When we stopped at Judge Edwards’ house, a big crowd of people pressed all around us wanting to know how we escaped. They said that men had tried three times to get up the mountain, but were driven back by the flames; they thought we were all dead.
Mrs. Edwards came running out calling, “You’re not dead! You’re not dead! Oh, you’re not dead!”
Gee, anybody could see that.
She just threw her arms around her daughter and around the other girl and around those two fellows. Oh boy, I thought I was in for it, too! I don’t mind leopards and what-is-its, but nix on hugging and kissing. Then Judge Edwards and Westy came out and, oh, I can’t tell you everything that happened, because everybody was talking all at once. Harry said it was a regular west front, all over again.
Mrs. Edwards made us all go into the house and have cake and hot coffee, and just to show you how things happen, what kind of cake do you suppose it was? I bet you can’t guess. Yum, yum—m—m, it was cocoanut frosted cake.
And you can bet I thought about my sister Marjorie while I was eating it. I had three helpings and home in Bridgeboro I would only have had two, so that shows you that it’s worth while doing a good turn.
After that we didn’t have any more adventures. Good night, we had had enough of them, that’s what I said. We bunked in Judge Edwards’ house and the overflow bunked in the barn, and the next morning we hit the trail for home.
Believe me, we stuck to that trail as if it were a tight rope. Harry said if any one of us looked right or left, he’d put blinders on us. That night we camped near Nyack and early in the morning we said good-bye to the Hudson and struck in southwest till we came to our own little river—that’s the Bridgeboro River. At about four o’clock that afternoon we went tramping over the River Road bridge and hit into Main Street. Right on the corner was Bradly’s grocery wagon, and oh boy, it looked good to me, because it proved we were back home. “Bradly’s Cash Grocery,” Dorry said; “those are the three sweetest words in the world.”
“Wrong the first time,” I said; “the three sweetest words in the world are Bennett’s Fresh Confectionery.”