“We can’t let there be any ifs about it,” broke in Jo Ann crisply. “We’ve got to get to the city tomorrow. I’ve got to get word to the mystery man to be on the lookout for the smugglers Friday.”
“Couldn’t you write to him?” Peggy asked.
“It wouldn’t reach him in time. They take the mail in to the city every other day. I asked at the store, and the mail’s already been sent, and no more’ll be sent till Friday. That’d be too late.”
“But Miss Prudence’ll probably say ‘nothing doing’ when we tell her we want to drive to the city,” persisted Peggy. “She said she didn’t like riding in Jitters well enough to take another trip to the city soon.”
“I heard her say yesterday that she had to have some more supplies—that she just couldn’t keep house without a larger variety of food,” Florence remarked. “She said we’d all be having scurvy and beri-beri and all sorts of diseases if we didn’t have a greater variety.”
Jo Ann smiled. “That sounds good to me—not the diseases, of course. We’ll tell her we’ll bring her a load of good eats—fresh fruits and vegetables and anything she asks for. I’m going to get word to the mystery man—or bust.”
Both girls laughed, and Peggy added a moment later, “Puff out your cheeks and prepare to bust, Jo, ’cause Miss Prudence won’t let you go.”
“You underrate my persuasive powers, and you don’t realize how tired she is of preparing the same menus, day after day. I heard her say the other day that about the only thing Pedro sold at his store was beans, beans, beans.”
When they reached Jitters’ House, José set to work at once to make a crate. The girls wrapped each piece of pottery with the paper they had brought for that purpose and carefully placed the smaller jars inside the larger ones. When the crate was finished, they packed excelsior around the jars and in every inch of space. That done, José carried the crate over to the house across the road, for safe-keeping.
With a wide smile Jo Ann remarked, “We’ll have to get an early start tomorrow morning to take our crate to the city. We’ll have to promise to make the trip there and back in one day, I know.”