The driveway was open, fortunately, for the rain was coming down in sheets, as they galloped into it and drew up their horses under an open shed. The bombardment had begun. One sharp flash succeeded another and the crashes of thunder were of terrific violence. “This is one April shower that I don’t care for,” Nell remarked, as she had difficulty in holding her frightened horse.
But Chick dismounted and held both her horse and his own. “Get off your horse, Jannet,” said he, “it is better. Jan, you’d better do the same.”
“Come, Lucy, it’s all right,” soothingly Jannet said to the pretty mare she rode, as she dismounted. Jan reached his hand to Lucy’s bridle while Jannet and Nell withdrew a little from too close proximity to prancing horses and threatening heels.
Rain beating in from the opposite side, drove the party to the side of the shed nearest the house, which was not far away. There, at a side door, as the electrical display lessened somewhat, a curious figure appeared. It was bent and old, a sharp chin and piercing black eyes the most noticeable features under an old-fashioned cap. A red and black shoulder shawl, something like that which Paulina often wore, was pinned about the rounding shoulders. A long, blue calico dress came almost to the floor. The aged woman peered out and over to the little company under the shed. Jan and Chick touched their caps and the girls bowed, but no explanation seemed necessary. The storm would account for their presence.
“Who lives there?” Jannet asked of Nell, the noise of the rain making it unnecessary to lower her voice.
“It’s one of the old Dutch farms and that is the grandmother of the farmer’s wife. They are odd people, and they say that this old lady is half Indian and half gypsy. She is past ninety years old. She tells fortunes, and buys her tobacco.”
“Tobacco!”
“Sure, she smokes a pipe,” laughed Chick, who had overheard. “The women now use cigarettes, don’t they?”
“Not any that I know, Chick,” smiled Jannet. “Miss Hilliard says that she is training ‘ladies,’ not the ‘sporting class.’ A girl who tried out smoking in our school would get sent home too quickly to know whether she was coming or going. That’s in the printed rules.”
“The whole of it?” laughingly asked Jan.