My friend Peg asked for the next installment of the Miss Tootsie mystery. So, OK Peg, here it is:

A cold prickle of fear ran down Miss Tootsie’s back. What had disturbed Cocoa? What did the little dog hear or smell? Should she waken the others? Had Cocoa heard an owl or a coyote back in the woods? Could someone be snooping around outside? Softly, she eased the poker out of its stand on the hearth and tiptoed after Cocoa.

Feeling her way to the kitchen in the dark house, she paused. A shadow moved past the cabinet. She rubbed her eyes. Her heart hammering in her ears. The shadow shape looked eerily like a man.

The dark figure lurched toward her just as Cocoa launched herself,  like a small rocket, toward it.  Miss Tootsie yelled and brought down the poker. The man’s knees buckled and he said some things that would have made her ears burn if she hadn’t been so frightened. The man shook Cocoa off his arm and started toward her again.  Miss Tootsie put full volume into the screech, a screech so loud that it brought Marianne running into the kitchen? “What? What’s going on?”  cried Marianne.

The intruder, addled by Miss Tootsie’s poker, staggered to the door, Cocoa barking and growling at his heels.

“Cocoa! No. Come back, girl,” Miss Tootsie cried. When Cocoa paused, Miss Tootsie scooped her up, slammed the door, and flipped the lock in place.

Bertha and Carrie rushed into the kitchen. “Tootsie! Are you all right?” Bertha quavered.

Marianne held Cleo tightly against her. “What happened?”

Carrie grabbed Miss Tootsie’s arm in a vise grip.

Miss Tootsie pointed to the door. “He—a man– somebody was in the kitchen. He ran out the door. Cocoa bit him and I hit him with the poker but he kept coming toward me, until, until…well, he must have heard you three and decided to leave.”

The dark kitchen flickered to life as Carrie found a match in the cabinet and lit the kerosene lamp. Miss Tootsie was shaking so much that she collapsed into a chair. Her breath came in short gasps.

“Did he hurt you?” Marianne asked.

Miss Tootsie shook her head. “No, thank the Lord. I heard a noise—well, Cocoa heard it and when I came into the kitchen, somebody came toward me and Cocoa jumped on him, bit him on the arm, I think. And, I’m sure he’ll have a bump on his head where my poker connected.”

“Oh, Miss Tootsie,” Marianne breathed. “You could have been killed. We all could have been killed.”

Carrie drew a shaky breath. “But, who was it? And, how did he get in? Did he hurt you or say anything?”

“No, not anything that made sense. He just ran past me. I think I may have scared him as badly as he scared me and Cocoa and I gave him something to remember. But, there was something else. He got pretty close to me, you know, before I hit him with the wood and Cocoa nailed him. It’s funny, but I smelled something. I can’t think what it was—it was a familiar smell but right now, I can’t place it. Not a bad smell, just—pungent.”

She cuddled her little dog against her cheek.  “Cocoa is the hero here. If she hadn’t woke up and alerted me, well, who knows what would have happened?”

“Oh, Cocoa, you’re wonderful,” said Marianne, stroking Cocoa’s head.

“That dog may have saved our lives,” Carrie said. “She deserves a medal.”

“No medals handy, but there’s a soup bone left from supper. Maybe she’d like that?” Miss Tootsie suggested. She put Cocoa on the floor as Bertha found the bone.

“How  in the world did he get in? All the doors are locked. Maybe we should check out the other rooms, see if he took anything?” Marianne said.

Miss Tootsie shook her head. “No, I don’t think so right now. Let’s wait until daylight. We couldn’t see properly now. This has decided me– I’m going to look into having my house wired for electricity. It’s not reliable and I think it’s dangerous, but it would be a lot more comforting at a time like this.”

“Maybe a telephone too?” suggested Bertha. “I’m going to see about getting one.”

All those new-fangled things were costly and Miss Tootsie wasn’t sure they were good. She didn’t trust them, but a well-lit house and access to a phone and help would be mighty comforting.

“I think we’re safe now,” she said. “The intruder is gone and he’d have to be crazy to try anything when we’re all awake and together.”

“Well, I think a person who’d risk breaking into somebody’s house when they were home would have to be crazy,” Bertha muttered.

Carrie picked up a cast iron skillet. “An armed woman is a dangerous thing.”

Bertha grabbed a stick of wood out of the woodbox beside the kitchen stove. Marianne rummaged in the cabinet and came up with a rolling pin.

Miss Tootsie shook her head. If her friends felt safer with their homely weapons, that was fine, but she imagined that somebody foolish enough or desperate enough to break into someone’s house would have a gun and all their puny defenses were no match against that.