"The boys are making a mistake. I'm going to tell Chet so."

But when she took her brother to task about this matter she could not get
Chet to admit a thing. He refused to say anything illuminating about the
car that had run down the stranger at the hospital, or if the boys
suspected anybody in particular.

"If we think we know anything, I can't tell you," Chet declared "Billy?
Why, he's always sore at Purt Sweet. You can't tell anything by him!"

Just the same it was evident that the boys were hiding much from their girl
chums; and, of course, that being the case, the girls were made all the
more curious.




CHAPTER XV

PIE AND POETRY


Laura's sleeves were rolled up to her plump elbows and she had an
enveloping apron on that covered her dress from neck to toe. There was
flour on her arms, on one cheek, and even on the tip of her nose.

Out-of-doors old Boreas, Jess said, held sway. Shutters flapped, the
branches of the hard maple creaked against the clapboarded ell of the
house, and there was an occasional throaty rattle in the chimney that made
one think that the Spirit of the Wind was dying there.