But Ed had his mind upon higher things. "You girls stay here with the baskets. Don't move. Willard, you go right and I'll go left, and we'll meet at the carriage-house steps, if the coast is clear."
"If they get us——"
If! The boys crunched out of hearing on the gravel, awesome silence set in, and Rena and Natalie whispered; Judith was not to be awed. Four May-baskets hung, and nobody objecting; dark cross-streets chosen instead of Main Street and no danger pursuing them there. If there was no danger in the whole town, why should there be in one little strip of woods, though it was dark and strange, and full of whispering noises? Judith had clung to Willard's hand in terror, turning into the cross-streets, and nothing came of it. She was not to be fooled any longer. There was no danger.
Not that she wanted to be chased. She did not know what she wanted. But she had come out into the dark to find something that was not there. She had been happier on the doorsteps thinking about it. This, then, was hanging May-baskets—all there was to it. But it was pleasant here in the dark, pleasanter than walking through mud, and quarrelling. Now Rena and Nat were quarrelling again.
"Get back there! Ed said not to move."
"They've been gone too long. Something's the matter."
"There they come. I hear them. Get back!"
They were coming, but something else was happening. Willard's three whistles sounded, then Ed's voice, and a noise of scuffling on the gravel—and a new boy's voice.
Rena and Natalie, upsetting their basket as they started, and not noticing it, pushed through the trees and ran. Judith stood still and listened. She did not know the voice. It was shrill and clear. She could hear the words it said above the others' voices, all clamouring, now, at once. She held her breath and listened. She could not move.
"I don't want your damn May-baskets."