|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 32
"Oh, Molly, Molly, Molly!" shouted Betsy, jumping up and down, and then
hugging the little girl with all her might. "Oh, it will be like having
a little sister!"
Cousin Ann sounded a dry, warning note: "Don't be too sure her folks
will let her. We don't know about them yet."
Betsy ran to her, and caught her hand, looking up at her with shining
eyes. "Cousin Ann, if YOU go to see them and ask them, they will!"
This made even Cousin Ann give a little abashed smile of pleasure,
although she made her face grave again at once and said: "You'd better
go along back to the house now, Betsy. It's time for you to help Mother
with the supper."
The two children trotted back along the darkening wood road, Shep
running before them, little Molly clinging fast to the older child's
hand. "Aren't you ever afraid, Betsy, in the woods this way?" she asked
admiringly, looking about her with timid eyes.
"Oh, no!" said Betsy, protectingly; "there's nothing to be afraid of,
except getting off on the wrong fork of the road, near the Wolf Pit."
"Oh, OW!" said Molly, cringing. "What's the Wolf Pit? What an awful
name!"
Betsy laughed. She tried to make her laugh sound brave like Cousin
Ann's, which always seemed so scornful of being afraid. As a matter of
fact, she was beginning to fear that they HAD made the wrong turn, and
she was not quite sure that she could find the way home. But she put
this out of her mind and walked along very fast, peering ahead into the
dusk. "Oh, it hasn't anything to do with wolves," she said in answer to
Molly's question; "anyhow, not now. It's just a big, deep hole in the
ground where a brook had dug out a cave. ... Uncle Henry told me all
about it when he showed it to me ... and then part of the roof caved in;
sometimes there's ice in the corner of the covered part all the summer,
Aunt Abigail says."
"Why do you call it the Wolf Pit?" asked Molly, walking very close to
Betsy and holding very tightly to her hand.
"Oh, long, ever so long ago, when the first settlers came up here, they
heard a wolf howling all night, and when it didn't stop in the morning,
they came up here on the mountain and found a wolf had fallen in and
couldn't get out."
"My! I hope they killed him!" said Molly.
"Oh, gracious! that was more than a hundred years ago," said Betsy. She
was not thinking of what she was saying. She was thinking that if they
WERE on the right road they ought to be home by this time. She was
thinking that the right road ran down hill to the house all the way, and
that this certainly seemed to be going up a little. She was wondering
what had become of Shep. "Stand here just a minute, Molly," she said. "I
want ... I just want to go ahead a little bit and see ... and see ..." She
darted on around a curve of the road and stood still, her heart sinking.
The road turned there and led straight up the mountain!
For just a moment the little girl felt a wild impulse to burst out in a
shriek for Aunt Frances, and to run crazily away, anywhere so long as
she was running. But the thought of Molly standing back there,
trustfully waiting to be taken care of, shut Betsy's lips together hard
before her scream of fright got out. She stood still, thinking. Now she
mustn't get frightened. All they had to do was to walk back along the
road till they came to the fork and then make the right turn. But what
if they didn't get back to the turn till it was so dark they couldn't
see it ... ? Well, she mustn't think of that. She ran back, calling, "Come
on, Molly," in a tone she tried to make as firm as Cousin Ann's. "I
guess we have made the wrong turn after all. We'd better ..."
But there was no Molly there. In the brief moment Betsy had stood
thinking, Molly had disappeared. The long, shadowy wood road held not a
trace of her.
Then Betsy WAS frightened and then she DID begin to scream, at the top
of her voice, "Molly! Molly!" She was beside herself with terror, and
started back hastily to hear Molly's voice, very faint, apparently
coming from the ground under her feet.
"Ow! Ow! Betsy! Get me out! Get me out!"
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|