“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Ed. “What does this mean?”
“I also declare, ‘what does this mean?’” added Jack, picking up from a queer sort of wooden platform in the place, the unmistakable blue bonnet of a child or young girl.
“And this!” exclaimed Cora, picking up a hat. “This is—Nellie’s hat! Nellie from the strawberry patch!”
“They have run away!” gasped Bess, without further investigation, “and here are the remains of their lunch!” The fragments of a very meager meal—some crusts of dry bread—and an empty strawberry box, told the story. “Surely this had been the lunch of the runaways.”
“They must have slept here,” went on Cora. “Poor little dears! What a shame! How frightened they must have been to sleep in such a place.”
“When you young ladies get through with the allegory, I hope you will give us the libretto,” interrupted Jack. “Who may be the fair maids who have slept in this shack, and eaten the bread of freedom?”
“Why, the girls from the strawberry patch, of course,” said Bess, as if that explained everything.
“Why ‘of course,’” said Jack mockingly.
“Certainly, of course,” put in Ed, in the same tone of voice.
“And, to be sure, of course,” went on Walter, provokingly.