Already our liberators were swarming up the hay-rack, which had halted for them. In a twinkling they were sunk in that fragrance, kicking their heels even as their host. Already they had forgotten Mary Elizabeth and me, nor did they give us good-bye.
We two turned and went through the Wells’s yard, back to the street. Almost at once we were again within range of the sounds of Delia, practising interminably on her “At Home.”
“I never rode on a load of hay,” said Mary Elizabeth at length.
Neither had I, though I almost always walked backward to watch one when it passed me.
“What do you s’pose the password was?” said Mary Elizabeth.
It was days before we gave over wondering. And sometimes in later years I have caught myself speculating on that lost word.
“I wonder what we were rescued from,” said Mary Elizabeth when we passed our woodshed door.
We stopped and peered within. No Lord of Bindyliggs, though we had almost expected to see him stretched there, bound and helpless.
What were we rescued from? We should never know.
We rounded the corner by the side yard. There sat our staring dolls, drawn up about the tea-table, static all. As I looked at them I was seized and possessed by an unreasoning fury. And I laid hold on Irene Helena, and had her by the heels, and with all my strength I pounded her head against the trunk of the catalpa tree.