When they reached the road, panting and breathless, they looked back, half expecting to see the ghost after them.
But instead of a ghost, there stood Ned, waving a sheet and apparently highly pleased at the success of his project.
"I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself," shouted Will Blake. "I'll tell Johnny, an' he'll lick you."
"Don't you wish he could?" answered Ned defiantly. "If any of you young ones go to being saucy, I'll just come over there and trounce you."
The children set off toward home, but, coming to another meadow, where strawberries were quite plenty, they concluded to stop and fill up their baskets.
"Mr. Belding's awful ugly old cow runs in this meadow, I heard father say," said Harry. "We'd better keep a lookout for her."
But in five minutes they had forgotten all about the cow.
Suddenly they all started.
"Moo, moo-o!" sounded in the bushes close by, and they heard an awful racket as if half a dozen cows were coming.
"Oh, dear!" screamed all the girls, and made for the fence, with the boys at their heels.