Mary Rafferty caught up her pan of peas, dashed them into a basket that
hung on the wall by the door, and bareheaded as she was hastened out
through the garden after her friend for all the world as if she were
going to pick more peas. Down the green lane between the bean poles
they hurried through the picket gate, pushing aside the big gray
Duncannon cat who basked in the sun under a pink hollyhock with a
Duncannon smile on its gray whiskers like the rest of the family.
"Jane! Jane Duncannon!" called Christie McMertrie. But the hollow
echoes in the tidy kitchen flung back emptily, and the plate of
steaming cinnamon buns on the white scrubbed table spoke as plainly as
words could have done that no one was at home.
"She's gone!"
The two hurried around the house, through the front gate, across the
street with a quick glance up and down to be sure that the Petrie
babies playing horse in the next yard were their only observers, and
then ducking under the bars of the fence they scuttled down a slope,
crossed a trickle of a brook that hurried creekward, and up the
opposite bank. Behind Little's barn they paused to glance back. Some
one was coming out the Harricutt door, some one wearing a bonnet and a
black veil. They hurried on. There were two more fences separating the
meadows.
Mary went over and Christie between. They made quick work of the rest
of the way and crept panting through the hedge at the back of Carter's
just as Jane Duncannon swung open the little gate in front with a
glimpse back up the street in triumph and a breath of relief that she
had won. By only so much as a lift of her lashes and a lighting of her
soft brown eyes did she recognize and incorporate the other two in her
errand, and together the three entered the Carter house by the side
entrance, with a neighborly tap and a call: "Miz Carter, you home?"
Quick nervous steps overhead, a muffled voice calling catchily, "Yes,
I'm coming, just set down, won't you?" and they dropped into three
dining-room chairs and drew 'breath, mopping their warm faces with
their handkerchiefs and trying to adjust their minds to the next move.
Their hostess gave them no time to prepare a program. She came
hurriedly down stairs, obviously anxious, openly with every nerve on
the qui vive, and they saw at once that she had been crying. Her hair
was damp about her forehead as if from hasty ablution. She looked from
one to another of her callers with a frightened glance that went beyond
them as if looking for others to come, as she paused in the doorway
puzzled.