“I’m not sure that Uncle Roger meant what he said,” remarked the Story Girl. “I couldn’t get a look into his eyes. If he was trying to hoax us there would have been a twinkle in them. He can never help that. You know he would think it a great joke to frighten us like this. It’s really dreadful to have no grown-ups you can depend on.”
“We could depend on father if he was here,” said Dan stoutly. “HE’D tell us the truth.”
“He would tell us what he THOUGHT was true, Dan, but he couldn’t KNOW. He’s not such a well-educated man as the editor of the Enterprise. No, there’s nothing to do but wait and see.”
“Let us go into the house and read just what the Bible does say about it,” suggested Cecily.
We crept in carefully, lest we disturb Aunt Olivia, and Cecily found and read the significant portion of Holy Writ. There was little comfort for us in that vivid and terrible picture.
“Well,” said the Story Girl finally. “I must go and get the potatoes ready. I suppose they must be boiled even if it is the Judgment Day to-morrow. But I don’t believe it is.”
“And I’ve got to go and stump elderberries,” said Peter. “I don’t see how I can do it—go away back there alone. I’ll feel scared to death the whole time.”
“Tell Uncle Roger that, and say if to-morrow is the end of the world that there is no good in stumping any more fields,” I suggested.
“Yes, and if he lets you off then we’ll know he was in earnest,” chimed in Cecily. “But if he still says you must go that’ll be a sign he doesn’t believe it.”
Leaving the Story Girl and Peter to peel their potatoes, the rest of us went home, where Aunt Janet, who had gone to the well and found the fragments of the old blue cup, gave poor Felicity a bitter scolding about it. But Felicity bore it very patiently—nay, more, she seemed to delight in it.