Chapter 10 IN THE HAYLOFT

THE wind was blowing steadily now, whipping the trees and sending everyone to cover.

Hanny and Vevi huddled in the drugstore doorway, not knowing what to do.

“I should have locked the windmill before I left the farm,” Hanny said, clutching her hat tightly to keep it from sailing away.

“Maybe your uncle will get home and take care of it,” Vevi said hopefully.

“He has gone away for the afternoon. Oh, Vevi, I will have to get out there as fast as I can. This wind is not going to let up for a long while.”

“I will go with you,” Vevi offered. She did not really want to go. It was a long walk to the farm and the sharp wind would make the trip uncomfortable.

Nevertheless, she started off with Hanny down the street. The girls had to duck their heads and bend low. Even then it was hard to keep on their feet.

“This is a regular hurricane!” Vevi gasped. “Maybe everything is going to blow away!”

Hanny however, was not frightened. She glanced at the sky, studying the boiling clouds for a minute.

“It is only a hard wind,” she said. “But it can do much damage at our nursery. Oh, why did I forget the windmill?”

Reaching the outskirts of the city, the two girls struck out along the main highway. Soon they saw a car overtaking them.

“Here comes someone,” Vevi said, looking over her shoulder. “Maybe we can catch a ride to the farm.”

The children moved off the roadway and waited. When the car was fairly close they could see a woman at the wheel. There were no passengers.

“It looks like Mrs. Gabriel’s car,” said Hanny. “My uncle would not want me to ride with her.”

“Even to save the tulips?”

“I guess that would be different,” Hanny agreed.

Both girls waved their arms, trying to attract Mrs. Gabriel’s attention. They knew she saw them, for she slowed down.

“She is going to pick us up!” Vevi cried in relief.

But Mrs. Gabriel did not stop. She drove past the children, without paying any attention to their frantic gestures.

“Why, that was mean!” exclaimed Vevi. “She’ll be going right past the farm too!”

The girls bored on into the wind, but walking was most difficult. Vevi could not keep on her beanie. She carried it in her hand, but her hair kept whipping across her eyes.

“We’ll never get there!” she gasped. “This hateful old wind!”

A loud “toot-toot” sounded directly behind the girls. Startled, they jumped to the side of the road.

Another car had come along, driven by a man who was riding with his wife. He pulled up beside the children.

“Want a ride?” he asked.

“Do we!” demanded Vevi gratefully.

The man opened the car door, and the girls slid into the back seat.

“Going far?” he inquired.

“Only to Windmill Farm,” Hanny said. “Can you take us there?”

“Sure thing,” the man agreed. “I’m going right past the farm.”

The car rolled over a bridge. Vevi and Hanny saw that the river had been ruffled into high, foamy waves. Along each shore, the low-bent branches of willows were lashing back and forth.

A few big drops of rain spattered against the car’s windshield.

“We’ll have a downpour any minute now,” the driver said. “You children should have your raincoats.”

The car passed the Mattox nursery. On the driveway, Vevi and Hanny saw Mrs. Gabriel’s parked automobile.

“Look at the roof of the greenhouse!” Hanny cried, pointing.

A portion of the glass covering had been smashed by the wind.

“It was a little twister all right,” declared the man who had given the children a ride. “The worst is over now though, I think.”

“I hope our windmill is all right,” Hanny said anxiously. “It may have blown down.”

The car rolled over a rise, and the children were reassured to see the huge canvas-arms revolving at a furious rate.

“It’s still there,” Vevi said, greatly relieved.

“But see how fast the arms are turning,” Hanny declared. “The tulip fields will be flooded!”

At the gate to Windmill Farm, the driver stopped the car to let the children off.

“Will you be all right now?” he asked. “Or do you want me to come with you?”

“I can turn off the windmill myself,” Hanny said.

She and Vevi thanked the driver and his wife for the ride and ran through the gate.

The windmill was groaning and straining under the assault of the elements. At any moment, Vevi expected to see the canvas-covered arms ripped to shreds.

Around and around went the fan-shaped sails, pumping water at a fearful rate. The irrigation ditches were flooded and Hanny could see that some of the tulip fields were soaked.

“I must get the mill stopped first of all!” she cried.

The little Dutch girl ran to the mill and tried to open the door. The wind held it back.

“Help me, Vevi!” she cried.

Both girls tugged at the door. Vevi lost her beanie again, and this time she did not try to save it.

Suddenly the mill door flew back, banging hard. The wind was so strong it nearly wrenched off the hinges.

Once inside the mill, the girls were protected. But it was frightening to hear the wild creak of the pulleys and the heaving and groaning of the great sails overhead.

“Oh, Hanny, I’m scared,” Vevi whimpered, huddling against a wall. “This old mill is about ready to blow over.”

Hanny was not as nervous as her little friend, for she had been inside the mill before on very windy days.

Quickly, she shot levers into place, locking the mechanism.

“There, I have stopped the mill from pumping!” she exclaimed.

The girls caught their breath, looking out over the fields through the open doorway.

“This wind will snap the stems of our tulips even if the water did not ruin them,” Hanny said. “Uncle Peter will lose most of his investment.”

“The wind is dying down some now,” Vevi said. “Maybe the tulips will be all right.”

“I am especially worried about the north field,” Hanny went on. “If the prize tulip is lost, we will have nothing to enter in Mrs. Langley’s show.”

“The Golden Beauty?”

Hanny did not answer. She seemed to be thinking hard.

Suddenly, without explaining what she intended to do, she bolted out the open door of the mill.

Vevi saw the little girl run to the barn. She was inside a minute or two. Then out she came, carrying a large, empty orange crate.

“Where are you going, Hanny?” Vevi shouted across the yard.

In the high wind, Hanny could not hear. But Vevi saw her enter the north field and dart down the rows of tulips.

Hanny carefully set the crate down. Then she came flying back to rejoin Vevi in the mill.

“Our tulip is still safe!” she exclaimed. “I have covered it with the box. Now it will be protected even if the other tulips are ruined.”

Vevi had noticed the place where Hanny had set down the box.

“It was the Golden Beauty that you covered,” she said. “I am sure of it, Vevi. But I will never tell.”

The old mill was a chilly and uncomfortable place in which to stand. Hanny said that the barn, directly across the yard, was a much better shelter from which to watch the storm.

“Let’s make a run for it,” she urged. “The rain is coming.”

Together the girls dashed across the open space. Midway there, Vevi spied her lost beanie snagged against a fence post. She darted aside to rescue it. Before she could reach the barn, rain began to come down in torrents.

“Hurry! Hurry!” Hanny shouted, holding the barn door open for her.

Vevi dashed in, her Brownie uniform splashed with raindrops.

For several minutes the rain came in a great sheet. Then abruptly, it let up.

“At least we will not have hail,” Hanny declared. “That is what ruins the plants.”

Now that the excitement was nearly over, Vevi became interested in the interior of the barn. She had never seen such a clean place.

The floor was swept as neatly as a living room. Curtains were at all the windows. The stalls, where two Jersey cows contentedly chewed their cuds, did not have a speck of dust or dirt.

Vevi sniffed the air. She could smell something sweet and fragrant.

“What is that odor?” she asked.

“The haymow,” Hanny told her. “See, the ladder leads up to it.”

Vevi climbed up to look. “My, this hay looks nice and soft,” she called down.

The little girl suddenly realized that the trip from Rosedale and so much running and hurrying had made her very tired. She snuggled down into a mound of hay.

Hanny also climbed the ladder. Seeing Vevi so snug, she curled up beside her.

The hay was warm and delightful.

“I’m sleepy,” Vevi said. “I think I will take a nap. By the time I wake up, the rain will be over.”

“It is almost over now,” said Hanny.

“I think I will take a nap anyhow,” Vevi declared. “Wake me up when it stops raining.”

Now Hanny did not intend to fall asleep. After Vevi had closed her eyes, she lay very still listening to the rain on the barn roof.

The hay was sweet-smelling and as cozy as a feather bed. She felt delightfully drowsy, shut off from all the world.

Hanny thought she would close her eyes only for a moment. When she opened them, she was astonished to see that dark shadows shrouded the haymow.

Vevi was shaking her.

“M-m,” Hanny mumbled drowsily. For a moment she could not think where she was or what had happened.

Vevi pressed a hand over Hanny’s lips.

“Sh!” she warned.

By this time Hanny had come two-thirds awake. She saw Vevi sitting beside her, hay sticking in her mussed hair.

“Listen!” Vevi whispered.

The rain had ceased and Hanny no longer could hear the whistle of the wind around the corners of the barn. How long had she slept?

Hanny sat up, rubbing her eyes. Only then did she hear a strange murmuring sound from the lower floor of the barn.

“What is that?” she whispered.

“Someone is down there,” Vevi answered, very low. “When I woke up, I heard two people talking.”

“Maybe it is Peter come home.”

“I don’t think so Hanny. Besides, there are two people.”

Their curiosity aroused, the two girls crept to the edge of the hay loft. Peering down they saw a man and a woman standing in the doorway of the barn.

“It is Mrs. Mattox and her husband Joseph,” Hanny whispered. “But why are they here? They refuse me permission to walk on their property.”

Mrs. Mattox was cleaning mud from her shoes.

“We should not stand here,” her husband said. “Peter Van Der Lann may return at any moment, or his little girl.”

“Let them,” said the wife. “At any rate, it was your idea to visit his fields to see what the stubborn Dutchman is raising. Now that you have looked under the box are you satisfied?”

“The tulip is superior to anything that we can enter in the show.”

“I don’t agree,” Mrs. Mattox replied. “Our own flower the cherry-rose candy stick tulip is its equal. We will win the prize, Joseph.”

“Don’t count on it,” Mr. Mattox said gloomily.

“We won’t need to win the blue ribbon to have a profitable business. We have valuable customers. Mrs. Gabriel—”

“How many times must I ask you not to mention her name?” Mr. Mattox broke in angrily. “I wish I had never seen her—she may yet be the cause of me going to jail.”

“Jail?” his wife echoed. “Joseph, I fail to understand you. When Mrs. Gabriel first came to talk to you, why you said we would make a mint of money. Didn’t she give you a large order of bulbs to be imported from Holland?”

“Yes, and I wish she hadn’t! Don’t forget that woman went first to Peter Van Der Lann with her proposition. He must suspect what is going on. If he should turn me in we both might be jailed.”

In the hayloft, Hanny and Vevi caught nearly all of the conversation. But they did not understand why Mr. Mattox was so angry at his wife for mentioning Mrs. Gabriel’s name.

Hanny made up her mind she would tell her Uncle Peter all about it when he came home.

“The rain has stopped,” she heard Mr. Mattox say. “We can go now.”

Never guessing that anyone had listened to their talk, the couple left the barn. By the time Vevi and Hanny had slid down from the loft, they were nowhere in sight.