When she was asleep Joan looked like an angel. Rebecca Mary could scarcely believe that she would ever be as irritating as a mosquito as she patted the black head before she went to her own room.
She crossed to the window and looked down on the garden. A dull puff-puff, the foolish chatter of a gasoline engine, was the only sound which broke the fragrant silence, and Rebecca Mary knew that it came from the shop where old Peter Simmons was being shown what had been done. Now that she had time to think of it, Rebecca Mary could not understand how old Peter Simmons could come trumpeting into Riverside when no one was allowed to enter Riverside. It was shut off from the world and protected by a guard. But old Peter Simmons had managed to pass the guard, and he had come as a general in command. Was that because he was the head of a large manufacturing plant or was it because—because—— It couldn't be possible that old Peter Simmons was the Big Boss of whom the men spoke with such respect! But if he wasn't the Big Boss why had the men treated him so deferentially and taken him at once to the forbidden shop? And he had not been at all surprised to hear that Granny was at Riverside. He had asked for her at once. Rebecca Mary had to giggle as she stood there in the fragrant silence and thought what it meant if old Peter Simmons really was the Big Boss of the Riverside experiment.
She was interrupted in the very middle of another giggle for the door into Granny's room opened suddenly and there stood Granny, a much perplexed but determined Granny. She wore her hat and motor coat and carried a bag in one hand and an umbrella in the other. Rebecca Mary wondered where she had found the umbrella and why she carried it as she stared at her.
"Aren't you ready, Rebecca Mary?" asked Granny in a stage whisper.
"Ready for what?" Rebecca Mary had to laugh even though Granny did wear such a perplexed face for she had to remember that other night when Granny had come to her in her hat and motor coat.
Granny frowned. "I told you this morning that we would not stay here any longer. And now that old Peter Simmons has come I simply must leave at once. You have no idea, Rebecca Mary, what a tease that man can be. He never would let me forget that I started for Seven Pines and landed a prisoner at Riverside. If you had been teased for almost fifty years by a man like old Peter Simmons you'd understand how I feel. And he would be sure to ask me what I wanted for my golden wedding present. I've told you how I feel about that question. If I should hear it again I should scream. What is old Peter Simmons here for anyway? I didn't ask him to come for me. I never told him I was here. There must have been a leak, just what Major Martingale was afraid of."
But when Rebecca Mary told Granny her suspicions Granny looked at her in horrified surprise before she nodded her gray head. "I believe you are right," she said slowly. "That explains a lot of things I haven't been able to understand. No wonder young Peter was so sure he could get a letter to his grandfather. But that makes it just impossible for me to stay another minute, Rebecca Mary. Imagine what old Peter will say when he hears that I ran away from him only to run right to him. I haven't the nerves I used to have. The situation is too ridiculous. Come, we'll just slip away."