Marian and Alice looked triumphant. Frank motioned to Dick and the two promptly disappeared. Marian quickly followed.
“The villain! He’s gone over home to confiscate that batch of doughnuts I baked this morning. I hope he doesn’t find them.”
Mrs. Morton took the hint and locked up her pies and cake. But the two boys and Dr. Morton had joined the foraging party and food disappeared most mysteriously at intervals during the remainder of the day. A custard pie already cut and served on plates on the kitchen table, reassembled itself in the pie tin and walked out of the kitchen door when Annie changed the plates in the dining room. One entire loaf of bread vanished from the earth while Annie was trying to expel Ernest from the kitchen with a broom.
229The foragers were so capable that even Mrs. Morton ceased to worry about the men folks going hungry.
But Marian’s blood was up. “We’ve just got to do something to get even. The best pool for fish on the whole creek is on Captain Clarke’s land and I know they are not going there. Let’s take the spring wagon and drive over and get the Captain to go fishing with us. He’ll take us to his own pool and with him to help, I’d be willing to wager we can beat these top-lofty fishermen at their own game.”
Alice and the girls were instantly enthusiastic, but Mrs. Morton preferred to stay at home and keep cool.
Marian and Chicken Little left the others to put up the lunch, while they went out to the stable to hitch up the bays. They were soon on their way, with a can of bait and a pocket full of fish hooks and stout cord to rig up impromptu fishing lines, the men having taken all the poles with them.
The others had gone soon after daybreak. It was nearing ten when Marian drove up to the Captain’s hitching post.
“What if he isn’t at home?” said Chicken Little.
“He’s got to be,” laughed Marian.