Grandma was too excited to answer. Feeling her way in the dark, she pushed the goats aside, took off her head scarf, and sat down on it. Then she opened a clean handkerchief for Maureen. But Maureen ignored it, lost in delight over the little white kid.
The motor made a roar in the night as the truck pulled out of the lot and headed for the highway. Almost there, Grandpa turned down a gravel lane, dimmed the lights, and parked. He and Paul jumped out and ran to the back of the truck. Hastily they broke open the bale of hay, and began shaking it over the stowaways.
Maureen sneezed.
"Hay's dusty," Paul said.
"Might of knowed it," Grandpa snorted. "No wonder Buck Jackson give it away. Now whichever of ye sneezed, we can't have no more o' that. If yer nose feels tickly, jes' clamp yer finger hard underneath it, and 'twon't happen."
Before Paul and Grandpa got back into the cab, they looked around cautiously. No one was in sight.
"I feel like the smugglers we read about in Berlin," Paul said, "sneakin' refugees to West Germany."
It was only a half-hour's ride to Chincoteague, but with no one singing or laughing, it seemed more like half a day. In silence they rode past Rabbit Gnaw Road and through Horntown and past Swan's Gut Road and across the salt flats that led to the causeway.
Almost at the end of the causeway their headlights showed up a temporary guardhouse. A soldier with a rifle came out and flagged them down. He shone his flashlight into the cab of the truck. "Hi there, Mr. Beebe," he grinned in recognition. "Hi, Paul. How's Misty?"
"She's still all right," Paul replied.