She flung the book—it was a Boy Scout diary, with the will scrawled and misspelt upon a blank page headed Memoranda—she flung it from her into the heart of the basswood.
“Look here!” Like a hurricane she turned on the victim. “I don’t say you’re making all this up, but I do believe that, down deep, you’re not sure you’re poisoned an’ are going to die right away. You only think you think you are!”
How on earth Penelope’s girlish intuition leaped to the fact that there was more of melodrama than of hopeless tragedy in this strange scene among the pale dunes Olive did not know, but at heart she felt herself going down on her shaking knees to Penelope for the way in which the younger girl handled the situation, even though Penny’s next words were delivered with her crudest gust.
“Where do you feel bad, anyhow?” She leveled her forefinger at the victim who, deprived of the melancholy satisfaction of making his will and bequeathing his lame treasures, slanted his gaze up at her, his short neck with its double chin thrust forward; there was a fat quiver of that chin now as if he were uncertain whether to follow her hopeful lead, or not.
“‘Ba-ad!’” he echoed waveringly. “Why! I’ve got a circus in my head or a merry-go-round—something that’s wheeling an’ spinning.”
“You’re just dizzy. Have you been wandering round in the woods?”
“Yes, quite a bit.”
“Where else do you feel poisoned? Have you got cramps?”
The victim rubbed his waist-line: “No, but I feel kind o’ sick an’—an’ ’s if ’twas low tide inside me.”
“Pshaw, ten to one you’re hungry! An’ they’re cooking supper over at our camp on the beach. Goodness! I can just smell the bacon toasting here; can’t you, Olive?”