“Why, some malicious person has put all those forty-nine blue bottles back on the wall again. What shall we do?”
“I gueth we’ll have to take them off,” lisped Tommy, amid laughter from her companions and the guardian as well.
“I can’t,” moaned Margery. She began to choke and cough. “I’ve swallowed a bug.”
“Oh, the poor bug. I’m tho thorry for him,” piped Tommy.
“Maybe we can catch him in one of those bottles,” suggested Miss Elting. “Come, girls, you aren’t going to desert me now, are you? Already! ‘Forty-nine blue bottles were hanging on the wall.’”
Once more the girls went over the familiar refrain, ending finally with the Meadow-Brook yell. Again and again did they take the bottles from the wall, but as often as they removed them invisible hands replaced every one of the forty-nine blue bottles in their accustomed position on the wall.
For the tenth time the forty-nine blue bottles had been taken down and hung up again. The voices of the girls were so hoarse that they could barely speak aloud, though they were laughing hysterically as they labored with the forty-ninth. They had almost forgotten that they were in danger, forgotten their aching bodies, forgotten that Harriet Burrell was speeding through the darkness in quest of assistance, when a distant but familiar cry reached their ears. It was the long drawn out “hoo-e-e-e-e” of the Meadow-Brook Girls.
Miss Elting heard it first. Her companions were laughing so immoderately that they failed to hear it the first time. The guardian’s voice failed her. A lump rose in her throat. The strain had been so great that several times she found herself on the point of giving way. Now the reaction had set in.
“Hoo-e-e-e-e!”
Tommy heard it, and uttered a scream. The call was repeated. This time all the girls heard it plainly.