The farmer’s wife proved a friend indeed to Molly. She gathered the little girl up in her arms and carried her indoors, made her put on some fresh clothes while she dried her wet things before a blazing fire, and not until Molly had emptied a big bowl of hot bread and milk would she let her say a word of thanks or explanation.
Then, when the farmer and Mrs Rose and Molly (wrapped in a warm cloak belonging to the farmer’s wife) sat round the fire, Molly told them her story, weeping afresh at the memory of Jack’s misfortune.
“There, there, my dear,” comforted Mrs Rose, her own eyes full of tears. “It’s no use crying, you know. What you have got to do is to determine to find the Black Leaf, and then, like as not, you’ll get your brother back again.”
“Oh, I am determined to find it,” cried Molly. “I was determined before—but I will—I will find it—whatever happens.”
“You must try to get a good rest to-night, and then you can start off fresh in the morning—and you mustn’t cry any more or you’ll make yourself ill—and then you won’t be able to do anything,” said Mrs Rose.
Molly quite saw the wisdom of Mrs Rose’s words and tried her best to stop crying. But she kept thinking about Jack, and wondering what they were doing to him, and why the Pumpkin had changed him into a likeness of himself. Supposing she had to return home to Mother without Jack. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t, she vowed to herself. She would stay in this country and search and search until the Black Leaf was found, even if she had to wait for years ... and here her tears began to flow again.
To distract her, the farmer began talking about the country around and the most likely places to search. He had searched all his own land, he said, directly he heard the Pumpkin was back, and he had helped to prepare some of the beacons on the hills around this district. And he asked Molly if she knew on which hills the beacons were set.
Molly dried her eyes, got her map out, and showed him how the beacon hills were marked, and soon she and the farmer and Mrs Rose were poring over the map, planning out the best routes to take, and discussing the most likely places for search. The farmer showed her all the places where the Leaf was not growing, places he had personally searched; and at Molly’s request he marked these places on the map with a lead pencil. Molly decided to herself that she would leave these marked places until the very last, until she had searched all the more likely parts round about. She felt she could not leave them out altogether, although she trusted the farmer absolutely; she had promised to search each part herself.
When she mentioned Mr Papingay’s name the farmer and his wife smiled, and although they thought he would certainly have searched the Orange Wood as he said he had, yet he was not sure to have done it thoroughly, and they agreed with Molly that it would be as well to go over the ground again if possible. The fact that the Pumpkin was lurking about there made all three of them think that probably the Leaf was growing somewhere near. Of course, this might not be so; it might be only the Pumpkin’s object to prevent Jack and Molly going any further with the search.
“You’ll have to be very cautious, missie, if you go back to the wood,” said Farmer Rose. “It wouldn’t do for you to get caught too.”