des the club--one is that it was
from there Robert Leavitt and the women of the household, with little
Justine, escaped when Freedom was attacked by the Indians and it was
there, one dark night, Ethan Allen himself landed in a boat for a
secret conference with Jacob Leavitt before an attack upon the Yorkers.
(90 plus in American History.)

"And the members of the Club are (please read slowly) Me, Davy
Hopworth, Dick Snead, Jim Davis, Kirk Brown and Peter Hyde--the hired
man.

"Peter Hyde and I are the 'honery' members."

"I can hear you, Claire. 'That is just like you, Nancy Leavitt--swear
you're going to do one thing and doing another.' Yes, darling, it is
like me, I'll admit! But this time it's different. I really did
intend to be very haughty and distant each time I saw the man but--I
couldn't. Could you, if you had just been running a race which
included vaulting a stone wall? I had to run the race to win Davy's
respect and I had to jump the wall--well, to show I could! And of
course I never dreamed the creature was anywhere around. But he sprang
up from the earth, I believe, and was there at the finish. And could
_you_ look haughty with every hair pin dropping out of your head?

"And, anyway, afterwards, he explained something that has made
everything different, but that comes later in my story.

"Today it rained for the first time since I've been in North Hero. A
sort of steady pitter-patter, not the kind of a downpour that makes you
hug shelter, but a splashy sort you long to run out in with your face
turned up. All morning long I sat with the aunts (Aunt Milly was so
disappointed when she saw the rain that I brought her down to the
hollyhock porch and made her all comfy there) and I simply couldn't
stand it all afternoon so, after lunch, I stole away. Now Happy House
is divided (thank goodness) into two parts, so if the aunts are on one
side it is easy to slip out of the other. I put on my slicker and cap
and slipped away. I frisked around in the rain drops for awhile, then,
I started toward the orchard to see if my water-proof box was
water-proof. And as I walked down the path I heard the sound of
hammering from the direction of my Nest. 'A-ha,' says I, 'I will
surprise nice Mr. Webb at his work!' So I crept up on tiptoe. And,
oh, Claire, it wasn't Mr. Webb _at all--it was Peter Hyde_! There he
was with a hammer and a saw and some nails in a funny apron he had tied
around him working aw