Knock Three Times!

by Marion St. John Webb

The children thanked Timothy, and were discussing eagerly to-morrow’s plans, when Miss Marigold looked in to say all was ready upstairs.

“I heard you laughing a lot just now, Timothy,” she remarked. “That tea-party made you very excited, I’m afraid.”

“Umth,” agreed Timothy, meekly.

The children were very tired that night, and in spite of their excitement they slept soundly in the comfortable, warm beds Miss Marigold had prepared for them.

Their first waking thoughts were of the plant-pot in Mr Papingay’s house: they longed to be off to the Orange Wood without delay. But they discovered, on arriving downstairs, that the village had made other plans for them. Somehow the news had spread that two people from the Impossible World had come to search the village for the Black Leaf, and the villagers meant to welcome them handsomely and give them all the help they could. During breakfast the children noticed that people kept stopping and peering in through the window at them, and from remarks dropped by Miss Marigold they understood that they would create great disappointment, if not give real offence, unless they searched the village thoroughly that day—and in sight of the people. Jack and Molly began to feel as if they were a sort of show or entertainment. However, they talked things over together, and calculating that the village ought not to take more than a few hours to do—as it was very small—they decided that perhaps they had better search it first, and then in the afternoon start off into the Orange Wood. After all Timothy might have made a mistake, and the Leaf might be in the village after all; it would never do to pass it by.

So they set to work immediately after breakfast, much refreshed by their long sleep and the wholesome, good food that Miss Marigold had set before them. They thanked her warmly and said good-bye to Timothy, then stepped out into another day of sunshine.

But they had reckoned their time without the villagers. So insistent and eager were they to help the children that they hindered and delayed them in every way. Children and men and women suggested likely places where the Black Leaf might be growing, and insisted on taking Jack and Molly to the places; but each search proved in vain.

They searched a field by special request of the man who owned it, and who expressed great surprise when told that the Leaf was not there. (Although he knew very well that the Leaf was not there as he had already gone over the field himself. Still he felt he couldn’t have his ground neglected when all his neighbours’ fields were being searched.)

And one old lady insisted on digging up her window box to show them that the Leaf wasn’t there, conscious of the importance she was gaining in the eyes of her neighbours while the children stayed about her place.

The attention they received made the children rather uncomfortable. However, every garden, every yard of roadway, every field and lane and paddock, and even every plant-pot, having been searched to the villagers’ (and the children’s) satisfaction, Jack and Molly at length said good-bye to the village and turned eagerly toward the Orange Wood.