“Dr. Madden knows his stuff, Jerry.”
“So do you,” I grinned. And I meant it, too.
“What puzzles me more than anything else,” the other then went on, “is the spotted gander. For the life of me I can’t figure out how it fits into the tangle, or why it was sent here.”
“Ask Dr. Madden,” I laughed.
“I’m going to,” was the quick reply.
“Yes, you are—not!”
“We’ll forget about Pardyville, Jerry, for in going there our time would just be wasted. Instead, we’ll go back to Neponset Corners to-morrow morning. And we’ll let Dr. Madden treat us for an acute case of friendlius-curious-snoopius.”
But instead of going to Dr. Madden to be “treated,” as Poppy had planned, it was the doctor who came to the big house, as you will learn in the next few chapters.
CHAPTER XIV
BIT BY A GRAND VIZIER
Ma Doane sure was a worker. The supper dishes washed and put away in the cupboard, each dish in its proper place, she got out a little comb-like machine for making switches. A switch, as you probably know, if you have any old ladies in the family, is a tail of false hair. Some oldish women still use them. It’s a part of their dressing-up scheme. Camouflage, Dad calls it.