CHAPTER VI
JANET RECEIVES ENCOURAGEMENT
The girls were aroused from sweet slumbers early the next morning by Rachel’s shrill calls. Each girl instantly fancied that some dire accident must have happened to her especial line of work, so they all ran to the platform of the stairway to look from the back windows where they could plainly hear Rachel’s voice.
What they saw was not an alarming cause for bankrupting their investments, but a ludicrous game that the fat mammy seemed to be playing with three little pigs.
Because Rachel was fat, she could not jump and turn as lithely as the lean little pigs. And having three tantalizing fugitives to chase and try to catch kept her on the “hop, skip and jump” exercise in a manner that would have made the girl scouts of Solomon’s Seal Camp green with envy.
She would all but catch one of the porkers when it would slip from under her out-spread, down-swooping hands. Inevitably such a dodge would precipitate Rachel upon her hands and knees. And the piggy would stand at a different point of the compass and look calmly at the breathless pursuer.
Multiply one wriggly, slippery, tricky little pig by three, and you will see that Rachel had no small contract that had to be attended to. Her shouts and the names she called the callous animals made the audience in the stair-windows shake with amusement. But they smothered their laughter so she wouldn’t hear them and so find out that she was being watched.
Now and then one of the pigs would break away through the hedge at the rear of the grass-place which was set apart for drying the clothes. Again one of them would keep its head turned in order to watch its pursuer, and thus come unexpectedly up against the side of the house, or bump into the clothes-poles. At such times a piercing squeal, not of pain but of sheer surprise, would make the cold chills creep up the girls’ backs.
When Rachel was tripped up by one of the wily fellows and suddenly made to sit plump upon the ground, her audience could no longer keep silence. A roar of laughter rang out from young throats, and the breathless, perspiring cook lifted eyes which expressed such heartfelt rebuke, that Janet jumped from the window-seat and started down the stairs, calling to the girls to follow her.
“Come on, girls, we’ve all got to help Rachel catch those little rascals,” said she.
When Mrs. James and the five girls joined Rachel on the grass in the rear of the house, there began such jumping and running, such calling and laughing, as never was heard in Westchester County since the days of the Revolution.
The three pigs acted obsessed. They led their pursuers back and forth, in and out of hedges, under clothes-lines, and what-not. They would pretend to lag, and just as the shouting victor swooped to catch him, the pig would double back upon his tracks and leave his chagrined pursuer flat in the grass. Finally the pigs seemed to become blase over this tame sport, so they all three put their heads together momentarily as if for a conference.
Rachel considered this the moment she had been waiting for, so she tip-toed over, silently beckoning the girls to surround the pigs.
But the pigs had other plans in view. They divided their forces. One ran down the garden path to Natalie’s truck-farm. One chose the driveway that ran down to the woods and stream. And the third pig took to the highway that ran to Four Corners.
The human forces also divided, now, to give pursuit to each individual deserter from the barnyard. Natalie and Janet raced after the pig which went for the gardens and the tender greens growing there. Rachel and two of the girls chased the pig which ran for the woods; and Mrs. James, with Norma, went after the pig which headed towards Four Corners.
The three individual units had experiences wild and varied for almost an hour, then two of the contingents successfully made “drives” for exhausted pigs, and that netted them two squealing prisoners. Mrs. James and Norma, however, kept on chasing their runaway, until the former said: “Norma, I’ll buy Janet another pig, but I refuse to run into Four Corners after that squealer! Fancy what Amity Ketchum will do. He’ll roll the funny incident under his gossipy tongue for ages to come!”
Norma laughed and shook her head. She was too breathless to speak. But Mrs. James had turned her back on the pig and its objective Four Corners, and started to trudge homewards.
It was a belated breakfast that morning, but the merriest one the girls had ever had. Such funny experiences as each girl had to narrate, kept them all laughing. And Rachel’s version of her race after the pig was not the least amusing, you can rest assured.
“Why, that slippery little rascal shot like an arrow from the bow, making straight for Natalie’s lettuce beds. I thought I had secured a ‘tackle-hold’ on him but he slid instantly out of my hands,” said Janet.
“Yes and he came plump into my shins and tripped me over him. I fell flat on my face in the potato-hills. One good thing that fall did, it frightened away a flock of potato-bugs,” laughed Natalie, when Janet had to pause for breath.
Now Janet took up the thread of narrative again. “In and out of the hills of corn and around the beanpoles he circled, until we both were dizzy. Everytime Nat or I thought we had him at a disadvantage we would swoop with open hands, only to find ourselves clutching a handful of dirt, and the little beast waiting a few feet distant as if to encourage us to keep up the game.”
The other girls laughed merrily at the description of the chase for this particular pig, and Rachel stood leaning against the pantry door, shaking with amusement.
“Girls, I never knew Janet could dance so wonderfully as she did while whirling about after the pig. Pavlova isn’t in it with our Janet! If we only had had a camera to take snap-shots of her high-kicking and leaping, she might have won a medal for her grace from the Girl Scout National Headquarters,” was Natalie’s conclusion to the story.
“How did you finally get him back to the pen?” Mrs. James wanted to know now.
“Why, in his mad circling he led us quite near to the barnyard, and it was Nat’s idea to entice him by means of a trough full of tidbits,” replied Janet “I realized that diplomacy was the only snare with which to catch pigs, so we left him standing with heaving sides and watching us suspiciously, while we filled the trough and dragged it out close to his snout.
“He was not equal to that temptation and fell instantly. Nat dragged the trough gradually back to the pen while I crept up behind the pig and the moment he had passed within the fence-gate, I closed it.”
“Have you any idea how he escaped the first time?” asked Mrs. James.
“Yes, one, or perhaps all three of the pigs burrowed under my slat fence and crept out through the tunnel they had dug,” said Janet. “But I rolled a rock into it and they’ll try a long time before they can move that obstacle out of the way.”
“Nat and you had a thrilling experience but there were only two to enjoy it. You should have been with Rachel and us—we raced to the woods after our pig, where there was so much room that there was no need for circling or doubling back in his tracks,” laughed Belle, at Janet’s conclusion.
“Miss Mason and her scouts heard the shouting and soon joined us in the chase. It must have looked exactly like one of the slap-stick movie comics where a long string of farmers, policemen, summer-boarders, and the heroine, chase the cross-eyed villain. But we managed to drive him—the pig, I mean—into one of the tents and before he could squirm his way out under the tent-flap, a dozen of us pounced upon him.
“I ought to be exact and say that one or two of us pounced upon the pig, while the other girls pounced upon each other! Then Rachel said: ‘Now you’se got him, whad yoh goin’ to do wid him?’
“We hadn’t thought of how we could get him back to the pen, but Miss Mason was equal to the emergency, as she is equal to anything, I do believe—and we soon had him in a burlap potato-sack. It was a simple thing to carry him back to the pen after that.”
When Belle had finished her narrative, all eyes turned to Mrs. James for her account of the chase, but she shook her head and said nothing. Norma laughed at their surprise, but kept silent.
“What’s the matter? Why don’t you tell us of the fun you had in catching your pig?” asked Janet.
“Nothing to tell,” was Mrs. James’ reply.
“Because we never caught the pig!” exclaimed Norma.
“What! Then where is he now?” asked Janet, aghast.
“You’ll have to consult an oracle for that information, Janet,” returned Mrs. James, calmly. “Norma and I are mere mortals, without the gift of a wooden ouigi board.”
Everyone but Janet screamed at this retort, but she ran to the side porch to gaze fearfully up the road that went to Four Corners. Nothing that resembled a wee pig was in sight.
“Come in and finish your breakfast, Janet,” called Norma.
“I want my pig. I’ve lost a week’s income on hens not laying, but I can’t afford to lose a pig, too!” explained Janet, returning to the table, nevertheless, and eating her breakfast.
“Janet, if two pigs fail to afford you all the trouble you want in the future, I agree to buy you a third trouble-maker. But I refused to expire of heart failure due to chasing that pig all the way to Four Corners!” was Mrs. James’ emphatic declaration.
But neither plan had to be followed, because Si Tompkins caught the vagrant pig as it wandered into his barn yard and tried to eat the chicken-corn he had scattered for his poultry. Then when Frances drove the car to Four Corners for the mail, she was handed the feed-bag with the pig curled up inside of it.
She took the bag and remarked laughingly: “Janet will be so glad to have her prodigal pig back again, Mr. Tompkins. But you can send her a bill for the corn he stole from you.”
Mr. Tompkins laughed as he said: “Tell Miss Janet not to become too fond of her pigs or she won’t want to eat them in the fall. She’ll act like my wife—I have to send her away on a visit from home when killin’ time comes around.”
Although Frances was delighted to recover the pig for Janet, she did not forget the message for Mr. Ames—to deliver a load of good compost at Green Hill as soon as possible. The order was placed in Ames’s post office box and he got it when he stopped for his mail.
Having a short time, that day, in which he could do a little extra job, he decided to take the manure to Green Hill Farm at once. No one was found in or about the house when he drove in at the side-gate, so he used his judgment and forked out the compost where he thought it was needed.
He had no idea that Natalie wanted half of it back in the garden, nor did he know that Norma was going into the floricultural business and wanted the rest of the manure for the flower-beds in the backyard where she was planting her slips and seeds.
He saw that the narrow beds running along both sides of the house and in front, had not yet been spaded over, so he thought the girls had planned to fertilize them and raise flowers there. Consequently, he spread the fresh compost all over these beds and then climbed back to his wagon-seat. He wiped his brow as he looked back at his finished work and murmured: “It’s out of their way up against those foundations, even if it isn’t just where they wanted it put.”
It was dreadfully warm that day, and the noonday sun fairly baked everything it shone upon. It shed the full power of its heat-rays upon the strips of ground where the compost had been heaped, causing the pungent odor from the fresh fertilizer to fill the air all about the house.
Mrs. James and Rachel had accompanied the girls to the farmyard to assist Janet in placing stout boards inside the pig pen fence to keep the little porkers from escaping again the way they had done before.
After Farmer Ames drove away Rachel came back to the house, smiling with gratification as she thought of the way she had bossed the construction on the pig-pen. But she had not reached the steps of the back stoop before she frowned. Then she wrinkled her flat nose and lifted her head to sniff audibly.
“Laws-ee! I mus’ta lef’ somethin’ on dat stove, and now it’s done gone and burned fit to smell us outen house and home!” was her instant comment as she rushed indoors.
But she found nothing on the kitchen stove, so she came out on the stoop again and sniffed a second time. This time it was a louder and a longer sniff. But all her sniffing failed to reveal the cause of the awful smell.
“Now dat’s funny. I could sware as soon as I git out on dis stoop dere is a smell of somethin’ like scorched wool, er a tan-yard, er a skunk. But it don’t smell in my kitchen, atall!” said she.
She had to give her attention to dinner, now, so no more time could be given to searching for the cause of an odor.
Mrs. James now came along the lane from the barn yard, and as soon as she came within the radius of the odor which had escaped from the compost, she sniffed faintly but without any unusual interest in the matter.
She too, entered the kitchen and asked Rachel if she had burned something on the stove; and the answer was that it must have been a passing automobile that had cheap gasoline in the tank, to have left such a stench as to fill the air all around the county.
But the girls soon followed after Mrs. James and they commented freely over the odor. Janet asked: “What can it be?”
“It isn’t singular—it is a plural smell,” laughed Belle.
“Yes, it’s a number of vile odors combined,” added Norma.
“Rachel must have left sour milk standing about, somewhere,” suggested Natalie.
The girls went in at the kitchen door instead of going to the side porch as they usually did, and Natalie immediately asked Rachel if she had sour milk in the kitchen.
“Sour milk! Laws-ee no, Chile! I uses all our sour milk fer pancakes,” returned Rachel.
“I noticed a bad smell too, when I came in, girls,” commented Mrs. James.
“Well, so’d I an’ I wonnered if I left somethin’ burnin’ but I diden’!” declared Rachel, beginning to sniff again.
The girls followed Mrs. James into the living-room, all sniffing audibly, and peering about for some cause for the smell.
“The smell in the dining-room is stronger than anywhere else, Jimmy,” remarked Natalie.
“I hope no stray cat or dog has found its way down to the cellar to die there,” ventured Mrs. James, suddenly thinking she had a clue.
“Let’s go down and see. We’ll take a flash-light and go into all the dark corners,” suggested Janet.
“We’ll open the outside cellar-way and let the sun shine in, too,” added one of the girls.
Mrs. James led the way out to the side porch to reach the cellar-door from that side of the house. But she had no sooner stepped down the steps than she quickly covered her nose with one hand and wildly waved the other hand to warn the girls back indoors.
“What is it?” everyone demanded excitedly, as Mrs. James ran in and slammed the door. Then she hurriedly went about the room closing all the windows.
“What has happened, Jimmy?” cried a chorus of girlish voices anxiously.
Then Mrs. James sat down in the rocker and laughed immoderately. When she could speak she said: “Well, I’ve discovered the cause of that tannery odor!”
Natalie ran and opened the door and stuck her head out to see. Then she, too, came back and laughed. “We’ve got to close all the windows and doors in the house until Norma removes the trouble.”
“Me? What have I got to do with it?” was Norma’s astonishing retort.
“Farmer Ames unloaded a cartful of compost right under the windows on both sides of the house and along the front,” was the reply. “And it has to be removed without delay or we’ll have to sleep with closed windows the rest of the year.”
“We all will help Norma cover the stuff, or carry it to the garden,” suggested Mrs. James.
So all hands were busily employed for a time, thereafter, in taking the compost which Natalie needed for the garden, to the land alongside the fence, while Norma and her workers carried what she needed for the flower-beds and spaded it under in the soil.
Natalie discovered that the weeds were trying to get a hold in her garden so she remained working and weeding, after the fertilizer had been removed from the proximity of the windows.
Frances and Belle went to Four Corners for Rachel who had to have a dozen eggs for baking purposes, so Janet sauntered to her farmyard to see if she could not find one egg in the nests. When nothing but the china eggs were found in the nests, she stood glaring at the large clumsy hens. She clenched her teeth and muttered: “I should think you’d all be so glad to lay eggs for me, after all the money and time I’ve given you just so you could live at Green Hill.”
Then she went to the separate nest where the setting-hen was expected to hatch the eggs. The moment Janet came near her, however, the old hen flew from the nest and ran out into the yard. As she had acted this way before, Janet thought nothing of it, but she took advantage of these absences to examine the eggs. Today she picked up one of the eggs to look for the pecking that would foretell the coming of a chick, but no such sign was visible in the shell.
Each egg was closely examined and as the last egg was found to have no chip in its surface, Janet sighed heavily. Just then, the egg slipped and fell upon the ground. Instantly a most dreadful odor filled the coop and drove Janet outdoors.
“Dear me! I suppose I have killed the chick that was in the egg, by letting it fall upon the floor,” was Janet’s thought, but she ran to the house to consult Rachel about it, and learn why a chick should smell so badly.
Rachel listened to the story and asked: “Does that ole hen leave them aigs fer long at a time?”
“She has been getting off the nest quite often the last few days, but I don’t know how long she remains away.”
“Den somethin’ is wrong wid dem aigs. No settin’ hen woul’ leave her nes’ fer nuttin’ ef she was gettin’ results f’om settin’!” was Rachel’s verdict.
As Janet knew nothing of the ways of setting hens, or the chicks that would surely follow from such devotion on the part of the hen, she made no reply. After a few moments of thought, Rachel added:
“Did Farmeh Ames sell you dem aigs foh fertilized kind?”
“Fertilized! Mercy no, Rachel. Natalie and I got the eggs from your pantry. We were in a hurry to get the eggs under the hen so we used the store eggs. But we made good the next day when Ames brought in the ones he had promised me.”
“Yoh diden go an’ set dem aigs what comes in pasteboard boxes f’om Foh Cornehs?” cried Rachel, astounded at such ignorance.
“Of course we did. They were the only eggs in the house, that night we wanted to set the hen.”
“Laws-ee, Chile! No wonder dat ole hen yearns to git off dose aigs so offen. Dey was water-glassed an’ nuttin’ neveh will hatch outen dem but trouble!” Then as the full truth dawned upon Rachel, she sank into a kitchen chair and threw her gingham apron over her head and swayed back and forth with hysterical laughter.
“Rachel, I tell you to stop laughing like that!” commanded Janet, highly indignant.
“Oh, oh, Oh! Dat am too funny foh anyt’ing!” gasped Rachel.
“What is so funny about it?” demanded Janet.
For answer, Rachel got up and started for the barn yard, closely followed by the stock-scout. Arrived at the chicken-house she found the hen still absent from duty, so she carefully removed all the eggs and put them in her apron.
“Now you waits till I burry dese out far f’om here, so no danger kin come of smashin’ ’em premature. Meanwhiles, you clean up dat smelly mess f’om dat floor, cuz no self-respeckin’ chicken will come in dis house wid dat perfume fillin’ the place.” Rachel chuckled as she ordered Janet about the task, then she went out.
The eggs were safely buried in the barnyard and Rachel came back to finish the work she had taken upon herself to do.
“Now you cleans out all dem nestes and put new straw in. I’ll wash out dis floor wid water and a broom to sweeten it”
When this was finished to Rachel’s satisfaction, she clucked to the setting-hen that had entered the opening from the chicken-yard and had stood upon one leg eyeing the work.
“You Jan, you runs to my kitchen, now, and carries back dat basket wid aigs whats standin’ on a shelf. And find a candle, too, and bring it along.”
“A candle! What’s that for?” asked Janet.
“I’m goin’ to candle ebery aig afore I puts it in dis nest All dem aigs is promised dat dey is strickly fresh, yistidy, but I aint goin’ to let you take any moh chances.”
When Janet returned with the eggs and the candle, Rachel said: “Did you eber see dat tiny speck what’s set in the yolk of most eggs?”
“Does it look like a dark drop of blood?” queried Janet.
“Yeh, da’s whad it looks like! Well, dat is all dere is to an aig foh hatchin’ pu’poses. Some eggs ain’t got no spot and dey won’t hatch chicks. I’ll candle the aigs we set to make sure dey is all right.”
“What would you call that speck?” asked Janet, more surprised at the ways of Nature than she could express.
“Dat’s its life-germ. Widdout dat no aig has life, dey says. But I ain’t no follower of all dem germ-fads, myself.”
Rachel selected fifteen good eggs and placed them in the straw, then she coaxed the hen back upon the nest and left her. As she left the chicken-house she said to Janet: “Don’t you go and han’le dem aigs, atall’. Ef you does, dat hen will get mad and stop hatchin’. Jus’ let hens mind their own bu’ness’ cuz they knows it better’n us.”
“I never knew the hen would mind my looking for the pecks in the shell.”
“Well, she do! Nature does that peckin’, on time, and you ner dat ole hen can do it fer Nature.”
But Janet had not told Rachel that the other eggs had been placed under the hen at various times, so she did not learn until she read it in the poultry book, that a hen will not remain upon eggs placed in the nest any later than the first lot.
On the way back to the house Janet complained: “Dear me, Rachel, I’ve lost all this time waiting for those good-for-nothing eggs to hatch out. I might almost have had a brood of chicks in another week.”
“Ain’t yoh glad we foun’ it out afore all dem aigs exploded and killed dat hen?” laughed Rachel. “Cuz dat’s de way of water-glass aigs, sometimes.”
“Really!” was Janet’s astonished exclamation.
“Yeh,” Rachel giggled. “I done hear once dat a dozen water-glass aigs hatched out a hull winderpane! Ha, ha, HA!”
Rachel’s shout of laughter was so appreciative of her own joke, that Janet joined in laughing despite the fear she still entertained that her poultry business was going bankrupt.
But Rachel sobered down as she reached the steps and she turned to encourage Janet. “Don’t you give up hope cuz dat lazy hen woulden manerfachoor plate glass for you, Chile. You keep on watchin’ dem nestes; now you locked your fowl up in a small yard you’ll get aigs, all right!”
With a loud chuckle, Rachel went indoors while Janet went to the side porch to sit and ponder over her problems.
But Rachel had planned a trick by which Janet would be encouraged, so she took the rest of the eggs from the basket on the shelf, and at the first opportunity, she got away from the house. She went to the barn by devious ways to avoid being seen, and then she placed the eggs in the different nests. This done she crept back to her kitchen work.