“It’s Master Stephen!” she cried, in a strange voice that sounded rusty from lack of use. “I be glad to hear you, sir. It’s a long time since we’ve had a frolic in the woods. You don’t hunt birds’ nests in the summer now, or go wading in the streams. I found a wasps’ nest for you, perhaps it was a month, perhaps a year ago, I cannot remember. But I saved it for you. And how is young Master Martin? He was a little fellow to climb so high for the nests.”
“We are both well, Jennie, and you must come over to the hall and see us. We may have something nice for you, there, that will keep you warm when the snow comes.”
“Ah, you’re a good boy, Master Stephen, and I’ll bid ye good day now, and good day to your friends. There be four with you I think,” she added in a lower voice, sniffing the air again. “I’ll be over on my next trip to the village.” Old Jennie moved off as swiftly as she had come, tapping the path with her long stick, her head thrown back as if to see with her nostrils, since her eyes were without sight.
“What a strange old woman!” cried Stephen’s companions in one voice.
“And the strangest thing about her,” replied Stephen, “is that she has no sense of time. She can’t remember whether a thing happened a year ago or month ago, and she thinks Martin and I are still little boys. We haven’t hunted birds’ nests with her for six years. I have not even seen her for two or three years, but she sniffed me out as quickly as if I always used triple extract of tuberose.”
“Where does she live?” asked Bab.
“She lives in a little cabin off in the forest somewhere. Her father and mother were woodcutters. She was born and brought up right here. She doesn’t know anything but herbs and roots, and night and day are the same to her. She knows every square foot of this country, and never gets lost. Martin and I used to go about with her when we were little boys, and she was as faithful a nurse as you could possibly find.”
“No wonder you love these woods, Stephen,” said Bab. “There is so much to do and see in them. I wish we had something better than scrub oak around Kingsbridge.”
“Wait until you see the chief treasure of the woods, Barbara, and you’ll have even more respect for them.”