at if she ever caught Zara around, their place
again she was going to take a stick to her and beat her until she was
black and blue--and I guess she meant it, too. She liked to give people
beatings--me, I mean. She never touched Jake, though, and she never
believed he did anything wrong."

Dolly whistled.

"If she knew him the way I do, she would," she said. "And I've only seen
him twice--but that's two times too many!"

"Well, after he'd locked her in, Jake went off, and I tried to let her
out. I couldn't find the key, and I was trying to break the lock on the
door with a stone. I'd nearly got it done, when Jake came along and
found me doing it. So he stood off and threw bits of burning wood from
the fire near me, to frighten me. That was an old trick of his.

"But that time the woodshed caught fire, and he was scared. He got the
key, and we let Zara out, and then he said he was going to tell Maw
Hoover that we'd set the place on fire on purpose. I knew she'd believe
him, and we were frightened, and ran off."

"Well, I should say so! Who wouldn't? Why, he's worse than I thought he
was, even, and I knew he was pretty bad."

"We were going to Zara's place first, but that was the day they arrested
Zara's father. They said he'd been making bad money, but I don't believe
it. But anyhow, we heard them talking in their place--Zara's and her
father's--and they said that I'd set the barn on fire, and they were
going to have me arrested, and that Zara would have to go and live with
old Farmer Weeks, who's the meanest man in that state. And so we kept on
running away, because we knew that it couldn't be any worse for us if we
went than if we stayed. So that's how we finally came away."

"Oh, how exciting! I wish I ever had adventures like that!"

"Don't be silly, Dolly," said Eleanor, severely. "Bessie and Zara were
very lucky--they might have had a very hard time. And you had all the
adventure you need the other day when you made Bessie go off looking for
ice-cream sodas with you. You be content to go along the way you ought
to and you'll have plenty of fun without the danger of adventures. They
sound very nice, after they're all over, but when they're happening
they're not very pleasant."

"That's so," admitted Dolly, becoming grave.

It was late in the afternoon before they reached the station at which
they had to change from the main line. There they waited for a time
before the little two-car train on the branch l