pretty; pale coloured, like flowers.

"I can't find the right one. The marks are all falling off. The candy's falling out."

"We can't stand here all night. Here——"

"Willard, take your hands out. Not that one——"

"Willard and Judy stop fighting. That one will do. I'm going."

There was dead silence now, and Ed, clutching the wreck of a sizable crêpe-paper creation to the bosom of his white sweater, doubled into a crouching, boy scout attitude, crossed the road, and approached the house. Nothing but his own commendable caution delayed his approach. The small dog's dreams within were untroubled now. There were no signs of life.

He reached the front door, deposited the May-[Pg 20]basket with a force that further demolished it, and took to his heels. After another breathless wait the procession formed behind him and trailed after him up the road, hilly here, so that the market basket grew heavier.

[Pg 20]

"Some evening," Willard murmured to himself, not the rest of the world, but he sounded amiable.

"Willard."

"Well, kid,"

"There wasn't anybody in that house. Ed knew it."

"There might have been. They might have come home."

"But they didn't ... Willard, is this all there is to it?"

"What?"

"Hanging May-baskets. Throwing them down that way. I thought maybe they really hung them, on the doorknob—I thought——"

"Silly! Ed's going cross lots, and up the wood road to Larribees'. Good work. That will throw them off the track."

 Prev. P 12/189 next