it wasn't very difficult to know what was going to happen."

"Heavens--I'd have run away long before you did," said Dolly, with a
shudder. "I don't see how you ever stood it as long as you did, Bessie.
It must have been awful."

"It was, Dolly," said Eleanor, gravely. "I was there, and I made a point
of looking into things, so that if anyone ever blamed me for helping
Bessie and Zara to get away, I could explain that I hadn't just taken
Bessie's word for things. But running away was a pretty hard thing to
do. It's easy to talk about--but where was Bessie to go? She isn't like
you--or she wasn't.

"She didn't have a lot of friends, who would have thought it was just a
fine joke for her to have to run off that way. If you did it, you'd have
a good time, and when you got tired of it, you'd go back to your Aunt
Mabel, and she'd scold you a little, and that would be the end of it.
You must have thought of trying to get away, Bessie, didn't you?"

"Oh, I did, Miss Eleanor, often and often. When Jake was very bad, or
Maw Hoover was meaner than usual. But it's just as you say. I was afraid
that wherever I went it would be, worse than it was there. I didn't know
where to go or what to do."

"Well--that's so," said Dolly. "It has been awfully hard. But then, how
did you ever get the nerve to do it at all, Bessie? That's what I don't
understand. The way you act now, it seems as if you always wanted to do
just as you are told."

"I thought you'd heard all about that, Dolly. You see, when we really
did run away, we couldn't help it, Zara and I. And I don't believe we
really meant to go quite away, the way we did--not at first. You
remember when we saw you girls first--when you were in camp in the
woods?"

"Oh, yes; I remember seeing you, with your head just poking out Of the
door of that funny old hut by the lake. I thought it was awfully funny,
but I didn't know you then, of course."

"I expect you'd have thought it was funny whether you knew us or not,
Dolly. Well, you see, Zara had come over to see me the day it all
happened, and Jake caught her talking with me, and locked her in the
woodshed. Maw Hoover didn't like Zara, because she was a foreigner, and
Maw thought she stole eggs and chickens--but never did such a thing in
her life. So Jake locked her in the woodshed, and said that he was going
to keep her there till Maw Hoover came home. She'd gone to town."

"Why did he want to do that?"

"Because Maw had said th