“Isn’t Pop brave?” she whispered, “and he never made but two arrests before in all his life. One was over at Miss Hornaby’s when she wouldn’t let Minnie and Myron go to school ’cause their shoes were all out on the ground, and the other time he got that weaver over at Beacon Hill for selling cider.”
Still Kit had no answer, for over at the corncrib she saw the strangest scene. Out stepped the prisoner as fearlessly and blithely as possible, spoke to her father, and the two of them instantly shook hands, while Tommy, Jack, Mr. Hicks, and Mr. Weaver stared with all their might. The next the girls knew, the whole party came strolling back leisurely, and Kit could see the stranger was regaling her father with a humorous view of the whole affair. Tommy tried to signal to her behind his back some mysterious warning, and even Mr. Hicks looked jocular.
Kit leaned both hands on the railing, and stared hard at the trespasser. He was a young man, dressed in a light gray suit with high laced boots to protect him from briars. He was fair-skinned, but tanned so deeply that his blond, curly hair seemed even lighter. He smiled at Kit, with one foot on the lower step, while Mr. Craig called up, “Kit, my dear, this is Mr. Howard, our fruit expert from Washington, whom I was expecting.”
And Kit nodded, blushing furiously and wishing with all her heart she might have silenced Evie’s audible and disappointed remark, “Didn’t he hook huckleberries after all?”
2. I Smell Smoke
“I was perfectly positive that if we went away and left you in charge for one single day, Kit, you would manage to get into some kind of trouble,” Jean said reproachfully that evening. “If you only wouldn’t act on the impulse of the moment. Why on earth didn’t you tell Dad, and ask his advice before you telephoned to Mr. Hicks?”
“That’s a sensible thing for you to say,” retorted Kit, hotly, “after you’ve all warned me not to worry Dad about anything. And I did not act upon impulse,” she went on stiffly, “I made certain logical deductions from certain facts. How was I to know he was hunting gypsy moths and other winged beasts when I saw him bending over bushes in our berry patch? Anyhow it would simplify matters if Dad would let us know when he expected visitors. You should have seen old Mr. Hicks’s face and Evie’s, too. They were so disappointed at not having a prisoner in tow to exhibit to the Elmhurst populace on the way over to the jail.”
Mrs. Gorham glanced up over her glasses at the circle of faces around the dining-room table. The girls had volunteered to help her pick over berries for canning the following day. It was a sacrifice to make, too, with the midsummer evening calling to them—katydids and peep frogs, the swish of the wind through the big Norway pines on the terraces, and the sound of Jack’s harmonica from the back porch. It was Friday evening, and Mr. and Mrs. Craig had driven over to the Judge’s for a visit. Mr. Craig had invited the erstwhile prisoner to accompany them, but he had decided instead to keep on his way to the old Inn on the hill above the village, much to Jean and Doris’s disappointment.
Doris had discovered that his first name was Frank, which relieved her mind considerably.