“Muffs’ mother is going to take her back to New York,” Tommy announced as soon as Mary came into the wood yard.
To their surprise, Mary burst into tears and ran up the One Way Steps and into the workshop.
“She’s gone to tell Daddy,” Tommy decided. “She tells Daddy and Donald everything.”
“I didn’t know she liked me that much,” Muffs said.
As the time for her to go home came nearer Muffs grew more and more puzzled. There were days when they hardly saw Mary. Ever since that day she went to the workshop crying she had acted as if she knew a secret. Donald was in on it too and so was Mr. Tyler. The three of them had taken the short-cut and gone somewhere without saying a word to Muffs and Tommy.
“We could watch and see where they went,” Muffs suggested.
So she and Tommy, hand in hand, started along the short-cut. It went through the swamp on stepping stones and then through the field and over what Tommy called the fairies’ hills because they were only little mounds with wintergreens growing on them.
“Want to taste a fairy apple?” he asked and Muffs, who had never tasted a wintergreen berry before, thought the fairies had nicer apples than those that grew on full-sized apple trees.