“I do try, but I can’t,” Penny sighed. “I keep telling myself Mrs. Lear must be the person who masquerades as the Headless Horseman. Yet I can’t completely accept such a theory.”
“You’ll go batty if you keep on!”
“The worst of it is that everyone laughs at me,” Penny complained. “If I so much as mention the Headless Horseman Dad starts to crack jokes.”
A step sounded on the porch. “Speaking of your father, here he comes now,” Louise observed, and straightened in her chair.
Penny did not bother to undrape herself from the davenport. “‘Lo, Dad,” she greeted her father as he came in. “Aren’t you home early for lunch?”
“I am about half an hour ahead of schedule,” Mr. Parker agreed. He spoke to Louise as he casually dropped an edition of the Riverview Star into his daughter’s hands. “That town of yours has smashed into print, Penny.”
“What town?” Penny’s feet came down from the arm of the davenport and she seized the paper. “Not Red Valley?”
“Red Valley is very much in the news,” Mr. Parker replied. “These rains are weakening the dam and some of the experts are becoming alarmed. They are sending someone up to look it over.”
“Oh, Dad! I tried to tell you!” Penny cried excitedly. With Louise peering over her shoulder, she spread out the front page of the paper and read the story.
“Oh, it hardly tells a thing!” she complained after she had scanned it.