“You hain’t been in the swamp?”
“Why, yes,” answered Louise, eager to relate details of their adventure. “We gathered flowers, and then met a horrid man with red whiskers! He drove us away from the island before I could get my dog.”
The woman gazed at the girls in an odd way.
“Sarved you’uns right to be driv off,” she said in a grim voice. “The swamp’s no place fer young gals. You might o’ been et by a beast or bit by a snake.”
“I don’t believe the man we saw was much worried about that,” Penny said dryly. “I wonder who he was?”
The farm woman shrugged and began to scour the copper boiler again. After a moment she looked up, fixing Penny with a stern and unfriendly eye.
“Let me give you a pocketful o’ advice,” she said. “Don’t fret that purty head o’ yourn about the swamp. And don’t go pokin’ yer nose into what ain’t none o’ your consarn. If I was you, I wouldn’t come back. These here parts ain’t none too health fer strangers, even young ’uns.”
“But I want my dog,” Louise insisted. “He’s lost on the island.”
“Hain’t likely you’ll ever see that dawg agin. And if you know what’s good ’n smart, you’uns won’t go back there agin.”
Having delivered herself of this advice, the woman turned her back and went on with her work. Made increasingly aware of her hostility, Penny and Louise said goodbye and returned to the skiff.