But Amy could not bear to sit down to the bench again until she had taken the stick and poked the dead but still writhing snakes out of the house. The rain was diminishing now and the thunder and lightning had receded into the distance. The two older girls ate very little of the luncheon they had brought. It was with much amazement that they watched Henrietta absorb sandwiches, cake, eggs, and fruit. She did a thorough job.
“Isn’t she the bravest little thing?” Jessie whispered to her chum. “Did you ever hear the like?”
“I guess that girl we saw run away with, was her cousin all right,” said Amy. “How she did fight!”
At that statement Jessie was reminded of the thing that had been puzzling her for some days. She began asking questions about Bertha, how she looked, how old she was, and how she was dressed.
“She’s just my cousin. She is as old as you girls, I guess, but not so awful old,” Henrietta said. “I don’t know what she had on her. She ain’t as pretty as you girls. Guess there ain’t none of our family real pretty,” and Henrietta shook her head with reflection.
“What happened to her that she wanted to leave that dreadful fat woman?” asked Amy, 81 now, as well as her chum, taking an interest in the matter.
“There wasn’t a thing happened to her that I know of,” said Henrietta, shaking her head again. “But by the way that lady talked it would happen to her if she got hold of Bertha again.”
“How dreadful,” murmured Jessie, looking at her chum.
“I don’t see how we can help the girl,” said Amy. “She has been shut up some place, of course. If I could just think who that skinny woman is—or who she looks like. But how she can drive a car!”
“I think we can do something,” Jessie declared. “I’ve had my head so full of radio that I haven’t thought much about this poor child’s cousin and her trouble.”