“I am having your box shipped back to you by express,” wrote the leading man. “I hope you will receive it safely. I may see you before the summer is over, as my company is going to travel in the same direction you are taking on your tour.”
“Oh, I hope we do see him again!” exclaimed Janet, when the letter was talked about one afternoon. “I like him.”
“So do I,” declared Ted. “I wish I could ride a horse as he does, or like Mr. Weldon.”
“Well, I shall be glad to get back Mr. Cardwell’s albums,” said Mr. Martin. “As soon as that box comes we’ll travel on again and bid good-by to the movie folk, at least for a while.”
It was some time later, that same afternoon, that Janet wandered off by herself to a little wood lot about a mile from the farmhouse. She wanted to pick some wild flowers, and Ted, whom she asked to come with her, said he didn’t want to.
But Janet did not mind going alone, for she had often been in these same woods before. She had been taking care of Trouble nearly all of that day, and Trouble certainly lived up to his name—he was full of mischief. Jan was glad to get away from him for a time, dearly as she loved him.
So she wandered about, picking flowers that grew in the woods and enjoying the beautiful scenes all about her. She neared a little gully, down the sides of which grew some blossoms she had not before noticed—beautiful red flowers.
“Oh, I’m going to get some of them!” she murmured.
Down the pine-needle-covered sides of the gully she scrambled, toward a big clump of ferns, near which grew the red flowers she so much admired.
The sides of the gully were steeper than Janet realized, and she was going faster than she thought—so fast, in fact, that when she reached the clump of ferns she couldn’t stop. Right through them she had to run, and, before she knew it, she saw that just behind them, hidden in a growth of tangled bushes, was what seemed to be a large box.