“What will Miss Ruth’s ma say?” she cried. “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”
Poppy remembered that the granddaughter had planned to come here on the sly.
“If I were you,” he advised, “I’d wait a day or two before I telephoned to the mother. For you don’t know as yet that anything really has happened to the girl. She may have hired a private car to drive her here.”
“Sure thing,” I put in, wanting to make the woman feel better. “We may hear her drive in any minute.”
The old man was still pottering around the room.
“Ma, did I have my supper? I—I jest kain’t remember. One minute it seems to me I did. An’ the next minute it seems to me I didn’t.”
“Laws-a-me!” came kindly, showing that the woman didn’t make a habit of jumping on the dumb old man all the time. “Of course you haven’t had supper, Pa. And you must be pretty nearly starved, too. So come over here to the table right away. The boys ate all the sandwiches, but I guess I can make some more for you.”
Poppy and I were sort of silent during the sandwich making, each doing stuff in his own mind. Nor did the woman talk as much as usual. Maybe her tongue was tired. I wondered if it wasn’t!
“Jerry,” the leader said at length, “do you know what we ought to do?”
“What?” says I, hoping that he would stick to schemes that weren’t too blamed risky. Ghost-catching was my limit. Absolutely. Anything beyond that I’d balk at.