"Do you call it a joke on us--spoiling our taffy and stealing the nutmeats?" wailed Heavy.
"What else was it? It was a joke to them. There was a sting to it for us. We must pay them back in like manner, but without being mean bout it."
"Well now!" cried Helen. "I"d like to see you do it, Ruth."
"Perhaps we can think of a plan," said Ruth, gaily. "I for one shall not lose any sleep over it. But if you want to pay them off by showing how much we disapprove of their actions, and have nothing to do with their schemes to-morrow, I will agree."
"We"ll begin that way," said Madge Steele, promptly. "Treat them in a dignified manner and refuse to join in any games with them. That is what we _can_ do."
"Oh, well," sighed the irrepressible Heavy. "We"re bound to have a dreadfully slow day, then. Good-night!"
It began by being a gray day, too. The sun hidden and the wind sighed mournfully in the pines. Long Jerry c.o.c.ked his head knowingly and said:
"It"s borne in on me, youngsters, that you"ll see a bit of hard weather before the New Year--that it do."
"A snowstorm, Jerry?" queried Helen Cameron, clapping her hands.
"Oh, goody!"
"Dunno about it"s being so everlastin" good," returned the guide.
"You never see a big snow up in these woods; did ye?"
"No, Jerry; but I want to. Don"t you Ruth?"
"I love the snow," admitted Ruth Fielding. "But perhaps a snowstorm in the wilderness is different from a storm in more civilized communities."
"And you"re a good guesser," grunted Long Jerry. "Anyhow, unless I"m much mistook, you"ll have means of knowin" afore long."
"Then," said Helen, to Ruth, "we must get the balsam to-day for our pillows. It won"t snow yet awhile, will it, Jerry?"
"May not snow at all to-day," replied the guide. "This weather we"ve had for some days has been storm-breeding, and it"s been long comin".
It won"t be soon past, I reckon."
This conversation occurred right after breakfast. The boys had seen by the way the girls acted that there was "something in the wind."
The girls ignored Tom, Bob and Isadore as they chatted at the breakfast table, and at once they went about their own small affairs, leaving the boys by themselves.
Tom and his mates discussed some plan for a few minutes and then Tom sang out: "Who"ll go sliding? There"s a big bob-sled in the barn and we fixed it up yesterday morning. It will hold the whole crowd. How long will it take you girls to get ready?"
Helen turned her back on him. Ruth looked doubtful, and flushed; but Madge Steele exclaimed: "You can go sliding alone, little boy. We certainly sha"n"t accompany you."
"Aw, speak for yourself, Miss," growled her brother. Then Bob turned deliberately to Helen and asked: "Will you go sliding, Helen?"
"No, sir!" snapped Helen.
"Aw, let "em alone, Bob," said Isadore. "Who wants "em, anyway?"
Jennie Stone would have replied, only Belle and Lluella shook her.
It took two girls to shake Heavy satisfactorily. And the entire six ignored the three boys, who went off growling among themselves.
"Just for a little old mess of candy," snorted Isadore, who was the last to leave the house.
"That"s the way to treat them!" declared Madge, tossing her head, when the boys had gone.
"I don"t know," said Ruth slowly. "We might be glad to have them help us get the pine-needles."
"I believe you are too soft-hearted, Ruth Fielding," declared Belle Tingley.
"It"s because she likes Tom so well," said Lluella, slily.
"Well, Tom never did so mean a thing before yesterday," said Tom"s sister, sharply.
"Boys are all alike when they get together," said Heavy. "It spoils "em awfully to flock in crowds."
"What does it do to girls?" demanded Ruth, smiling.
"Gives them pluck," declared Madge Steele. "We"ve got to keep the boys down--that"s the only way to manage them."
"My, my!" chuckled Jennie Stone, the stout girl. "Madge is going to be a regular suffragette; isn"t she?"
"Well, I guess girls can flock by themselves and have just as good times without their brothers, as with them."
But Ruth and Helen looked more than doubtful at this point. They knew that Tom Cameron, at least, had been a loyal friend and mate on many a day of pleasure. They couldn"t bear to hear him abused.
But the girls felt that they really had reason for showing the boys they were offended. Soon after the departure of Tom and his friends the girls started out with bags to gather the balsam for the pillows.
On the back porch they sat down to put on the snowshoes which, by this time, they were all able to use with some proficiency. The three boys, s...o...b..lling behind the barn, espied them.
"Hullo!" bawled Busy Izzy. "Here come the Amazons. They"re going on their own hook now--haven"t any use for boys at all."
He threw a s...o...b..ll; but Tom tripped him into a bank of snow and spoiled his aim. "None o" that, Izzy!" he commanded.
"Let "em alone," growled Bob Steele. "If they want to flock by themselves, who cares?"
"Not I!" declared Izzy. "Look at the Amazon March. My, my! if they should see a squirrel, or a rabbit, they"d come running back in a hurry. They"d think it was another panther. Oh, my!"
But the girls paid no attention to his gibes and shuffled on into the woods. Helen suddenly saw a snow flake upon her jacket sleeve.
She called Ruth"s attention to it.
"Maybe the snow will come quicker than Long Jerry thought," declared the girl from the Red Mill. "See! there"s another."
"Oh, pshaw! what"s a little snow?" scoffed Belle Tingley.
But the flakes came faster and faster. Great feathery flakes they were at first. The girls went on, laughing and chatting, with never a thought that harm could befall them through the gathering of these fleecy droppings from the lowering clouds.
CHAPTER XIX