The laugh was against Aunt Abigail as she herself owned. “I would have taken my oath,” she remarked reflectively, “that one of you had only one eye, and a scar that ran the length of his cheek. It shows that even if I’m not as young as I was, my imagination is still active. But you had packs on your backs. What has become of the clubs and packs?”
Graham explained that they had taken rooms at a farmhouse a little way down the road, and had left their belongings there. “We’re out for a long tramp,” Graham explained. “We mean to make several stops of a few days each, and we didn’t know any better place to begin than right here.”
“Are you staying with Mrs. Cole?” asked Peggy, and Graham shook his head. “No, the name wasn’t Cole. It was–let’s see.”
Jack Rynson helped him out. “Snooks, I believe.”
“That’s it, Mrs. Snooks,” agreed Graham, and then looked about him astonished, for the entire company, including Aunt Abigail, was helpless with laughter.
“She’ll borrow your walking stick for a clothes pole,” said Peggy, when she was able to speak, “and your pack for a footstool. She’ll borrow everything you’ve got, and then be provoked because you haven’t more.”
It is a question whether anybody would have thought of supper if it had not been for Dorothy, who retired into a corner to weep. Questioned regarding her tears, she replied that she wanted her mother. “Homesick,” some one said significantly.
“Hungry!” cried Peggy, with one of her flashes of intuition. “And what wonder! Just look at the clock! Girls, let’s see how quick we can get something ready.”
The meal though less ambitious than that which Peggy had originally planned, was satisfying. And it was not till the next day that the girls learned that the two young men who did such abundant justice to the bounty of Dolittle Cottage, had eaten another supper at Mrs. Snooks, a little over an hour earlier.