Calvin Smalley, who happened to be working out in front and saw her ride past, doubled up with laughter over his vegetable bed. “What next?” he chuckled. “What next?” He was still thinking about this and laughing over it when he went through the empty field which Sahwah had crossed the time she had discovered the house among the trees, and where Abner Smalley now pastured his bull. So absorbed was he in the memory of that ridiculous pillow tied on the horse that he was not careful in putting up the bars behind him when he left the field, and later in the afternoon the bull wandered over in that direction and came through into the next field. He found the river road and followed it and began to graze in one of the unploughed fields belonging to Onoway House.
Sahwah, wearing her big, red hat, was bending low over the ground, digging up some ferns which grew there, when all of a sudden she heard a loud snort and looked up to see the bull charging down upon her. She looked wildly around for a place of safety. Nothing was nearer than the far-off hedge that surrounded the cultivated garden patch. Not a tree, not a fence, in sight. Quick as light she bounded off toward the hedge, although she knew it would be impossible for her to reach it before the bull would be upon her.
Gladys, coming along the road in the automobile, heard a shriek and looked up to see Sahwah tearing across the open field with the bull hard after her. Without a moment’s hesitation Gladys turned the car into the field and started after the bull at full speed. She let the car out every notch and it whizzed dizzily over the hard turf. She sounded the horn again and again with the hope of attracting the attention of the bull, but he did not pause. Like lightning she bore down upon him, passed to one side and slowed down for a second beside Sahwah, who jumped on the running-board and was borne away to safety.
“This hum-drum, uneventful life,” said Sahwah, as she sat on the porch half an hour afterward and tried to catch her breath, while the rest fanned her with palm leaf fans, “is getting a little too much for me!”
CHAPTER X.—A BIRTHDAY PARTY
After Nyoda had fired the shots out of the window, nothing was heard or seen of the ghost and the footsteps in the attic ceased. “It’s just as I thought,” said Nyoda, “someone has been trying to frighten us with a possible view of robbing the house at some time, thinking that a houseful of women would be terror-stricken at the ghostly noises, but when he found we had a gun and could shoot he thought better of the plan.” Gradually the girls lost their fright, and the odd corners of Onoway House regained their old charm. They were far too busy with the canning to think of much else, for the tomatoes were ripening in such large quantities that it was all they could do to dispose of them. The 4H brand found favor and the market gradually increased, and every week Migwan had a goodly sum to deposit in the bank after the cost of the tin cans had been deducted.
“I have to laugh when I think of that honor in the book,” said Migwan, “can at least three cans of fruit,” and she pointed to the cans stacked on the back porch ready to be packed into the automobile and taken to town. “Why, hello, Calvin,” she said, as Calvin Smalley appeared at the back door. “Come in.” Calvin came in and sat down. “What’s the matter?” asked Migwan, for his face had a frightened and distressed look.
“Uncle Abner has turned me out!” said Calvin.
“Turned you out!” echoed the girls. “Why?”
“He showed me a will last night,” said Calvin, “a later one than that which was found when my grandfather died, which left the farm to him instead of to my father. He just found it last night when he was rummaging among grandfather’s old papers. According to that I have been living on his charity all these years instead of on my own property as I supposed and now he says he can’t afford to keep me any longer. He wanted me to sign a paper saying that I would work for him without pay until I was thirty years old to make up for what I have had all these years, and when I wouldn’t do it he told me to get out.”