But she found nothing on the kitchen stove, so she came out on the stoop again and sniffed a second time. This time it was a louder and a longer sniff. But all her sniffing failed to reveal the cause of the awful smell.
“Now dat’s funny. I could sware as soon as I git out on dis stoop dere is a smell of somethin’ like scorched wool, er a tan-yard, er a skunk. But it don’t smell in my kitchen, atall!” said she.
She had to give her attention to dinner, now, so no more time could be given to searching for the cause of an odor.
Mrs. James now came along the lane from the barn yard, and as soon as she came within the radius of the odor which had escaped from the compost, she sniffed faintly but without any unusual interest in the matter.
She too, entered the kitchen and asked Rachel if she had burned something on the stove; and the answer was that it must have been a passing automobile that had cheap gasoline in the tank, to have left such a stench as to fill the air all around the county.
But the girls soon followed after Mrs. James and they commented freely over the odor. Janet asked: “What can it be?”
“It isn’t singular—it is a plural smell,” laughed Belle.
“Yes, it’s a number of vile odors combined,” added Norma.
“Rachel must have left sour milk standing about, somewhere,” suggested Natalie.
The girls went in at the kitchen door instead of going to the side porch as they usually did, and Natalie immediately asked Rachel if she had sour milk in the kitchen.