But suddenly--when their kettles were near full--'Phemie jumped up with a shrill whisper:
"Hush, 'Phemie!" exclaimed her sister. "How you scared me."
Lyddy did. Surely that was a strange clinking noise to be heard up here in the woods. It sounded like a milkman going along the street carrying a bunch of empty bottles.
"It's no wild animal--unless he's got glass teeth and is gnashing 'em," giggled 'Phemie. "Come on! I want to know what it means."
"Well, _I_ would, Lyddy. Come on! Who's afraid of bottles?"
"We'll find out in a jiff," declared her younger sister, leading the way deeper into the woods.
The sound was from up stream. They followed the noisy brook for some hundreds of yards. Then they came suddenly upon a little hollow, where water dripped over a huge boulder into another still pool--but smaller than the swimming hole.
Behind the drip of the water was a ledge, and on this ledge stood a row of variously assorted bottles. A man was just setting several other bottles on the same ledge.
These were the bottles the girls had heard striking together as the man walked through the woods. And the man himself was Professor Spink.
The two girls, almost at once, began to shrink away through the bushes again--and this without a word or look having passed between them. Both Lyddy and 'Phemie were unwilling to meet the professor under these conditions.
They were back at the strawberry patch before either of them spoke aloud.
"What _do_ you suppose he was about?" whispered 'Phemie.
"Looked like water--nothing but water," said Lyddy. "It certainly _is_ a puzzle."
"And there doesn't seem to be any sense in it," cried Lyddy. "Let's go home, 'Phemie. We've got enough berries for supper."
As they went along the pasture trail, the younger girl suggested:
"Do you suppose he could be making up another of his fake medicines? Like those 'Stonehedge Bitters?' Lucas says they ought to be called '_Stonefence_ Bitters,' for they are just hard cider and bad whiskey--and that's what the folks hereabout call 'stonefence.'"
"It looked like only water in those bottles," Lyddy said, slowly.
"And he's so afraid old Mr. Colesworth--or Harris--will come up here and find him at work--or come across his water-bottles," continued 'Phemie. "Lucky this new boarder--Mr. Chadwick--isn't much for long walks. It would keep old Spink busier than a hen on a hot griddle, as Lucas says, to watch all of them."
