Suddenly Henrietta came to sudden action. She dropped the cake she had begun on and rushed for the stairway. Sally screamed and fell back out of the freckled little girl’s way. Amy screamed to Henrietta to return. But the latter reached the door, grabbed the handle, and slammed it shut again before what Darry had called “Mephitis mephitica” could emerge. At the same time she explained to the bewildered Sally:
“They’s skunks, lady.”
“Good kid!” shouted Burd Alling. “You certainly take the strawberry tart.”
“Have you got any?” asked the practical Henrietta. “I didn’t taste any of that yet.”
This caused more than a little hilarity among the picnic groups; but like Sally and Belle and their friends, the crowd from Roselawn voted to remove to the out-of-doors to finish supper. The moonlight was sufficiently bright for all purposes, and the near presence of the pariah of the woods and her family made them all “feel creepy,” as Amy expressed it.
“This old Carter place certainly offers some startling experiences,” Jessie said. “It is nice to come to, but snakes and—an—well, whatever Darry calls them, seem to fancy the place, too.”
“Next time we come picnicking I’ll send some of the men ahead with a dog and drive out all the wild animals,” declared Belle.
“If your dog ever ran into those kitties on the stairway there, he would be the wilder animal,” Chip Truro said, laughing. “But they are perfectly harmless if you don’t disturb them.”
“I hope they won’t object to music and dancing,” Sally Moon said. “I am going to start the machine again.”
“If we only had a radio set here, we could get the ten o’clock entertainment from Stratfordtown,” Amy suddenly suggested.