Having thus made up her mind, Janet began to shout and call. Her voice sounded strange and hollow in the box trap. She wondered how far it would carry. She hoped they might hear her down at the farmhouse, but she hardly thought this possible.
Then a new terror came to poor Janet. She began to think of the wild animal that had been in the trap.
“Maybe it was a bear,” she whispered to herself. “And maybe he might hear me yelling and come to see me. I wouldn’t like that. But, anyhow, he couldn’t get in, since I can’t get out.”
For the first time Janet was glad the trap was firmly closed. True, she couldn’t get out, but then, no wild animal could get in.
After Janet had called as loudly as she could for some time and no one had answered, she began to feel tired. So she sat down in a corner of the box trap, on the soft dried grass and leaves.
“Oh, dear! I wish some one would come and get me out!” she sighed.
It was about this time that Mrs. Martin began to inquire for Janet. The little girl had told her mother about going to the “wood lot,” as Mr. Dawson called it, to pick flowers.
“But it’s time she was back,” Mrs. Martin said to her husband. “It will soon be evening.”
“I’ll go after her!” offered Ted, who had just come back from a distant pasture, having been there with one of the hired men to salt the sheep. Every so often lumps of coarse, rock salt were put in boxes in the fields where the sheep roamed. Sheep, and most other animals, like a bit of salt now and then. It keeps them healthy.
“All right, Teddy,” said his mother. “I wish you would go after Janet. She’s probably all right, but she has forgotten it is getting late. Very likely she has found more flowers than she expected and she wants to get a big bouquet.”