But when she took her brother to task about this matter she could not get Chet to admit a thing. He refused to say anything illuminating about the car that had run down the stranger at the hospital, or if the boys suspected anybody in particular. "If we think we know anything, I can't tell you," Chet declared "Billy? Why, he's always sore at Purt Sweet. You can't tell anything by him!" Just the same it was evident that the boys were hiding much from their girl chums; and, of course, that being the case, the girls were made all the more curious. CHAPTER XV PIE AND POETRY Laura's sleeves were rolled up to her plump elbows and she had an enveloping apron on that covered her dress from neck to toe. There was flour on her arms, on one cheek, and even on the tip of her nose. Out-of-doors old Boreas, Jess said, held sway. Shutters flapped, the branches of the hard maple creaked against the clapboarded ell of the house, and there was an occasional throaty rattle in the chimney that made one think that the Spirit of the Wind was dying there. "You certainly are poetic," drawled Bobby, who had come into the Beldings' big kitchen, too, and was comfortably seated on the end of the table at which Laura had been rolling out piecrust. "Now, if that crust is only crisp!" murmured Mother Wit. "If it isn't," chuckled Chet, stamping the snow off his shoes, "we'll make you eat it all." "I'm willing to take the contract of eating it, sight unseen, if Laura made the pie," interjected Lance Darby, opening the door suddenly. "Come in! Come in!" cried Jess. "Want to freeze us all?" "You would better not be so reckless, Lance," Laura said, smiling. "These are mock cherry pies; and I never do know whether I get sugar enough in them until they are done. Some cranberries are sourer than others, you know." "M-m! Ah!" sighed Chet ecstatically. "If there is one thing I like----" Lance began to sing-song: "'There was a young woman named Hooker, Who wasn't so much of a looker; But she could build a pie That would knock out your eye! So along came a fellow and took 'er!'" "Oh! Oh! We're all running to poetry," groaned Chet. "This will never do." "'Poetry,' indeed!" scoffed Jess Morse. "I want to know how Lance dares trespass upon Bobby's domain of limericks?" "And I wish to know," Laura added haughtily, "how he dares intimate that I am not 'a good looker'?" "'_Peccavi!_"' groaned Lance. "I have sinned! But, anyway, Bobby is off the limerick business. Aren't you, Bobby?" "She hasn't sprung a good one for an age," declared Chet. "A shortage," sighed Laura. "Gee Gee says the lowest form of wit is the pun, and the most execrable form of rhyme is the limerick," declared Jess soberly. "Just for that," snapped Bobby, "I'll give you a bunch of them. Only these must be written down to be appreciated." She produced a long slip of paper from her pocket, uncrumpled it, and began to read: