But Jessie Norwood truly wished the little girl to be nice. Poor little Henrietta, however, had much to unlearn. She chattered continually about the island she owned and the riches she was to enjoy. The smaller children of Dogtown followed her—and the green parasol—about as though they were enchanted.
“’Tis a witch she certainly is,” declared Mrs. Foley. “She’s bewitched them all, so she has. But I’m lost widout her, meself. When a woman has six—and them all boys—and a man that drinks——”
This statement of her personal affairs had been so often heard by the three girls that they all tried to sidetrack Mrs. Foley’s complaint. It was Jessie, however, who advanced a really good reason for getting out of the Foley house.
“I promised Monty Shannon I would look at his radio set,” she said, jumping up. “You will excuse us for a little, Mrs. Foley? You are not going back to Stratfordtown at once, Bertha?”
“Before long. I have only hired the car for the forenoon. The man has another job this afternoon. And I must find that Henrietta again,” for the freckle-faced little girl was as lively, so Amy said, as a water-bug—“one of those skimmery things with long legs that dart along the surface of the water.”
The trio went out and across the cinder-covered yard to the Shannon house. The immediate surroundings of Dogtown were squalid, although its site upon the edge of Lake Mononset might have been made very pleasant indeed.
“If these boys like Monty Shannon and some of the girls stay at home when they grow up they surely will improve the looks of the village,” Jessie had said. “For Monty and his kind are altogether too smart not to want to live as other people do.”
“You’ve said it,” agreed Amy, with enthusiasm. “He is smart. He has a better radio receiver than you have. Wait till you see.”
“How do you know?” asked the surprised Jessie.
“He was telling me about it. You know how often some ‘squeak box,’ or other amateur operator, breaks in on our concerts.”