CHAPTER IV

A Startling Experiment

The driveway, or Little Road, as Judy called it, went down a steep slope from the main road. Then it crossed Dry Brook, went through the grove and up another slope, where it took a half-turn, like a half-circle, in front of the house and ended at the barn. Horace stopped his car on the downward slope and they all got out.

“Well, here we are opposite the barn. Now for the experiment. Who wants to yell?” Judy asked.

“Let’s all do it together,” Honey suggested. “Do you remember our old school yell?

“Boom ta! Boom ta! Boom! Boom! Boom! Farringdon Girls’ High School, give us room!”

“Oh, Honey, let’s not give that one,” Judy objected. “It always makes me think of when the old high school burned down.”

“We had a better one at Boys’ High—”

“And a still better one back in Roulsville before the flood,” Judy interrupted. “Horace, do you remember how it went? It meant, ‘_This is where we’re hiding_,’ and if you tried hard you could pick the word _hiding_ out of the jumble of nonsense.”

“I didn’t decode it. I just yelled it,” Horace chuckled. “_Hip deminiga folliga sock de hump de lolliga yoo hoo!_” he yelled.

“Good heavens!” Honey said, holding her ears.

But Judy was listening for the echo. It was a very ordinary one, not half as startling as the yell itself. Horace suggested they try it from a different angle, but just then Judy’s cat Blackberry appeared from around the corner of the barn and yowled, as if he were trying to say, “Please, people, don’t scare away my mice!”

The chickens were cackling, and even Ginger, in a far corner of the pasture, gave a startled whinny. Daisy, munching grass a little nearer by, looked up in the docile manner of cows and continued to regard Judy with a disconcerting stare.

“I don’t really think,” Honey said when their laughter had subsided, “that we ought to try that yell again. I hope it didn’t curdle Daisy’s milk.”

“She reminded me of you, sis, the way she ignored us!”

“Now that I won’t take, being compared to a cow,” cried Judy as she went for Horace.

They chased each other as far as the big barn door where they stopped to read the sign that was posted there.

HEADQUARTERS OF THE BLACK SPOT _Moved to Wally’s house. Meeting at 2 o’clock_

“We’ve solved one mystery, at least,” Horace said as Honey came closer to admire the lettering. “Now you know what became of your left-over paint.”

“Ricky must have borrowed it. He’s the new president of the Junior FBI—excuse me, I mean the Black Spot,” declared Judy. “I don’t think I like their new name. I wonder who dreamed up that one.”

“Blackberry doesn’t seem to care for it, either,” observed Honey. “Just look at the way he’s acting. What’s the matter with him?”

The cat was circling around them as if he wanted to tell them something.

“Shall I take him with us in the car?” asked Horace. “You don’t have to stay home for the children if they’re meeting somewhere else.”

“That’s true,” Judy admitted. “I didn’t tell them, but I planned refreshments. Now we’ll have all that left-over food.”

“What a pity!” Horace said, smacking his lips.

“It’s just cookies and chocolate milk. Hardly a treat for anyone with your appetite,” Judy told him. “The children may be back, anyway, in case Wally’s mother doesn’t approve of their plan. Most of the mothers didn’t want the meetings in their immaculate new houses. That’s why I told them they could meet in our barn. I like having them.”

“If I were you,” Honey said, “I’d like having them somewhere else this afternoon. If we’re looking for whatever we weren’t supposed to look for—”

“What kind of double-talk is this?” Horace interrupted.

“Oh, didn’t we tell you?” Judy knew she hadn’t, but she was still tempted, at times, to tease her brother. It was sort of a game between them.

“You told me very little,” he answered. “You were afraid I’d get a story out of it, but never fear! We’ve printed enough of that spooky stuff.”

“This was spooky, all right,” Judy said with a shiver. “The trees warned us or the men, I’m not sure which, not to look for it.”

“You see,” Honey pointed out, “since we have no idea what _it_ is, the whole thing is rather hard to explain. But you should know, Horace. You said you heard the trees talk before. What did they say? Can you remember?”

He thought about it for a minute.

“I’ve forgotten a lot of it, but once they told me to keep still, and I didn’t dare open my mouth all day. They really frightened me. I was something of a sissy then,” he confessed, “but Judy cured me of it. I didn’t tell her anything about it when it happened, for fear she would laugh at me.”

“You see what a meanie I was?” Judy asked. “Where were you, Horace? I mean when you heard all this.”

“I don’t remember exactly. There was a hollow tree not far from where I was standing, and the voice seemed to come from there. The hole in the tree was small. I remember thinking how much it looked like an open mouth.”

“I know that tree. I used to use the hole to get a toehold when I climbed it. You can see the top of it from here. It’s that big spreading tree beyond the barn. Unless it was an echo,” Judy went on in a puzzled tone, “I don’t see how it could have happened—unless a radio or something of the kind was hidden there.”

“No, there was nothing,” Horace said. “I got up courage enough to look. Nothing larger than a doll could have squeezed inside.”

“One of my dolls, maybe. I used to play with them in the grove.”

“But your dolls didn’t talk.”

“I pretended they did. All little girls pretend their dolls can talk,” declared Judy.

“I didn’t,” Honey said. “I never played with dolls. But then I didn’t grow up in my own home the way you and Horace did. I try not to remember my childhood.”

“I know.” Judy gave the friend and sister she had found a quick kiss. Then, suddenly, Honey remembered something else.

“That tourist sign!” she exclaimed. “We never took it down.”

“Too late,” Horace commented as a small voice spoke almost at his elbow.

“Please,” it said, “may we stay here for the night?”