“Nor one of the Seven Sleepers,” laughed Jessie. 124 “So you cannot prophesy, can you? We will go down to Dogtown this afternoon and see if Mrs. Foley will let us bring Henrietta back to see Daddy.”
“The child hasn’t been up to see you at all, has she?” asked Amy.
“Why, no.”
“Maybe the woman won’t want her to come. Afraid somebody may take little Hen away from her. Did you see the child’s hands? They have been well used to hard work. I have an idea she is a regular little slave.”
“Oh, I hope not. It doesn’t seem to me as though anybody could treat that child cruelly. And she doesn’t seem to blame Mrs. Foley for her condition.”
“Well, Hen knows how to kill snakes, but maybe she is a poor judge of character,” laughed Amy. “I’ll go with you and defend you if the Foley tribe attack in force. But let’s go down in the canoe. Then we can steal the cheeld, if necessary. ‘Once aboard the lugger!’ you know, ‘and the gal is mine’.”
“To hear you, one would think you were a real pirate,” scoffed Jessie.
At lunch time Nell Stanley had an errand in the neighborhood, and she dropped in at the Drew house. The three girls, Mrs. Drew being away, had a gay little meal together, waited on by the 125 Drew butler, McTavish, who was a very grave and solemn man.
“Almost ecclesiastic, I’ll say,” chuckled Nell, when the old serving man was out of the room. “He is a lot more ministerial looking than the Reverend. I expect him, almost any time, to say grace before meat. Fred convulsed us all at the table last evening. We take turns, you know, giving thanks. And at dinner last evening it was the Reverend’s turn.
“‘Say, Papa,’ Fred asked afterward—he’s such a solemn little tike you have no idea what’s coming—‘Say, Papa, why is it you say a so-much longer prayer than I do?’