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Chapter 5
1. Find all the factors of 189.
Ans: 1, 3, 7, 9, 21, 27, 63, 189
Section: 5-1

2. Find all the factors of 45.

Ans: 1, 3, 5, 9, 15, 45
Section: 5-1

3. Find all the factors of 37.

Ans: 1, 37
Section: 5-1

4. Find all the factors of 107.

Ans: 1, 107
Section: 5-1

5. Find the first five multiples of 6.

Ans: 6, 12, 18, 24, 30
Section: 5-1

6. Find the first five multiples of 30.

Ans: 30, 60, 90, 120, 150
Section: 5-1

7. Find the first five multiples of 22.

Ans: 22, 44, 66, 88, 110
Section: 5-1

Page 78
 Chapter 5

8. Find the prime factorization of 24.

Ans: 23  3
Section: 5-1

9. Find a prime factorization of 605.

Ans: 5  112
Section: 5-1

10. Find a prime factorization of 31.

Ans: 31 is prime
Section: 5-1

11. Find a prime factorization of 129.

Ans: 3  43
Section: 5-1

12. Find the greatest common factor of 14 and 21.

A) 1 B) 6 C) 7 D) 42
Ans: C Section: 5-1

13. Find the greatest common factor of 34 and 37.

A) 1 B) 34 C) 37 D) 1,258
Ans: A Section: 5-1

14. Find the greatest common factor of 6, 18, and 30.

Ans: 6
Section: 5-1

15. Find the greatest common factor of 51, 68, and 170.
Ans: 17
Section: 5-1

16. Find the least common multiple of 4 and 20.

A) 2 B) 4 C) 20 D) 80
Ans: C Section: 5-1

17. Find the least common multiple of 20 and 80.

A) 1 B) 20 C) 80 D) 1,600
Ans: C Section: 5-1

18. Find the least common multiple of 78 and 117.

Ans: 234
Section: 5-1

Page 79
 Chapter 5

19. Find the least common multiple of 18, 28, and 48.
A) 2 B) 1,008 C) 24,192 D) 42
Ans: B Section: 5-1

20. Find the least common multiple of 7, 23, and 59.

A) 161 B) 413 C) 1,357 D) 9,499
Ans: D Section: 5-1

21. Linda and Deepti are walking and jogging on a circular trail. Linda can complete one
circuit in 50 minutes, and Deepti can complete the circuit in 20 minutes. If they both
start at the same place at the same time, when will they be at the starting place at the
same time?
A) 10 minutes B) 100 minutes C) 50 minutes D) 1,000 minutes
Ans: B Section: 5-1

22. A bakery makes three types of muffins to be distributed to local grocery stores: chocolate
chip, blueberry, and banana nut. Each morning, the bakers produce 180 chocolate chip
muffins, 150 blueberry muffins, and 150 banana nut. They want to package the muffins
efficiently for shipping. The plan is to pack them in boxes so that every box has just one
kind of muffin, and every box has the same number of muffins. What's the smallest
number of boxes they can ship in total?
A) 30 boxes B) 480 boxes C) 5 boxes D) 16 boxes
Ans: D Section: 5-1

23. Evaluate. | +6 |
Ans: 6
Section: 5-2

24. Find the opposite of +11.

Ans: –11
Section: 5-2

25. Insert >, <, or =. 11 8

Ans: >
Section: 5-2

26. Add. (–19) + (–10)

A) –9 B) –29 C) 9 D) 29
Ans: B Section: 5-2

27. Add. –6 + (–7) + (–5)

A) 6 B) –18 C) 18 D) –6
Ans: B Section: 5-2

Page 80
 Chapter 5

28. Subtract. (–13) – (–10)

A) –3 B) –23 C) 3 D) 23
Ans: A Section: 5-2

29. Multiply. (–13)(9)

Ans: –117
Section: 5-2

30. Divide. –30 ÷ (–6)

Ans: 5
Section: 5-2

31. Divide. –87 ÷ (–87)

A) 0 B) 1 C) –1 D) –87
Ans: B Section: 5-2

32. Perform the indicated operations. 92 – 6 · 8

Ans: 33
Section: 5-2

33. Perform the indicated operations. 5[3 + (–12) – (–3)]

A) 0 B) 6 C) –30 D) –60
Ans: C Section: 5-2

34. Perform the indicated operations. 42 + 2 · 7 – (–15 + 5 · 4)

Ans: 25
Section: 5-2

35. Perform the indicated operations. (82 – 60) + [(–3  4) – 36 ÷ 4]

A) 10 B) 1 C) 19 D) 25
Ans: B Section: 5-2

36. Perform the indicated operations. –144 ÷ 6 + 2

A) –22 B) –18 C) 22 D) 18
Ans: A Section: 5-2

37. A large grocery store has 383 cases of canned vegetables in the storeroom. During the
past month the store removed 47 cases, 62 cases, 64 cases, and 56 cases to put on the
shelves. Also the store received two lots of 80 cases each. How many cases are in the
storeroom now?
A) 234 cases B) 314 cases C) 452 cases D) 532 cases
Ans: B Section: 5-2

Page 81
 Chapter 5

38. The 30-year average snowfall in Coldsville, USA is approximately 19 inches per year.
As of January 10, Coldsville received approximately 16 inches. How much more snow
will Coldsville receive if this is an average year?
A) 35 inches B) 3 inches C) 11 inches D) 14 inches
Ans: B Section: 5-2

16
39. Reduce the fraction to lowest terms.
20
4
Ans:
5
Section: 5-3

455
40. Reduce the fraction to the lowest terms.
4,186
455 5 35 5
A) B) C) D)
46 4,186 322 46
Ans: D Section: 5-3

5 ?
41. Change the fraction to an equivalent fraction with the given denominator. =
8 56
40 35 10 14
A) B) C) D)
56 56 56 56
Ans: B Section: 5-3

5 ?
42. Change the fraction to an equivalent fraction with the given denominator. =
8 24
15
Ans:
24
Section: 5-3

5 8
43. Add and reduce the answer to lowest terms. – +
7 9
11
Ans:
63
Section: 5-3

13 3
44. Subtract and reduce the answer to lowest terms. −
25 8
29
Ans:
200
Section: 5-3

Page 82
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“Oh Dicky!” Maida exclaimed, “I’ve never taken you to see the white
peacocks as I promised. I’ll do that just as soon as I can.”
“I’d rather see some deer.” Harold remarked.
“Well all I ask,” Laura was very emphatic, “is not to see two people—
Silva and Tyma Burle.”
“I don’t think we’ll run into them,” Maida declared thoughtfully, “It’s a
long time since any of us have seen them—over two weeks I should say.
Perhaps they’ve gone away.”
“No,” Arthur called from his canoe, “I saw them in the village
yesterday.”
The landing was effected with no difficulty, although here of course
there was no pier. They followed the trail through the woods for a long
way, trying to find a place to camp. One spot attracted some; a second
attracted others; but for a long time, no place attracted them all.
“There are too many stones here,” Rosie would say, “it won’t be
comfortable to sit down.”
“And it’s too sunny here,” Maida commented. “It’ll melt the ice cream
and the butter—and everything.”
“That place slants,” Laura made the third objection, “we want a nice flat
spot.”
“I think I hear water,” Dicky cried suddenly.
“Water!” Maida repeated, “Water! How can you hear it? There’s no
water here. I never saw any brook around here. I can’t hear any water.”
Neither could anybody else; yet Dicky persisted that he heard the sound
of running water.
“You wait here,” he exclaimed suddenly, “let me see if I can find it.” He
disappeared through the trees. He came running back in a few minutes
obviously excited. “I haven’t found it yet,” he explained, “but I certainly
hear it plainer and plainer the farther I go.”
The others swarmed into the bushes. Dicky led the way like a little
human divining rod.
“I hear water,” Rosie announced electrically. “Hark!”
They all stopped and listened. One by one they got the soft tinkle.
Encouraged they kept on, rounding bushes and leaping rocks. The noise
grew louder and louder. A rough trail suddenly appeared. They raced
over it as fast as their burdens would permit. The sound was now a
lovely musical splash. They came out on an open space, surrounded by
pines and thickly carpeted with pine needles. At one side a great rock
thrust out of the earth. Close beside it ran a tiny brook and just beyond
the lee of the rock, the brook fell into a waterfall not more than a foot
high. The children went wild with delight.
“Do you mean to tell me, Maida Westabrook, that you never knew this
was here?” Rosie demanded.
“I never did,” Maida declared solemnly. “I have never seen it. I have
never heard anybody mention it. Isn’t it a darling? What shall we call it?
We must give it a name.”
Nobody had any names ready and everybody was too excited to think. In
fact, at once they began wading up and down the little brook. They
explored the neighborhood. Not far off they came upon a curious patch
of country. A cleared circle, surrounded by pine trees and carpeted with
pines, was filled with irregular lines of great rocks that lost themselves in
the bushes on either side.
“I believe this is a moraine,” Maida exclaimed suddenly. “I’ve seen
moraines in Europe.”
“What’s a moraine?” the others asked.
Maida explained how once the earth had been covered with great icecaps
called glaciers and how in melting these glaciers had often left—
streaking the earth’s surface—great files and lines of rock. “We’ll ask
father to come here some day,” she ended. “He’ll know all about it. Billy
Potter too—he knows everything.”
After a while, they came back to the waterfall. They swept aside the pine
needles; spread the tablecloth on the ground; took food from the baskets;
set it about in an inviting pile. The ice cream had not melted an atom in
the freezer. The sandwiches, done up in wet napkins, were quite fresh.
The eggs looked as inviting as hard-boiled eggs are bound to look.
Everything was all right except that—and this produced first
consternation, then laughter—there was no salt.
“We all reminded everybody else to remember the salt,” Maida said in
disgust, “and so nobody put it in the basket.”
Everybody but Rosie was busy. And Rosie, as though bewitched, was
wandering about, gazing up this vista and down that one; examining
clumps of bushes.
“Come, Rosie, lunch is most ready,” Maida called to her. And as Rosie
didn’t answer, “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for—” Rosie’s voice was muffled. “I thought I saw
something—Oh come and see what I’ve found!” Now her voice was
sharp and high with excitement.
The children rushed pell-mell in the direction of the voice. Rosie had
gone farther than they thought. Indeed she had disappeared entirely. She
had to keep calling to guide them. When they came to her at last, she was
standing with her back against a tree, the look on her face very mystified,
holding in her arms—
“A doll!” Maida exclaimed. “Who could have dropped it? Nobody ever
comes here but us.”
It was a cheap little doll of the rag-baby order perfectly new, perfectly
clean and dry.
“How did you come to find it?” Laura enquired.
“Well it’s the strangest thing,” Rosie answered in a queer quiet voice. “I
was just poking around here, not thinking of anything particularly.... And
then I thought I saw something moving—a white figure. I started
towards it and then.... And then it seemed to me that something was
thrown through the air. Now when I try to remember, I can’t be sure I
really did see anything thrown through the air and yet I sort of feel that I
did. Anyway I ran to see what it was. When I got there, this doll was
lying in the path.”
“How curious!” Maida commented. “You must have imagined the figure,
Rosie. See, there’s nobody here.”
A little awed, the children stared through the trees, this way and that. But
they stood stock still.
“Yes, I must have imagined it,” Rosie admitted. “Still when I try to make
myself believe I didn’t see anything, something inside tells me I did.”
“Let’s look about,” Arthur suggested. They scattered exploring; diving
into bush clumps, and peering behind rocks. Fifteen minutes went by.
“Well we’ve found nothing.” Arthur ended the search as he had begun it.
“Let’s go back and eat lunch.”
“Oh let’s!” begged Harold. “I never was so hungry in all my life.”
“Nor I!” “Nor I!” came from the others. Maida alone remained
thoughtful. She led the file, however, back to the waterfall. And it was
she who suddenly stopped and called, “Look! Look what’s happened—”
She stopped as though her breath had given out.
 CHAPTER XIV
THE TERROR
In the midst of the clearing, the paper tablecloth still lay on the ground, a
great shining rectangle of white. Scattered about, crumpled, soiled, or
torn were the paper napkins. Everything else, even the ice cream from
the freezer, had disappeared.
“Why, who took it?” Arthur demanded in a dazed voice. “Who could
have taken it?” he went on in a puzzled one. “Is any one of you playing a
joke?” he asked suddenly of the others.
Everybody protested his innocence.
“We haven’t been gone more than fifteen minutes,” Arthur went on.
“Let’s look about. It doesn’t seem to me anybody could have carried all
that stuff far and we not get a glimpse of it. It might be tramps.”
“One thing is certain,” Maida protested, “tramps didn’t do it. There are
never any tramps in Satuit.”
The children started their search. They looked behind trees and under
bushes; but they showed a tendency to keep together. They talked the
matter over, but instinctively their voices lowered. They kept glancing
over their shoulders. They found nothing.
“It’s like Magic,” Maida commented in a still voice. “You were saying,
Rosie, that you wished you could see some fairies or goblins. It looks to
me as though the goblins had stolen our lunch.”
Arthur alone did not leave the clearing. He stood in the center pivoting
about, watching every vista and gnawing his under lip. His face was
more perplexed that any of them had ever seen it.
“Well if we don’t find our lunch pretty soon,” he said after a while,
“we’ve got to go back home to get something to eat.”
“Perhaps somebody’s playing a joke on us,” Rosie suggested, “and if we
wait for a while, they’ll bring the lunch back.”
There seemed nothing else to do. So, rather sobered by this mysterious
event, the children seated themselves in a group by the brook.
“I can’t wait very much longer,” Laura admitted dolefully. “I’m nearly
starved. I was so excited about the picnic that I hardly ate any breakfast.”
“Just a few minutes more,” Arthur begged. “Maida, please tell us a
story.”
“Once upon a time,” Maida began obligingly, “six boys and girls were
cast away on a great forest with nothing to eat. It was a forest filled with
gob—Hark!” she interrupted herself, “What’s that?”
From somewhere—not the forest about them, nor the sky above: it
seemed actually to issue from the earth under them—came a strange
moaning cry. The children jumped to their feet. The boys started apart.
The girls clung together. The cry grew louder and louder. It was joined
by a second voice even more strange; and then a third entered the chorus.
It was too much.
The little group, white-faced and trembling, broke and made for the trail.
The girls started first. The boys staid still, irresolute; but as the uncanny
sound grew louder and louder, soared higher and higher, they became
panic-stricken too. They ran. Arthur, ending the file, walked at first. But
finally even his walk grew into a run. The others leaped forward. They
bounded over the trail, gaining in terror as they went. In some way, they
got into the canoes but half a dozen times their trembling and fumbling
nearly spilled them out. It was not until they were well out into the
middle of the Magic Mirror that their composure came back.
“What do you suppose it was?” Maida asked, white faced.
“It couldn’t have been a ghost could it?” dropped from Laura’s shaking
lips.
“No.” Arthur dismissed this theory with complete contempt.
“I should think it was a crazy person,” Harold declared. “Is there a
lunatic asylum around here, Maida?”
“No,” Maida replied.
“Is there any crazy person about here?”
Maida shook her head.
“I think it was a tramp who first stole our lunch,” Arthur guessed
shrewdly, “and then decided to frighten us away.”
“I think the wood is haunted.” Rosie shivered.
“Nonsense!” Maida exclaimed.
“Well I wish I hadn’t run away,” Arthur burst out impatiently. “I wish I’d
stayed.”
“So do I, Arthur,” Maida agreed vigorously. “That’s the first time I ever
ran away from anything in my life.”
“Let’s go back,” Arthur suggested.
Laura burst into tears. “Oh, please don’t,” she begged. “I’m frightened to
death.”
“We won’t go, Laura dear,” Maida reassured her, “don’t worry.” She
continued after an interval of thought, “And don’t let’s tell Granny Flynn
and Mrs. Dore about that screaming. Let’s say that our lunch was stolen
while we were away. If I tell them all of it, they won’t let us go on
another picnic.”
“Well, believe me, I don’t want to go on another picnic,” Laura said, her
eyes streaming still.
However, by the time they had reached the jetty and had tethered the
canoes, they were more composed. When they reached the Little House
even Laura had begun to smile, to admit that the tramp theory was
probably the correct one.
Granny Flynn and Mrs. Dore looked very much concerned when they
heard the story. They asked many questions. Finally they decided with
Arthur that tramps were the answer to the strange happening. Maida
persisted though that tramps were never permitted in Satuit.
The next morning Arthur strolled down to the lake alone. In a little
while, he came running back white with rage. “What do you suppose has
happened?” he called while still running up the trail. “We didn’t lock the
canoes in the boathouse last night and somebody has made a great hole
in all four of them.”
The Big Six rushed down to the Magic Mirror. It was only too true. Four
of their canoes were ruined. The children stood staring at them, horrified.
“I don’t think tramps would do this,” Arthur said slowly. “They’d steal
them, but there’d be no sense in destroying them.”
“No,” Maida said slowly. “This looks as though we had an enemy who is
determined to make us as unhappy as possible.”
 CHAPTER XV
ARTHUR’S ADVENTURE
It was after eleven, a cloudless night and a beautiful one. A great white
moon filled the sky with white light and covered the earth with a thin
film of silver. The barn door opened slowly and noiselessly. Arthur
emerged. Padding the grass as quickly as possible, he moved in the
direction of the trail; turned into it. For a while he proceeded swiftly. But
once out of hearing of the Little House he moved more slowly and
without any efforts to deaden his footsteps. That his excursion had a
purpose was apparent from the way that, without pause or stay of any
kind, he made steadily forward. It was obvious that the Magic Mirror
was his objective.
He dipped into the Bosky Dingle and there, perhaps because the air was
so densely laden with flower perfumes, he stopped. Only for an instant
however. After sniffing the air like some wild creature he went on.
Presently he came out on the shore of the lake. Taking a key from his
pocket, he opened the little boathouse in which, since the accident, the
canoes were nightly locked; pulled one of them out; shoved it into the
water. He seated himself in it and started to paddle across the pond.
Curiously enough, however, he did not strike straight across the Magic
Mirror. He kept close to the edge as though afraid of observation; slipped
whenever he could under overhanging boughs; took advantage of every
bit of low-drooping bush. So stealthy and so silent was his progress
indeed that from the middle of the lake he might not have been observed
at all. This was however a slow method. It was nearly midnight when he
reached the point about opposite the boathouse, which was apparently
his objective. He stopped short of it, however; tied the canoe to a tree
trunk, just where a half-broken bough concealed it completely; stepped
lightly ashore. Apparently he had landed here before. There developed,
under the moonlight, a little side trail which led in the direction of the
main trail. He took it.
Now his movements were attended by much greater caution. He went
slowly and he put his feet down with the utmost care even in the cleared
portions of the trail. Wherever underbrush intervened, he took great care
to skirt it or, with a long quiet leap or a prolonged straddle, to surmount
it so that no sound came from the process. It was surprising, in a boy so
lumbering and with feet and hands so large, with what delicacy he
picked his way. Indeed, he moved with extraordinary speed and a
surprising quiet.
A little distance up the trail, he turned again. This time, he took a path so
little worn that nothing but a full moon would have revealed its
existence. Arthur struck into it with the air of one who has been there
before; followed it with a perfect confidence. At times, it ceased to be a
path at all; merged with underbrush and low trees. But he must, on an
earlier excursion, have blazed a pioneer way through those obstacles
because each time he made without hesitation for the only spot which
offered egress; emerged on the other side with the same quiet and
dispatch. He went on and on, proceeding with a greatly increased
swiftness but with no diminution of his caution.
After a while, he came into ordered country. Obviously he had struck the
cleared land that, for so many acres, surrounded the Big House. Now he
moved like a shadow but at a smart clip. He had the confident air of one
familiar with the lay of the land. After a while, he struck a wide avenue
of trees—Mr. Westabrook had taught him its French name, an allee. This
was one of five, all beginning at the Big House and ending with a
fountain or a statue. Arthur proceeded under the shade of the trees until
he came out near the Big House. Then he swung himself up among the
branches of a tree; found a comfortable crotch; seated himself, his back
against the trunk. With a forked stick he parted the branches; watched.
The moon was riding high now and, as the night was still cloudless, it
was pouring white fire over the earth. The great lawn in front of the Big
House looked like silvered velvet. Half way down its length, like a jet of
shredded crystal, the fountain still played into its white marble basin. Out
of reach of its splashing flood, as though moored against its marble sides,
four swans, great feathery heaps of snow, slept with their heads under
their wings. As Arthur stared a faint perturbation stirred the air, as
though somewhere at the side of the house—unseen by him—a motor
pulsed to rest. Presently a high, slim dog—Arthur recognized it to be a
Russian boar-hound; white, pointed nose, long tail—came sauntering
across the lawn. He poked his nose into the basin of the fountain. One of
the swans made a strange, low sleepy cry; moved aimlessly about for an
instant, then came to rest and to sleep, apart from his companions. The
hound moved into the shrubbery; returned to the lawn.
As though the swan’s call or the dog’s nosing had evoked it, one of the
white peacocks emerged from the woods, spreading his tail with a superb
gesture of pride and triumph. The long white hound considered the
exhibition gravely. The peacock, consciously proud, sauntered over the
velvet surface of the lawn for a while alone. Then a companion joined
him and another. Finally, there were three great snowy sails floating with
a majestic movement across the grass. The display ended as soon as it
began. One of the trio suddenly returned to the treey shade; the other two
immediately followed. The lawn was deserted by all except the fountain,
which kept up untiringly its exquisite plaint. The boar-hound sped
noiselessly towards the house.
Arthur waited for a moment; then he slipped down from the tree; made
back over the way in which he had come. But he did not pursue the same
trail. He made a detour which would take him further around the lake.
And if he seemed cautious before, now he was caution itself. He moved
so slowly and carefully that no human could have known of his coming,
save that he had eyes, or ears or a nose superhumanly acute. And Arthur
had his reward.
Suddenly he came to an opening, which gave, past a little covert, on a
glade. And at the end of the glade, a group of deer were feeding in the
moonlight. Arthur did not move after his discovery of them; indeed he
seemed scarcely to breathe. There were nearly a dozen. The bucks and
does were pulling delicately at the brush-foliage; the fawns browsed on
the grass. In spite of Arthur’s caution, instinct told them that something
was wrong. The largest buck got it first. He stopped feeding, lifted his
head, sniffed the air suspiciously. Then one of the does caught the
contagion. She too lifted her head and for what, though really a brief
moment, seemed a long time, tested the atmosphere with her dilated
nostrils. Then the others, one after another, showed signs of restlessness.
Only the little fawns continued to stand, feeding placidly at their
mothers’ sides. But apparently the consensus of testimony was too
strongly in favor of retreat. For an instant, the adults moved anxiously.
Then suddenly as though the word of alarm had been whispered into
every velvety ear—dash! Flash! There came a series of white gleams as
all their short tails went up. And then the glade was as empty as though
there were no deer within a hundred miles.
Arthur went on. And now, as though he hoped for still another reward of
his patience, he moved with even greater care. But for a long time,
nothing happened. In the meantime clouds came up. Occasionally they
covered the moon. Then, the light being gone, the great harbors and the
wide straits between the clouds seemed to fill with stars. The moon
would start to emerge; her light would silver everything. The smaller
stars would retreat leaving only a few big ones to flare on.
Such an obscuration had come. And while the moon struggled as though
actually trying to pull herself free, a second cloud interposed itself
between her and the earth. The world turned dark—almost black.
The effect on Arthur was however to make him pick his way with an
even greater care. The trail here was not a blind one. It was the one that
ran presently into the path that led from the gypsy camp to the Moraine.
Ahead, Arthur could just make out the point where the trails crossed.
Suddenly the moon came out with a great vivid flare. It was as though an
enormous searchlight had been turned on the earth. Something—it
seemed the mere ghost of a sound—arrested Arthur’s footsteps. He
stopped; stood stock still; listened; watched.
Something or somebody was coming up the trail from the direction of
the gypsy camp. In a moment he would pass the opening. It was human
apparently, for the sound was of human footsteps. They came nearer and
nearer. A straight, light figure with hair that gleamed, as though
burnished, passed into the moonlight.... It was Silva Burle.
 CHAPTER XVI
MYSTERY
Arthur’s first inclination was to call. But something within him warned
him not to do that. Something just as imperative advised him to another
course of action. He waited a moment or two to let Silva get far enough
ahead, so that she could not possibly hear his footsteps. Then he
followed her.
She walked with an extraordinary swiftness—so swiftly indeed that
Arthur was put to it to keep up with her. However she had the advantage
over him in that she knew the trail perfectly. Her feet stumbled over no
obstacles; her arms hit no protruding branches; her face brushed against
no scratchy twigs. She moved indeed as though it were day. Arthur was
in a difficult situation. He must walk quickly to keep up with her; but if
he walked too quickly she would certainly hear him.
Presently she came to the place in the trail where it turned at right angles
on itself. Arthur, anticipating this, stopped in the shadow of a tree in the
far side of the path. Silva turned swiftly. It happened that she did glance
indifferently backwards over the way in which she had come. But she
could not have seen Arthur; for she went on at the same composed high
pace. But Arthur saw that she was carrying under her arm a bottle of
milk.
Arthur quickened his cautious footsteps; came in his turn to the fork in
the trail. There was Silva ahead, her white skirt fluttering on both sides
of her vigorous walking, much as the white foam of the sea flutters away
from the prow of the ship. She kept straight on and Arthur kept straight
on. The moon dipped behind clouds and dove out of them; flashed her
great blaze on the earth and shadowed it again. On and on they went, the
stalker and the stalked. They were approaching the Moraine. Big stones
began to lift out of the underbrush on either side. Some were like great
tables, flat and smooth; comfortable and comforting. Others were
perturbing—like huge monsters that had thrust themselves out of the
earth, were resting on their front paws or their haunches even. Layers of
rust-colored leaves—the leaves that had been for many years falling—
lay between them. And now and then the moonlight caught on the rocks
with a black glisten and on the leaves with a red gleam; for the dew was
falling.
Arthur began to wonder what he should do. He somehow took it for
granted that Silva was going to the Moraine; mainly because there
seemed no other place for her to go; though for what purpose he could
not guess. If for any reason she stopped there, he must soon become
visible to her. Indeed there were only two courses for him to take: retreat
by the path over which he had come or through the wood on either side.
He could not make up his mind to turn back. If he took the second
course, he would undoubtedly get lost. He would have to wait for
daylight to find his way home and that, he recognized at once, would be
stretching inexcusably the generous liberty which Mr. Westabrook had
given him. He might call to Silva. But again something inside seemed to
warn him not to make his presence known. He continued to follow the
vigorous figure ahead.
As though she were approaching the end of her journey, Silva was
hurrying faster and faster. Arthur hurried too. Silva broke into what was
a half run. It would have been, Arthur felt, a complete run, if she were
not carrying the bottle of milk so carefully. Arthur seethed with
perplexity. Why was she speeding so? What could she possibly have to
do at this spot and at this hour? What could require such urgent haste?
Well, perhaps he would know in another moment.
And then suddenly strange things happened all at once.
Silva’s rapid progress had, as it apparently neared its object, become less
careful. At any rate, an overhanging briar caught her hair; pulled her up
sharply. In her first effort to extricate herself, Silva turned completely
about; caught sight of Arthur’s figure a little way down the trail.
She started so convulsively that even Arthur could see it. Then with a
swift wrench of her slender hand she tore her hair away; turned and ran
like a deer in the direction of the Moraine.
Arthur ran too. And as he ran he called, “Don’t be afraid, Silva. It’s
Arthur Duncan from the Little House. Don’t mind me! I won’t hurt you.”
But Silva only redoubled her speed. Arthur redoubled his. He was
gaining swiftly on her. He entered the Moraine. On the other side Silva
was just disappearing from it. “I tell you,” he called, “I’m not going to
hurt you. Stop! I want to speak to you!”
Silva did not answer. He heard a frenzied floundering among the
underbrush. For the noise Silva made, she might have been an elephant.
And then suddenly came silence—silence utter and complete.
Had she fainted? What could be the matter? What a silly girl to act like
that! Arthur rushed across the Moraine; penetrated the woods on the
other side.
Silva had disappeared as completely as though she had vanished into the
air. Arthur stared about him like one waking from a dream. Then he
began to search for her. Around rocks, into clumps of bushes he peered.
Nobody. Nothing.
“Silva Burle!” he called. “Silva! Silva! Where are you?” And then
because he was genuinely alarmed, “Please answer. Please! I’m afraid
you’re hurt.” Another search over a wider area. He mounted rocks this
time. Remembering how Silva could climb, he stared upwards into trees.
He crawled on hands and knees through every little thicket he found.
And all the time he kept calling. Still nobody. Still nothing. As far as he
could see, he was absolutely alone in that part of the wood.
After half an hour, he gave it up. But he was a little alarmed and very
much humiliated. He walked back over the trail to the Magic Mirror and
all the time his head was bent in the deepest thought. He found the
canoe; absently slid into it; mechanically paddled himself across the
water. And all the time he continued to think hard. “It’s like a dream,” he
thought. “I’d think anybody else was dreaming who told me this.”
When he reached the barn, the whole mysterious episode seemed to float
out of his mind in the great wave of drowsiness which suddenly beat
through him. He fell immediately into slumber. But his sleep was full of
dreams, all so strange that when he awoke in the morning, his experience
of the night before threatened for a moment to take its place among
them. “But I didn’t dream the peacocks or the deer,” he said to himself.
“And I know I didn’t dream Silva!”
He said nothing of his experience to any of the other children, though he
found himself strangely tempted to tell Maida. But a kind of shyness
held him back. At times it occurred to him that Silva might be lying
injured somewhere in the woods. But always some instinct made him
believe that this was not true.
Halfway through the morning Granny Flynn sent him on an errand to the
village. As he came out of the Post Office, he ran into Silva Burle just
about to enter it. He tumbled off the wheel which he had just mounted.
“Say,” he said without any other greeting, “where did you disappear to
last night?”
“Last night!” Silva repeated in a bland tone of mere curiousness. “What
do you mean by last night?”
“You know very well what I mean,” Arthur persisted. “Last night in the
Moraine—in the woods.”
“In the Moraine—in the woods,” Silva repeated. “I don’t know what
you’re talking about. I didn’t sleep in the woods last night. I slept in my
tent as usual.”
Arthur looked at her hard. “Well,” he said after a moment, “either you’re
telling the biggest whopper I ever listened to or you were walking in
your sleep.”
“Walking in my sleep,” Silva said scornfully, “you’re crazy.” And she
passed on.
 CHAPTER XVII
CRESCENT MOON BEACH
It was drawing near the middle of August. And now with each sunrise,
the fun at the Little House seemed to double itself.
“I never saw such a place as this,” Rosie wailed once. “There aren’t
hours enough to do all the things you want to do every day; and not days
enough to do all you want to do every week.”
There was some justice in Rosie’s complaint. The day’s program of
swimming, tennis, croquet, bicycling, reading and games had been
broken into by the coming of the berry season. Blueberries and
blackberries were thick in the vicinity and the children enjoyed
enormously eating the fruit they had gathered.
Floribel taught the little girls how to make blueberry cake and blackberry
grunt and on their teacher’s day out, the Little House was sure to have
one of these delicacies for luncheon and another for dinner. The Big Six
tried to do everything of course; and as Laura complained, they
succeeded in doing everything badly and no one thing very well. One
day Maida appeared at the table with a radiant look of one who has
spawned an idea.
“Granny,” she said, “we haven’t had a picnic on the beach yet. Every
summer we go to the beach once at least. Can’t we go this week on
Floribel’s day out? We girls will cook the luncheon and pack it all up
nicely.”
“But the beach is pretty far away,” Mrs. Dore said warily. “How far is it?
Could you walk to it?”
“It’s between four and five miles,” Maida answered hazily. “You see the
little children could go in the motor and the rest of us—the Big Six—
could go on our bicycles.”
“But I don’t think,” Mrs. Dore said, “that I’d like you children to go so
far away without a grown person with you.”
“Yes, of course,” Maida said, “you and Granny come too.”
“But with Zeke and Floribel away,” Mrs. Dore protested, “who would
drive the automobile?”
Maida’s face fell. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “I never thought of that.”
All the faces about the table—they had grown bright in anticipation of
this new excursion—grew dark.
Zeke had already taught Arthur and Harold to run the machine, but Mr.
Westabrook’s orders against unlicensed persons driving it, were strict.
For a moment it looked as though the ocean-picnic must be given up.
“I think,” Maida faltered, “if I ask my father to lend us Botkins and the
big car, he’d do it.”
Mrs. Dore shook her head. “I wouldn’t like to have you do that, Maida,”
she said. “Your father has given us everything that he thinks necessary
for this household.” She added gratefully, “And more than any of us had
ever had in our lives before. I should certainly not like you to ask a
single thing more of him.”
Again gloom descended on the Big Six. And then hope showed her
bright face again.
“Ah’ll tell you what Ah’ll do,” Floribel, who was waiting on table, broke
in. “Zeke and Ah’ve wanted fo’ a long time to see the big ocean. Now
eff yo’ll let the lil’ children go on dat pic-a-nic, Mis’ Dore, Zeke and
Ah’ll go with them and tak’ the best of care of them.”
“Oh would you, Floribel?” Rosie asked.
“Well, in that case,” Mrs. Dore decided thoughtfully, “I don’t see why
you shouldn’t all go.”
Madness at once broke out in both Sixes, Little and Big. Laura, Maida
and Rosie leaped to their feet and danced about the room. The little
children beat on the table with their spoons and the three boys indulged
in ear-splitting whistles.
The next Thursday, Floribel, Zeke, the Little Six and the lunch, packed
somehow into the machine, the Big Six on their bicycles, streaming
ahead like couriers, started off for the beach.
“Thank goodness we’ve remembered the salt this time,” Rosie said to
Arthur as they mounted their wheels, “I took care of that myself.”
It was a beautiful day, cool as it was sunny, brisk as it was warm. The
winding road led through South Satuit and then over a long stretch of
scrub-pine country, straight to the beach.
Just as they emerged from the Westabrook estate into South Satuit,
Maida’s bicycle made a sudden swerve. “Why I just saw Silva Burle!”
she called in a whisper to Rosie. “She was walking along the trail
towards the Little House. I wonder what she is doing there?”
“Well you may be very sure she isn’t calling on us,” Rosie declared, “and
if she is I’m delighted to think that Granny will say, ‘Not at home!’”
“Still,” Maida said thoughtfully, “that trail leads directly to the Little
House. She must be going there for some reason.”
“Probably,” Laura remarked scornfully, “she’s hoping she’ll meet some
of us, so’s she can make faces at us.”
The automobile arrived at the beach first and the cyclists came straggling
in one after another. Crescent Moon Beach was like a deeply cut silver
crescent, furred at each tip of the crescent with a tight grove of scrub-
pines which grew down to the very water’s edge. Beyond it, except for a
single island, stretched unbroken the vast heaving blue of the Atlantic.
Under the lee of the southern tip of the crescent was a line of half-a-
dozen bath houses.
“What a wonderful, wonderful beach!” Laura commented.
“And there’s that island,” Dicky said, “that we see from the Tree House
—Spectacles Island, didn’t you say—oh no, I remember, Tom Tiddler’s
Ground. How I wish I could swim out to it. I have never been on an
island in my life. Could you swim as far as that, Arthur?”
Arthur laughed. “I should say not. Nobody but a professional could do
that—and perhaps he’d find it some pull. It’s much longer than it looks,
Dicky. Distances on the water are very deceiving.”
“What’s on the Island, Maida?” Dicky went on curiously. “Have you
ever been there?”
“Oh yes,” Maida answered, “once. I went on father’s yacht but I was
such a little little girl that I have only one impression—of great trees and
enormous rocks and thick underbrush.”
Dicky sighed. “I wish we could go on a picnic there!”
“What’s that over there?” Harold demanded, pointing to a spot far out
where a series of poles, connected by webs of fish-net, rose above the
water’s surface.
“Oh that’s a fish weir,” Maida declared electrically. “I’d forgotten all
about that. You see the tide’s going out. It goes out almost two miles
here. And if we follow it up, we can get into the weir and come back
before the tide overtakes us.”
Maida explained the situation to Floribel. Floribel turned to Zeke for
advice. Zeke corroborated Maida’s story. He had, he said, been in that
weir several times himself. Floribel said she would stay on the beach
with the Little Six while Zeke accompanied the Big Six. When they
came back, she added, lunch would be all spread out on the beach.
“The last bath house,” Maida informed them, “is ours. Now let’s get into
our bathing suits at once because we have no time to lose.”
It was only partially low tide when they arrived but it almost seemed to
the children that they could see the water slipping away towards the
horizon. When they emerged from the bath house, a patch of eelgrass,
not far off, made a brilliant green spot in the midst of the golden sand.
As the Big Six started towards the fish weir, the Little Six were splashing
about in the warm shallows near shore.
“Oh what fun this is!” Rosie said. “I love salt-water bathing more than
fresh water—I don’t know why. But somehow I always feel so much
gayer.”
The salt water seemed to have an effect of gayety on all of them. They
chattered incessantly when they were not laughing or singing. At times
they came to hollows between the sand bars where the water was waist-
high, but in the main, the water came no farther than their knees; and it
continued to recede steadily before them. Sand-bar after sand-bar bared
itself to the light of the sun—stretched before them in ridges of solid
gold. Eelgrass—patch after patch—lifted above the water; spread around
them areas of brilliant green. Above, white clouds and blue ether wove a
radiant sky-ceiling. And between, the gulls swooped and soared, circled
and dashed, emitting their strange, creaking cries. It seemed an hour at
least to the Big Six before they reached the weir, but in fact it had taken
little more than half that time.
Zeke found the entrance to the weir and they followed him in. Here the
water was waist-deep. Zeke explained the plan of the weir. It was, he
pointed out, nothing but a deep-sea trap for fish. The fish entered through
the narrow opening into a channel which led into the big inner maze.
Although it was very easy for them to float in, it was a very difficult
matter finding the way out. Caught there, as the tide retreated, they
stayed until the fisherman arrived with his cart and shoveled them
ignominiously into it.
“Oh, oh!” Laura shrieked suddenly. “This place is full of fish. One just
passed me! Oh, there’s another! And another!”
But by this time both the other girls were jumping and screaming with
their excitement; for fish were darting about them everywhere. The boys,
not at all nervous of course and very much excited, were trying to drive
the fish into corners to find out what they were. Zeke identified them all
easily enough—cod, sculpins, flounders, and perch.
“What’s that big thing?” Arthur exclaimed suddenly. “Jiminy crickets!”
he called excitedly. “It’s the biggest turtle I ever laid my eyes on.”
The girls shrieked and stayed exactly where they were, clinging together.
But the males all ran in Arthur’s direction.
“Dat’s some turtle, believe muh,” commented Zeke.
“I’m going to take it home,” Arthur declared, “and put it in the Magic
Mirror.”
“The Magic Mirror!” Laura echoed. “Why I would never dare go in
swimming if I knew that huge thing was there.”
“We’ll keep it tied up with a rope,” Arthur went on excitedly. “It can’t
get where we go in swimming because the rope won’t be long enough.
Come on, fellows, help me get it.”
“How are you going to catch it?” Harold demanded.
“Lasso it!” Arthur declared, untying a stout rope which hung from one
end of the weir posts.
The prospect of catching such big game was too tempting for the males
of the party. And so while the girls dashed madly about, trying to get out
of their reach, screaming with excitement and holding on to each other
for protection, but really enjoying the situation very much—the boys
chased the turtle from corner to corner, until finally Arthur managed to
lasso a leathery paw and tie it captive to a weir post. How he did this, he
himself found it hard to say, because the water was lashed to a miniature
fury by the flounderings of both the turtle and its captors. It was probably
pure accident, he was humble enough to assert. But having caught the
creature, they were not content until they had brought him ashore, and so
the procession started beachwards, Arthur pulling the turtle at the end of
the rope.
It was a huge turtle at least two feet in diameter. It had wide leathery
flappers, a wicked looking head—as big, Rosie said, as her alarm clock.
But its shell was beautifully marked.
As they approached the beach they could see the great square of the
tablecloth laid out on the sand and Floribel busy piling up sandwiches
and hard-boiled eggs; fruit and cake. The Little Six came running to
meet them and then it became a problem to keep them out of the way of
the turtle’s snapping jaws. They had no difficulty however, with Floribel,
who screamed with terror at the sight of the strange creature and would
not allow them to bring it onto the beach. They ended by mooring it, by
means of a large rock, in one of the pools near the shore.
Then, forgetting their prey for a while, they sat down to lunch. They
were ready to do full justice to it.
“Lordee!” Floribel exclaimed once. “Dey’se salt enough here for an
army—shuah! Who put all dat salt in the basket?”
The three girls burst into giggles.
“I was so sure we’d forget the salt,” Maida said, “that I put in a pair of
salt-cellars.”
“I put in three,” declared Rosie.
“And I put in four,” confessed Laura.
After lunch, following the orders which Mrs. Dore had given them, they
sat on the beach for an hour before they went in bathing again. This
prolonged itself to much more than an hour because they began making
the inevitable collections of shells and stones to take home. Floribel said
that moon-stones were sometimes found on this beach and there instantly
began a frantic search for the small, translucent white stones. Of course
everybody found several of what he supposed were invaluable gems. By
this time the tide, which had turned just as they left the fish weir, was
now galloping up on the beach in great waves. They had to pull the turtle
farther and farther in shore. At length they all went in bathing again; the
Big Six diving through the waves and occasionally getting “boiled”—
which was the local term for being whirled about—for their pains.
Floribel permitted the Little Six to play only in the rush of the waves
after they broke.
After five o’clock, blissfully tired, excitedly happy, they piled the little
children into the machine; packed the turtle in the big lunch hamper, tied
the cover securely over him and started home.

Wild with excitement and the news of their find, they dashed into the
Little House.
“Oh Granny you’ll never guess what we’ve brought home with us,”
Maida exclaimed.
“And oh what a wonderful day we’ve had,” Rosie added.
“And how tired we are and how hungry,” Laura concluded.
The little children were all chattering with excitement; the boys were
attending to the turtle in the barn, preparatory to taking it to the Magic
Mirror.
“I’m glad you’ve had a good time, children,” Granny said gravely. “Your
father is here, Maida, and he wants to see you all in the living room.”
Something seemed to have gone out of the gayety of the day. What it
was or what made it go or where it went, Maida could not guess. Perhaps
it was a quality in Granny’s air and words. At any rate she said instantly,
“I’m going right in there, Granny, and Rosie will you please tell the boys
to come at once?”
Rosie too had caught an infection of this seriousness. She sped to the
barn. In three minutes, the Big Six had gathered in the living room. Mr.
Westabrook was sitting on the couch in front of the fire.
“Good afternoon, children,” he said quietly. “I told Granny to ask you to
come here the instant you came home, because I had something to say to
you. It occurred to me to-day that I would come over to the Little House
when you didn’t expect me and make an inspection. Hitherto I have
come regularly every Sunday. This is Thursday. I’m glad I did because I
found that neither the flower garden nor the vegetable garden had been
weeded for the last three days. The barn was in a very disorderly
confusion. I asked Granny how the girls had left their rooms and
although she didn’t want to tell me, she had to say that the beds were not
made and apparently nothing had been done. But the worst thing of all
that I have to say is that I find that the tennis court is all kicked up as
though it had been played on after a shower without having first been
rolled.”
There was an instant of silence in the room; a silence so great that
everybody could hear quite plainly the ticking of the grandfather’s clock.
Arthur spoke first.
“Mr. Westabrook,” he said in a low voice, “we ought to be ashamed of
ourselves and I certainly am. After all your kindness to us—I won’t try
to make any excuses because there are no excuses we can make.”
“It’s all my fault,” Harold admitted, “I’m supposed to run the boys’ end
of the work and I have not held them up to keeping everything right.”
“It isn’t your fault,” Dicky declared hotly, “no more than mine or
Arthur’s. We’re all to blame.”
“I’m awfully ashamed of myself, Mr. Westabrook,” Rosie confessed
almost in a whisper. “I wouldn’t blame you if you never forgave us, but I
hope you will.”
“I don’t know how we got this way,” Laura said in perplexity. “We began
right.”
“We’ve been having such a good time,” Maida explained in a grave tone,
“that we’ve just let ourselves get careless.”
“Then,” Mr. Westabrook advised them, rising, “try not to let yourselves
get careless again.” He shook hands all around; and kissed his daughter.
“Fair warning,” he said, “I don’t know when I’m coming again, but it
won’t be when you expect me.”
It was a very subdued and a very tired little trio of girls who went up-
stairs and attended to their rooms. It was an even more subdued—though
a less tired—trio of boys who put the barn in order and then trailing the
turtle at the end of his rope, walked down to the Magic Mirror, and tied
him to a tree, and deposited him in the water there for the night.
 CHAPTER XVIII
EXPIATION
A very quiet group of children gathered at breakfast the next morning.
Conversation was intermittent and devoted mainly to piling offers of
assistance in the housework on Granny and Mrs. Dore.
“When you have finished your own work, we’ll see,” Mrs. Dore steadily
answered all these suggestions.
The children finished their work in record time and with the utmost care.
The girls swept and dusted their chambers. They washed the furniture,
the paint and the windows. Everything was taken out of closets and
bureau-drawers, shaken and carefully put back. They shook rugs. The
boys in a frenzy of emulation followed a program equally detailed.
Having accomplished all this, the Big Six again begged for more work
and Granny and Mrs. Dore, taking pity on the penitent little sinners,
thought up all kinds of odd jobs for them to perform.
At length, Maida said, “Now we’ve done all the work we can do, there’s
one other thing I’d like to see attended to. I woke up in the middle of the
night—I don’t know what woke me—but I began at once to think of that
turtle—that poor, horrid turtle. And it suddenly came into my head that it
was a very cruel thing to put a creature in fresh water who is accustomed
to salt water. I suppose it’ll kill him in time, won’t it?” she appealed to
Arthur.
“Gee whillikins,” Arthur answered, “I never thought of that! Of course
he’ll die. But what are we going to do about it?”
“I thought,” Maida began very falteringly, “if you would let us, Granny,
we’d ask Zeke to drive us over to the beach and we’d take the turtle and
put him back in the water where he came from. We won’t stay there but a
moment.”
“I don’t see why you shouldn’t do that,” Mrs. Dore accorded them
thoughtfully.
“And as for me, I’ll be glad to be well rid of the craythur,” Granny said
shudderingly.
So it was settled. After luncheon, the three boys went down to the Magic
Mirror, hauled the poor awkward beast out of the water; pulled it along
the trail to the barn. They loaded it into the lunch hamper again; stowed
it in the automobile; and then Zeke drove them to the beach.
Once there, they lifted the hamper out of the machine, removed the cover
and dumped its living contents onto the sand.
There was no question as to the turtle’s wishes in this matter. Without an
instant’s hesitation, he turned in the direction of the ocean; and lumbered
toward it over the sand—lumbered awkwardly but with a surprising
swiftness. The waves were piling in, like great ridges of melted glass,
green edged with shining, opalescent filigree. They shattered themselves
on the sand and seemed miraculously to turn into great fans of green
emerald trimmed with pearl-colored, foam lace.
The turtle struck the broken wave ... swam into it ... dove through the
next wave ... and the next ... and the next.... Suddenly they lost sight of
him.

When they returned, still unnaturally quiet, to the Little House, to their
great surprise Billy Potter came forward to meet them.
Their subdued spirits took an involuntary jump. Nevertheless they
greeted their guest in an unusually quiet way. Billy’s perceptions, always
keen, apparently leaped in an instant of calculation to the truth. After a
while, in which he devoted himself to the Little Six, he suggested that
the Big Six take a walk with him. They accepted the invitation with
alacrity and plunged into the woods.
When they were out of sight of the Little House, “Now what’s the
matter?” Billy Potter suddenly demanded.
They told him; all at once; each interrupting the other, piling on excuses
and explanations; interrupted with confessions and self-accusals.
“We feel that we’ve treated Mr. Westabrook rottenly,” Arthur concluded.
“And we don’t know what to do to show him we’re sorry,” Rosie after a
pause added.
“That’s pretty bad,” Billy commented. “Now let’s think of some way out
of this.” He himself meditated for an interval, falling into a study so deep
that no one of the children dared interrupt it.
“I’ll tell you,” he burst out after a while, “Why not invite Mr.
Westabrook down for an afternoon—to make another inspection of the
house—and to stay for supper. You probably haven’t shown him for a
long time how well you can cook.”
“No, we haven’t,” Maida said. “I think father has eaten only one meal
that we girls cooked.”
“I think that would be lovely,” Rosie agreed.
“Let’s do it as quickly as possible,” Arthur suggested. “This is Friday
morning. Why don’t you invite him for Monday night?”
The children caught the suggestion at once. That night, working together
—for Billy Potter stayed over only one train—they painfully drafted a
formal invitation to Mr. Westabrook to spend Monday afternoon with
them and stay to supper. They posted it the next morning and almost by
return mail, they received a formal acceptance.
Monday was a day of the most frantic work that the Little House had
ever seen. Everything was swept that could be swept; dusted that could
be dusted; washed that could be washed; polished that could be polished.
Rosie even washed off the stepping stones that led to the Little House.
And Maida not to be outdone, shined the brass knocker on the door and
the knob. Laura was only stopped in time from pinning flypaper, which
she had bought with her own pocket money, on the outside of the screen
door.
“There are no flies in the house,” Mrs. Dore protested, “and we can’t
catch all the flies in the outside world.”
The boys cleaned the barn, the little cellar to the house, its tiny garret.
They rolled and re-rolled the tennis court. They begged for other work
and Mrs. Dore gave them all the table silver to polish and some pots,
obstinately black, to scrape.
When Mr. Westabrook came, the place looked, as he said, as though they
had cleaned the outside with manicure tools and the inside with the aid
of a microscope. The supper which, in deference to Mr. Westabrook,
included a single hot dish, consisted of one of Rosie’s delicious
chowders; one of Maida’s delicious blueberry cakes; one of Laura’s
delicious salads; and a freezer full of the boys’ delicious ice-cream.
Mr. Westabrook said that he had eaten meals all over the United States
and in nearly every country in Europe and he could not recall any one
that he had enjoyed more than this.
That night the Big Six went to bed with clear consciences.
 CHAPTER XIX
MAIDA’S MOOD
“What are you so quiet about, Maida?” Dicky asked at breakfast a few
mornings later. “I don’t think you’ve said a word since you’ve got up.”
“Haven’t I?” Maida replied. But she added nothing.
At first because of the noise which prevailed at breakfasts in the Little
House, nobody noticed Maida’s continued silence. Then finally Rosie
Brine made comment on it. “Sleepy-head! Sleepy-head!” she teased.
“Wake up and talk. You’re not in bed asleep. You’re sitting at the table.”
Maida opened her lips to speak but closed them quickly on something
which it was apparent, she even repented thinking. She shut her lips
firmly and maintained her silence.
“S’eepy-head! S’eepy-head!” the little mimic, Delia, prattled. “Wate up
and tot. Not in bed as’eep. Sitting at table.”
Everybody laughed. Everybody always laughed at Delia’s strenuous
efforts to produce as copious a stream of conversation as the grown-ups.
But Maida only bit her lips.
The talk drifted among the older children to plans for the day.
“Perhaps you will give us your views, Miss Westabrook,” Laura said
after some discussion, with a touch of purely friendly sarcasm. “That is if
you will condescend to talk with us.”
“Oh can’t I be quiet once in a while,” Maida exclaimed pettishly,
“without everybody speaking of it!” She rose from the table. “I’m tired
of talking!” She walked quickly out of the dining room and ran upstairs
to her own chamber. The children stared for a moment petrified.
“Why I never saw Maida cross before,” Rosie said in almost an awed
tone. “I wonder what can be the matter. I hope I didn’t say anything—”
“No, of course you didn’t,” Arthur answered. “Maida got out of the
wrong side of her bed this morning—that’s all.”