"Good," said Katherine, "what shall we do?"
"It ought to be a panic," said Hinpoha, "and then if we yell loud enough they'll forget everything and run to the rescue."
"What would we scream for?" asked Gladys.
"Oh, for most anything," answered Hinpoha. "The main idea is to scream loud enough to start a panic. I'll think up something in a minute."
"Well, let us know when you're ready, and we'll bring our voices," said Gladys.
Hinpoha departed to attend to her dinner duties and Katherine went out into the woods to look for berries. In a little hollow she stumbled over Antha, sitting in a heap against a tree shedding tears into her handkerchief. "What's the matter?" asked Katherine, sinking down beside her. She was so used to seeing Antha in tears that she was not greatly concerned, but out of general sympathy she inquired what was the matter.
"I want to go home!" wailed Antha. "This is a horrible mean old place and I can't have any fun at all."
"Why can't you have any fun?" asked Katherine.
"Because you girls are always running away from me and having secrets that you won't tell me," said Antha with a gulp. "You're doing something now that you won't let me know about."
True enough. They hadn't told Antha about the danger threatening Eeny-Meeny nor the plan for her defense. Katherine reflected. "It _was_ kind of mean to leave her out of that. I wouldn't like it myself if I were the younger one of a group and they kept having secrets from me. I'm not being a real nice big sister at all."
"Never mind, Antha," she said, patting her hand. "I'll tell you about it. The boys are planning to steal Eeny-Meeny tonight and burn her at the stake and we're trying to keep them from doing it. We're going to hide her. You may help us if you like. Won't that be fun?"
Antha sniffed, and with the perverseness of her nature lost interest in the secret as soon as she found out what it was, and didn't seem to care whether Eeny-Meeny was burned at the stake or not. And when Katherine went farther and invited her to be her special helper in everything, and offered to show her where the oven bird's nest was that everybody was looking for, Antha declined to come along, preferring to go into the kitchen where dinner was being prepared.