Annie Halliway's Mother looked all around.

"Oh, dear--oh, dear--oh, dear, Mr.--Mr. Smith," she said. "How shall I ever repay you?"

Old Man Smith reached out his hand across the fence. There was sort of a twinkle in his eye.

"One dollar, please," said Old Man Smith.

THE BOOK OF THE FUNNY SMELLS--AND EVERYTHING

It was Carol who invented the Book. He didn't mean any harm.

I helped him.

We called it "The Book of the Funny Smells--and Everything."

It was one Tuesday noon coming home from school that we stopped the Lady on the street.

She was a very interesting looking lady. She looked like all sorts of different-colored silk roses. And a diamond brooch.

"Excuse us, Madam," I said. "But we are making a book! And we have decided to begin it with you! If you were a Beautiful Smell instead of a Beautiful Lady,--what Beautiful Smell in the Whole Wide World would you choose to be?"

The lady reeled back against the wall of the Post Office. And put on a gold eyegla.s.s to support her.

"Merciful Impudences!" she said. "What new kind of census is this?"

We knew what a "census" was.

"No! It isn't that at all!" I explained. "This is something important."

Carol showed her the book. He showed her the pencil he was going to write the book with.

"When it's all done," I explained, "everybody will want to read it!"

"I can well believe it," said the Lady. She looked at Carol. Everybody looks at Carol.

"Who are you children, anyway?" she said.

"My name is Ruthy," I explained. "And this is my brother Carol."

She began to look at Carol all over again. She reached out and shook him by the shoulder.

"Dumbness!" she said. "Why let Sister do all the talking?"

My stomach felt pretty queer.

"My brother Carol _can't_ talk," I explained. "He _is_ dumb!"

The Lady turned very red.

"Oh dear--Oh dear--Oh dear," she said. She opened her purse. She took out a dollar bill. "Surely something could be done about it!" she said.

"We are not looking for money," I explained. "We are perfectly rich. We have warm underalls. And two parents. And an older sister. We have a tame c.o.o.n. And a tame crow. Our Father could paint the house any Autumn he wanted to if he'd rather do it than plant Tulips."

The Lady looked at her watch. It was a bright blue watch no bigger than a violet is.

"This is all very interesting," she said. "But at the obnoxious hotel which you run in this village dinner is at twelve o'clock and if I'm not there at exactly that moment there will not be another dinner, I suppose, until twelve o'clock the next day. So----"

"Probably not," I said. "So if you don't feel timid at all about walking out with strangers, my brother Carol and I will walk home to the Hotel with you and write our book as we go."

The Lady bit herself. She bit herself in the lip. She began to walk very fast.

Carol walked very fast on one side of her. I walked very fast on the other. Carol carried the book. He carried it wide open so as to be all ready any moment. I carried the pencil.

"Can you tell me," said the Lady, "just why you and your brother have picked upon me as the first victim of your most astonishing interrogations?"

"Because you are the only Lady we ever saw in our lives that we didn't know who she was!" I explained. "And that makes it more interesting!"

"O--h," said the Lady. She gave a queer little gasp. It was the Hotel happening! She ran up the hotel steps. There was a Gentleman waiting for her at the top of the steps. He was a tall Gentleman with a very cross mustache. The Lady whispered something to him. He shook his mustache at us.

"Get out of here, you Young Scamps!" he cried. "Get out of here, I say!

_Get out!_"

No one had ever shaken his mustache at us before. We sat down on the step to think about it.

The Gentleman ran off to call the Hotel Proprietor.

The Lady looked a little sorry. She came running back. She stooped down.

She took the book from Carol. And the pencil from me. She laughed a little.

"You funny--funny children," she said. "What is it you want to know?

The Most Beautiful Smell in the whole wide world,--is that it?--The Most Beautiful Smell in the whole wide world?" She looked back over her shoulder. She wrote very fast. Her cheeks looked pink. She banged the book together just the first second she had finished. She pulled my ear.

"I'm--I'm sorry," she said.

"Oh, that's all right," I a.s.sured her. "We'll be round and write the rest of the book some other day!"

The Man with the Cross Mustache kept right on hunting all around.

When the Hotel Proprietor came running and saw who we were he gave us two oranges instead, and a left-over roll of wall-paper with parrots on it, and all the old calendars that were in his desk.

We had to race home across the railroad trestle to get there in time. It wasn't till we reached the Blacksmith Shop that we had a chance to stop and see what the Lady had written in our book. There was a Smoke Tree just outside the Blacksmith Shop. It was all in smoke. We sat down under it and opened our book.

This is what the Lady had written in our book.

The most beautiful smell in the world is the smell of an old tattered baseball glove--that's been lying in the damp gra.s.s--by the side of a brook--in June Time.