"Just hear her!" said Chi to himself, but aloud, he said, "I 'll tell you this much, if it is a secret society. They try 'n' see what stuff you 're made of."
"'Sugar and spice
And all that's nice,
That's what little girls are made of,'"
Hazel interrupted, singing merrily.
"There was n't much 'sugar 'n' spice' in that Rose Blossom when she put me to the test. You ain't heard a screech-owl yet; but when you do, you'll come running home to find out whose bein' killed in the woods."
Hazel looked at him half in fear, but Chi went on stolidly:--
"'N' those children told me I 'd got to go up into the woods at twelve o'clock at night, when the screech-owls was yellin' bloody murder, to show I wasn't scairt of nothin'; 'n' I went."
"Oh, Chi, was n't it awful?"
"Kinder scarey; but they gave me the dinner horn 'n' told me to blow a blast on that when I was up there, so they 'd hear, 'n' know I was clear into the woods; for they was all on hand watchin' from the back attic window--what they could in a pitch-black night--to see if I 'd back down."
"And you did n't, Chi?" said Hazel, eagerly.
"You bet I did n't, 'n' I brought home an old screecher just to prove I was game."