CHAPTER 6 UP ON BOGGINS HEIGHTS

CHAPTER 6 UP ON BOGGINS HEIGHTS

"Well, at least," said Peggy gruffly, "I never did call her a foreigner or make fun of her name.I never thought she had the sense to know we were making fun of her anyway.I thought she was too dumb. And gee, look how she can draw! And I thought I could draw."

Maddie could say nothing. All she hoped was that they would find Wanda.Just so she'd be able to tell her they were sorry they had all picked on her.And just to say how wonderful the whole school thought she was,and please not to move away and everybody would be nice.She and Peggy would fight anybody who was not nice.

Maddie fell to imagining a story in which she and Peggy assailed any bully who might be going to pick on Wanda."Petronski!" somebody would yell, and she and Peggy would pounce on the guilty one.For a time Maddie consoled herself with these thoughts,but they soon vanished and again she felt unhappy and wished everything could be nicethe way it was before any of them had made fun of Wanda.

How drab and cold and cheerless it was up here on the Heights!In the summer time the woods, the sumac, and the ferns that grew along the brook on the side of the roadwere lush and made this a beautiful walk on Sunday afternoons.But now it did not seem beautiful. The brook had shrunk to the merest trickle,and today's drizzle sharpened the outlines of the rusty tin cans, old shoes,and forlorn remnants of a big black umbrella in the bed of the brook.

The two girls hurried on. They hoped to get to the top of the hill before dark.Otherwise they were not certain they could find Wanda's house.At last, puffing and panting, they rounded the top of the hill.The first house, that old rickety one, belonged to old man Svenson.Peggy and Maddie hurried past it almost on tiptoe.Somebody said once that old man Svenson had shot a man.Others said, "Nonsense! He's an old good-for-nothing. Wouldn't hurt a flea."

But, false or true, the girls breathed more freely as they rounded the corner.It was too cold and drizzly for old man Svenson to be in his customary chair tilted against the house, chewing and spitting tobacco juice.Even his dog was nowhere in sight and had not barked at the girls from wherever he might be.

"I think that s where the Petronskis live," said Maddie,pointing to a little white house with lots of chicken coops at the side of it.Wisps of old grass stuck up here and there along the pathway like thin wet kittens.The house and its sparse little yard looked shabby but clean.It reminded Maddie of Wanda's one dress, her faded blue cotton dress, shabby but clean.

There was not a sign of life about the house except for a yellow cat, half grown,crouching on the one small step close to the front door.It leapt timidly with a small cry half way up a tree when the girls came into the yard.Peggy knocked firmly on the door, but there was no answer.She and Maddie went around to the back yard and knocked there. Still there was no answer.

"Wanda!" called Peggy. They listened sharply, but only a deep silence pressed against their eardrums.There was no doubt about it. The Petronskis were gone.

"Maybe they just went away for a little while and haven't really left with their furniture yet," suggested Maddie hopefully.Maddie was beginning to wonder how she could bear the hard fact that Wanda had actually goneand that she might never be able to make amends.

"Well," said Peggy, "let's see if the door is open."

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