Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1911-03-09
CHAPTER VII. (Continued.)

Gust fold them In l said desper-
ately Tit isn't difficult" And be-
cause | was SO transparent a fraud
and knew he must find me out then, l
said something about butter. and went
into the pantry. That's the trouble
with a lie: somebody asks you to tell
one as favor to somebody else, and
the first thing you know, you are hav-
ing to tell thousand and trying to
remember the ones you have told so
you won't contradict yourself, and the
very person you have tried to help
turns on you and reproaches you for
being untruthful l leaned my ell
bows despondently on the shelf of the
kitchen pantry, with the feet of
guard visible through the high win
dow over my head, and waited for
Mr.. HARRISON to come in and demand
that / fold a raw egg, and discover
that I didn't know anything about
cooking, and was just as useless as all
the others
He came. He held the bowl out to
me and waved fork in triumph
Il have solved It," he said "Or,
rather, Flanagan and l have solved
1t. The mixture awaits the magic
touch of the cook
l honestly thought l could do the
rest. 1t was only to be put In a pan
and Drowned, and then in the oven
three minutes. And I did it properly,
but for two things: l should have
creased the pan (but this was the
books fault; it didn't say and I
should have lighted the oven The
latter. however, was Mr. Harbisons
iault as much as mine. and l had wit
enough to lay 1t to Observation-Disclosures
on the part of both of us.
After that, Aunt Selma or no Aunt
Selma, we decided to have boiled
eggs, and Mr.. HARRISON knew how to
cook them. He put them in the tea
kettle and then went to look at the
furnace And Officer Timothy Flanni-
gan ground the coffee and gave his
opinion OF the board of health in no
stinted terms. AS for me, | burned
my fingers and the toast, and felt my
self growing hot and cold, for l was
going to be found out as soon as Elan
higan grasped the situation.
Then, of course, l did the thing that
caused me so much trouble later.
put down the toaster-at least the
HARRISON man said it was a toaster-
and went over and stood in front of
the policeman.
81 don't suppose you will under
stand-exactly," l said, "but-but if
anything occurs TOTO make you think
I am not-that things are not what
they seem to bel mean, what l say
they are-you will understand that it
is joke, won't you? A joke. you
know"
Yes. that was what / said | know
It sounds like raving delirium. but
when Max came down and squizzled
some bacon, as he said. and told
Flanagan about the robbery, and how,
whether it was joke or deadly earn
est, somebody in the house had taken
Anne's pearls, that wretched police
man winked at me solemnly over
Max's shoulder. Oh. it was awful!
And, to add to my discomfort, the
most unpleasant ideas would obtrude
themselves. What was Mr. HARRISON
doing on the first floor of the house
that night? Ice water, he had said.
But there had been plenty of water in
the studio! And he had told me it
was the furnace.
Mr. HARRISON came back in a half
hour, and / remembered the eggs We
fished them out of the tea kettle and
they were perfectly hard. but we ate
them
The doctor from the board of health
came that morning and vaccinated us.
There was a great deal of excitement,
and Aunt Selma was done on the arm.
AS she did not affect evening clothes
this was entirely natural, but later on
in the week, when the wretched things
began to take, nobody dared to limp,
and Leila made a terrible break by
wearing bandage on her left arm,
after telling Aunt Selma she had been
vaccinated on the right.