Page:Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm.djvu/159

Rh Aunt Polly, when each child had told the story. "Put on your shoes and stockings and see if you can't find me a maidenhair fern for my fernbox."

Meg found it first, and then Jud lent her his jack-knife and showed her how to take it up so that the roots would not be injured. Then he left her for a minute while he went back to get a paper cup from Linda to plant it in, and when he came back he found her backed up against a tree and looking frightened.

"What scared you?" he asked quickly. "Did you see a snake, Meg?"

"No," she whispered. "I don't know what it was. But it stared and stared at me, Jud."

"Well, where did you see it?" demanded Jud briskly. "Let me have a whack at it with this branch. Where'd you see it, Meg?"

"In the hole in this tree," answered Meg. "I was shaking more dirt off the fern when I looked up and there it was jiggling at me."

"Where?" asked Jud again, a bit impatiently. "I don't see any hole."