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Title: Two girls and a mystery
or, The old house in the glen
Author: May Hollis Barton
Illustrator: Ernest N. Townsend
Release date: November 11, 2025 [eBook #77221]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Cupples & Leon Company, 1928
Credits: Susan E., David E. Brown, Chris Corrigan, Rod Crawford, Mary Fahnestock-Thomas, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO GIRLS AND A MYSTERY ***
[Illustration: “A FORTUNE HIDDEN HERE!” SHE THOUGHT.
“Two Girls and a Mystery.” Page 76]
Two Girls and a
Mystery
OR
The Old House in the Glen
BY
MAY HOLLIS BARTON
AUTHOR OF “THREE GIRL CHUMS AT LAUREL HALL,”
“NELL GRAYSON’S RANCHING DAYS,” ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Books for Girls
By MAY HOLLIS BARTON
12mo. Cloth Illustrated
THE GIRL FROM THE COUNTRY
Or Laura Mayford’s City Experiences
THREE GIRL CHUMS AT LAUREL HALL
Or the Mystery of the School by the Lake
NELL GRAYSON’S RANCHING DAYS
Or a City Girl in the Great West
FOUR LITTLE WOMEN OF ROXBY
Or the Queer Old Lady Who Lost Her Way
PLAIN JANE AND PRETTY BETTY
Or the Girl Who Won Out
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
Or the Old Bachelor’s Ward
HAZEL HOOD’S STRANGE DISCOVERY
Or the Old Scientist’s Treasure Box
TWO GIRLS AND A MYSTERY
Or the Old House in the Glen
(_Other volumes in preparation._)
CUPPLES & LEON, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
TWO GIRLS AND A MYSTERY
Made in the U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ALL ABOUT MONEY 1
II. IN THE DITCH 11
III. AN EXTRAORDINARY LEGACY 18
IV. THE LUCKY RING 25
V. LIGHTS AND NOISES 33
VI. GERRY’S NEWS 41
VII. GETTING AWAY 50
VIII. ROSA LEE 58
IX. A PITIFUL APPARITION 65
X. THE OLD HOUSE IN THE GLEN 70
XI. BAB OPENS A DOOR 79
XII. PATTERING FEET 87
XIII. IN THE DARK 95
XIV. GORDON’S DISCOVERY 104
XV. THE LUCKY RING DISAPPEARS 112
XVI. GOOD MEDICINE 118
XVII. THE HINDU 126
XVIII. A HIDDEN LETTER 134
XIX. A GRIM WARNING 142
XX. THE SAPAJOU 147
XXI. A MIDNIGHT VISITOR 155
XXII. BAB LOSES HER INHERITANCE 167
XXIII. THE SECRET STAIRWAY 182
XXIV. BAB REGAINS HER INHERITANCE 192
XXV. THE FAIRY GODDAUGHTER 198
TWO GIRLS AND A MYSTERY
CHAPTER I
ALL ABOUT MONEY
Barbara Winters had been reading in the alcoved window seat, half
hidden from the rest of the cozy living room. It was really an exciting
book, borrowed from one of the girls at school. But, alas, Barbara had
fallen asleep just in the most exciting part of it.
She was roused, how much later she could not tell, by the sound of
familiar voices.
Drowsily, half asleep, she listened for a moment before realizing that
the conversation was not intended for her ears. Then it was impossible
to escape without betraying the fact that she had overheard. Still half
drugged with sleep, Bab lay still.
That was where her misery began!
Grandmother and grandfather were talking. Bab had lost her mother and
father at a time when she was too young even to remember them. Since
then, Grandmother and “Gran” had filled that tragically empty place in
the little girl’s life. How well they had filled it and how happy they
had made her, only Bab knew.
Her eyes widened with horror as she listened.
They, Gran and her grandmother, were talking of money. They had not, it
appeared, enough to make ends meet. Gran’s voice sounded dreadful when
he said that--so old and weary and terribly discouraged. Tears were in
Bab’s eyes as she fought with a desire to fling her arms about him.
The war was in some way responsible for this change in the old
gentleman’s fortunes. Bab gathered that they might even--unbelievable
calamity!--be forced to give up their pretty home.
“We must keep this from Bab at all costs,” finished Gran. Bab knew,
without seeing him, that he was polishing his glasses, a thing he
always did when upset about anything or uneasy in his mind. “So gay and
light-hearted. We must keep her so.”
“Yes.” Dear grandmother’s voice was soft and anxious. “This shadow must
not touch her. She is only a child.”
After that Bab would not, for the world, let them know that she had
overheard. She lay very, very still until they went into the dining
room. Then a swift rush across the room and upstairs to her own room
where she might ponder, undisturbed, this dreadful thing she had heard.
Was it only an hour before that she had been so gay and care-free? Then
there had not been a heavier worry on her mind than as to how she would
spend the summer vacation!
Gran’s tired voice; grandmother’s unfailing thought of her!
Something hard and painful rose and rose in Bab’s throat until she was
forced to bury her face in the pillow on her bed and stifle her sobs in
it.
“It isn’t fair--they’re so old! I must find some way to help them!”
After a long time she went to bed and fell into a restless sleep. She
dreamed all night of houses that got up and ran away, foundations and
all, when they saw her coming.
It was not at all a pleasant experience, and Bab was glad when the sun
climbed over the horizon and drove all the houses back into the mists
of unreality where they belonged.
It was a wonderful morning, clear and cool, with the dew sparkling
frostily on the grass. The flowers in the old-fashioned garden back of
the house smiled their sweetest, but Bab was in no mood to appreciate
them.
“I’d rather it would rain,” she thought whimsically. “Then I’d have a
better excuse for moping.”
Ten o’clock found her sitting listlessly in the porch swing wondering
what she could do.
One thing was certain, she _must_ make some money.
“I must, must, must!” she cried, vehemently pounding her clenched fist
into a cushion. “I must--but how?”
Her glance instinctively sought the house next door--the big white
house with the beautiful grounds and gardens.
“I’d like to tell Gordon about it,” she thought wistfully. “But I
couldn’t do that, of course. Gran wouldn’t want me to tell any one.”
Gordon Seymour was the boy who lived in the big white house. He and Bab
had been playmates since Bab was six and Gordon eight.
The Seymours were rich. Gordon’s father had not only made a substantial
success in his practice of law, but he had inherited a considerable
fortune as well.
The shining windows of the big white house seemed to look with a
patronizing air upon the modest cottage of the Winters. The Seymour
gardens had been the fair-haired little Bab’s playground; Gordon
Seymour, her playmate. She thought, with increasing wistfulness, that
it would be nice to tell Gordon her troubles.
As though just thinking of the lad had conjured him out of the air,
Gordon appeared at that moment, coming through the garden. He vaulted
lightly over the railing of the porch and grinned at Bab.
“Hello!” he said. “Why the awful gloom?”
“Gordon is still brown, but he is no longer little,” mused Bab, eying
him soberly. “He’s in his seventeenth year and tall for his age.”
Gordon Seymour had deep blue eyes that looked as though they were
laughing even when the rest of his face was sober. His hair was fair
and thick and burned to an odd, sandy color by constant exposure to the
sun. He had a set of fine even teeth that looked almost startlingly
white in contrast to the brown of his skin.
Not at all bad looking, as Bab herself sometimes admitted and as any
one else in Scarsdale would have said without an instant’s hesitation.
Yet now Bab frowned at him.
“I’m not gloomy,” she said finally, and sighed to prove it. “I--I’m
just trying to think!”
Gordon looked alarmed.
“You don’t do it often, do you?” he asked. “It’s a bad habit, Bab.
Honest, it is!”
Bab frowned again, though a dimple appeared at the corner of her mouth.
“If all you can do is insult me, you’d better run along, Gordon
Seymour,” she said, adding, with apparent innocence: “You _were_ going
somewhere, weren’t you?”
Gordon laughed and got to his feet.
“There’s one thing I don’t need--and that’s a kick!” he said. “I’m off
to the post-office now. Want to come along, Bab?”
“_I_ don’t expect any letters,” returned Bab pensively. “No, you run
on, Don. I may be along later.”
After a while she did go for a walk, but it was not to the post-office.
And because she had hoped to escape possible visitors at the house and
be alone for a little time with her own confused, unhappy thoughts, she
must, it seemed, encounter Gerry at the very beginning of her walk!
Of course, Gerry was her best girl friend, but even best friends can be
in the way sometimes.
Gerry’s full name was Geraldine Thompson. She was small and dark, with
the face of a gypsy and a gypsy’s adventurous spirit. And Gerry adored
Bab Winters.
Wending their way homeward after a long jaunt about town, Gerry
suddenly put a hand upon Bab’s arm and chuckled.
“There’s Charlie Seymour,” she cried. “He has a new car! Three
guesses--what is it?”
Charlie Seymour was Gordon’s cousin, but that accidental relationship
was the only bond between the two lads. Charlie was thin and tall
and dark-haired. His two years’ seniority gave him a certain air of
condescension toward his cousin that Gordon sometimes found amusing,
sometimes quite the opposite. Charlie was not popular with the young
people of Scarsdale, though conceit prevented his realizing that fact.
At present his hobby was racing cars, and one of this species was now
parked before the Winters’ house with Charlie himself lounging behind
the wheel.
Gerry called out impishly:
“What is it, Charlie? Or haven’t you named it yet?”
Charlie laughed.
“Not yet,” he said. “Thought I’d leave that to you girls.”
“To us?” Bab’s mirth bubbled up. “I’m sure we could never think of
anything to do it justice, Charlie.”
Charlie was offended.
“Well, if all you can do is to laugh----,” he said, and reached for the
gear shift.
Bab relented.
“Don’t be mad,” she wheedled. “It certainly is a fine car, built for
speed and--and everything. Don’t you think so, Gordon?” she added, as
the latter came hurrying up to them.
Gordon grunted something unintelligible--and probably uncomplimentary--in
response.
But Charlie suddenly recovered his good nature.
“Speed? I should say yes!” he chortled. “Jump in, girls, and I’ll give
you a sample.”
“We can die but once,” murmured Gerry, and climbed into the tonneau.
Bab followed and, after a moment of hesitation, Gordon slipped into the
seat beside his cousin.
Charlie released the clutch and the car jumped forward.
Bab and Gerry gripped the seat as the racer, cutout wide open, roared
up the street.
“Just like Charlie to make all the noise he can,” gasped Gerry.
It was certainly a fact that people turned to look curiously after the
weird contraption as it tore down the street. This appeared to please
Charlie. He even stepped on the accelerator a little harder.
Gordon fidgeted and fumed, but Charlie turned a deaf ear to his
protests.
They sped along past the outposts of the town and finally swung into
the state road. There was little traffic at this time of day, and so
Charlie Seymour thought it a fine chance to show the girls and Gordon
what his new toy could do in the way of speed.
For a while it was exhilarating. A powerful motor dwelt within the
incongruous body of the little car, and it purred along easily,
rhythmically, at fifty miles an hour, fairly eating up the road as it
sped along.
On, on, while the speedometer crept up--fifty, fifty-two, fifty-five----
“Better take it easy!” shouted Gordon, above the roar of the exhaust.
“Sharp turn ahead, ditch on both sides!”
Charlie’s narrowed eyes were fixed steadily on the road. He did not
glance at Gordon when he spoke--evidently had not, or wanted to pretend
he had not, heard him.
“Slow up, you idiot!” roared Gordon. “Do you want to murder us all?
“Slow up, I tell you!” he repeated, a moment later. “You can’t make
that turn----”
Gordon reached over to grasp the wheel but Charlie struck his hand away.
“Keep out of this!” yelled the boy at the wheel. “Who’s driving this
car, anyway?”
“I wish some one with sense were,” muttered Gordon, in reply.
The turn was now fairly upon them. Bab and Gerry, clinging together,
watched it with staring eyes.
“Slow down! Slow down!” shrieked Bab.
Charlie did slow down--but not enough.
Around the corner, bearing down upon them with terrific speed, came
another car.
“Oh!” moaned Gerry. “We’ll be killed! We’ll all be killed!”
The car was fairly upon them before they could swerve aside. Wild
shouts and screams, the shrieking of brakes----
Bab closed her eyes and waited for the crash.
CHAPTER II
IN THE DITCH
It was because Bab Winters’ eyes were closed that she missed seeing
what Gordon did. But Gerry saw it all. Gerry Thompson made it a point
never to miss anything!
As the big car bore down upon them, Charlie seemed stricken with a
paralysis of fright. He appeared unable to move.
Face set, Gordon reached over and pulled the wheel sharply to the right.
At the same time the driver of the other car--a dark-faced, swarthy
fellow--swung on two wheels to his side of the road, skidded along a
shallow ditch, teetered madly for a second, then rushed on.
As the car whizzed by, Gerry had a confused vision of a white,
terrified face, the face of a girl seated beside the swarthy driver of
the other car. The girl had flung out both arms to them as though in a
desperate cry for help.
It was over in a moment. The machine flashed by while their own car
neared the dangerous curve.
Gordon, white-faced and thin-lipped, gripped the wheel in both his
strong, brown hands, guiding the runaway car as best he could from his
cramped position, his foot seeking the brake pedal.
Rounding the curve on two wheels, the car skidded wildly across the
road. In another moment, unhampered, Gordon would have had it under
control.
But Charlie recovered, now that the worst of the danger was past. He
sat up violently and grasped the wheel.
Gordon’s position put him at a disadvantage. He felt his hands slipping
from the wheel. The machine careened crazily from side to side, skidded
once too often, and slid off with a jarring bump into the ditch at the
side of the road.
As the car settled and leaned against the steep bank as though wearied
after its mad adventure, the girls climbed out of the side of the car
nearest the road.
Gordon and Charles got out, too. The cousins glared at each other
angrily.
“Pretty piece of work you pulled,” Charlie began, scowling fiercely as
he regarded his car. “Next time maybe you’ll keep your hands off and
let me manage my own boat. If it hadn’t been for you----”
“If it hadn’t been for me,” broke in Gordon, “your fool car, to say
nothing of us, would probably have been smashed into very small bits.”
“Stop quarreling, boys,” interrupted Bab peaceably. “We’re safe and the
car isn’t damaged--for which we should be very thankful.”
“The question is, how are we going to get back to Scarsdale,” said
Charlie, still scowling.
“A team of good, stout horses----,” suggested Gerry, giggling.
“And here it comes,” said Bab, pointing up the road. “A good stout team
of horses with a pleasant-looking farmer on the wagon seat behind them.
We’ll ask him to haul us out.”
“He looks as if he had a kind heart,” agreed Gerry, with a chuckle.
The farmer, on hearing of their difficulty, promptly agreed to help
them. The powerful horses were put to work. A straining of strong
shoulders, a snort and a heave, and the car moved slowly from the
ditch. A moment later the racer was hauled to the road, uninjured.
“Takes a good team of horses every time,” chuckled the good-natured
farmer.
He refused Gordon’s offer of payment, and climbed to the high seat of
his wagon.
“They don’t go so fast, mebbe,” he added; “but you can always be
tol’able sure with horses that you’ll git where you’re goin’, anyway.
Good day to you!”
He clucked to his horses. The wagon creaked and started up the road.
Then, suddenly, the driver drew rein and glanced back at them where
they still stood in the road beside the rescued car. There was a
speculative look in his eye.
“You say you met an automobile goin’ like blazes just before you
skidded into that ditch,” he remarked. “Did you happen to notice
anything unusual about that automobile?” he added insinuatingly.
“I did!” returned Gerry quickly. “There was a dark-skinned man driving.
I remember thinking, even in that awful moment, what a villainous
looking face he had. And there was a girl in the car----”
The farmer nodded. He seemed excited.
“And what idee did you git concernin’ that girl?” he asked Gerry.
“Why--I’m not sure, it all happened so suddenly,” Gerry frowned in an
effort to concentrate while the boys and Bab watched her with growing
astonishment. “Only, it seemed to me, she looked awfully scared about
something and I thought I heard her call ‘Help’!”
“Gerry!” cried Bab. “Why didn’t you----”
But Gerry rushed on excitedly.
“I thought--I couldn’t be sure--but I thought the man at the wheel put
a hand over her mouth and dragged her back into the car. It was all
over in a flash,” she added apologetically.
While Bab and the boys stared at her in sheer amazement, the farmer
nodded shrewdly.
“Just what I thought. I met that car myself a ways down the road and I
said to myself, ‘There’s somethin’ all-fired queer about this thing.
That girl beside the dark-skinned critter at the wheel looks like she
was bein’ took!’”
“Do you mean kidnaped?” asked Bab incredulously.
“Yes’m, that’s what I mean! If I’d a gas wagon like that one o’ yours,
I’d ’a’ followed that automobile, certain.” With the last word, he
clucked to his horses and the wagon creaked off down the road.
The young folks returned to Scarsdale at a very decorous pace,
considering that Charlie still drove the car.
Naturally, the chief subject of conversation was the farmer’s
sensational theory concerning the girl in the automobile. In fact, they
had not stopped talking about it when the car finally drew up before
the Winters’ house.
“You come in to lunch, Gerry,” Bab invited. “Grandmother will have it
ready.”
“All right,” said Gerry. “And thanks so much for the ride, Charlie. Who
says nothing thrilling ever happens in Scarsdale!”
When Charlie Seymour and his atrocious car had roared off down the
street Gordon turned to Bab. He held out toward her a crumpled letter.
“Sorry, Bab,” he apologized. “Got this at the post-office, but in the
excitement of our feverish ride forgot to give it to you until now.”
“Thanks,” said Bab absently. She regarded the large envelope with
curiosity and a vague excitement. The postmark was New York.
“Open your letter, Babs,” urged Gerry, curious, bright eyes upon her
chum.
Bab roused herself and thrust the letter rather hurriedly into her
pocket.
“We’ll read it after lunch,” she said. “We’d better go up and help
grandmother now and tell her where we’ve been.” She waved to Gordon
as he leaped the hedge that separated the Seymour grounds from the
Winters’ garden.
“Who can be writing to me from New York?” she wondered. And because it
occurred to her that there might be something very unusual, maybe even
exciting, about the contents of this letter, she wanted to savor to the
full a delicious uncertainty before making sure of what it contained.
Gerry’s merry chatter made a pleasant meal of what would ordinarily
have been a very quiet one. Afterwards the two girls washed the
luncheon dishes with a great noise and clatter, then joined Mrs.
Winters on the porch.
As quietly as possible Bab took the letter from her pocket. But Gerry’s
bright, quick eyes followed the gesture instantly, with a pounce like
that of a mischievous kitten.
“Look, Granny!” she called to Mrs. Winters. “Our Bab’s got a letter.”
“A big letter, Granny,” said Bab, meeting the inquiring gaze of the
pink-cheeked old lady. “It’s from New York, too.”
Grandmother laid down her knitting to watch as Bab slit open the
envelope. In the porch swing Gerry slid closer to her chum, so that she
might look over her shoulder.
As Barbara Winters slowly opened the crackling pages and glanced at the
printed heading, she felt her heart begin to pound to a slow rhythm of
excitement.
“Grandmother!” she cried. “It--why, it’s from a lawyer! What can a
lawyer have to say to me?”
CHAPTER III
AN EXTRAORDINARY LEGACY
“Perhaps the best way, Bab, to find out what the lawyer has to say to
you is to read your letter and find out,” suggested Gerry Thompson.
But Bab Winters was not listening to her chum. She was already
deep in the letter--a letter which comprised several sheets of
interesting-looking manuscript.
“It isn’t some one suing you, I hope,” said Gerry to Bab’s averted fair
head. “Or a summons to court,” pensively. “Or some one dunning you for
money. It isn’t anything like that, is it, Bab?”
“No.” Bab’s glance went beyond Gerry to meet her grandmother’s steady
eyes. “It’s--why, Granny dear, I believe it’s a will!”
Gerry reached over and made a swift snatch at the papers, at the
imminent risk of tearing them to pieces. She read, in a queer, catchy
voice:
“‘Last Will and Testament of Jeremiah Dare.’ Oh, Bab!” she added
wildly, “you’ve gone and been left a million dollars by that somebody
with a funny name. You can have a big house up on the hill and give
huge dinner parties----”
“Wait! Wait!” cried Bab.
She took the papers from Gerry and began searching feverishly in the
envelope. “There must be a letter with this. Oh, yes--here it is!”
“From the lawyers?” asked Mrs. Winters in a quiet voice.
Bab nodded.
“Listen!” she commanded.
Gerry listened, wide-eyed and intensely thrilled, while Bab read the
first legal communication she had ever received.
“Miss Barbara Winters,” it began. “Dear Madam----”
Gerry giggled.
“All grown up of a sudden, aren’t you, Bab?”
“Your uncle, Jeremiah Dare---- Goodness!” ejaculated Bab, and again
looked across at Granny. “I’d nearly forgotten there was such a person.
Poor old man! Rosa Lee used to frighten me with him when I was a little
thing.” Rosa Lee had been Barbara’s nurse during the days of her little
girlhood.
Mrs. Winters nodded. Gerry cried impatiently:
“Read on! Read on!”
“‘Your uncle, Jeremiah Dare, having died and left you his estate,’”
Bab complied, “‘we hereby notify you to that effect.’”
“Oh, Bab, how much?” breathed Gerry. “_Is_ it a million dollars?”
But Bab, skimming over the legal phrasing, extracting the meat from the
communication, informed them that it was not a million dollars at all.
In fact--the disheartening fact stood starkly revealed--this remarkable
inheritance was practically worthless!
“Let me see!” cried Gerry, unwilling to trust to Bab. “You must have
overlooked something important, Babs.”
But after a few moments of scowling scrutiny, Gerry flung the document
from her, as though to intimate that she was through with it forever.
“Then all you get,” she cried wrathfully, “is a miserable little five
hundred dollars and a miserable, tumble-down shack in the woods. Bab,
I’ll never get over this!”
In response to a gesture from her grandmother, Bab picked up the
document and handed it to her. She watched sadly, a lump in her throat,
as Granny adjusted her spectacles upon her nose. If only queer old
Uncle Jeremiah had left her a real fortune, something that would have
smoothed away all difficulties for her grandparents, making them secure
for the rest of their lives! Bab felt foolish tears of disappointment
burn behind her eyelids.
“Oh, well,” she said bravely, “five hundred dollars is five hundred
dollars and a good deal better than nothing. As for the house, it may
not be in bad condition at all.”
“You might be able to sell it and get something for it,” Gerry
admitted. “But what a come-down, and when I had my heart all set on at
least a million dollars!”
“I don’t know why you should have set your heart on any such thing,”
said Bab stoutly. “From what I’ve heard of my queer old Uncle Jeremiah
Dare, he was anything but a rich man. Granny!” she added quickly. Her
grandmother was nodding and smiling--actually smiling!--over the will.
“What do you find that’s funny?”
“Something you evidently haven’t read at all,” replied Mrs. Winters in
the same quiet voice. “And I was laughing because the whole thing seems
so entirely like Jeremiah.”
She handed the will back into Bab’s eager fingers.
“Did you read the codicil?” she asked.
“Codicil?” repeated Bab vaguely. She had only the haziest idea what a
codicil was.
But Mrs. Winters pointed out a short paragraph at the very end of the
will.
“Read that,” she commanded.
Bab frowned as she read. Then suddenly her eyes brightened, for the
codicil to this extraordinary will was stranger than the will itself.
She read and reread it, striving to make some sense from the mysterious
wording of it, while her eyes grew brighter and the hand that held the
paper quivered a little with eagerness.
Gerry had, for some time, been regarding her with lively interest. Now
she broke in impatiently.
“What are you laughing to yourself about, Bab Winters?” she inquired.
“If there is a joke I think you and Granny are mean to enjoy it between
you and leave me out of it. It’s positively impolite!”
“I don’t know,” cried Barbara breathlessly, “but what this whole thing
may be a joke on me. Listen while I read this. ‘Only to one with
courage and a desire for adventure----’”
“That’s me!” interrupted Gerry irrepressibly.
“‘--will the old house yield up its treasure,’” continued Bab. “‘It has
been my experience that money, unearned, is harmful to the soul.’ Now
what do you think of that?” She put the paper down and looked at them.
“Think of it!” cried Gerry joyfully. “Why, Bab, it’s priceless,
immense, glorious! You can see what the old boy means, can’t you?”
Her eyes on her grandmother, Bab slowly shook her head.
“I can’t see----”
“Why,” Gerry rushed on, “your Uncle What’s-his-name has buried a
treasure or something in that old house and the codicil thing is just
a bid for you to come on and dig it up--the treasure, I mean--not the
codicil!”
“If that’s really what he meant, then I must say he had a sense of
humor,” said Bab dubiously.
“No!” It was Mrs. Winters who spoke, and her quiet, sweetly modulated
voice won instant attention from the girls. “Your Uncle Jeremiah Dare
was the last one in the world, Bab, that I would connect with a genuine
sense of humor. A queer, lonely old man, eccentric, notional. This
leaving his property to you is just one more queer act in a life of
queer actions. Your mother had occasion to be good to him once--perhaps
that is why he thought of you at the end.”
“But this--this codicil thing!” cried Bab, fairly stammering in
her eagerness. “What do you think of that, Granny? Doesn’t it look
rather--mysterious?”
“Yes, it is odd, of course.” Mrs. Winters adjusted her spectacles and
read the codicil again. “But then, as I said before, Jeremiah always
was queer. He traveled a great deal in his earlier days. Later on he
settled down in that old house in the country and lived, so people
said, almost the life of a hermit.”
“Was he a miser?” asked Gerry intensely.
Mrs. Winters looked at the girl and smiled indulgently.
“I shouldn’t wonder if he were, my dear,” she said.
“Then,” said Gerry triumphantly, “that settles it!”
“Settles what?” asked Bab.
“The question, of course,” retorted her chum. “If your Uncle
What’s-his-name was really a miser, Bab, then he kept all his money
right in the house with him. Misers always do.”
“Then I suppose he buried his money and left it for me to
find--provided I’m smart enough!” added Bab. “But it sounds so silly.
Why should he go to all the trouble of hiding the money--if there is
any--when it would have been ever so much easier just to leave it in
the bank with the other five hundred?”
“Why, don’t you see?” cried Gerry, with an excited giggle. “The codicil
explains everything. Doesn’t it say, ‘Money, unearned, is harmful to
the soul’?”
“I wonder!” cried Bab softly.
CHAPTER IV
THE LUCKY RING
After the two girls and Mrs. Winters had discussed and rediscussed
Bab’s legacy until they had viewed it from every possible angle, Bab
began to think in more practical terms.
“The lawyer says that he will ‘wait upon’ me in a day or two,” said
the girl, dimpling at the idea of Barbara Winters being “waited upon.”
“After that I suppose I’ll be perfectly free to visit the ancestral
mansion, sha’n’t I, Granny?”
The old lady nodded, smiling.
“Naturally you will want to look over your property, dear. Though I
wouldn’t expect too much,” she warned. “From all I have heard, your
uncle’s house was in a deplorable condition. He would never spend a
cent for repairs.”
“She doesn’t really care about the house,” explained Gerry, sparkling.
“All she wants is to be supplied with a pick and shovel. Then, on with
the treasure hunt!”
“Of course, I sha’n’t want to go all alone,” said Bab pensively, not
looking at Gerry. “I’ll positively have to have company on such a
perilous adventure.”
“Some people have said that I’m the very best company in the world,”
returned Gerry.
Bab giggled.
“Would you really like to come, Gerry?” she asked.
Gerry snorted.
“Just try to keep me out of this party!” she said.
Of course Mrs. Winters decided that the girls must have adult
companionship upon their very interesting adventure. After considerable
thought on the subject Bab and Gerry decided to ask Rosa Lee, Barbara’s
old colored nurse, to go along.
Mrs. Winters demurred.
“I don’t think Rosa Lee is exactly the proper chaperon,” she said.
“Oh, but, Granny, she’s such a wonderful cook!”
“Take her, by all means,” laughed Mrs. Winters. “But ask some one else
to go along, too.”
This was a hard problem and one that required much consultation and
earnest thought. The girls finally gave it up for that day, and
abandoned themselves to a glorious period of anticipation.
The next day the lawyer came.
Gerry Thompson happened to be on hand for one of the most interesting
conferences in which either she or Barbara Winters had ever
participated.
It was shortly after breakfast. In fact, Mr. Winters had not yet
finished his breakfast. But as Gerry was in the habit of turning up
at odd moments almost any time of the day or night, Bab’s family saw
nothing odd in that young lady’s joining them at such an hour. Mr.
Winters even urged her to take some bacon and eggs with him.
As a matter of fact, there was a great bond of sympathy between the
old gentleman and the jolly young girl, and Gerry Thompson petted and
cajoled him as much as she did her own father, to the great delight of
Mrs. Winters and Bab.
This morning Mr. Winters seemed in better spirits than usual. He was
enormously excited about Bab’s legacy. Though Jeremiah Dare was no
relation of his, he had heard him referred to occasionally by his wife.
In his secret thoughts he had surrounded the eccentric old fellow with
a sort of glamour as a miser, who, in the course of his bartering in
various old world ports, had perhaps found the opportunity of hoarding
a considerable fortune.
Of this considerable fortune then, reasoning as Mr. Winters reasoned,
his pretty, golden-haired Barbara was sole heir. The five hundred
dollars left to his granddaughter seemed to the old gentleman a
godsend; an open sesame as it were, to the treasure he had firmly
settled in his own mind must be hidden somewhere in the old house in
the country.
Although the years had piled themselves relentlessly upon the broad
shoulders of Caleb Winters, he remained youthfully enthusiastic at
heart; a man whose spirit, despite care and nagging worries, would
never age.
Now, as he helped Bab and Gerry from the platter of eggs for the second
time, he spoke of Bab’s legacy in glowing terms.
“You really think we ought to go up to the old house right away!” cried
Bab eagerly. Mrs. Winters smiled indulgently upon the three children,
grown-up one included. “Oh, Gran, do you really think there is a
fortune hidden about that old house?”
“Why not?” cried the old gentleman. “If I were in your shoes,
youngster, I’d not let another blade of grass grow under my feet
before I made an attempt, at least, to find out the truth. It’s the
kind of mystery and adventure not many youngsters get a chance at, nor
oldsters, either,” he added, with a wistful gleam in his eye. “Egad,
what would I give, I wonder, to be able to shrug forty-odd years from
my shoulders.”
“Dear Gran!” Bab was beside him, her arms about his neck and her
soft cheek pressed against his bristling one. “Listen to me, please!
Whatever I find up in that old house--if I find anything--is yours,
yours and grandmother’s. Do you hear me?”
“Gracious, there’s the bell!” cried Mrs. Winters as a peremptory
summons tinkled through the house. “Who can our caller be, I wonder, so
early in the day?”
She hurried from the room and the others heard her in a low-toned
conversation with some one at the door. When she returned her face was
as red as though she had just finished the day’s baking.
“It’s a lawyer,” she said in a whisper, “and he wants to see Bab.”
Bab jumped to her feet.
“A lawyer!” she repeated, feeling flustered. “Are you sure he wants to
see me?”
“Quite sure. Run along, dear.”
“If you need any help, Bab, lean on me!” Gerry offered her arm and Bab
giggled nervously.
“You come with me, Granddaddy,” she begged. “I feel the need of moral
support.”
Her grandfather chuckled.
“Come on, then,” he said. “I dare say the fellow won’t bite.”
However, upon seeing the stranger, Bab was not so sure of that.
He looked as though he might be tempted to bite upon the slightest
provocation.
He was short and thin and wiry, was this lawyer, Mr. James. He had
a head that was too large for his body and he was exceedingly bald.
His eyes were small and beady, his nose large and his mouth the most
thin-lipped Bab had ever seen.
He was seated on the extreme edge of one of the worn but comfortable
chairs and he looked up with so sharp an expression on Bab’s entrance
that the girl feared he was prepared to bite at once!
Mr. Winters spoke in his usual cordial tones.
“Ah, Mr. James?” he said. “Glad to know you, sir. I presume you
have come to talk business with my young granddaughter here, who, I
understand, is heir to her great-uncle’s property.”
“And little enough it is,” said Samuel James uncompromisingly.
His tone was dry and musty as, indeed, was his whole appearance. Bab
Winters had the impression that he had spent his life poking into law
books and other people’s business. She disliked him at once with an
intensity that was not characteristic of her.
“But, such as it is,” Mr. Winters continued, with disarming geniality,
“I suppose your purpose in coming here is to turn it over to its
rightful owner.”
“Just so,” retorted Mr. James dryly. “I have here”--he reached for a
portfolio which he had dropped at the side of his chair--“papers left
by my client, now deceased, including the deed to his house. Here also
are the keys to the house and a check for five hundred dollars on my
late client’s bank. I had strict orders before the death of Mr. Dare to
deliver these things in person and, by so doing, discharge my last duty
to him.”
Bab willingly surrendered the papers to her grandfather, who fell to
examining them carefully, while she herself reached for the keys--keys
to the first property she had ever owned.
Bab thrilled. What might not these little bits of rusty iron disclose
to her? What mysteries had they locked the door upon, perhaps mysteries
to be revealed only by her own exploring hand? What was the fortune
that awaited her behind locked doors?
Besides the keys there was a finger ring--a ring of dull gold, broad
and flat, like a Signet ring. But, instead of a monogram, there was
engraved on the back the image of a tiny, smiling Buddha with jeweled
eyes, green, emerald eyes that gleamed in the sunlight.
“What is this?” she asked.
“It is a ring of considerable value and antiquity,” said the dry
voice of the lawyer. “It is supposed, by those superstitious enough to
believe it, to bring luck to its wearer. It was your uncle’s wish, Miss
Barbara, that you wear the lucky ring day and night.”
“How queer!” exclaimed Bab, vaguely excited. “I’m not a bit
superstitious, but of course I’ll wear it. It is really very beautiful.”
CHAPTER V
LIGHTS AND NOISES
While Barbara Winters turned the lucky ring over and over in her hand
she was uncomfortably conscious that the eyes of Samuel James were upon
her in an intent, speculative look.
After a moment she raised her own candid gray eyes to his, a little
troubled and questioning.
“You--have you something to say to me?” she asked.
“I have debated whether what I have to say had better not be left
unsaid,” the lawyer replied.
His tone was so grave that even Grandfather Winters looked up
inquiringly.
Bab felt a chill of apprehension strike across her elation.
“What is it?” she cried. “Is anything wrong? Didn’t Uncle Jeremiah
leave the house to me, after all?”
“He left it to you. There can be no doubt of that,” the dry tones of
the lawyer responded. “But I feel it my duty to warn you that there
have been stories circulated in regard to your inheritance, Miss
Barbara, that are anything but--er--pleasant.”
Mr. Winters was all alert now. Bab could not but think as she looked at
him of a small boy on the scent of a promising adventure.
“What do you mean? What sort of happenings?” he asked, before Bab could
speak.
Mr. James cleared his throat and rubbed a thin hand over the blue-black
stubble that adorned his chin.
“Ahem! Lights!” he said. “And noises within and about the house----”
“Ooh--haunted!”
All three started and turned, to find Gerry Thompson standing in the
doorway regarding them with sparkling eyes.
“Sorry, Bab,” she said, meeting the gaze of her chum. “I simply _had_
to listen!”
Samuel James, after his first start of surprise, appeared distinctly
put out. He looked from Mr. Winters to Barbara and back again
indignantly, as though demanding to know the meaning of so unseemly an
interruption.
Bab beckoned to her chum, however, and patted the seat beside her.
“This is Geraldine Thompson,” she informed the lawyer, half-apologetically.
“She is my best chum and knows all about my inheritance.”
For a moment it appeared that the attorney was about to request Gerry’s
swift expulsion from the room. However, he swallowed the impulse and
replied rather sourly to the questions of the excited girls.
“You said lights had been seen in and about the house,” Bab stated.
“How do you know this, Mr. James?”
“It is the talk of the countryside,” the lawyer returned. “One cannot
spend an hour in the village of Clayton and not hear the entire history
of the happenings in the old brown house in the glen.”
“Bab, each moment adds a thrill,” cried Gerry irrepressibly. “You have
inherited not only five hundred dollars and a house, but a ghost as
well. I’m absolutely thrilled to death!”
Bab gave an excited giggle.
“I imagine more--and worse--thrills are in store for you, then,” she
retorted. “Wait till we get up there!”
Mr. James started and regarded the two girls closely. Then he turned to
Mr. Winters.
“You certainly do not mean,” he said incredulously, “that
your--er--granddaughter intends to--er--visit her property?”
Mr. Winters, who had been watching the two girls with smiling
indulgence, appeared surprised.
“Why not?” he queried. “Surely, it is the natural thing for an heiress
to want to have a look at her inheritance.”
“After what I have told you I should have thought you would have
changed your mind,” observed the attorney. “If you will permit me to
say so, I think that that gloomy old house is no place for a young
girl----”
“There will be two,” corrected Gerry, in an all-but-inaudible murmur.
“But there are unpleasant stories about the place,” persisted the
lawyer. “Of course, no one believes the story about ghosts. Bah! That
is ridiculous----”
“Just so!” murmured Gerry. Bab sent her a warning glance.
“But there is a mystery that I truly believe has its foundation in some
sinister fact. That fact, in my estimation, should be discovered and
the shadows surrounding the place dispelled before Miss Barbara should
be permitted to visit her inheritance.”
Mr. James’ eloquence appeared suddenly to have exhausted him. He sat
back, relapsing once more into his dry and dusty manner.
“However, you must judge these things for yourself,” he added. “I must
consider my duty discharged when I have warned you of what you may
expect.”
“I have one or two questions to ask,” Mr. Winters broke in quietly.
“Have you yourself seen anything of these--er--curious happenings,
lights and so forth, that you have so eloquently described?”
Mr. James fumbled with some papers in his portfolio before replying.
The girls held their breath for his answer.
“I have seen with my own eyes,” he said slowly, “a light that traveled
from one room to another, flickering now and then as though blown upon
by a strong wind though at the time no windows were open in the house
and there was scarcely a breath of wind outside.”
“The ghost!” cried Gerry dramatically. “Why didn’t you charge in and
seize him?”
“Or her!” said Bab.
“We--I was in the company of the sheriff--searched the place
thoroughly,” continued Samuel James in a frigid tone that plainly
rebuked the frivolous interruption. “The candle flickered out as we
approached the house and we saw no sign of any one. The building was
apparently deserted.
“Yet,” he paused and regarded them intently, while Gerry and Bab
slipped closer together on the couch and clasped hands, “all during our
search we were conscious of some one or some _thing_ following us----”
“Glorious!” cried Gerry, with an ecstatic shudder. “Something that
followed you----”
“Keeping always in the darkest corner and just beyond the rays of the
lantern we carried,” said Mr. James, his voice losing none of its dry
and dusty quality as he continued. “At times we were sure that, by
merely reaching out a hand, we could touch it, but never once did we
feel anything but empty air between our fingers!”
He paused and the girls leaned toward him, their eyes intent upon his
face.
Mr. Winters’ expression was interested, though half incredulous. It
seemed to say that he was not ready to believe all he heard.
“Sometimes the sound was above our heads. Sometimes we thought we heard
tiny feet pattering along the hall behind us,” continued Mr. James.
“But never did the light from our lantern fall upon anything, either
human or animal, that might have caused the sounds we heard.
“We were glad, I assure you, cold-blooded, unemotional men that we
were, when the door closed behind us and upon that mysterious presence
in the house.”
“You say you saw lights before entering the house,” said Bab slowly.
“Do you connect these lights with the queer sounds you heard?”
“My dear young lady, I do not presume to connect anything with anything
regarding that dreary old house in the glen. I have given you the
facts honestly, as I believe it my duty to do. It remains for you and
your guardians,” with a fugitive glance at Mr. Winters, “to decide
whether these facts are worthy of your consideration.”
After the door had closed behind Mr. Samuel James a few minutes later,
Bab and Gerry watched him from the window as he ambled down the walk,
hat set primly on his bald head.
“Old kill-joy!” said Gerry resentfully. “Why does he have to come here
with his foolish stories about ghosts and mysterious lights and try to
spoil the party?”
“Well, he can’t! Look; here are the keys!” Bab jingled them
challengingly. “And here is the lucky ring!” She held it up so that all
might see. “Oh, Gran dear, say that we may go at once!”
She flung both arms about her grandfather’s neck and pressed her cheek
to his.
“I want to try the keys. I want to pry into that mysterious old house,
and, if there is a fortune, I want to find it. Say we may go in a day
or two! Promise, Gran!”
Bab knew from long experience that her grandfather could refuse her
nothing when she asked in that fashion. He did not refuse her now.
“I don’t see why not, little girl,” he said, twining a lock of fair
hair about one big finger. “After all, the house is yours.”
Grandmother did not yield so easily to the cajolery and wheedling
of the two girls. The old brown house in the glen was in a lonely
situation, and it was hard to imagine on what facts the disquieting
rumors concerning the mysterious lights and patterings were based.
However, in the end she, too, gave in, saying:
“I suppose I have outlived my adventurous days and am over-cautious,
and it would be asking you to give up something that does not often
come in a young girl’s way. So go, Bab dear, if you want to.”
Wild with excitement and delight, Gerry grabbed Bab around the waist
and waltzed her about the room and out into the hall.
CHAPTER VI
GERRY’S NEWS
It was some time later the same day--about two o’clock, to be exact.
A group of excited young folks, friends of Gerry and Bab and Gordon,
were lounging on the lawn outside the tennis court on the Seymour
place. It was a very hot day and, while some of the young folks had
resolutely started to play tennis, they gave up after a set or two,
finding it much more agreeable to discuss Bab Winters and her startling
letter from New York.
Meanwhile Bab, the center of attraction, had slipped away with Gordon.
“You’ve answered so many questions your voice is hoarse,” said the boy,
as he lured her away. “Come over near the fountain and cool off.
“Look here, Bab,” he added, when they had put a sufficient distance
between them and the “crowd,” “I think it’s corking--all this happening
to you----”
“Gordon,” Bab interrupted eagerly, “what do _you_ think of Uncle
Jeremiah’s will?”
Gordon chuckled.
“I think the old boy had a wonderful sense of humor,” he said. “I’d
like to have known him while he was still in the land of the living.”
The youth dropped to the seat beside her, looking very handsome and
eager, with one lock of his sunburnt hair falling over his forehead.
“You say the old fellow had some reason for leaving the legacy to you
instead of to your grandmother?”
“Great-uncle Jeremiah’s favorite sister was named Barbara,” Bab
explained. “In fact, I think I was named for her. They say she was very
beautiful and the only thing poor crusty Uncle Jeremiah ever loved.
“She died when she was only twenty, of consumption, I think, and
Grandmother says poor Uncle Jerry was never the same afterward. So I
suppose I owe all this good luck to the fact that my name happens to be
Barbara,” she finished.
“Why question the fates?” demanded Gordon gayly. “At any rate, you
are set down in the midst of a mystery that promises to be chock
full of thrills and adventures. I don’t mind telling you,” he added,
resentfully whacking the bushes with his racket, “that I’m jealous!”
“Jealous!” repeated Bab, dimpling. “What of?”
“You, of course,” said the boy, in an injured tone. “How do you suppose
it makes a fellow feel to be left behind to twiddle his thumbs while
adventure like that looms in the offing----”
“As it were,” teased Bab.
“I fear you don’t realize how real my trouble is,” Gordon insisted. “I
tell you, it’s downright tragedy.”
Bab Winters was thoughtful for a moment. Then she chuckled.
“If it hurts you so to stay behind, Gordon,” she said, “why do you?”
Gordon met her mischievous eyes for a moment; then slowly and joyfully
grinned.
“Do you mean that as an invitation?” he demanded.
Before Bab could reply there was the sound of running feet on the
path behind them and a voice penetrated through the shrubbery--Gerry
Thompson’s voice.
“Bab, Bab! Where are you? I’ve got news for you.”
As Bab jumped to her feet, Gordon caught her arm eagerly.
“Did you mean it?” he asked. “Will you really let me tag along?”
Bab had just time to nod her head before Gerry burst into view.
“Oh, I beg a million pardons! If I intrude----”
“Don’t be silly,” retorted Bab shortly. “What’s this wonderful news
you’ve been shouting about?”
“Oh, yes, the news!” returned Gerry. She sank down on the stone bench
and tried to fan herself with an inadequate handkerchief. “Charlie
brought it--the news, I mean. About that kidnaped girl--the one we
saw, or thought we saw, the day Charlie tried to kill us in that new
atrocity of his----”
“But was the girl actually being kidnaped?” interrupted Bab, and added
in the same breath: “How do you know?”
“It’s in all the papers,” Gerry returned excitedly. “The parents are
offering a big reward--a thousand dollars I think Charlie said--for her
return or for the capture of the villain that kidnaped her. Makes it
interesting, don’t you think?”
“It might, if we had any chance of catching the kidnaper,” Bab
admitted. “That poor girl! What an awful thing to happen to any one!”
“It is,” admitted Gerry. “But you haven’t heard the strangest part yet,
Bab. Charlie showed me the girl’s picture in the paper and she looks a
lot like you. That isn’t all,” as Bab started to interrupt. “Her name
is like yours, too. The first name is the same--Barbara--and the last
is Winthrop.”
“Barbara Winthrop,” repeated Bab, wondering. “It does sound something
the same. But, really, Gerry, I can’t see----”
“Of course you can’t. Neither can anybody else. But really, Bab,” she
added, lowering her voice and speaking quickly as an increasing tumult
from the direction of the tennis court heralded the approach of the
crowd, “don’t you think it’s odd--a girl stolen from Scarsdale who
looks like you and has a name that is almost the same as yours and just
at this time, too?”
“What do you mean--just at this time?” queried Bab, impressed in spite
of herself.
“Just at the time you receive your mysterious inheritance, of course.
Two sensational things like that don’t often happen at the same time.”
Gordon Seymour was inclined to scoff.
“Just coincidence,” was his verdict.
“Oh, all right,” said Gerry. “Scoff if you will. But now I’ll tell you
a piece of news, Bab, that you can’t laugh at.”
“What’s that?” asked Bab obligingly.
“Charlie Seymour has invited himself to go with us! Laugh that off, if
you can!”
However, when they came to think it over later, the girls did not
resent Charlie Seymour’s intrusion into the sacred circle as much as
they had thought they would. As long as Gordon was included anyway, it
would be rather nice to have another boy along.
“If for nothing else than to keep the numbers even,” added Gerry.
“Besides, if the ghost gets too obstreperous, we may need the boys to
handle him!”
It was Gordon who finally suggested the perfect chaperon to take along
in addition to Rosa Lee.
“How about Mrs. Fenwick? She’s a sort of relation of mine, you know,
sixth cousin thrice removed, or something of the sort. Anyway, she must
be pretty lonesome, living alone the way she does. Bet she’d be glad to
go.”
Mrs. Fenwick was a quiet little mouse of a woman with a face that was
uninteresting until she smiled, when it lit up in a wonderful manner.
She lived all alone in a small cottage on the outskirts of the town,
and because she was a little deaf and a little queer she was left
considerably to herself.
“I’ll be glad to go, my dears,” she told the girls, with pathetic
eagerness. “I am not deaf, really, except when people mumble their
words. If you will learn to speak distinctly, I think we shall get
along quite well.”
So, to the great satisfaction of all concerned, that important point
was settled.
Uncle Jeremiah’s lucky ring which Bab wore day and night, in accordance
with the old gentleman’s instructions, was turned about so many times
on Bab’s finger by awed and youthful acquaintances that it was only a
wonder both ring and finger were not worn through before the day of
departure.
Rosa Lee was prepared--old trunk and slender suitcase packed in
readiness for the trip, herself eagerly anticipating this joyful break
in the dull routine of her life.
The consent of Gerry Thompson’s parents had been won only by the
exercise of strenuous cajolery on the part of that young person
and Gerry declared herself “quite worn out” when the question was
satisfactorily settled.
Gerry had arranged to spend the night before their departure with Bab.
Despite her eager anticipation of the morrow, dinner that night was a
trial to Bab Winters. Although Gerry was in hilarious spirits and her
grandmother and grandfather joined gallantly in the fun, Bab’s watchful
eyes discovered a deep underlying depression in the mood of the old
people.
If she had not known the tragic secret of their poverty, Bab might have
thought that they were only sad at the prospect of parting from her.
As it was, she knew that a far deeper trouble gnawed at their hearts
and threw a dread blight on these last years of their lives, years that
should have been filled with sunshine.
And she could not help them!
Uncle Jeremiah’s will? A possible hidden fortune? Perhaps----
Later that night when Gerry was sound asleep--dreaming, no doubt, of
chests and boxes crammed with gold--Bab pushed back the covers, went to
her door and opened it.
A few steps brought her just outside her grandmother’s room.
Ah! She had not been mistaken! There was sobbing within that room,
a soft, heartbroken sobbing, a sound so lonely and forlorn in its
hopelessness that it forced a sob to Bab’s own lips.
Slowly the girl crept back to her own room.
For a long time she stood at her window, looking up at the twinkling
stars that swam in a mist of tears before her eyes.
The night was heavenly calm. A balmy, sweet-scented breath of air crept
in at the window. It stirred the curtain gently and drew a corner of it
across her hand as it rested on the window sill.
There was magic in that breeze, magic in the fragrant breath of it that
blew Bab’s soft hair about her face. The stars no longer swam as though
in a mist. Each star was suddenly a tiny lighted torch--a torch that
beckoned her on to what?
Adventure!
All the youth of an ageless world called clamorously to Barbara’s
youth. At that moment she felt equipped to dare and to conquer, no
matter how great the odds might be against her.
“If Uncle Jerry has left me money,” she told herself vehemently, “I’ll
find it if I have to dig my way right through to China!”
CHAPTER VII
GETTING AWAY
The next day was gorgeous--just such a day as Bab Winters and Gerry
Thompson would have chosen for their adventure if they had had any say
about it.
Warm and sunny, with a fresh breeze blowing. The scent of roses drifted
in at the window and the dazzling gleam of the morning sun roused the
two girls from pleasant dreams to joyful reality.
Gerry was first out of bed.
“Up, sluggard!” she cried, sternly gazing at her still sleepy-eyed
chum. “You will never catch the ten o’clock train that way. Oh, dear,”
searching frantically, “where did I put my clothes?”
“They are here on the chair where you left them last night,” said Bab,
rolling over in bed. “Here, catch!”
Gerry caught the flying raiment and giggled.
“Talk about service!” she cried gayly. “I don’t need a lady’s maid. I
have Bab!”
“You start calling names,” Bab threatened absently, “and I may not take
you to the country with me after all. Come in!”
The gentle tap on the door was followed by Mrs. Winters in person.
Bab thought she looked pale and went over and put her arms about her
grandmother with more than usual gentleness.
“I wish you were going gold-digging with us, Granny,” she said. “Just
think! To-day we start on our treasure hunt! And who knows what lovely
news----”
“To say nothing of coffers of gold,” murmured Gerry.
“We may have for you when we come back!”
“The wealth of Midas in bank notes and golden coins,” added Gerry.
“Already my fingers begin to tingle----”
“It’s an itching palm you have,” suggested Bab, with a laugh.
She squeezed her grandmother’s shoulders and, reaching up, placed a
kiss on the soft cheek.
“We’ll be down in just a minute, Granny,” she promised.
When, a few minutes later, they followed the old lady downstairs, Bab
and Gerry were surprised to see Gordon and Charlie Seymour on the steps
of the front porch.
“Literally camped on our doorstep!” giggled Gerry.
“Have you come to breakfast?” asked Bab.
At this sarcasm the two boys came to the screen door and looked in at
her reproachfully.
“Bab, you misjudge us,” Gordon assured her gravely. “We have been
brought up better.”
“Something new to learn every day,” said Gerry, as she opened the door.
“However, come in, do! Bab may possibly be able to spare you a fried
egg.”
But the boys had already eaten breakfast. They had, they explained,
merely risen with the birds so as to be sure of an early start.
The trunks had been sent the day before to Clayton, to be held there
until the arrival of the girls and boys.
“Dad will drive us to the station in his car,” Gordon added.
There, in the sunshiny cottage of the Winters, there would have seemed
to a casual observer nothing to mar the peace and security of the scene.
But to Bab, watching her grandparents when they did not know themselves
observed, a grim specter seemed to hover in the background, throwing a
sinister, ugly shadow over the brightness of the scene.
Poverty!
A dreadful thing, putting beyond reach so many of the good things of
life, Bab thought--the happy, contented, sure things.
If she could only go to these two dear people who had never denied a
wish of hers, who had brought her up to her fifteenth year in happy
ignorance of their own struggle and worries, and tell them that she
knew their grim secret and loved them and wanted to help them bear it;
that she appreciated all they had done for her and sacrificed for her
sake!
Dear Granddaddy, joking and laughing with the young folks and stealing,
between times, harried anxious glances at the brave, pale face of his
wife! And grandmother, with the roses in her soft cheeks faded by
nights of weary, anxious vigil!
If she could do something for them; in some way bring back the blessed
peace and security that was so necessary for them at this time in their
lives!
Gordon Seymour noticed her mood--as strange as it was depressing in one
of Bab’s sunny temperament.
“What’s the matter, Bab?” he asked in a low tone. “Lost the lucky ring,
or something?”
Bab looked at him and tried to smile, but her lips trembled
treacherously and her eyes filled with tears. Under cover of Gerry’s
merry chatter, she pushed back her chair and took refuge on the side
porch.
There Gordon found her a moment later, her hands grasping the rail and
her face very grave as she stared out over the riot of bloom in the
rose garden.
“If you don’t want me,” said Gordon awkwardly--for, after all, he was
only a boy--“I’ll go away, Bab. But if there’s anything wrong, I’d like
awfully to help, if I can.”
“It’s mighty good of you, Gordon,” said Bab, her face turned from him.
“But, you see, there isn’t anything you can do--really.”
“Tell me about it,” wheedled the boy.
“Well, it isn’t my secret; and, anyway, you might laugh.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die if I would!” cried Gordon and Bab
laughed, with tears in her eyes.
“We’re in dreadful trouble, Don.” It was an old nickname that Bab used
only in moments of great friendliness for the boy next door. “And
I can’t see any way out, except, maybe, just one--and that’s Uncle
Jeremiah’s will.”
She spoke softly, more to herself apparently than to Gordon. But a
great light broke over the boy.
“Uncle Jeremiah’s will,” he repeated thoughtfully. “H’m!”
That was it, then! Bab needed money. Probably the old folks were in
financial trouble. He laid an eager brown hand over Bab’s on the
railing.
“Hurray for Uncle Jerry, then!” he cried. “Don’t you care, Bab! I’ve a
notion that before this summer’s work is done you won’t have to worry
any more about anything.
“Look there!” he pointed across the hedge to his own house. “Dad is
backing the car out of the garage. Time to start on the treasure hunt,
Bab!”
His enthusiasm was infectious. Bab flung back her head and turned to
him with a smile.
“Here’s luck, Don!” she cried.
“Here’s luck, Bab,” the boy replied. “To Uncle Jerry and his hidden
fortune!”
After this toast the two joined hands and rushed into the dining room.
“Hurry up, folks!” cried Bab. “Mr. Seymour is coming in the big car!”
There was a scurry for hats and bags and then they all rushed out to
greet Mr. Seymour.
The latter was a handsome man. His ruddy face usually wore a half-smile
as though he were good-humoredly laughing at life.
He stepped forward now to greet Mr. and Mrs. Winters, who were to go
with the young folks as far as the station.
“You can go on, Dad,” said Gordon. “Pick up Mrs. Fenwick and Rosa Lee
on the way, will you? We’re going to get out my car and travel direct
to the station.”
“Aye, aye, sir, your commands shall be obeyed,” said the elder Seymour,
with ironic gesture of hand to cap.
Gordon grinned and waved and disappeared among the mass of shrubbery
that bordered the Seymour drive. A few moments later Gordon’s long
blue car slid backward down the drive, nearly colliding with the
distinguished-looking gray chassis belonging to his father.
“Watch your step!” commanded the latter, with a wave of his hand toward
his son. At the same moment his foot pressed the accelerator sharply
and the car darted down the road.
Gordon followed, nobly resisting the desire to race his father’s car.
The lad reached the station first, however, since it was necessary for
Mr. Seymour to turn off the main road and gather up Mrs. Fenwick and
Rosa Lee on the way to the station.
In fact, they were so long delayed that Bab became uneasy.
“Why don’t they come?” she thought anxiously.
It was nearly train time. To miss it would be little short of tragedy.
And of course they could not stir a step without their chaperon and
Rosa Lee, the cook.
“Here comes the train!” cried Gerry.
Bab turned startled eyes up the track.
“They’ll be late!” she cried tragically. “Gerry, we’ve simply got to
hold that train until they come!”
“Here they come now!” called Charlie Seymour.
Sure enough, as the train sped toward the station the nose of the gray
car shot around the corner. The machine stopped on one side of the
platform as the train drew in at the other.
CHAPTER VIII
ROSA LEE
Bab Winters broke from the circle of her friends and darted to her
grandparents as they stepped from the car.
Mrs. Fenwick followed the two old people. She was dressed very quietly
and, as usual, had little to say. She smiled at Bab and asked her to
speak a little louder, although the girl had already raised her voice
to a shout in order to make herself heard above the snorting and
rumbling of the train.
Rosa Lee, seated in state beside Mr. Seymour, descended in regal
manner. Her rugged old face lighted with pleasure as she saw Bab
Winters.
“Ah declares to goodness, you is purtier than ever, honey,” she said
fondly. “Bress yo’ bright eyes!”
“Grandmother!” cried Bab, her arms about the slender old lady. “Wish us
all luck. Maybe my first letter will have real news for you. Who knows!”
Mrs. Winters smiled and gave her a gentle push.
“Hurry, dear. You will miss the train.”
Bab flung her arms about her grandfather, was held in a bear’s embrace
for a moment, then yielded to the insistent pressure of Gordon’s hand
upon her arm.
“I sent Charlie ahead with Gerry and the luggage,” announced the lad.
“Come on, Rosa Lee, right this way. Good-by, Dad!”
Mrs. Fenwick took care of herself. But it was no small task to pilot
Rosa Lee though the crowd on the station platform and see her safely
established on the train. Gordon managed it, however, as Gordon Seymour
seemed to manage most things.
Rosa Lee, disposed of in a seat by herself, her numerous and mysterious
packages ranged about her, Bab turned her attention to the others.
Gerry and Charlie were leaning from the windows, saying good-by to
everybody. The next moment Bab made a great discovery. The train was
moving!
A pang of homesickness swept over Bab and she leaned far out of the car
to catch a last glimpse of the old people she loved.
There they stood, waving to her. Bab’s vision blurred as the train
swung about a curve, blotting both them and the station from view.
“If they were only happy!” thought Bab.
From the seat behind, Gerry’s voice came gleefully to her.
“We’re off, my comrades! The great detectives have struck the trail.”
Laughing, Bab leaned over and touched Rosa Lee on the shoulder.
“Are you glad you are going with us, Rosa Lee?” she asked.
“Glad ain’t no word fo’ it, honey,” Rosa Lee assured her. “Dis ole
woman feels like she could do a dance o’ joy in dis yere car aisle,
yassir, she does.”
“Go ahead, Rosa Lee,” put in Gordon. “Why keep all the joy to yourself?”
The colored woman displayed two rows of white teeth in an indulgent
smile. Gordon Seymour was a great favorite of hers, although he had
always, even as a very little lad, teased her unmercifully.
“Go ’long with you,” she retorted. “What wiv rheumatism an’ ole age
crampin’ up mah joints, Ah ain’t in no condition to go highsteppin’ up
dis yere aisle. No sah! Ah’s gwine remain jus’ where Ah is!”
Gerry chuckled and craned her neck over Bab’s shoulder. Her eyes fell
with alert curiosity upon a bundle that occupied the seat beside Rosa
Lee. She abruptly deserted Charlie and perched on the arm of the old
woman’s seat so as to get a better view.
“What have we here?” she demanded, pointing to a package that seemed
larger and lumpier than the rest.
“Bress yo’ heart, honey, if Ah didn’t suspect you’d ask dat question.
Dis yere package,” with a prideful hand on the paper covering, “done
contain de finest doughnuts dat ebber yo’ bright eyes did see.”
“Doughnuts!” cried Gerry ecstatically. “You old angel! Look out, I’m
going to hug you! What else have you got?”
Having learned the contents of one package, Gerry’s curiosity
concerning the others was not to be denied. It appeared that Rosa
Lee had spent the greater part of her time while awaiting the day of
departure in the practice of her art--for to her the baking of pies and
cakes was nothing less--and was taking with her enough of the fruits of
her labor to last them for several days.
“Ah didn’t have no notion what kind of cook stove there is whar we’re
gwine, honey,” she explained to Bab. “So Ah jest perceeded to make good
use o’ mah time.”
“I’ll say you did,” sighed Gerry contentedly. “Rosa Lee, I see where
you are going to be a great, great comfort to us!”
At the next station a man got on the train and passed through, selling
papers. Gordon bought several and handed them around to the crowd.
Bab looked over the news of the first page casually, then turned the
sheet. She was suddenly startled by her own face, staring back at her
from the printed sheet!
A second glance, however, assured her that this picture was not of her
at all. Nor was the name beneath it hers.
“Barbara Winthrop,” she read. “Why, that was the name of the kidnaped
girl--the one who looked so much like me.”
It was all clear to her now. She read the short column beneath the
picture with increasing interest.
“Wuxtry! Wuxtry!” said Gerry in her ear. “I see you are reading the
latest developments in the kidnaping case, Bab. What do you think about
it?”
Bab shook her head.
“I don’t know what to think,” she confessed. “The girl does look like
me. It’s all pretty mystifying.”
“Five thousand dollars for any one who returns the child to her
family,” went on Gerry. “I wouldn’t mind collecting that myself.”
“As if you had a chance!” Bab spoke absently. Her eyes had returned to
the pictured face in the paper. How like her own it was! Strange----
“Don’t try to make me believe that the kidnaping and your mysterious
inheritance happened at the same time for nothing.” Gerry was speaking
again and in her voice was the dark hint of mysterious things. “There
is something behind all this, Bab Winters. You just watch and see!”
Although Bab branded Gerry’s theory as “all nonsense,” she could
not rid herself of an uncomfortable feeling that it might not be as
nonsensical as it seemed.
It was odd that this girl, the victim of a cruel kidnaping, should so
closely resemble herself, both in name and person. Viewed from one
angle--Gerry’s angle--it certainly did seem more than just coincidence
that the time of the kidnaping and the announcement of Uncle Jeremiah’s
generosity to her should be almost simultaneous.
At this point a thought came into Bab’s mind. It was a strange and
rather terrible thought. It took her breath away.
Was it possible that there might have been some dreadful mistake? Was
she, perhaps, the intended victim of the kidnaper--not Barbara Winthrop?
No sooner had the thought entered her mind than she began to scold
herself for having been foolish enough to entertain it.
“I won’t look for trouble,” she told herself, turning the lucky ring
thoughtfully upon her finger. “Uncle Jerry’s will is mystery enough
for the present. I’ll try not to think of this Barbara Winthrop again,
except to hope that she will soon be returned to her parents. What a
dreadful, dreadful thing to happen to any one!”
“I think we shall be at Clayton soon,” Gordon’s voice broke through her
abstraction. “Better get your things ready.”
Bab turned from her thoughts gladly, relieved at the prospect of
immediate action. She knew, suddenly, that she was almost painfully
excited.
“It won’t be long now before I see my inheritance!” she thought.
She felt in her pocket to make sure that the keys were safe.
CHAPTER IX
A PITIFUL APPARITION
“Well, I must say this place doesn’t look like much!”
The observation was Gerry Thompson’s. Beside her, Charlie Seymour
heartily, though languidly, agreed.
“You’re right, it doesn’t. I doubt if we can even find a wagon to carry
our stuff.”
“Leave that to me,” said Gordon confidently. “In fact, if I am not
very much mistaken, yonder rambling shack once called itself a livery
stable. Come on, Charlie, let’s investigate.”
The shabby, deserted country station was not a cheerful sight. Dust
lay thick on the road that ran behind the platform; the sun beat
down upon it in a dazzling glare. A few straggling houses were dimly
visible through the trees. From what they could see of it, the village
of Clayton certainly presented no very alluring prospect to the weary
travelers.
Mrs. Fenwick stood primly by herself, smiling her vague, sweet smile.
Rosa Lee sat on an overturned suitcase in the midst of her piles
of packages, wearing a look of extreme melancholy. Some one had
carelessly sat upon a cake!
In vain Bab protested that there were enough goodies left anyway: that
the cake, though badly squashed, was still edible. Poor Rosa Lee was
inconsolable.
“No, sir, I’s nebber gwine make anudder cake like dat,” she sighed. “De
time Ah spent on dat po’ cake----”
“Love’s labor lost!” Gerry murmured, and Bab laughed, to the
accompaniment of a shocked, reproachful look from the bereaved cook.
While they waited for the return of Charlie and Gordon, Gerry cast an
eye skyward.
“Rain clouds, Bab. Shouldn’t wonder if we were in for a pretty storm.”
“Oh, I hope not!” exclaimed Bab. “A haunted house must seem ever so
much more dismal in the rain!”
Meanwhile, the boys had found that the livery stable, so-called, was
really only a tumble-down shed, housing one poor old nag and a wagon
with wabbly wheels.
This, they were informed by the owner, was at their disposal, as “far
as it went.”
“Which won’t be far, judging from the look of it,” remarked Gerry
disparagingly. “I don’t see how we are going to squeeze ourselves and
all our belongings into that thing.”
The owner of the equipage scowled darkly at this reflection on his
property.
“I’ve been servin’ the countryfolk for some thirty-odd years, Miss----”
“I can well believe it!” thought Gerry.
“And I’ve never failed to give satisfaction----”
“Oh, I’m quite sure it will be all right,” Bab broke in hastily. “And,
if you please, I think we should hurry a little. Those clouds in the
east really do look like rain.”
“Mr. Wiggley says he will come back and get the luggage after taking us
to the house,” Gordon explained.
“What! Leave it all alone here on the platform for some one to steal?”
cried Gerry.
“There’s a boy will watch it, Miss,” said Seth Wiggley. He was a thin,
bony old man and he chewed his quid of tobacco with an air of great
relish. “If anythin’ gits so much as teched I’ll hold myself pussonally
responsible.”
A glance from Bab checked Gerry’s giggle and spared the old man’s
feelings.
“It’s kind of you to take so much trouble for us,” she said gratefully.
“Is this--is this--the boy?”
Seth Wiggley nodded a twinkling affirmative as the girls gazed upon a
gangling youth with sandy hair, light eyes and a pimply skin.
“He’s six feet tall if he’s an inch,” whispered Gerry to Bab.
In fact, Seth Wiggley’s “boy” was one of those youngsters who, at the
age of twelve or thirteen, attain the height of twenty. To speak of
this long youth as a “boy” seemed absurd; yet a glance at his wide blue
eyes and youthful mouth affirmed the statement of Mr. Wiggley that his
son was “just turned thirteen.”
This person then, known to the irreverent youth of the village as
“Wigs,” came into the foreground and was properly presented.
The newcomers then climbed into the decrepit vehicle, helping Mrs.
Fenwick in first. When Rosa Lee followed it seemed as though the wagon
would crack into fragments there in the road. However, it stood the
strain, and though it creaked in every joint and axle, started off
bravely enough when Seth Wiggley climbed to his seat and cracked the
whip over his nag.
“We’ll be there soon now, Bab,” cried Gerry. “Aren’t you thrilled?”
“Who wouldn’t be!” retorted Bab, a little breathlessly.
She was looking forward steadily along the road ahead, a dusty ribbon
of road winding through a woodland of tender greens and rugged browns.
The sweet, pungent scent of pines wafted from the heart of the woods
and filled her with a sudden longing to wander down grassy paths and
linger beside the sun-warmed waters of the brook whose sweet, distant
music came pleasantly to her ears.
“I feel like a savage,” she said whimsically when Gerry rallied her
upon her silence. “I’d like nothing better than to be turned loose out
there with a bow and arrow----”
“I always said there was something queer about you, Bab Winters. Now I
know what it is. Hello! What have we here? What mystery is this?”
The exclamation was caused by a violent disturbance of the bushes at a
point in the road just ahead of them. The next moment a small, ragged
figure burst from the shelter of the underbrush and ran toward them,
arms outstretched, rags fluttering.
“Help me!” burst from the lips of this pitiful apparition. “Help! Help!”
CHAPTER X
THE OLD HOUSE IN THE GLEN
The old horse, ancient and worn by many cares as he was, shied as the
figure in tattered clothes rushed toward them. Seth Wiggley uttered an
imprecation and sawed at the reins.
With a cry of pity, Bab Winters rose in her seat. She might have sprung
to the road while the wagon was still in motion if Gerry had not caught
her.
Before another move could be made, a second figure darted from the
woods, seized the terrified child with a firm grip and dragged him back
into the shelter of the bushes.
There was a sharp wail of terror, instantly silenced.
With a shout the boys jumped from the back of the wagon. Gordon led
the way to the spot where the strange pair had disappeared. Charlie
followed.
Bab and Gerry were not slow to follow them. Filled with curiosity, they
plunged into the woods, sparing not a thought to their own safety, deaf
to the warning cries of Mrs. Fenwick and Rosa Lee. In their ears was
the sound of the boy’s cry, his wild appeal for help.
Gordon and Charlie had picked up sticks as they ran. Now they thrashed
violently at the bushes, the light of battle in their eyes. Charlie
Seymour appeared thoroughly roused from his usual state of lethargy and
followed Gordon’s lead with enthusiasm.
However, the search proved fruitless. If that sinister figure, darting
into the road to seize its victim, had been possessed of magic powers
and had disappeared down a hole in the earth, his escape could not have
been more completely shrouded in mystery.
There was no sign either of him or the boy; no sign, even, of a
struggle in the bushes.
After a few moments more of fruitless effort, the young folks gave up
the search and gathered in the road, amazed and shaken by the strange
experience.
Bab saw that Mrs. Fenwick was beckoning to them. Rosa Lee was in the
act of descending from her seat in the wagon, packages and all.
Bab and Gerry tried to explain to Mrs. Fenwick.
“They have gone--disappeared,” said Bab, raising her voice.
“Who have gone?” asked the woman, cupping a hand behind her ear.
“That awful man and the boy,” shouted Gerry. “We couldn’t find them.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Fenwick. “Well, you had better get into the wagon
again, my dears. It is safer than the woods.”
The girls exchanged incredulous glances. Their placid chaperon was
apparently not interested in the strange occurrence.
“It’s the most utterly mysterious thing that ever happened,” Bab said
as they obediently climbed into the wagon again.
“It is, for a fact,” Gordon agreed. “One minute you see them, the next
they’ve vanished into thin air. The whole thing reads like a dream.”
“A nightmare, I’d call it,” said Bab gravely. “That poor boy! If ever I
saw terror on any human face, I tell you it was on his as he ran toward
us.”
“Ugh! It was horrible,” shuddered Gerry. “That arm reaching from the
bushes! I expect I’ll dream of it to-night.”
Seth Wiggley clucked to his horse and they jogged on again down the
dusty road.
“The fellow that grabbed the boy had a queer face,” Charlie
volunteered. “Did any of you notice him?”
“I scarcely saw his face,” Bab admitted. “You see, I was looking at the
boy.”
“The man had a handkerchief wound around his head,” Gerry contributed.
Gordon spoke suddenly.
“It was a turban,” he said with conviction.
The others looked at him inquiringly.
“You mean you think he was a Hindu or an Arab--some gentleman of that
order?” asked Gerry.
Gordon nodded gravely.
“There aren’t so many kinds of gentlemen who go around with their heads
tied up in handkerchiefs,” he reminded her.
“You’ve been reading too many adventure yarns, old top,” said Charlie,
once more relapsing into his attitude of boredom. “I thought there was
something odd about the fellow, but I didn’t take him for a Hindu.”
“Dat man sho’ had a brack face.”
The young folks were surprised by this offering from Rosa Lee and
looked at her expectantly.
“An’ Ah ought to be a jedge of brack faces,” continued the old woman,
“seein’ Ah done wore one myself ever sence Ah was old enough to set up
and take nourishment.”
“Oh, Rosa Lee, did you really get a good look at him?” asked Bab
eagerly.
“Dat Ah done, honey, sho’ ’nough,” said the Negress, with unction. “An’
dat’s why Ah got so all-fired kercited when yo’-all run off into de
woods after dat no-count nigger. Fo’ you can take my word fo’ it or
not, honey, jest as you please, but dat brack man was de debbil’s own
child.”
Gerry giggled nervously.
“Just the same,” she said softly, “I have yet to meet my first ‘brack
man’ who wore a turban.”
Bab nodded.
“I guess Gordon was right. That poor boy! That poor, ragged, abused
child! I shan’t sleep much to-night, I can tell you, thinking of him
out here in the woods alone with that awful black-skinned savage.”
Perhaps it was just as well for Bab that they came in sight of their
destination just then.
“This here’s the road,” said Seth Wiggley, pointing out to them an old
wagon road, now almost completely overgrown with weeds and stubbly
grass.
“But this road can’t be used very much,” Gerry protested.
Seth Wiggley gave her an odd look.
“No more it is, Miss,” he returned dryly. “Folks they don’t come this
way ’less they have to.”
Gerry looked at Bab significantly and, with her lips, formed the word
“ghost!”
Bab nodded.
“This was the main road onct,” Seth Wiggley continued. “But that was a
long time ago, before old Jeremiah Dare came home from his travels.
Neighborhood used to be called Clayton’s Glen.”
“It’s dreary enough now,” remarked Bab.
The trees grew closely along both sides of the disused road. The
branches grew low, almost brushing them as they passed.
“A dreary road and a dreary old house,” said Seth Wiggley, wagging his
head. “And a dreary enough old man who lived there, if you’ll excuse my
saying that!”
“You don’t like the place, do you, Mr. Wiggley?” asked Bab softly.
“Saving your presence, Miss, I do not!” said the old man decidedly. “If
you’re the Miss Barbara Winters that’s been left the house by the old
pirate that lived there----”
“He was my great-uncle, Mr. Wiggley,” said Bab, with a touch of dignity.
“Your pardon again, Miss,” said the old man, turning toward her with an
admiring and speculative look. “But maybe you’ll excuse an old fellow
for saying that if you was my daughter, I’d burn the house down before
I’d open the door to a lovely young lady like you!”
As though he suddenly regretted the words--which in truth caused a
swift chill to envelop the spirits of the party--he shut his lips
tightly on further revelations.
They came suddenly and without warning upon Bab’s property. The old
house in the glen was completely hidden by the thick green trees from
any one approaching along the road. But here it was as though the woods
had been pushed back a little--a very little--and in the heart of this
cleared space was the house that had once belonged to Jeremiah Dare and
that now was Bab’s.
An old brown house, fallen into sad disrepair. Shutters swung loose
on their hinges, one of the windows had been broken and boarded up.
At the rear was a small building, clinging to the main house like a
carbuncle--an architecturally horrible afterthought.
“What’s that?” asked Bab, meaning this appendage to her property.
“Was a blacksmith’s shop once,” explained Mr. Wiggley, pointing with
his whip. “But, so fur as I kin find out, it closed when the road did
and it ain’t been opened since. Ain’t much use for a blacksmith’s shop
here.”
Bab could not help wishing that when they had closed the blacksmith’s
shop they had taken it down altogether. Standing where it did was a
blot on the landscape, worse than the old house itself.
Looking at her inheritance, Bab’s heart sank.
“A fortune hidden here!” she thought. “Why, Uncle Jerry didn’t even
have money enough to keep the house in decent repair!”
Two faintly marked wheel tracks that had once probably been a drive led
down to the house. Seth Wiggley guided his weary nag along this, then
reined in suddenly and sprang, with wiry alacrity, to the ground.
From then on, though the old man was polite enough, helping Mrs.
Fenwick and Rosa Lee to alight and assisting with the bundles, Mr.
Wiggley delivered himself of no further observations concerning the
house. Perhaps he felt too much had been said already.
At any rate, he appeared definitely relieved when the wagon was
reversed in the narrow road and he was free to turn his back upon Bab’s
inheritance.
He clucked to his horse and was starting off when Bab suddenly
remembered that they had intended to buy provisions in the village.
She ran after the old man to see if his boy would undertake those
commissions for her.
Seth Wiggley readily promised, jotting down such things as canned peas,
chicken and potatoes, salt and sugar, in a ragged notebook he took from
his pocket.
This done, he looked at Bab kindly.
“I’m sorry I said what I did, Miss,” he apologized. “You will be doin’
an old man a favor if you will jest forgit all about it. Git up,
Betsey!”
“Forget all about it,” murmured Bab, as she watched Betsey amble off
down the road. “As though I could!”
Then, feeling the lucky ring and jingling the keys in her pocket, Bab
turned back toward the house.
CHAPTER XI
BAB OPENS A DOOR
Bab Winters found the boys and Gerry impatiently awaiting her.
“Haven’t lost the keys, have you, Bab?” the latter greeted her.
Wordlessly, Bab revealed the key ring.
“I haven’t the least idea which key fits which lock,” she said. “I
suppose we might as well try the front door first.”
They approached the broken front steps slowly. The house, depressed in
a glen and hemmed in by trees as it was on all sides but one, seemed
oddly aloof from the rest of the world. A feeling of gloom, a strong
disinclination to entering that dreary, tumble-down old dwelling,
settled upon them depressingly.
Before the porch some rambler roses had been planted. Now the bushes
struggled pitifully for existence among a riot of weeds.
“I see where somebody will have to get busy with a garden hat and a
trowel,” remarked Gerry.
“Don’t look at me,” returned Gordon. “Besides, I thought we came out
here to use a spade and shovel, not a trowel.”
Key ring in hand, Bab went on up the squeaking porch steps and
approached the front door.
As she fitted one of the keys in the lock, choosing at random, Gordon
was close at her side.
“A great moment, Bab,” he said. “Here’s luck!”
Bab smiled unsteadily.
The key did not fit and she tried another.
Through her mind ran the words of Seth Wiggley:
“I’d burn the house down before I’d open the door to a lovely young
lady like you!”
Another key. Still the lock refused to turn. She tried another--with no
better success.
Now there was only one key left on the ring.
An odd, unpleasant fancy came to Bab that the blank windows on either
side the obdurate door leered at her mockingly. She drew her gaze away
from them with an effort and took up the last key.
“Anyway, it _is_ my house,” she said aloud, defiantly.
“Shall I try?” asked Gordon, seeing that her hand was not quite steady.
Bab made a gesture of denial and grasped the last key firmly.
It fitted!
Bab stood very still. The door was about to open. What mystery might
it not disclose to them? Was she to know, perhaps, the meaning of that
strange codicil to the will of Uncle Jeremiah?
“Bab, be merciful and open that door!”
The whisper came urgently from Gerry Thompson, close at Bab’s elbow.
Automatically, Bab obeyed. The key turned harshly, scraping in the
rusty lock. The door swung inward, disclosing a cavernous space, filled
with shadows.
“The halls of these old houses are always so immense,” said Gerry.
“Perhaps we should have gone around to the back door.”
“Nonsense! Come on!”
With Bab, Gordon pushed through the yawning doorway.
Mrs. Fenwick flitted past them like a prim, silent shadow. Nothing ever
seemed to annoy or upset her.
“An excellent chaperon to have,” thought Gerry. “One scarcely knows
she’s about!”
Rosa Lee followed, groaning with the heat and depositing her bundles
helter-skelter about the floor at her feet.
“Lawsy, lawsy, Ah declares Ah’s plain done up!” she moaned.
She sank down on one of the lower steps of the staircase, raising a
cloud of dust.
“De coolness ob dis house am a blessin’, sho’ ’nough. Dat sun am
prepostiferous hot.”
The laugh that followed this assertion cleared the air for all of them.
“I can see,” murmured Gerry, “where Rosa Lee will be a blessing to us
in more ways than one!”
The cavernous hall, even the shadows lurking in the corners of it,
suddenly lost power to depress them. The young folks raced through it,
dropping small bags and bundles as they went, eagerly examining the
rooms that lay on either side of the central apartment.
These rooms were not as bare and dreary as the girls had imagined they
would be, judging from the exterior of the house.
The two apartments at the front had evidently both been used as sitting
rooms in the days of the dwelling’s prosperity. They were furnished in
an old-fashioned way. The prints and chromos on the wall were atrocious
from an artistic viewpoint, but there was an indefinably livable air
about both rooms that went far toward reassuring the young folks and
reviving their spirits.
“Look here!” said Bab.
She drew back a pair of portières that hid the cozy nook and disclosed
a small room, hardly more than an alcove and raised above the main
apartment by one shallow step. Running the entire width of this room,
or alcove, was a broad window seat, covered with cushions of faded and
dusty chintz. The only other furnishings were a small, round table and
a wicker chair.
“What an adorable place!” cried Bab, her eyes shining. “Why, I’ve
always wanted a house with little unexpected cozy corners like this. I
love it!”
Gerry regarded Bab’s alcove with a delight that matched her own.
In fact, it seemed, as they hurried through the house on a tour of
interesting discovery, that the dwelling that they had come to regard
as a dreary, even sinister place, was a gold mine of unexpectedness and
old-fashioned comfort.
However, they could not spend too much time in exploration. The sky,
overcast with clouds that presaged a heavy thunder shower, made the
hour seem much later than it actually was. The house was filled with
mysterious shadows so that the girls were content to postpone a more
thorough examination of Bab’s property until the morrow.
“We’ll have hours to-morrow,” said Bab. “And we’ll explore every nook
and cranny of the old house----”
“Beginning in the cellar and on upward to the attic,” finished Gerry.
“Your house has possibilities, Bab. Just a little sunshine and fresh
air and it will be almost habitable.”
Rosa Lee had flown, or, rather, sailed magnificently, straight as a
homing pigeon, to the kitchen. The girls followed her there, curious to
see what tools their cook would have to work with.
One look, and the old colored woman compressed her lips and raised
suppliant hands to heaven.
Gerry and Bab were vaguely sympathetic, though they did not guess, as
yet, the hardships to which poor Rosa Lee was to be subjected during
the progress of their “treasure hunt.”
In the first place, there was an old-fashioned oil stove. Rosa Lee, for
all her poverty, had been accustomed to the luxury of gas.
There was an iron sink, relic of barbarism. And there was no way of
drawing water except from a well--they supposed there must be a well,
somewhere.
“Ah declares to goodness,” said Rosa Lee, “looks like yo’-all was gwine
live on canned goods fo’ de next few days, leastways till dis sink and
stove strikes up a speakin’ acquaintance wiv dis ole woman. Jest now
Ah’s pretty skittish and Ah don’t mind tellin’ de world Ah is!”
“Never mind, Rosa Lee,” consoled Bab. “While the doughnuts hold out to
burn, we don’t care whether the old stove does or not.”
“Dat may be a refrection on mah doughnuts, Ah don’t know!” grumbled the
old woman, as she laid aside her hat and began to undo her numerous
packages. “But one thing Ah’m certain sure of, Ah ain’t nebber burned
no doughnuts yet!”
Gordon and Charlie went out in search of the well and a bucket of water
for Rosa Lee, while the girls continued their hasty inspection of the
house.
On the left of the hall, behind the sitting room, they found a long,
low, oak-paneled apartment. The rows of bookshelves that lined three
sides of it and were filled with dog-eared, musty-looking books told
them that they had stumbled upon the library of Jeremiah Dare.
“Nice place to come when it rains,” said Gerry.
“And a fireplace!” said Bab.
She removed a Japanese screen from one end of the room, disclosing
a roomy grate. The ashes of the last fire built in it were still
scattered over the hearth.
As Bab looked down at this tangible manifestation of the occupancy of
the late owner, a curious chill, as much mental, perhaps, as physical,
enveloped her from head to foot. So real was the sensation of a cold
draught blowing across her back that she turned, thinking to discover
an open window behind her.
There was no open window. But suddenly Gerry’s fingers clutched at her
arm. Gerry looked startled, peering at her through the dimness of the
old library.
“What on earth, Bab,” she cried, “is that?”
Already startled and unnerved, Gerry Thompson’s whispered sentence set
Bab aquiver from head to foot.
CHAPTER XII
PATTERING FEET
For a moment there was tense stillness in the room. Once more Bab felt
as though an icy wind enveloped her. She was about to move, desperately
intent upon breaking the spell that bound her, when the pressure of
Gerry’s fingers and a “For goodness’ sake be quiet, Bab!” halted her.
Then she heard it--the smallest of sounds, eerie and faint, yet
alarmingly distinct in the stillness of the room. The soft patter of
tiny, scurrying feet back of them.
They turned swiftly and, with frightened eyes, tried to pierce the
corners of the room where the shadows lay thickest.
No sight of anything, no sound, no movement!
If they had not both heard it, if their senses had not combined
to assure them that they were awake and in full command of their
faculties, they might have supposed they dreamed that sound, so faint,
so eerie, so utterly unreal had it seemed to them.
For a moment they stood frozen to the spot, bound by the nightmare
belief that they could not move, no matter how much they tried.
A faint laugh from Gerry floated upon the heavy atmosphere of the room.
“Nerves, Bab, nerves!” she cried. With a little gesture of
helplessness, she sank into one of the big arm chairs. “I’d never have
thought it of you, let alone me!”
She got to her feet again and stood close to Bab. The latter was still
staring into the shadows in the far corner of the room.
“We couldn’t have imagined that pattering of feet, could we, Bab?”
“Not unless we are more foolish than we look,” said Bab stoutly. “There
was certainly something over in that corner of the room!”
“Something we could hear but not see!”
“Oh, gracious!” cried Bab, looking wildly about her. “Why not say it
was the ghost and have done with it!”
She paused and regarded Gerry intently for a moment. Then she turned
and moved slowly over to the spot from which had come the unmistakable
sound of light, pattering footsteps.
This part of the room farthest from the windows held a sort of dim
twilight. Bab suddenly stumbled over a footstool that she had not
noticed and sprawled, headlong, to the floor.
With a cry, Gerry rushed forward, but as instantly stopped; for, as Bab
fell she heard again the pattering of feet, followed by a queer swish,
as though some object had hurtled swiftly through the air.
Shocked and breathless as she was, Bab heard that sound, too. Before
Gerry could come to her aid she was on her feet again and running away
from that dark corner toward the door of the library.
There Gerry overtook her and the two girls clung together for a moment
of panic.
“What was it?” breathed Gerry. “It was close to you, Bab. Did you see
anything?”
Bab shook her head.
“I was a bit dazed, I think. But I felt--I----”
“Yes!” Gerry prompted eagerly.
Bab paused and made an effort to pull herself together.
“It was like--oh, I know you will think I am silly----”
“I’m worse!” cried Gerry. “Don’t weaken, Bab. What did you feel?”
“A draught, a cold breeze. I distinctly felt it blowing on me and--oh,
it is silly--the draught smelled funny!”
“Smelled funny!” repeated Gerry, looking as though she thought
excitement had really turned her chum’s brain. “Now just what do you
mean by that?”
“What I say!” said Bab, gaining firmness in the face of Gerry’s
incredulity. “It smelled damp and musty like--well--sort of like the
way you might imagine a dungeon would smell.”
“You don’t happen to know by experience the way a dungeon would smell,
do you?” asked Gerry, with an irony that failed to bring even a shadow
of a smile to Bab’s grave face.
“I suppose it isn’t strange that things should smell damp and musty
in this house that has been closed up so long,” she mused. It was as
though she were trying to reason away her fears. “Open windows, fresh
air and sunshine ought to remedy all that. I should think----”
“But the draught you think you felt,” insisted Gerry. “How do you
account for that?”
“I’m not trying to account for anything,” said Bab. “All I know is that
to-morrow we are going to tear this old library apart if we have to and
find an answer to the mystery. I believe there must be one. And now,
come on, let’s see what we can find upstairs.”
Bab started for the staircase, but Gerry held back.
“Why not wait for the boys to come?” she said, in an odd tone. “It
looks so--dark--up there.”
“The darkness is caused by a thunderstorm approaching on horseback,”
explained Bab, with a faint smile. “There! Do you hear the clatter of
the horse’s hoofs?”
A faint rumble of thunder came from the distance, reaching them in
short, staccato taps, eerie and unreal as everything else in this
strange old house in the glen.
Bab was almost out of sight on the staircase. Gerry glanced about her
and shivered. The shadows seemed to be closing in, pressing upon her.
With a gasp she turned and fled in pursuit of her chum.
She found her around a turn in the staircase, staring through a small
window sunk into the outer wall.
To the east great cloud banks rolled up, piling one upon the other, the
dark mass shot through with vivid thrusts of lightning. The countryside
was bathed in a livid greenish light. The trees near the house began to
sway and rustle as the cool breath of the storm wind reached them.
Desolate enough prospect, in all truth. The girls turned from it to the
encroaching shadows of the old house almost with a feeling of relief.
They scuttled up the remaining few stairs and reached the upper hall.
This was broad and square, almost like a room in itself, and at various
points about it the girls could discern darker shadows against the
grayness that they supposed must be doors to the rooms opening out of
it.
Certainly, the examination of these rooms was made in the most cursory
manner imaginable. Themselves strung to a high pitch of tension by the
events in the library below, the noises of the storm without increasing
in violence with every moment, the girls did not linger long among the
shadows and mysteries of those upper-floor rooms.
They found that there were five of these and that in all but one--and
this was the smallest, a little room set, like an afterthought, at the
extreme end of the hall--was a double bed.
Though the rest of the furniture was old-fashioned and leered in
ghostly fashion at them through the shadows, it was more than adequate
to meet their simple needs.
Gerry had just asked with a rather forced bravado which room they
thought had belonged to Uncle Jerry during his last sickness, when a
tremendous clap of thunder and a moaning onrush of wind drove the girls
out into the hall.
Below they saw a bobbing point of light and a voice called up to them.
It was Gordon’s voice and Gordon was evidently the bearer of the light
as well.
“For Pete’s sake, what’s keeping you girls?” he cried.
“Have you fallen out of the window?” added Charlie’s drawling voice.
“Or has the ghost run away with you?”
“Both!” snapped Gerry.
The light below stairs suddenly attracted them with irresistible force.
Anything to dispel the horrible gloom.
They stampeded down the stairs. At the bottom Gerry fell against the
lightbearer, nearly flooring both him and his light.
“Have a heart, girl!” laughed Gordon. “‘Strike if you must this old
gray head, but spare the lamp,’ she said.”
Gerry giggled and would have continued on her way toward the kitchen,
from which came a suggestive and wholly irresistible clatter of dishes,
if Bab had not intercepted her.
“Gerry,” said the latter solemnly, “we must be careful not to say a
word about what happened in the library to Rosa Lee. You know how
superstitious she is. We would have her catching the next train for
home.”
Gerry nodded.
“Do you think we ought to tell Mrs. Fenwick?” she asked.
“Not yet,” said Bab hastily. “There really isn’t anything to tell yet,
you know. It’s just what we thought we felt or saw----”
“Or _smelled_!” shivered Gerry.
“Anyway, don’t let’s say anything to any one just yet,” finished Bab.
Gordon and Charlie regarded the speaker with interest.
“What’s all this, Bab?” demanded the former. “Where is the library and
what have I missed?”
“Not much,” said Bab--and jumped.
A bell jangled through the house, clanging brazenly above the noise
of the storm. The iron knocker on the door added to the din, striking
harshly, metal upon metal.
Bab smothered a startled exclamation and sprang toward the door. With a
swift motion she flung it wide open and peered out into the storm.
No one was there!
CHAPTER XIII
IN THE DARK
Gerry Thompson crowded behind Bab and stared over her shoulder at the
wind-swept, empty porch.
Suddenly Bab discovered Seth Wiggley’s wagon and the ancient horse,
Betsey, standing in the driveway at the side of the house.
She leaned weakly against the door and gave herself up to hysterical
mirth.
“It’s only poor Mr. Wiggley come back with our things,” she gasped.
“Well, I must say he made a lot of noise about it!” Gerry hated to
remember just how startled she had been. “What made him leave so
quickly and where has he gone?”
“Around to the side porch, probably,” said Gordon.
They listened and heard the sound of an opening door and a deep mumble
of welcome from Rosa Lee.
“And I guess if he’s brought our luggage we’d better get it inside
before these rain clouds burst wide open,” added Bab.
In contrast to the rest of the house, the kitchen appeared quite
homelike. With a sensation of poignant relief, the girls found
themselves once more in the prosaic, matter-of-fact company of Rosa Lee.
Mrs. Fenwick was helping in the kitchen, too--at least, she was
pretending to help. But Rosa Lee did all the actual work.
Seth Wiggley had brought their trunks and provisions from the village
and Gordon had already followed him out to the wagon.
Charlie Seymour stood scowling rather unpleasantly in the doorway.
“What’s the matter, Charlie? World treating you rough again--or is it
just Gordon?”
Since this flippant remark came from the ever-flippant Gerry, Charlie
chose to ignore it. But the frown deepened on his brow and he moved
impatiently.
Gordon called from the wagon.
“Lend a hand here, will you, Charlie? What do you think you are--an
ornament? Make yourself useful.”
Charlie’s scowl became black. He hesitated for a moment; then,
thrusting his hands into his pockets, sauntered out into the storm.
“For all the world as though he were going to a garden party,” chuckled
Gerry. “He gives himself the airs of a grand duke.”
“I don’t see why he came with us,” said Bab, throwing herself wearily
into a chair. “This isn’t the kind of thing he cares for, really.
Charlie likes to do two things--dance and dash about in that funny
little roadster of his. He’ll be bored to death up here.”
Gerry gave Bab a wicked glance.
“Not while Bab Winters’ sweet smile and sunny curls hold out to wave,”
she chuckled. “Don’t think I’m blind, Bab--nor Charlie, either!”
“Don’t be silly!” cried Bab.
Rosa Lee chuckled deep down in her throat.
“Lots o’ folks does like yo’ curly head and bright eyes, honey,” she
said. She selected a can of beans from the pile of provisions and
opened it with nice precision. “And as fo’ dat Charlie boy, likin’ you
is ’bout de only thing Ah’s got to his credit. When it comes to doin’
anythin’ real useful, dat chile’s jest about as much account as a flea
in a boiler factory.”
“Not half so much, Rosa Lee,” said Gerry, with a droll face. “Fleas
in a boiler factory would probably hop--and I’ve yet to see Charlie
Seymour do anything half so active!”
A halt was put to this flippant conversation by the arrival of the boys
and Mr. Wiggley with the trunks. They had landed all the luggage on the
side porch and now proceeded to drag them into the kitchen.
The last piece had landed with a thump amid various grumbles and
complaints from the bearers when those dark, piled-up masses of clouds
opened and let fall the rain in a sheeting torrent.
The wind whistled wildly about the house and dashed the rain in
torrential gusts through the open door of the kitchen.
Gordon got behind the door and, Charlie helping him, pushed it shut
against the gale.
All this time Mr. Wiggley had evidenced a marked uneasiness. He looked
over his shoulder restlessly and once he mopped his forehead with a
red, polka-dotted handkerchief.
With mumbled thanks he accepted pay for his services and strode swiftly
to the door, tugging at it to open it.
“But you are not going back in this storm!” Bab protested. “Wait a
little, Mr. Wiggley. Maybe the rain will stop.”
“Yo’-all’s welcome to a bite wiv us,” said Rosa Lee, ever hospitable.
“It ain’t gwine be much, but, sech as ’tis, we’s willin’ to share it.
Lawsy, listen at dat wind!” A fresh gust had whirled wildly about the
house. “You ain’t nebber gwine to git home in dat storm.”
“Just wait till it lets up,” Bab urged again.
Seth Wiggley shook his head.
“If I know anything about this country,” he said, “this storm won’t
let up until to-morrow morning at the earliest. It’s apt to git worse,
’stead of better.”
“Well, we’ve got plenty of beds upstairs,” Gerry suggested lightly. “We
could put you up comfortably enough overnight.”
The old man appeared unreasonably alarmed at this suggestion. It was as
though he feared that some one might lay hands on him and use force to
make him accept the unwelcome invitation. He thanked them kindly, but,
with frank eagerness to be off, jerked open the door and stepped out
upon the porch.
There was relief in the gesture with which he pushed his hat down to
his ears and battled his way against wind and rain to the dejected
horse and the old wagon.
From the kitchen window those inside watched him head old Betsey into
the wind and drive off.
Again Bab was assailed by that unhappy sensation of loneliness and
desertion. She had an absurd desire to run after Seth Wiggley and drag
him back. He was their one link with tried and trusted and known things.
As she smiled at the fancy, Gerry’s voice said in her ear:
“Seemed in a big hurry to be off, didn’t he? One might almost believe
that our good friend, Seth, does not like these diggings, Bab Winters.”
“It would seem not!” Bab forced a smile, then turned to Rosa Lee and
asked what she might do to help.
“I feel as though I wanted to get a spade and dig,” she added. “Eating
seems such a waste of time.”
“Speak for yourself, Bab,” retorted Gordon Seymour. “Just now I’d not
find a hidden treasure half as nourishing as that can of beans Rosa Lee
has on the stove.”
“Me, myself,” said Bab wistfully, thinking of her grandmother and
granddaddy, “I’d take the treasure!”
In spite of everything--or perhaps because of everything!--the meal to
which Rosa Lee put them down a few minutes later was a merry one. It
was a combination lunch and supper, the old woman explained, and so
they must eat enough for two meals. This they undoubtedly did, and by
the magic of their ravenous appetites, the tin-can fare was transformed
into a feast.
The boys had found the old well, a picturesque affair in a setting of
tangled weeds and brambles. Gordon was enthusiastic and eager for the
morrow when they could explore the country about the old house.
“We saw the glimmer of water through the trees,” he told Bab. “It
isn’t much more than a brook, I guess; but at that we ought to find a
swimming hole and have some fun.”
“Perhaps we can catch fish, too,” suggested Gerry. “The possibilities
of your ancestral estate grow apace, Bab. We’ll be finding a terrace
next, or a sunken garden. Even if the treasure hunt fails,” reaching
for a roll, “I can see where our summer isn’t entirely wasted.”
The gayety lasted throughout the clearing away of the dishes and
afterward, when they gathered around the kitchen table and told stories
and gayly planned the details of the treasure hunt.
But when the time came at last when they must face the shadows of those
upper rooms--well, that was different!
Armed against the darkness with only two dim oil lamps, they must make
their preparations for the night. The trunks were opened and bedding
enough taken from them to serve their purpose.
Then, the boys carrying the bedding; the girls, the lamps; and Mrs.
Fenwick and Rosa Lee, themselves; they ascended to the upper story.
After a great deal of fussing and nervous giggling, getting sheets on
backwards and two pillow cases on one pillow, they soon had enough
beds made up to serve them comfortably for the night.
After that hair-raising occurrence in the library, Bab and Gerry were
very glad to sleep together.
“We’ll take one of the smaller back rooms,” Gerry decided. “It has a
big bed and, some way, I don’t like the large rooms so well.”
Rosa Lee declared uncompromisingly for the little room with the single
bed.
Mrs. Fenwick appeared to have no qualms about taking one of the large
front rooms. The boys took the twin to this, saying that it looked
about as comfortable and cozy as a barn.
As if any of those memory-haunted rooms could be cozy!
Bab shivered and wondered again which room had belonged to her Uncle
Jeremiah. But even as she wondered, the girl was conscious of a feeling
of disloyalty. Poor old Uncle Jerry! Why, he would not hurt her, if he
could!
Nevertheless, she was not anxious to recall the queer happenings of
the day--not in these surroundings. Seth Wiggley’s warning to her, the
weird experience in the library, the old country-man’s eagerness to get
away from the house, even though his escape must be made into the teeth
of a storm!
Then came the thought of her grandmother and granddaddy, and once more
she was filled with the fierce determination to conquer the old house.
If it held a secret, she would discover it!
But the night was long and storm-ridden, and though Gerry slept
steadily and placidly, there were hours when Bab Winters’ eyes stared
wide and frightened into the dark.
Was she mistaken, or did she hear, once or twice through that darkness,
the eerie pattering of feet?
CHAPTER XIV
GORDON’S DISCOVERY
The sun was streaming radiantly in at Bab Winters’ window when she
awoke. All her fears of the night before had vanished into a vague and
unreal mist.
With a bubbling sense of joy in life and the prospect of adventure, she
slipped noiselessly out of bed and went over to the window.
About her spread a gleaming, rain-washed world, trees and shrubs and
tangled weeds reflecting back the rays of the sun in myriad dazzling
rays of color.
The moist, sweet-scented breath of the wind fanned her cheeks and
brought the roses glowing to them.
Things were going to happen to-day, she felt it--wonderful, splendid
things!
The first of them was Gordon Seymour. She saw him just below her
window. He was clad in khaki breeches and puttees, and a scarlet
sweater atop this outfit gave a flare of color that, in some
mysterious way, added to the joy of Barbara’s mood.
Eyes dancing, she leaned from the window and called to him softly.
His mood seemed to match her own and he looked up quickly, beckoning to
her.
“We’ve the world to ourselves,” he called softly. “I have something to
show you.”
“Down in a minute!” Bab waved and disappeared.
It was all she could do to keep from singing as she jumped hastily into
her clothes--sturdy, low-heeled sport shoes, khaki skirt, white middy
and fluffy white sweater. She hesitated a minute and then, as an impish
afterthought, added a wider scarlet tie. It gave her a rakish, jaunty
look that caused her to chuckle softly under her breath.
“I’m stealing Gerry’s thunder,” she told her radiant reflection. “She
always looks like a naughty little gypsy in red.”
One glance at the bed to make sure that Gerry was still asleep, and Bab
was out the door and flying lightfootedly down the stairs.
No one heard her, and the next moment she stood poised in the doorway,
regarding Gordon with dancing eyes.
The boy came toward her with hands outstretched, unstinted admiration
in his eyes. Bab’s bright color became a little brighter and her eyes
fell to the gay hue of his sweater.
“You looked so sort of frivolous,” she chuckled, “that I thought I’d
put on something to match.”
“Well, if you knew how _you_ look!”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter how I look, Don. It’s how I feel that counts.”
With a little, unrestrained gesture she flung out her arms to the wild
beauty of the woodland about them.
“I’m going to make each day tell while we’re up here, Gordon. And who
knows what day--” She paused on a long-drawn breath and stared straight
before her, seeing, not the immediate future, but some inner vision of
her own.
The boy, watching her intently, took a step closer.
“You mean--the money, Bab?”
“The will, that queer codicil--the possibility of finding a fortune
here in this queer, terrible, old house. Of course I’m thinking of it!
How could I think of anything else? How could I?”
Gordon gave the girl a keen look, then drew her hand, big-brother
fashion, through his arm. Bab’s color was almost too high, he thought,
her eyes a trifle too bright.
“You’re going to think of something else, just the same--at least until
it’s time for breakfast,” he told her as he led her along an almost
invisible path up the hillside and into the woods.
“But where are we going?” asked Bab, submitting willingly enough.
It was nice to be alone with the boy next door in that early morning
world of sweet scents and rainbow hues. The days of their childhood
disputes seemed far in the past. They understood each other so well
these days, Bab and the boy next door, that there was seldom need of
explanations between them. Their comradeship was a very complete and
satisfactory thing.
“I’m taking you to my discovery,” said the boy, in answer to her
question. “Once you’ve seen it I’m much mistaken if I ever get you back
to the house in time for breakfast.”
“Your discovery will have to be pretty wonderful then,” Bab warned him.
“For I’ve an earnest appetite!”
Gordon’s discovery, when they came to it, proved to be a rather
unimpressive body of water. Even at flood times it could not have
seemed more than a good-sized creek. Now, in shallow places, the water
could not have been more than a few inches deep.
“It broadens out farther down, though,” Gordon explained. “And at one
place it looked deep enough for a swim.”
“Oh, it’s nice,” said Bab, for the music of the water, as it rippled
over the stones, was sweet to her ears. “I wish we didn’t have to wait.”
“What for?” queried Gordon.
“Our swim! Oh, dear!”
Bab Winters sat down disconsolately on an old, moss-covered stump. Her
face expressed such utter dismay that Gordon was alarmed.
“Now what is it?” with a glance over his shoulder. “See a wildcat or a
bear?”
“No,” said Bab mournfully. “But if I had a mirror I’d see an idiot.”
“A good looking one, anyway,” suggested Gordon.
But Bab refused to be consoled.
“It isn’t a joking matter,” she assured him reproachfully. “Do you
realize that with all this beautiful water and everything, we haven’t a
bathing suit among us?”
“Speak for yourself, young woman,” said Gordon, pegging stones into
the water with aggravating unconcern. “Do you think I’d go away to
the country for the summer without packing the trusty old suit away
somewhere among my belongings? I wouldn’t be such a sap!”
“Oh,” sighed Bab, addressing a small gray squirrel who peeped at her
curiously from about the trunk of a tree, “now I suppose he’s calling
me names!”
Gordon glanced at her sideways, grinned, relented and flung himself on
the ground at her feet.
“You and Gerry can probably get one at the village store----”
“One wouldn’t do.”
“Two then,” he went on, with admirable patience. “They usually have a
general store in these little towns where they sell everything from
buns to bathing suits.”
“They’d surely be too long, or short, or old-fashioned, or something.”
“You could probably sew them up,” soothed Gordon, with characteristic
masculine vagueness. “They’d be better than nothing, anyway.”
There was a short silence while Gordon pegged stones and Bab stared
contentedly out over the water.
“We’ll need some sort of a boat,” she said after a while. “Do you
suppose we can buy that at the village store too?”
Gordon grinned.
“Shouldn’t wonder. But if we can’t we’ll make something, if it’s only a
Robinson Crusoe raft,” he promised. “With all the good material around
here, I’d feel sorry for us if we couldn’t knock together something
that would float. We’ll set Charlie to work,” he added, with a chuckle.
It was only when they had started back to the house that the
mysterious events of the day before crowded again into Barbara’s mind.
Impulsively she told Gordon about the experience in the library. When
she had finished the boy regarded her with mingled amazement and
indignation.
“But why didn’t you tell us before?” he demanded. “What was the idea of
being so secret?”
“Then you think it’s really important--about the footsteps?” she asked
eagerly.
“Important! I should say so! Provided you are sure you really heard
anything,” he added dubiously.
“We could hardly be mistaken.” Bab was sure about this. “We both heard
the same thing.”
“Might have been mice or rats.”
Bab sniffed.
“I’ve heard mice and rats before,” she said. “If this was a mouse, then
I’m a parrot!”
When they reached the house they found it impossible to satisfy
Gordon’s eager curiosity and go at once to the library.
Gerry and Charlie Seymour, dressed and eager for the day’s fun, were
just starting in search of them as they came up on the porch. Mrs.
Fenwick was fluttering like a distracted hen who has lost two of her
chicks and Rosa Lee was grumbling in the kitchen because the breakfast
was getting cold.
By this time, with Mrs. Fenwick’s aid, Rosa Lee had scraped at least
a nodding acquaintance with the oil stove; the result being that the
bacon and eggs, while not up to her usual standard of perfection, were
very savory as well as plentiful.
However, there were at least two in the room who were not sorry when
the meal was over, good as it was. They were free at last to escape
into the library without rousing the suspicions of the cook.
Bab and Gordon were speedily followed by the others. In the intimacy of
the book-lined room, Bab repeated, for Charlie’s benefit, the story she
had told Gordon earlier that morning.
But Charlie was inclined to hoot.
“Sounds like a lot of buncombe to me,” he yawned. “Just a woolly ghost
story.”
Bab flushed and started to speak, but Gerry stopped her with a quick
gesture.
“Keep still!” she cried. “Listen!”
At the moment, so distinct as to defy all skepticism, came the soft
rush of something behind them!
CHAPTER XV
THE LUCKY RING DISAPPEARS
What had seemed ghastly the evening before in the shadow-filled
library, was quite a different thing now, heard in the presence of them
all and with the reassuring sunlight streaming in at the window.
“Now do you think we imagined it?” cried Bab. “You heard it too, Gordon
Seymour, you know you did! Oh, look!”
In her eagerness, Bab brushed against a large crayon portrait that hung
on the wall. The picture swayed to one side. Back of it Bab saw what
appeared to be a crack in the wall.
She felt of this crack and, to her surprise, it instantly disappeared!
“Now what,” she demanded, beneath her breath, “does one make of that?”
Gordon pressed closer, examining the wall over her shoulder.
“Want to know what I believe, Bab?” he cried. “I bet there’s a panel of
some sort in this wall! It was open just now a little crack and when
you pressed on the spot, the panel closed!”
“But, Gordon,” protested Bab, “if you are right, and there really is a
panel or door of some sort in the wall, then I’m sure I never so much
as pressed against it. It--it closed of itself!”
Gerry gave a little squeak.
“The ghost!” she cried.
“Ghosts!” echoed Charlie.
“Ghosts don’t roam at nine o’clock in the morning,” added Gerry
thoughtfully. “If this were the stroke of midnight now--oh, good
gracious, this mystery gets worse and worse every minute! I must solve
it or die!”
They searched over every inch of the wall behind the picture, but found
nothing. They sat down at last to review events and to try to arrive at
some sensible conclusion.
“All we really know,” said Bab, “is that something ran across the room
and disappeared without going out the door or window.”
“Only a ghost could do such things,” remarked Gerry. “Must have been
the haunt, after all.”
“That only goes to back my theory that there must be some sort of
opening in the wall,” said Gordon, speaking to Bab.
“And whoever, or whatever, passed through the wall shut the panel after
him, I suppose,” said Charlie, with a scornful laugh. “Be yourself,
Gord, be yourself!”
“There was something in the room,” Bab flashed. “You heard it yourself,
Charlie Seymour!”
Charles yawned.
“Probably mice! Must be hundreds of them in an old house like this.”
Though this theory failed to convince them, they could find no evidence
to contradict it. They prowled about the library for another hour,
coming back again and again to the crayon portrait, but could not
unearth a single additional clew to the mystery.
“Well,” said Gerry at last, “this isn’t the only place we can look for
your fortune, Bab. Let’s try another part of the house.”
Thoughtfully, Bab held up the lucky ring, the little grinning Buddha
with the jeweled eyes.
“Bring us luck, please,” she begged, and added ruefully: “I’ve a notion
we are going to need it!”
After that the girls and boys settled to the work of searching the old
house with a seriousness and a steadfastness of purpose that seemed to
merit greater rewards than it brought.
After a whole week of concentrated effort, the old house had been
turned “inside out” from cobwebbed attic to musty cellar. And all this
energy brought to life nothing but a few mice that scurried away,
disconsolate, before the demolition of their haunts.
“There go our library ghosts!” said Gerry on one such occasion. “Oh me,
that mystery and romance should be explained by mice!”
Day after day of almost feverish effort failed of result, yet Bab
persisted in her dogged search for her hidden inheritance in the old
house in the glen.
“I can’t give up! I won’t give up!” she said, over and over again.
“Why, you don’t know what this means to me!”
The boys and girls made several trips to the village and came back
laden with provisions from the general store and, usually, a pile of
letters from the post-office.
The young folks from home wrote frequently, begging for news, “Which
we’ve got everything else but!” said Gerry ruefully. Letters came to
Bab from her grandmother and grandfather and, though these letters were
always cheerful, Bab read discouragement between the lines.
Sometimes, after a particularly disappointing day, Bab took these
letters upstairs with her and sometimes she even wept a little over
them.
“By this time I hoped to have good news for them,” she told herself,
beating her fist into the palm of one small hand. “We haven’t found the
money! We may never find it. And if we don’t, what will they do?”
These questions etched deep shadows beneath Bab’s eyes and worried her
friends. They begged her to vary the search with some outdoor fun.
“We have plenty of time to find your fortune, honey,” Gerry told her
again and again. “It isn’t as though every day were so important. Let’s
take a little time off to wander about in these gorgeous woods.”
“We want to fish, Bab. Have a heart!” Charlie put in.
“And there’s Lake Tanaka half a mile away going to waste,” Gordon would
add. “Do be reasonable, Bab, and put off finding your inheritance for a
little while.”
Bab smiled wistfully.
“I have put off finding it for some time already,” she said. “Though I
must say it isn’t my fault. You go on your picnic. I don’t mind looking
alone.”
“Silly Bab! As if we’d leave you!” cried Gerry. “No, if you must make
yourself sick we will stay and get sick with you.”
“But you see,” Bab would add, frowning thoughtfully, “it really isn’t
your fortune. I can’t expect you to feel the way I do.”
There were things happening in the old house too--queer things. Bab
alone heard them, for she often lay awake for long hours after her
companions were asleep.
Things disappeared too, mostly food, though now and again the young
folks missed something more personal.
“Sometimes,” grumbled Gerry when she found that her hairbrush had
disappeared from the dresser where she was sure she had left it the
night before, “I begin to think there is really something queer about
this house. I even begin to suspect that my nerves are not all they
should be. If this keeps up I shall probably have to be carried back to
Scarsdale on a stretcher--if I live to get back at all!”
At night Bab sometimes heard again the noise of pattering feet. This
was too distinct, she knew, to be the product of her imagination, yet
how explain the sounds?
There were queer noises below stairs too, and they seemed to come from
quite far below--in the cellar probably. Bab had never yet found the
courage to investigate.
“Although some night, I will!” she told herself resolutely.
Then, one morning Bab awoke to find that the lucky ring, the little
Buddha with the jeweled eyes, was gone!
CHAPTER XVI
GOOD MEDICINE
“But, Bab, where can it be?”
Barbara Winters shrugged her shoulders. She looked the picture of
discouragement as she sat in one of the roomy leather chairs in the
library, staring at the grate.
The boys and Gerry stood or sat about her in a grave, concerned circle,
discussing the disappearance of the lucky ring.
“As you know,” said Bab dully, “I have never had the ring off my finger
since we started from Scarsdale. It was on my finger,” her voice sank
almost to a whisper, “when I went to bed last night.”
“Dead sure of that?” Charlie insisted.
“Dead sure. I,” with a faint smile, “asked it for luck just before I
turned in.”
“Perhaps it slipped off during the night,” Gordon suggested. “Have you
searched the room?”
“Every square inch of it,” Gerry returned, before Bab could reply. “It
isn’t in our room, Gordon. Me, myself, could swear to that.”
“So many other things have disappeared too,” added Charlie.
“And now the lucky ring,” said Bab wearily. “I don’t know how the rest
of you feel, but I’m just about ready to go home.”
“Not like you, Bab!” said Gordon. Bab, looking up, flushed as she met
the grave eyes of the boy. “That sounds like a quitter and the girl
next door was never that, even in the old days.”
Bab got up abruptly and went over to the window. Gerry followed and
flung an arm about her.
“You shan’t call my Bab names,” she flashed at Gordon. “She isn’t a
quitter, and you know it.”
“Of course I do,” returned the boy quietly.
Bab turned about and faced her friends. There were tears in her eyes,
but her head was held high.
“Thank you, Don,” she said quietly. “I guess I needed that.”
Gordon went over to her and took her hand in his.
“What you need is a day in the woods, Bab,” he said. “Sunshine and a
hike through the woods will sweep away some of the grim and ghostly
things we’ve all been thinking for the past few days. Will you be a
good girl and take Doctor Seymour’s medicine?”
Bab wept a few tears against Gordon’s woolly sweater while Gordon held
her, big-brother fashion, an arm about her shoulders.
“Now see what you’ve gone and done!” cried Gerry indignantly. “You’ve
made her cry!”
Bab looked up, smiling through her tears.
“I’m all right now. I think I needed some of Doctor Seymour’s medicine!
Has any one got a h-hanky?”
“There you go!” cried Gerry, as she slipped one of her own
handkerchiefs into Bab’s hand. “If I said half the things to you that
Gordon does you’d never speak to me again.”
The boy laughed and ruffled Bab’s soft hair.
“Treat ’em rough!” he said. “She’s scared of me!”
“You!” cried Bab, and laughed.
Rosa Lee was easily persuaded to pack a lunch for them and the boys and
girls set off almost immediately, secretly glad to be rid of the grim
old house in the glen if only for a few hours.
As they were leaving by the side door “Wigs” Wiggley drove up with a
batch of letters. The girls greeted him eagerly and Gerry sorted the
letters, dropping half of them upon the ground as she did so.
“Bab gets three and I’ve only one.” Gerry’s tone was plaintive. “I’d
like to know if you call that fair!”
The boys had been remembered to the extent of one or two letters from
home. So they said good-by to Wigs, after thanking him, and started to
climb from the glen and into the woods, reading as they went.
Rosa Lee called to them from the doorway.
“Mis’ Fenwick says yo’-all’s to be home befo’ dark. If you’s not, she’s
lak’ to worry her haid off ’bout you!”
They promised, waved to her gayly and disappeared through the trees.
Gerry and Charlie took the lead. Bab observed with amusement that her
chum was setting a stiff pace for the lazy lad.
“She will wake him up if any one can,” she observed to Gordon.
“The boy has improved,” agreed Charlie’s cousin magnanimously. “If the
improvement continues, we may yet make a man of Charlie!”
“They have the lunch basket though,” added Bab, suddenly remembering.
“If we fall too far behind them I guess we don’t eat.”
“Don’t worry, we won’t starve,” chuckled Gordon. “I’ve a hook and some
string in my pocket. And there should be fish in this creek somewhere.”
Bab nodded and opened one of her letters. As she read, Gordon
shortened his step to match hers. She appeared utterly absorbed and
finally the boy said:
“Share your news, Bab. Don’t be so selfish. Is it from your
grandmother?”
Bab shook her head absently.
“You’d never guess. The letter is from the lawyer, Mr. James.”
Gordon whistled and looked amused.
“What kind of letter?”
She held it out to him with an odd glance.
“Take it and read it yourself, Don. I’d like your opinion.”
Gordon read the missive through, frowning. At the end he whistled
again, this time with surprise.
“Great Scott, this is rich, Bab! The old boy wants to buy your house!”
Bab nodded.
“That means something, don’t you think?” she asked anxiously.
Gordon considered.
“Why, your inheritance is scarcely the sort of place one would want for
a summer home, Bab--especially an old codger like Samuel James. He was
your great-uncle’s lawyer, wasn’t he? Probably quite intimate with the
old man for a number of years.”
Bab nodded without speaking.
“It’s possible, then,” said Gordon, reasoning aloud, “that this Samuel
James knew, or at least had a shrewd suspicion, that your uncle was a
man possessed of a considerable fortune.”
Bab nodded again and the boy, smiling, tucked her hand under his arm.
“Hold fast, Bab. I believe we’re getting somewhere at last!”
“I know what you believe, and of course it’s what I believe too,” she
cried. “The lawyer thinks as we do that there is money hidden somewhere
about the old house and--and he wants to get it!”
“Looks like it,” said the boy thoughtfully. “Looks, I should say, very
much like it!”
Bab stamped her foot on the ground. Her eyes flashed.
“Then if there really is money hidden about that grim old house--I
thought I should love it, but now I hate it--and Uncle Jeremiah liked
me enough to want me to have it, why did he make the money so hard to
find?”
Gordon shook his head without answering.
“There you have me, Bab,” he said, after a moment. “I wish I had known
this old uncle of yours. He must have been quite a character.”
They strolled on for some time in silence.
The others had definitely left them behind now, but neither Bab nor
Gordon appeared to notice. The day was beautiful, the water rippled
lazily, mirroring back the trees that bordered the stream, a soft, warm
breeze whispered through the woods, lifting Bab’s hair from her cheek
and tangling it in lovely confusion about her serious face.
“On a day like this every one should be happy, shouldn’t they, Don?”
she asked, a bit wistfully.
“Why, yes, Bab,” returned the boy. “Everybody should.”
“But money makes a big difference with people--I mean when they
haven’t it,” Bab explained a trifle incoherently. But Gordon seemed to
understand.
“Yes, I suppose it does,” he said.
Bab paused and thoughtfully kicked a stone into the water where it fell
with a musical plop. Gordon stopped beside her, hands in pockets.
“I suppose it sounds a bit silly,” said Bab. “But do you know what I’d
do with that money--if I should be lucky enough to find it?”
“What would you do, Bab?” he asked, and she stole a swift glance at him
to see if he were laughing. He was not.
“I’d use it to help people who haven’t any,” said Bab, stirring the
ground about and about with the toe of her shoe. “I’d try to see that
everybody I met--who needed help--would be a little happier because I’d
come along. You aren’t laughing, Gordon?”
“Great Scott, Bab!” cried the boy huskily. “What do you think I am? You
good little sport! Say, Bab, I like you for that! I wish I could help.”
“You do help,” said Bab. “You helped this morning when you called me a
quitter----”
“I didn’t!”
“Well, you must admit it sounded something like that,” she said, with
a smile. “But the loss of the lucky ring frightened me. I’m frightened
right now! But whatever happens, don’t let me give up, Gordon. I’ve got
to find that money!”
She paused and looked up at him, startled.
“Why! what’s that?”
CHAPTER XVII
THE HINDU
“That” was the sound of sobbing in the woods. It was the soft,
heartbroken crying of a child and seemed to come from somewhere quite
close to Bab Winters and Gordon Seymour.
The boy and the girl exchanged glances, then joined hands and pressed
through the underbrush. As Gordon held back branches that threatened to
sweep Bab’s pretty head from her shoulders, the sound of weeping was
broken by a man’s harsh voice.
“You cry, eh? You cry all the time! You not know how to do anything
else!”
“I want my mother!” came the child’s voice, strangled with sobs. “Oh,
take me back to my mother. Please! Please take me back!”
Bab and Gordon had pressed through until they now stood upon the edge
of a small cleared space with only a fringe of trees between them and
the chief actors in as pathetic a scene as they had ever witnessed.
On the ground crouched a child whose tattered clothing gave him the
appearance of a bundle of old rags. His face was stained with tears and
dirt and his hands were raised in frantic entreaty toward a man who
stood above him, a man whose dark-skinned, lowering face turned Bab
sick with fear and loathing--a man who wore a turban on his head. The
Hindu!
With a whispered “Stay here!” to Bab, Gordon plunged through the
bushes, disregarding her restraining hand on his arm.
“Gordon, Gordon, wait! He has a dreadful face!”
At Bab’s cry and the sound of cracking twigs as Gordon broke through
the undergrowth, the Hindu turned, shot a scowling look at the
intruders, caught the shrinking child up in his arms, and darted away
into the woods.
Gordon followed almost at his heels. But his toe caught in an upflung
root and he stumbled, nearly stretching his length upon the ground.
Recovering himself, he found Bab at his elbow.
“Get back!” he cried. “I don’t like the look of that beggar!”
But Bab would not get back. All she could think of was that poor
desperate child’s upturned, pleading face. She picked up a stick from
the ground and followed close beside Gordon as he crashed through the
brushwood.
But in some mysterious way they had lost the Hindu. He had disappeared
in that brief moment when Gordon had stumbled over the root of the tree
as completely, as utterly, as though the earth had opened and swallowed
him up.
Gordon’s mouth was grim, his fists were clenched as he turned
uncertainly to Bab.
“The beggar’s gone!” he cried. “How did he disappear like that?”
Bab clung to his arm. She was trembling.
“Gordon, that awful man! Who was he, do you suppose?”
“Rosa Lee’s brack man wiv de handkerchief round his haid,” retorted
Gordon, looking about him all the time, as though he could not believe
the fellow was actually gone. “The Hindu we met on the road, with the
kid, that first day, Bab.”
“The boy doesn’t belong to him, Don! Did you hear what he said?”
Gordon nodded.
“Sounds as though the fellow had stolen him from his family!”
“Kidnaped!” Bab murmured, as she followed Gordon in his vain, impatient
search of the surrounding woods. “The poor, terrified child! Don, we
must rescue him! We must find him some way!”
“Find him!” repeated Gordon and threw out his arms as though to call
the trees to witness his mystification. “I wish you’d tell me how!
Probably the fellow practices black magic, took himself off in a puff
of smoke, or something of that sort. Those Eastern beggars know how, so
they say.”
“Well, then, the poor child must have gone up in a puff of smoke too,”
said Bab, with a puzzled shake of her pretty head. “It’s all very
terrible and mystifying and I think we ought to tell somebody about
it--somebody who could help punish that awful Hindu and rescue the poor
boy!”
Gordon agreed with her, and after one more vain search of the woods
they turned back again in the direction of the lake which had been
their objective. They had not gone far when they found Gerry and
Charlie returning to see what had become of them.
There was excitement aplenty when Bab and Gordon related their
adventure and many were the conjectures concerning the mysterious Hindu
and the child who, they felt sure, did not belong to him.
During the remainder of the day they talked of little else and even the
enjoyment of Rosa Lee’s excellent lunch and a subsequent dip in the
mild water of the lake did not suffice to turn their attention from
this new development.
On the way to the house in the glen they fell in with the personage
whom they had most wanted to see. This was the sheriff of Clayton,
an old man with grizzled gray hair and shrewd gray eyes. The eyes
were twinkling now, imparting a pleasant expression to a countenance
habitually grim.
“You’re the young folks up to the old Dare house, aren’t you?” he
demanded without preface.
They admitted that they were and Gordon added eagerly after noting the
man’s badge:
“If you’re the sheriff, you’re just the man we want to meet!”
The old man chuckled, or so it seemed to Bab.
“Thought you’d be wantin’ to come to the sheriff before long,” he said.
“Which statement means more than it says,” remarked Gerry, while the
others regarded the officer with a sudden, keen interest.
However, when questioned further, the sheriff refused to be more
explicit.
“It’s my business to ask questions, not answer them,” he said gruffly.
“When you said,” turning to Gordon, “that I was the man you wanted to
see, what did you mean by that?”
Gordon explained as quickly as he could, turning to Bab now and then
for confirmation.
The twinkle faded from the sheriff’s eyes as he listened. His mouth set
grimly and the girls saw something inflexible in his half-closed eyes.
“I’ve been watchin’ that dark-skinned beggar for some time back,” he
said, and added with a more pleasant look: “Seems like I’d about got
the goods on him. What you tell me to-day,” he added to Bab and Gordon,
“ought to help some.”
“He is a Hindu, isn’t he?” Bab asked.
She thought the sheriff gave her an odd look.
“He’s one o’ them foreign critters, sure enough, and the sooner we
git rid of him the better,” he answered grimly. Then he added, with a
curious look at them: “You mean to say you don’t know who that feller
is?”
“Should we?” asked Bab eagerly.
But the sheriff, assuming that his query was answered, would say
nothing further on the subject, although the young folks pressed him
hard with questions.
However, he walked with them until they came within sight of the glen
in which the old house stood. Then he paused and regarded the young
people seriously, stroking the grizzled whiskers on his chin.
“There’s something mighty queer about that old house,” he told them.
“I don’t mean that I feel like it’s haunted, the way folks says around
here. That’s silly----”
“Not so silly,” retorted Gerry, with a shake of her head. “You should
hear what we hear some nights!”
“What you hear, if you hear anything--and I’m not sayin’ you don’t--is
caused by something with flesh and blood in it, and no ghost--you can
be sure o’ that,” returned the sheriff. “But the house ain’t any less
dangerous on that account, let me tell you.”
“You’re trying to frighten us, Mr. Sheriff!” said Bab, and was very
glad when Gordon slipped his arm reassuringly within hers.
“Not frighten--I’m jest tryin’ to warn you,” said the officer, less
grimly. “I’m not keeping the fact from you that it would take a load
off my mind and make my job a sight easier if you were all to pack up
and go home.”
“Oh, but we can’t--not till we’ve found the money!” cried Bab.
The sheriff glanced at her sharply and Gordon pressed her arm in a
gesture of warning.
“Just what is your job, Mr. Sheriff?” Gordon asked in an effort to
cover the slip.
“My job is to find that Hindu furriner and run him out of town,”
said the sheriff, grim-lipped once more. With a wave of his hand,
he indicated the grim, weather-beaten old house, now visible, Bab’s
legacy. “There you are. Good-by,” said he, and walked away.
They watched him go; then turned, thoughtful, silent, toward the house.
“The plot thickens,” sighed Gerry.
“Like pea soup when it’s cold,” agreed Gordon.
“Speaking of pea soup,” said Charlie prosaically, “I hope Rosa Lee has
some for supper--though I prefer mine hot.”
As Gerry and Charlie went on, lured by thoughts of Rosa Lee and supper,
Bab and Gordon lingered in the sweet-scented dusk of the woods. A bird
called sleepily to its mate. In the distance an owl hooted mournfully.
Bab sighed and the boy tried to look into her averted face.
“You aren’t letting that grim-faced old codger frighten you, are you,
Bab?” he asked anxiously. “Probably doesn’t know what he’s talking
about, anyway.”
“I’m not frightened,” declared Bab. “Only a little sad to-night, Don.
And the mystery over all this old house worries me. I wish--oh, I wish
I had not lost the lucky ring!”
CHAPTER XVIII
A HIDDEN LETTER
The very next day Bab Winters made a discovery that went a long way
toward solving some of the questions that perplexed her.
The girls and boys had looked the old house over in search of the lucky
ring. They had searched the whole day, all of them, even, in some
instances, prying up boards in the flooring when they were loose and
there was a chance that some small object might have slipped beneath
them.
“No use!” said Gerry at last. “Guess we might as well give the ring up
as lost, Bab.”
They gathered in the library, tired and a little irritable. This
looking for a fortune was all very well, but they felt it was time that
some signs of the fortune should show up. Their patience was becoming a
trifle frayed.
“I suppose so,” said Bab wearily. She had been wandering about the room
and now paused before the full length portrait of Uncle Jeremiah in his
younger days. Curtains of a dark brown, dull material hung on either
side of this portrait and could be drawn completely across it by means
of a silk cord with a tassel at its termination.
Thoughtlessly, her mind on the lucky ring, Bab pulled the cord. The
curtains did not spread over the picture as she had expected. Instead,
there was a sharp, clicking noise, as though a latch had been released.
The sound seemed to come from behind the picture.
Bab called breathlessly.
“Some one,” she said, “please look behind this picture!”
Gordon was the first to reach it. His exclamation was soft, but of a
quality to bring Gerry and Charlie running to him.
“An opening!” he cried. “An opening not much bigger than your arm! Let
go the cord, Bab. I’ll hold open the door. Come around here, quick!”
Bab released the cord gently, then ran to where the others were
crowding close to get a look behind the picture.
“When you pulled the cord, you released a spring of some sort, do you
see?” Gordon cried. “There’s the hole, Bab, and it looks as if it
reached clear through to some enclosure beyond the wall!”
“Put in your hand, Bab Winters, and draw out your fortune!” cried
Gerry dramatically. “Ah, that I have lived to see this moment!”
“Don’t be silly!” cried Bab, peering into the hole. “All I see at
present is a large amount of nothing at all---- Oh!”
“What is it?” the others cried in an agony of excitement.
“If you don’t speak at once, Bab Winters, I’ll drop dead at your
feet--and then just see how you’ll like that!” came from Gerry.
“We’d have a real ghost, then,” suggested Charlie.
“Oh, Bab, don’t mind him!” Gerry almost groaned. “What--have--you--got?”
For Bab held in her hand a paper, a paper that her fingers had closed
upon as they explored the side of that mysterious hole.
“It was in a little cupboard of some sort,” she explained, in response
to the serious look on Gordon’s face. “Gordon, I don’t _think_ I’m
dreaming! There seemed to be shelves, and on one of them I found this!”
“Wait a minute!” Gordon put his hand in the hole and groped about for a
moment. “There are shelves, Bab! And, oh, say! Look what I’ve found!”
He drew forth his hand and extended it palm outward to Bab.
The lucky ring!
Bab gasped and pounced upon it.
“Ye gods!” cried Gerry. “What next?”
“The fortune, of course,” said Charlie, trying to seem bored and not
succeeding. “Bab will find at least a million now she’s got the lucky
ring.”
Gordon slipped the little grinning Buddha on Bab’s finger. Gerry
giggled.
“Looks like a wedding!”
“Don’t be silly!” Bab retorted. “Gordon,” she added, “where did it come
from? Who put it there?”
The boy shook his head.
“We can’t tell that, Bab. But we will before long! I’ve a feeling that
the mysteries are going to clear up.”
“Oh, I have, too,” whispered Bab. “I have, too--now that I have the
lucky ring!”
“You are going to read the letter, aren’t you, Bab? Ye gods! why this
delay?” broke in Gerry wildly.
“Help! She’s running amuck!” cried Bab, for Gerry, quite without
reason, had turned and glared fiercely at her. “Oh, _do_ be quiet,
Gerry!” Bab added pleadingly, as Gerry started to speak again.
She blew the dust from the letter--it seemed to have lain in its queer
hiding place for a considerable time--and opened it while the boys and
Gerry gathered about her with flattering attention.
“It’s for me,” she said in a subdued tone, though her eyes shone and
she fingered the lucky ring lovingly. “A shaky handwriting--some one
old. It must have been Uncle Jerry!”
“Bab,” said Gerry, in a tone of long and patient suffering, “would you
like _me_ to read it for you?”
“I’d like to see you try!” cried Bab.
Nevertheless she opened the letter, ran her eyes down the first page of
straggling, uneven writing, then began to read aloud.
“My Dear Niece, Barbara:
“They say I am a peculiar old man. Undoubtedly I am, since all these
years I have led a lonely life. But this bequest is not so much the
whim of an eccentric old man, as you have probably thought it----”
At this point Bab paused to glance uneasily about the room. She had
for a moment experienced the sensation that Uncle Jeremiah himself was
in the room, standing quite close to her, peering, perhaps, over her
shoulder.
The intent faces of her companions begged Bab to go on.
“My favorite sister had your name. She was a wonderful woman, and, if
she had not died in her youth, everything I own would have gone to
her----”
“Sounds like ready money, Bab!” cried Gerry, the irrepressible.
“----would have gone to her.” (Bab read on) “As it is, you, who bear
her name, and, as I have learned, also bear a strong resemblance to
her----”
“She must have been a peach,” Gerry interjected.
“----will be my heir.” (Bab, bending her fair head over the document
was entirely absorbed in its contents.) “If you are like my sister
Barbara, brave, resourceful, persistent of purpose----”
“And so you are, Bab!” cried the loyal Gerry.
“----your inheritance will not be inconsiderable.”
There was a gasp from them all, but Bab apparently did not hear it.
More absorbed than ever, she bent over the paper.
“One who cannot work for a benefit” (she read) “is not worthy of it.
I will not help you, except to say this much. When you have found
this letter you will be a step nearer to the realization of your
hopes.”
The others cried out at that in huge excitement. Bab paused and looked
steadily for a moment at that mysterious opening in the wall behind the
picture of Uncle Jeremiah. The young folks followed her gaze, stared
in awed silence. It was almost as if they expected the solution of the
mystery to pop out at them from that small orifice.
In a moment Bab continued:
“Good-by, niece Barbara. They say I may not live the night through,
and I must hide this while I have the strength. Good luck.
“JEREMIAH DARE.”
As Bab came to the signature there was an outbreak of excited
exclamations, questions, comments; but an exclamation from Bab brought
an abrupt silence.
“That isn’t all! Listen!”
Bab continued with the letter.
“Before I go” (she read) “there is one person I feel I must warn you
against. He is not one of our race and so not easily understood by
us. He is a Hindu, an old servant that I brought home with me when I
returned from my travels and settled down in this old house to spend
my declining years. This man I have been obliged to discharge because
he became insolent to me, even threatening. He wishes me no good, and
this enmity will, in all probability, pass on to my heir. Beware of
him! Once more, good-by!”
CHAPTER XIX
A GRIM WARNING
Bab Winters’ fingers trembled so that she could not fit the letter back
into its envelope. Quietly, Gordon took them both from her.
“Steady, Bab!” he said, his eyes exultant. “I believe we’re on the
track of something real at last!”
Bab glanced at the lucky ring and shook her head.
“The mystery seems to be darker and deeper than ever. Gordon, I don’t
understand a thing!”
“Except that there really is a fortune hidden somewhere about this old
house!” cried Gerry. “Oh, Bab, isn’t that something?”
Of course it was, and for some time the young folks entertained no
doubt but what they would find Bab’s mysterious inheritance at once.
But in this they were doomed to disappointment.
They studied the aperture in the wall that had opened, incredibly
enough, to the pull of the curtain cord. They decided that there must
be a fine wire running through the cord, over the molding, and down
through the wall of the house, connecting, in some way, with a spring
that, when touched, released the door to the small opening. That the
door could also be closed by a pull of the cord they proved at once and
to their complete satisfaction. When the door was closed no sign of any
opening whatsoever could be observed in the wall!
“Funny no one thought of pulling that curtain cord,” observed Charlie.
“I did, when we were looking before,” announced Gerry. The others
turned to stare at her reproachfully. “I never thought to look behind
the picture, though.”
“She never thinks,” remarked Charlie. “Now don’t glare at me, young
woman. It won’t do you a bit of good. Come and help me look for another
tassel or button, or something that will release another secret door.
If we find that I’ve a notion we’ll find this old miser’s hidden money,
too.”
Though they searched all the remainder of the afternoon, buoyed up by
excitement and fresh hope, they found no further clew to the hiding
place of the eccentric old gentleman’s treasure.
When Rosa Lee finally called them to dinner, they went reluctantly,
unwilling to give up the hunt long enough to eat.
Gordon and Bab lingered behind the rest.
“Don,” said the girl, “do you notice anything odd about this picture?”
“A great many things,” laughed Gordon. “What, in particular, do you
mean?”
“Well, about the hanging, for instance. You notice it stands out some
distance from the wall because it is hung on the end of this rod.”
Gordon was watching her intently.
“Yes, I noticed that! What are you getting at, Bab?”
“Do you remember the time we heard the pattering feet and it sounded
as if something jumped toward this picture? Then you went to look for
whatever it was and--it had disappeared.”
“You mean,” said the boy, “that whatever we thought we heard might have
passed through that hole in the wall?”
Bab nodded, eyes shining.
“But, Bab!” the boy was impressed but unconvinced, “whatever it was
went through the hole must have closed the door after it! Because when
we went to look----”
“We found a little crack that closed when you pressed against it,”
cried Bab triumphantly. “And, Gordon, come over here. I want to show
you something.”
She showed him then on the inside of the little round door what none of
the rest of them in their excitement had perceived. There was a tiny
knob, by which that opening might have been closed from the farther
side of the wall!
“But, Bab, you’ve got me dizzy! No human being could go through that
hole, and what animal would have the sense to close the door after him!
It’s---- Why, it’s impossible!”
“Of course it is!” agreed Bab. “But there’s one thing certain, Don.
We’ve got to find out what’s on the other side of that wall!”
While they ate, night closed down upon the old house in the glen and
its mysteries, and with night came a blustering storm that played in
wind-swept gusts upon the windows and whistled about the house. The
boys and girls moved closer together for companionship and the eyes of
Rosa Lee moved often toward the black squares of the windows, which
alone separated them from the dismal woods which covered the slopes of
the glen. Mrs. Fenwick went off upstairs to read.
The young folks were jumpy. The excitement of the afternoon, while it
had roused their hopes, had taken toll of their nerves.
They knew now who the Hindu was, that strange dark man with the
turbaned head who lived in the woods and seemed able to disappear
at a moment’s notice. Uncle Jeremiah’s warning had done little to
reassure them in regard to this discharged servant. They remembered
the sheriff’s warning too--and shuddered. What did the Hindu want and
what was he doing with that poor child, whose sorry plight had already
enlisted the sympathies of the boys and girls?
Mysteries, nothing but mysteries, and not an answer to one of them!
Bab turned and turned the lucky ring on her finger while Gordon watched
her, thinking how pretty she looked in her reverie. She glanced up and
found his eyes on hers.
“Gordon,” she said softly, “who took my lucky ring?”
Before the boy could answer, a sharp cry from Gerry made them glance in
her direction. The girl was on her feet, pointing with shaking finger
toward the door. This opened slowly, inch by inch, propelled by some
unseen agency.
Who--or what--was behind that door?
CHAPTER XX
THE SAPAJOU
That moment was one the girls and boys--and Rosa Lee--would never
forget. What held them silent they did not know. Fear of the unknown
perhaps, a temporary mental and physical paralysis. At any rate, no one
moved, no one spoke, while the space between door and jamb gradually
widened.
In a moment there was a rush from the half-open door, so sudden that
the watchers were conscious at the time only of a draught of air
blowing across the room.
Then Gerry Thompson screamed and pointed to a small, furry thing that
clung to the curtain rod above the curtainless window.
“A--a monkey!” she cried hysterically.
Bab laughed; laughed so hard that she cried and choked and had to be
patted on the back. She shrugged her would-be helpers off impatiently
and pointed to the door.
“Gordon, close it!” she cried. “If you let that m-monkey get away
again, I’ll never forgive you!”
“A monkey!” cried Gerry, shaking her fist at the little animal that
merely cocked its head on one side and looked at her with grave
disapproval. “And th-that’s what’s been scaring the l-life out of us
all this time. Come down here, you little p-pest, and I’ll teach you
some new tricks!”
For a while they all talked at once while they stood beneath the
curtain rod and stared up at the monkey--who was the only calm one of
the company!
At last Gordon succeeded in making his voice heard above the din.
“It’s a sapajou; comes from South America I think. Uncle John had one
for a pet--remember, Charlie?”
“Sure, a cute little creature too,” returned Charlie. “Come down here,
funny-face, and shake hands!”
As though in answer, the little creature swung itself head downward
from the curtain rod and gravely held out its hand.
“Oh, isn’t it cute!” cried Bab, as the monkey regained its perch.
“Looks like a cat and acts like a monkey!” chuckled Gerry. “Three
guesses as to what is it, anyway?”
“Well, Ah declare to goodness Ah wish Ah knew de answer to dat
question!”
This remark came in plaintive tones from the farthest corner of the
room. The eager group about the monkey turned to find Rosa Lee crouched
behind a chair, holding on to the back of it defensively. The eyes of
Bab’s old nurse rolled wildly and the hue of her skin had changed from
rich chocolate color to a grayish brown.
“’Cause if it’s a cat, out Ah comes. But if it’s a monkey, here Ah
stays for de rest ob de night, and wild horses, dey couldn’t drag me
out o’ here, no _sir_! Ah declares to goodness, it’s de old gen’leman’s
ghost, dat’s what ’tis!”
The young folks shouted with laughter as they dragged the protesting
Rosa Lee from behind her frail bulwark.
“Ghost nothing!” laughed Gordon. “The old gentleman wanted to make
monkeys of us all, so he left this one around to show us what we’d look
like after a while!”
“Speak for yourself!” sniffed Gerry.
“Cute little beggar,” observed Charlie. “See how he watches us!”
As though encouraged by this friendly comment to approach his new
acquaintances more closely, the monkey deserted its perch on the
curtain rod and jumped to the center of the table, almost upsetting the
lamp as it did so.
“De Lord have mercy on mah soul!” squawked Rosa Lee, starting to her
feet. “De debbil’s in dat animal! Yassir, he’s de debbil’s own child,
dat’s what he is!”
Gordon pushed the reluctant old woman back in her chair and tried to
reassure her while the others roared with laughter.
“He’s no more a ghost than you are, Rosa Lee,” said Bab.
“And goodness knows Ah’s solid enough,” grumbled Rosa Lee, yet
continued to regard the sapajou with an eye of strong suspicion and
dislike.
“Look! He wants to shake hands,” said Gerry, in huge delight. “He’s the
cutest thing I ever saw. Come here, Jocko!”
But the sapajou cocked its funny little head on one side, scratched
himself deliberately behind the ear, and finally sidled over to where
Bab regarded him, bright-eyed, from the farther side of the table.
She held out a hand to the monkey, and the little creature grasped it
in both of his and swung himself to her shoulder.
“You old darling,” she cried, reaching up to rub its furry head. “Where
did you come from anyway--and what do you want?”
As though in answer to the latter part of the question, two small,
furry arms were wound about Bab’s neck and a bright-eyed face pressed
close to hers while into the black beady eyes crept a look of such
comical beatitude as was a treat to see.
“Well, if dat’s de ole gen’leman’s ghost, Ah must say he’s a mighty
’fectionate one,” remarked Rosa Lee, to the huge delight of her
audience. “An’ it has mo’ sense than most ha’nts does, too, Ah reckon,
’cause it knows its own niece. Git on dere, animal!” with a defensive
gesture as the sapajou turned inquisitive eyes in her direction. “Ghost
or no ghost, you keeps yo’ distance, hear me? ’Less you wants to git
hit wiv de rollin’ pin, you do!”
“Don’t be silly, Rosa Lee,” cried Bab, as Gerry giggled delightedly.
“This is no more a ghost than you are! I remember now that Grandmother
said something about Uncle Jeremiah having a monkey for a pet, a little
creature he picked up while he was in South America--Brazil, I think.
Anyway, this must be it.”
Rosa Lee was relieved, though by no means completely reassured.
“Well, all I has to say ’bout it is it’s mighty funny we didn’t see
nothin’ of it befo’!”
“Do you think it has been hiding out around here all this time?” asked
Charlie incredulously. “Say, that’s a great theory, Bab!”
“Then,” cried Gerry excitedly, “maybe it has been our ghost!”
“An’ you jest sayin’ as dis wasn’t de old gen’leman’s ghost!” protested
Rosa Lee.
No one paid any attention to her, for Gerry’s theory was exciting and
at the same time, which was much less usual, plausible.
“You mean this little monkey here is responsible for the food and other
things that have disappeared--Bab’s lucky ring, for instance--and the
strange noises we’ve heard?” demanded Gordon, with an odd look. “The
monkey could have stolen the ring from her finger at night,” he added.
“Why, of course!” Gerry eagerly expounded her theory. “This little
fellow--why, he explains everything, or almost everything!”
“That day in the library,” said Bab in a queer tone, “when we were
certain we heard pattering feet. That was probably the sapajou then----”
“And he disappeared into the secret opening in the wall!” put in
Charlie, who had lost all of his air of nonchalance.
Bab put the sapajou on the table where it looked at her reproachfully,
its little head cocked on one side.
“While Uncle Jerry was alive the monkey probably saw him use that
secret opening more than once. It probably learned the secret itself,
imitating the old man. They are very intelligent, you know, these
sapajous. Then, after Uncle Jerry’s death he took to the secret place
as a natural refuge.”
“Ah reckons he’s de feller that has been helpin’ hisself to mah pies
an’ doughnuts,” said Rosa Lee. “If you don’t watch out, animal, you’ll
be gittin’ de rollin’ pin square on de top o’ you haid!” She said
this with such a menacing gesture that the little creature chattered
affrightedly and made, once more, for the safety of the curtain rod.
“Now, listen to me, gang!” Gordon’s tone was solemn, drawing their
attention from the spectacle of the sapajou and Rosa Lee’s wrath.
“We’re listening,” said Gerry. “Shoot!”
“I believe Bab and Gerry have hit pretty close to the truth. This
monkey probably had a hiding place back of that hole. When I stood in
front of it--the hole, I mean--I distinctly caught a whiff of damp,
musty air, as though it came from some space back of the wall. Now, the
question is, just what _is_ back of that library wall.”
“The outer wall of the house, of course,” scoffed Charlie.
“I don’t believe it!” Gordon took him up quickly. “I think that there
is a space of some sort beyond that library wall and that if we could
solve that riddle we’d be on the track of the greater mystery--Bab’s
inheritance.”
“The secret chamber!” said Gerry in an awed tone. “Oh, Gordon, what a
lamb you are to think of it!”
“Come, be sensible, Gordon,” drawled Charlie, with an attempt at
recapturing his blasé manner.
“Sensible!” exclaimed Bab. “It’s the most sensible thing that’s been
said for a long time!”
“Of course it is,” declared Gerry. “We’re almost sure now to find Bab’s
fortune!”
CHAPTER XXI
A MIDNIGHT VISITOR
The theory of a secret chamber gave the girls and boys plenty to think
about during the next few days. They not only theorized; they worked,
and worked hard. Of course, the main scene of their labors was the
library. They searched the library wall in the neighborhood of the
secret opening with an almost feverish diligence in the hope of finding
a spring or button that would release another secret opening--a panel
or a door that would lead to the secret chamber. A wonderful phrase, a
mystic, challenging phrase! And yet they found--nothing.
When they sounded the wall it seemed to them to have a hollow ring, as
though there were space beyond it, but they could not find that space.
They tried to put the sapajou through the secret opening they had
found, but the little animal would have none of it. He evidently
preferred the society of his new friends.
“You’re bad,” scolded Bab, scratching the little creature’s ear. “Of
all the disappointing animals, you are certainly the worst. Why can’t
you do what’s expected of you, anyway?”
At this the sapajou wound a furry arm about her neck and laid his funny
little face against her soft cheek coaxingly.
“You’re bad. You’re a wheedler,” chided Bab. “But I can’t help loving
you just the same.”
“Some monkeys have all the luck,” said Charlie.
“Why not you, eh, Charles?” Gerry added wickedly.
Bab chuckled and put the monkey down.
“We’ll have to find out what--if anything--is behind this door by some
other means,” she said, watching Gordon as he felt along the wall for
perhaps the hundredth time in search of a possible secret panel.
The boy nodded.
“Probably have to use an ax before we get through,” he said. “But we
don’t want to do that until we have to.”
Evening found them still searching the house in the glen and with no
better result.
Bab was tired, discouraged, uneasy. The shadows of mystery were
gathering more thickly about her. She began to hate the old house that
had come to her for an inheritance, to hate and to fear it. Uncle
Jeremiah with his mysterious Hindu servant, his sapajou pet, his grim
old house, his legendary hidden fortune, began to seem to her like
some grotesque old ogre, laughing at her vain attempts to extricate
herself from the net in which she was enmeshed.
Her one comfort was that she still had the lucky ring!
It was later that night--very much later--when everybody had been in
bed and, presumably, asleep for several hours, that Bab started up
in her bed. She was suddenly and fully wide awake, though what had
startled her, she could not tell.
She sat motionless, gripping the coverlet with tense fingers. It came
then, what she had been waiting for--an odd, tapping noise, faint but
insistent, coming, apparently, from somewhere underground.
Bab’s flesh crept. Her scalp tingled and she was sure each separate
hair tried to stand on end. The faint, ghostly tapping continued.
How she found the courage to fling back the covers and get out of bed,
Bab never afterward could tell. But the fact remains that she did
manage to slip her shivering feet into mules and draw a dressing gown
about her.
Then she touched Gerry on the shoulder.
“Don’t make any noise,” she whispered, as the other started up, rubbing
sleep-filled eyes. “Th-there’s something in the cellar!”
Gerry was instantly wide awake. She listened for a moment, her hand
gripping Bab’s, to that faint, fear-inspiring tapping. It stopped for a
moment, then began again--now very soft--now a little louder----
Gerry slipped out of bed, groped for her robe, drew it about her.
“What s-say, Bab?” she chattered. “Shall we go d-down?”
Bab answered softly in the affirmative, and together the two girls
stole downstairs. They clung to each other, horribly afraid, yet
ashamed--and too eager and curious--to turn back.
They crept into the blackness of the hall, felt carefully past
obstacles in their path. It was pitch black--a blackness thick,
tangible. As they descended, the tapping grew steadily louder.
“It’s in the cellar!” stammered Gerry. “Oh, Bab, let’s go back!”
“We--we can’t!” said Bab through chattering teeth. “Sh--don’t make a
noise!”
On through the blackness of the kitchen, somehow avoiding objects in
their path, on to the door that led to the cellar. If they could only
have a light--just the least little glimmer of a light!
With her hand on the knob of the door, Bab hesitated. Gerry tried
to draw her back. The tapping was louder now. Other noises could be
heard, too--the soft padding of feet, the groping of a hand, perhaps,
across a wall. There was a sudden sound, muted, but louder than the
others. Some one down there had stubbed his toe--some one had given
voice to a muttered cry of pain.
“Anyway,” whispered Gerry hysterically, “it isn’t a ghost!”
Bab agreed that it was not. No ghost had ever been known to stub his
toe and gasp about it. It just wasn’t done in the best ghost society!
thought Bab a little wildly.
She opened the door a crack, then a little wider crack. Her desire for
light was gratified immediately--but this light came from below.
Suddenly impatient, Gerry pushed her chum aside and peered downward.
What she and Bab saw in that fantastic moment of revelation was to
remain forever branded upon their memory.
The source of the flickering light was a candle. The light illumined
the face of a man. It stood out, cameo-like, against the black
background of shadows. In the hand of this man was a hammer with which
he was tap-tapping against the cellar wall.
But the thing that made the girls catch their breath and shrink back
into the sheltering shadows of the kitchen was the identity of this
midnight visitor, an identity instantly revealed by the headdress he
wore. This was a turban, a turban that gleamed white above a swarthy,
lowering face--the face of the Hindu!
“Hey, what’s the row?”
Gerry screamed and whirled about. Bab leaned, shaking, against the
door. It was Gordon Seymour who had cried out. He and Charlie rushed
into the kitchen a second later.
“The Hindu! In the cellar! Don’t--_don’t_ go down there!” Bab gasped.
But she was too late. Gordon brushed past her, quickly followed by
Charlie.
“The light has disappeared!” screamed Gerry. “Oh, boys, be careful!”
The cellar was suddenly in complete darkness.
“Oh, something dreadful will happen!” cried Bab. “Gordon, Charlie, come
back!”
All the time she and Gerry were stumbling blindly after the boys,
resolved not to leave them to their fate but, as Gerry afterward
declaimed, “to die with them if necessary.”
The cellar was in pitch blackness. No--not quite! There was the gleam
of light from Gordon’s electric torch. The girls clung together while
Gordon flashed the light about the cellar.
“Empty! Empty as a rubbish can on street cleaning day!” muttered Gerry
half hysterically.
“But how, why----” cried Bab incoherently. “Where can he have gone?”
“Through this window, probably,” replied Charlie, beckoning to them.
“See, here’s one open!”
They examined the window and afterward made a round of the cellar to
assure themselves that it was empty. Also, they closed and bolted
the open window and saw to it that the others were fastened just as
securely.
“Let’s get out of here,” suggested Gerry, vainly trying to stop the
chattering of her teeth. “I--I don’t l-like this cellar!”
“Mrs. Fenwick and Rosa Lee are still asleep, thank goodness,” said Bab
as they again entered the kitchen; but the words had barely left her
lips before they were contradicted by Rosa Lee herself.
“Indeed _Ah’s_ not asleep!” The rich voice came with some asperity from
the doorway.
Gordon turned his light in that direction to discover the bulky figure
of Rosa Lee, hastily attired in a shapeless dressing gown. Mrs.
Fenwick, frightened and still half asleep, just then came up and peered
over Rosa Lee’s shoulder.
“Have to be daid to sleep through that rumpus!” grumbled Rosa Lee.
“What yo’-all doin’? Holdin’ a party in de middle of de night?”
Gerry giggled wildly.
“It’s a f-funny kind of a party,” she cried. “Sort of--unplanned, you
might say!”
“Some one was in the cellar, Mrs. Fenwick,” Bab explained. “It was the
Hindu. We could tell by the turban on his head. He--he was tapping at
the cellar wall with a hammer.”
“Well, Ah declares to goodness!” put in Rosa Lee, hugely disgusted.
“Seems like he could do that jes’ as well in de mo’nin’ and let hones’
folks get dere rest--yassir, seems like he picked out a funny time to
do dis yere tappin’ of hisn. Ah’s gwine to bed an’ so’s yo’-all. Come
on--scat! Or would you laks Ah take de kitchen broom to yo’-all young
scamps?”
There was no arguing with Rosa Lee in this mood, especially when she
was whole-heartedly supported by Mrs. Fenwick, and the boys and girls
knew better than to attempt it.
Before they went upstairs again, Bab whispered to Gordon:
“Be sure to lock the kitchen door, Don!”
“It’s locked and bolted. Don’t worry, Bab,” the boy answered
reassuringly. “I hardly think we’ll have another visitation--not
to-night, anyway.”
Upstairs in their room, snuggled close together in bed, Bab and Gerry
discoursed excitedly upon recent events.
“He was tapping on the cellar wall,” said Gerry, in a thrilled tone.
“Bab, don’t you see what that means? This terrible Hindu servant of the
old man is after the fortune, too!”
“It looks that way,” Bab agreed. “And that would account for the lights
people have seen and for some of the mysterious noises we have heard,”
she added, tingling. “It would account for--oh, heaps of things!”
“Probably the servant suspected his master had money hidden in the
house, even before your uncle died, Bab,” Gerry took her up excitedly.
“In his letter, you know, he said that the Hindu threatened him and for
that reason he had to give him the air----”
“Such slang!” chuckled Bab. “You mean discharge him, I suppose----”
“A rose by any other name----” began Gerry, but Bab interrupted.
“How we must be in that Hindu’s way!” she said softly, sitting up in
bed. “If he really believes my uncle hid money in this house--and,
as his servant, he probably was in a position to suspect, if not to
know--then our being here must have spoiled his lovely hope of finding
it and making himself rich. Oh, yes, we’ve bothered him a lot!”
“Not half as much as he’s bothered us.”
“And he won’t stop at anything, probably, to drive us out,” Bab
continued, without noticing the interruption. “Especially if he has
reason to believe that we, too, are on the trail of the hidden fortune.”
Gerry sat bolt upright in bed, her eyes wide in the darkness.
“Bab!” she breathed, “what do you mean?”
“I mean,” returned Bab earnestly, “that if we are going to find my
eccentric uncle’s hidden legacy we had better be quick about it.
Because, to be perfectly frank, I’m scared to death of what that Hindu
may do. He has a--an awful face.”
“You put it mildly,” returned Gerry, frowning. “I suppose I shall
see that Hindu’s face in my dreams for the rest of my natural life!
Anyway,” she added, comfortingly, “you have something the Hindu hasn’t,
Bab. _You_ have the lucky ring.”
“Yes,” said Bab, smiling oddly in the darkness, “I have the lucky ring!”
“Maybe it really will bring you luck,” proceeded Gerry. “Anyway, we can
believe it will if we try hard enough.”
Morning did nothing to dispel the girls’ forebodings. Nor did Rosa
Lee’s decision, formed overnight, tend to reassure them.
“Ah’s had enough ob de goin’s on in dis house,” declared Rosa Lee
darkly. “Ah’m not afraid fo’ mah own se’f----”
“Sure of that, Rosa Lee?” teased Gordon, and Bab chuckled.
“But even if Mis’ Fenwick don’t mind, Ah refuses to share the
responsibility fo’ a pack o’ scatter-brained younguns like yo’-all
is----”
“Rosa Lee, you wrong us!” protested Gerry.
“Maybe Ah does and maybe Ah doesn’t,” returned Rosa Lee, turning her
ebony glance upon the frivolous girl. “But howsomever dat may be,
Ah’s takin’ de fust train dat leaves dis place to-morrow mo’nin’ fo’
Scarsdale. An’ Ah’s not goin’ alone, neider!”
With this ultimatum, she resolutely turned on her broad, flat heel and
refused to listen to protest or argument.
“This is the end, I guess, Don. Rosa Lee will take us back if she has
to carry us!” Bab said to her old playfellow a little while later.
She tried to smile, but tears trembled on her lashes. “She’ll take us
back in spite of Mrs. Fenwick. Mrs. Fenwick hasn’t the backbone of an
angleworm!”
“It should be just the beginning instead of the end,” Gordon said,
frowning. “Look here, Bab. I may have had my doubts before about
something being hidden in this house. But after last night and that
Hindu tapping on the wall with his hammer, I haven’t a doubt left.”
“You mean----” cried Bab.
“I mean that that discharged servant of your uncle’s has given us a
clew, Bab--a real, red-hot clew at last. I believe there is a cellar
behind that cellar down there, a cleverly concealed storeroom where
your uncle hid whatever money or valuables he had.”
“A subcellar!” breathed Bab. “Oh, Gordon, if that could only be true!”
“It is true, I know it is,” insisted the boy with great earnestness.
“Oh, Gordon!” breathed Gerry frivolously, “subcellars don’t grow
outside of detective and adventure stories, you know they don’t.”
“Please hush, Gerry,” pleaded Bab. “I believe Gordon is right and I
want to hear what he has to say.”
CHAPTER XXII
BAB LOSES HER INHERITANCE
Even while Gordon Seymour enlarged upon his fascinating theory, Bab
shook her head unhappily.
“I’ve thought of that, too, Don,” she confessed. “But it would take
time to follow up that clew. And we haven’t any time! Not that I blame
Rosa Lee,” she added swiftly, loyally. “She is my old nurse, remember,
and is doing exactly what any one of us would do if we were in her
place. She doesn’t care a rap for Mrs. Fenwick. She smells danger in
the air and wants to get us away from it. I don’t blame her a bit, but
I--I’m horribly disappointed.”
They tried appealing to Mrs. Fenwick, but this did little good. The
quiet, unassertive woman appeared to have been profoundly shocked by
what had happened the night before. She was more than ever like a fussy
hen, fearful that one of her chicks would come to harm.
“I’m sorry to have to cut your vacation short, children,” she said.
“But there is something very odd about this old house. I don’t like
it. I feel with good Rosa Lee that the sooner we leave it, the better.”
No hope there!
“Never mind, we’ve got a day left,” said Gordon to Bab. “Let’s make one
more attempt at finding the money.”
But Bab shook her head. She was truly discouraged.
While the boys worked down in the cellar feverishly, sounding walls
and floor, the girls packed their few belongings. It was an unhappy,
rebellious packing, broken by frequent appeals to Rosa Lee. They felt
that if they could get the old nurse to relent, Mrs. Fenwick would
relent also.
“Can’t you change your mind, Rosa Lee?” Bab begged, arms about the old
black woman. “Just two days more--one----”
But for once, Rosa Lee was obdurate.
“It’s fo’ yo’ own sake, honey,” she replied. “If Ah had mah way we’d
be startin’ to-day. Now you git along wiv you and finish yo’ packin’.
You’ll be much safer at home dan in dis spooky place.”
All the time the girls were up in their room the sapajou sat on
the open lid of Bab’s trunk and regarded proceedings with black,
inquisitive eyes.
“Well,” said Bab forlornly, “I’ll have one thing to take back to
Grandmother and Granddaddy, sha’n’t I, you funny little thing? I’ll
have the sapajou!”
“He’s cute, but a poor substitute for a fortune,” sighed Gerry. “Any
minute now,” she added darkly, “I may go down and wring Rosa Lee’s
neck. I’ve felt it coming on all morning.”
“Goodness, I’d better lock the door before murder is added to the list
of your sins!” laughed Bab.
Rosa Lee’s spirits rose in exact proportion to the depression of the
girls and boys. Evidently the prospect of immediate flight cheered her
mightily. The sound of her singing reached the girls and caused them
to frown blackly as, their packing done, they descended to the cellar
to overlook the work of the boys. They found the latter hot, dirty,
disheveled, and about ready to give up.
“Nothing doing, Bab,” Charlie announced reluctantly. “We’ve been
all over this place some twenty times. If there’s an entrance to a
subcellar or an extra room here, we can’t find it.”
“Not without an ax,” Gordon agreed, discouraged at last. “We’d have to
rip up the whole place to find anything. And that would mean time, Bab!”
“Just what we ain’t got!” cried Gerry. “No wonder I feel murderous
when I think of Rosa Lee and Mrs. Fenwick.”
“Can’t you make them wait another week, Bab?” Gordon pleaded.
Bab shrugged her shoulders. She was trying desperately to keep back the
tears of disappointment.
“You heard what they said. You--you can try your luck, if you like,
Don. But--I guess--we go home to-morrow.”
It was a dismal gathering at the dinner table that night--all except
the sapajou, who swung from the curtain rod and chattered companionably
at them. Bab was silent, apathetic. Gordon watched her anxiously,
knowing that her thoughts were of her grandparents.
“I suppose I could sell the house to Mr. James--and let him find the
fortune, if there is one,” thought Bab unhappily. “I might get enough
from the sale to help Grandfather and Grandmother a little, anyway. I
suppose that is what I’ll have to do.”
Later that night when they were all in bed, Bab continued her dismal
thoughts.
“I can go to work, I suppose,” she thought. “But there isn’t much a
young girl can do and it would break Granddaddy’s heart to have me go
to work. Granddaddy hoped as much as I from this mysterious legacy of
Uncle Jeremiah’s, and now there’s n-no hope!” She clenched her hand
and felt the lucky ring scrape against her finger.
The lucky ring!
Bab said the words over to herself and began to cry softly, her face
smothered in the pillows. After a long, long while she fell asleep.
Hours later she awoke, gasping. A hand clutched her shoulder, shaking
her wildly.
“Get up! Get up!” cried a terrified voice out of the darkness. “The
house is on fire!”
Bab began to cough, half strangled; sat up in bed; staggered to her
feet. There was an acrid smell of smoke in her nostrils. Her throat was
full of it. The room was reeking with it.
Dimly she saw other figures; heard sleepy, frightened voices crying
out. She stared at the person who had wakened her, who still clung
desperately to her arm. Even in that awful moment, Bab had an impulse
of sheer wonder as the light of the fire showed her the little
scarecrow boy, the mysterious companion of the Hindu!
“How--how did you get here?” she cried.
But the child only clung the tighter to her, moaning his fear.
“Oh, let us get out of here. Don’t you see the house is on fire? We’ll
be burned alive! I--I came to warn you!”
The door of the room burst suddenly open. Rosa Lee and Mrs. Fenwick
half fell into the room, followed by the boys. Gordon slammed the door
shut, stood against it, panting, rubbing the smoke from his tortured
eyes.
“Bab, are you safe? Oh, Bab----”
“All right, Don, so far!” She came across the smoke-filled room, the
frightened child pressed close to her side. “How can we get out? Which
way?”
“The stairway’s cut off,” said Gordon in a queer, grim voice that did
not sound like his. “We’ll have to get out the window--this window,
Bab. It seems the only side of the house that isn’t in flames.”
Instantly Bab caught the idea. Stumbling, half-blinded, running into
Mrs. Fenwick and Gerry and Rosa Lee, who groped about the smoke-filled
room, she ran to the bed, stripped the sheets from it. She was tying
them together with fingers that trembled when she felt Gordon at her
side.
“Atta girl, Bab! Better let me pull them tight, though. I’ve got more
strength, maybe.”
Bab relinquished the sheets gladly, for her fingers were all thumbs.
Again she put her arm about the little lad who had never left her side
and whom Gordon, in his feverish excitement, had not even noticed.
There was a terrifying crackling from below. The floor of the room
was becoming unbearably hot. At any moment the flames might break
through--envelop them----
Charlie helped Gordon pull the knots tight while Bab found and brought
a blanket.
“If the sheets aren’t long enough----” she began.
“We can’t use that,” said Gordon brusquely. “It would slip.”
“Got a counterpane?” asked Charlie.
There was one that they had found in the cupboard of the old house. Bab
brought it, feeling dizzy, light-headed. She could scarcely find her
way. Gerry was at her elbow. A gasping, “Can I help, Bab?” A shake of
the head.
Gordon was tying the counterpane to the sheets. Charlie pulled with
him, testing it.
“Now, then!” cried Gordon. The improvised rope was ready. “Quick! Help
me shove the bed over to the window!”
There was a sharp, rending sound. The fire had burst through the floor
at one corner of the room; was running along the boards like a sinuous
red snake.
Some one screamed. It was Gerry. Bab caught her by the shoulders, shook
her, without knowing what she did.
“We’re all right,” she said huskily. “Keep your nerve, Gerry! We’re all
right!”
It took Gordon and Charlie only a moment to fasten the rope to the
bedpost while the flame licked along the floor. Without contact with
the fire their bodies felt blistered, their tongues were thick. A
moment more and the room would be a mass of flames.
“Over with you!” cried Gordon. “Make believe you’re monkeys. Slide down
that rope!”
“The sapajou,” sobbed Bab. “He’s lost. He’ll be burned to death.”
“Out with you!” cried Gordon. “Down that rope!”
Gerry was over the window sill; was sliding downward, gripping
desperately with hands and knees. The little lad next--though he fought
to be left with Bab. Then Mrs. Fenwick. Then Rosa Lee. They reached the
ground, were safe. Bab saw Rosa Lee clasp the child to her capacious
breast.
The fire burst with a roar behind them. The heat was intolerable. Their
clothes were beginning to smolder.
Charlie made for the window and was drawn back roughly by Gordon.
“Bab first. Quick, Bab!”
Over the window sill into the blessed cool air, skin rubbed from the
palms of her hands by the swift slipping downward. Never mind! There
was the safe, cool earth beneath her with Rosa Lee to catch her in a
great embrace and pull her away from the burning building.
A crowd of country folk had gathered. The ringing of a bell announced
that the rural fire department was at the scene. Bab could see the men
hurrying with their buckets--like ants, she thought, and almost as
helpless.
Her eyes turned upward toward the window of the room from which she had
just escaped. Charlie slipped down the rope, jumped to the ground as
she watched.
Gordon, Gordon! One might know he would wait till the last, with the
fire roaring behind him, reaching out hungrily for him.
“Gordon!” sobbed Bab. “Oh, Gordon, be quick!”
The boy flung his leg over the sill, grasped the rope and slid down it
like a monkey. It was then they saw his coat had begun to burn. They
ran to him but, with quick presence of mind, Gordon shrugged out of the
smoldering garment and let it fall harmlessly to the ground.
“I’m not very well dressed,” he grinned ruefully. “But something tells
me that coat won’t be of any further use to me!”
“Nothing matters,” cried Bab, “as long as we are all safe!”
The fire brigade was really busy now. One whole side of the house was
on fire. A ladder had been propped just beyond reach of the flames and
up this swarmed a constant line of men with buckets. Farmers had come
from all about to watch the burning of the “haunted house.” Satisfied
that every living person in the place was safe, they probably felt a
certain satisfaction in the conflagration. It appeared certain, at any
rate, that the “ghost” would burn with the house, and this was, above
all things, a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Some such thought was in Bab’s pretty head as she stood with her arm
about the little scarecrow lad who had so strangely warned her of the
fire and watched her inheritance from Uncle Jeremiah go up in smoke.
Perhaps a fortune--that aggravating, elusive, alluring hidden wealth of
the old miser--was being consumed with the house. Who knew?
“Well, I guess it just wasn’t meant that I was to find that money--not
even with the help of the lucky ring!” she said in a husky whisper.
“You poor dear!” said Gerry, putting an arm about Bab. “I forgot how
you must be feeling.”
Before Bab could reply, the child at her side cried out and clung to
her wildly.
“Oh, oh! Don’t let him get me!”
Holding the boy close to her, Bab whirled about in time to see the
swarthy face of the Hindu peering at them from the shadows beyond the
light thrown by the fire. As Bab flung up her hand in an instinctive
gesture of defense, the Hindu sprang toward them, face ugly, hand
outstretched to seize the shivering, wretched child.
But as the boy screamed and Bab cried out for help another figure
darted from the shelter of the bushes. The Hindu stumbled over an
upflung root in the path and sprawled his length on the ground. As he
scrambled to his feet a hand was laid upon his shoulder--the stern,
firm hand of the law.
“I’ve got you this time, you rascal,” drawled a voice Bab instantly
recognized. It belonged to the sheriff of Clayton. “No use to give me
your dirty looks,” as the prisoner turned eyes of malignant hatred upon
him. “Put your hands in front of you--quick!” he ordered, as the Hindu
made a stealthy motion toward the broad sash knotted at his belt. “Want
I should use you for target practice? No? Good! Now mebbe you’ll come
along to town quietly with me.”
Stunned by the suddenness of this drama, Bab Winters watched mutely
while Sheriff Rawson locked a pair of handcuffs about the swarthy
wrists of the Hindu.
“Now you’ve got him, Mr. Sheriff,” said Gerry audaciously “may we ask
what you are going to do with him?”
“There’s a little party in the county jail,” said the sheriff grimly.
“This here Hindu, he’s been invited!” He gave the scowling prisoner a
long, contemptuous look, then turned to Bab.
“You see, Miss, we’ve been followin’ this fellow a right smart while.
He looked like he was up to some mischief, but up till to-night we
never could get anything definite on him. But just a little while back
I was layin’ in wait here, having got on his trail at last, when I saw
him sneakin’ out of your house and I followed him. We’d gone a right
smart way when I smelled smoke and saw the sky was red. I guessed it
was from here, and hurried to the village to give the alarm. Then I
doubled back to see if I could be any help here and found the Hindu at
the scene. It puzzled me some, his coming back like that, till I saw
what he was after. The kid must have given him the slip some way, and
it was the kid he was after.”
Every one looked at the ragged, dirty child clinging to Bab. Sheriff
Rawson took a step forward and spoke in a gentle tone to the boy.
“Listen, kid. It was this black-skinned beggar that set the house on
fire, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said the child. Then, beneath the malignity of the Hindu’s gaze,
he shrank back against Bab. “Oh, I can’t!” he wailed. “He said if I
talked he’d kill me!”
“Mighty little killin’ he’ll do with those bracelets on his wrist,”
said the sheriff dryly. “Come, speak up, sonny--you got the whole power
of the law behind you.”
Then a queer thing happened. At the words of the sheriff the child
straightened up. Firmly, but gently, he pushed away Bab’s arms. His
eyes turned with shrinking and loathing upon the darkly scowling face
of the Hindu, wandered to the grim, set face of the sheriff, and rested
there. The girls watched him wonderingly.
“Bab, I never was so thrilled in my life!” whispered Gerry. Then the
boy spoke in a quick, excited voice, finger pointed at the Hindu.
“Have you really got him safe?”
“Reckon he’d have a good time breakin’ away from me, son,” said the
sheriff reassuringly. “If you’ve something to tell, fire away.”
As the onlookers watched, breathless, the child seemed to grow taller.
A queer little figure with a very dirty face in the torn and soiled
rags that formed his clothing, he yet had some of the dignity of a
finger of fate. His hand, stretched out toward the Hindu, was steady,
accusing.
“He is the wickedest man on earth,” said the child tensely. “Sometimes
he talks to himself, and I have heard him say when he thought I was
asleep that he would set the old man’s house on fire. To-night when he
went out, I followed him. I--I hid in the bushes.”
The Hindu took a threatening step forward, but the long fingers of the
sheriff held his arm as in a vise.
“Steady, son,” he said to the boy. “What then?”
“I saw him go into the house and come out again. I waited until I saw
smoke and flames and I knew what he had done!”
“A lie!” snarled the Hindu.
“It was not a lie!” The child turned fiercely upon the prisoner, small
fists clenched. “It isn’t a lie, either, that you stole me from my
people----”
“He what?” asked the sheriff eagerly.
“He stole me from my father and mother.” The child began to tremble
and tears filled his eyes. “He brought me here to live in a hut and in
caves in the woods, and we were always hiding from some one----”
“From me, son!” interrupted the sheriff grimly.
“And because I cried for my mother,” sobbed the boy, hiding his face on
Bab’s shoulder, “he--he beat me.”
Bab put her arm about the boy while Gerry showered the sheriff with
excited questions. The latter raised a warning hand.
“Just a minute.” His voice was brisk, professional. “You say,” turning
to the child, “that this scoundrel here stole you. You mean he
kidnaped you?”
“From the hotel where I was staying with my m-mother and father,” said
the child in a muffled voice.
“Where was this hotel?” the sheriff insisted, frowning at the Hindu.
“S-scarsdale,” stammered the child.
“Scarsdale!” cried the two girls from that town. Gerry added a little
wildly:
“Why--why, that’s where we live!”
“Ah recalls there was a kidnapin’ in Scarsdale,” said Rosa Lee,
shuffling forward. “An’ if Ah’s not mistaken, dere’s a reward out for
de recovery ob dat chile.”
“Of course!” cried Gerry joyfully. “That’s the one we read about in the
paper!”
Bab’s head whirled.
“Wait! Wait a minute!” she cried. “Of course I remember the kidnaping,
but in that case the stolen child was a girl--not a boy.”
CHAPTER XXIII
THE SECRET STAIRWAY
All the time the chief actor in this tense drama had been looking from
one to the other of the crowd, tear-dimmed eyes studying them wistfully.
Now he spoke with a quiet emphasis that struck home the truth and
rendered them speechless.
“I am not a boy,” he said simply. “I am a girl. My name is Barbara
Winthrop.”
It was some time before Barbara Winters could be made to credit the
amazing statement of the forlorn-looking child; but when she accepted
it at last, there followed the inevitable question, “Why?”
For this the sheriff, now beaming with triumph, had a plausible
explanation.
“The picture of this Barbara Winthrop has been in the papers, Miss,”
he said. “And when she was wearin’ her hair and was all washed up,
she did, beggin’ your pardon, Miss, bear a remarkable resemblance to
yourself. I was struck by it that time I met you in the woods.”
“And this Hindu--the servant of my great-uncle--kidnaped her!” Bab
exclaimed eagerly. “Do you think he meant to kidnap me all the time,
and--and simply made a mistake?”
“That’s what I think, Miss. And a mighty costly mistake it’s apt to
be,” with a grim look at the Hindu. “He’s been prowlin’ around that old
house in the glen for some time, lookin’ for somethin’ he must think’s
hid there. He got wind some way, Miss, of the fact that your uncle had
left the place to you, and so he kidnaped you--or the person he thought
was you--to git you out of the way, so’s he could find whatever ’twas
he was lookin’ fer.”
“And now he’ll never find it,” said Bab, in an unsteady voice, turning
and turning the lucky ring on her finger. “And--neither shall I.”
She looked at the dirty girl with the shorn hair and tear-marked face
while every one looked at her. Bab suddenly laughed, choked, and went
down on her knees beside the poor little ragged figure, clasping it in
her arms.
“Oh, Barbara Winthrop, what you have been through for my sake! You even
risked your life there in the burning building to warn us of danger!
Oh, I’ll try to make it all up to you. I’ll try!”
The fire was out at last. The house stood, a ghastly skeleton against
the faint, gray background of early dawn, pointing gaunt fingers
toward the sky.
Looking at it and the ruin of her hopes, Bab was suddenly flooded with
desolation.
“Oh, Granddaddy! Oh, dear Grandmother!” she cried in her heart. “I have
done my best and I have failed, failed, failed! How can I go home and
tell you so?”
The sheriff took them all, even Mrs. Fenwick and Rosa Lee, to his big
house on the outskirts of the town where his wife, a good-natured,
motherly woman, took charge of them. They were put to bed immediately
and fell into exhausted slumber.
In the morning Mrs. Rawson provided Bab and Gerry and Mrs. Fenwick with
articles of clothing borrowed from the wardrobes of her two daughters
who were, luckily, about the same age as the girls from Scarsdale.
Gerry Thompson had hard work to suppress her giggles at sight of
prim, mouse-colored, unimpressive Mrs. Fenwick attired in the gay,
flapperish dress of the younger Miss Rawson; but Rosa Lee was herself
in a bright-flowered bungalow apron belonging to the stout wife of the
sheriff.
Gordon and Charles had saved their money belts from the conflagration
and the boys, clad in various cast-offs of the sheriff, set out to
the village shortly after breakfast to telegraph to their families
concerning the catastrophe and ask that more funds be sent immediately.
Sheriff Rawson also sent a telegram, but this was to the
half-distracted parents of Barbara Winthrop, telling of the safe
recovery of their child. The reward for the capture of the Hindu and
the return of the kidnaped girl would naturally come to him, and the
family of the sheriff were in a state of incredulity well-seasoned with
rapture over this unexpected windfall.
When the boys returned from the village Gordon suggested that they and
the two girls visit the scene of the fire.
“Anything will be better than just staying around here, thinking,” he
urged, when Bab shook her head. “Come along, Bab, we don’t want to go
home without one more look at the old place.”
“I think I hate the place--and I never want to see it again,” said Bab,
her lips quivering. “I wouldn’t go there at all, only there’s the poor
little sapajou. I thought so much of him, Don. I--I even dreamed of him
last night.”
Gordon tucked Bab’s hand consolingly within his arm.
“Shouldn’t wonder if the little beggar was hiding out somewhere about
the place,” he said. “Won’t hurt to take a look-see, anyway.”
It was a long walk through the woods to the site of the burned house,
but the young folks found the happenings of the preceding night so
absorbing a topic of conversation that they reached the scene of the
catastrophe almost before they were aware of it.
Bab looked at the charred skeleton with a shudder.
If that old house in the glen had seemed gloomy to them on former
occasions, how much more gloomy was it now--a ghastly ruin, the
skeleton rooms choked knee-high with sodden débris.
The girls and boys made their way gingerly through the wreckage,
wandering from room to room. Although Bab called again and again on the
soft little cooing note that the sapajou had come to recognize as her
own special summons, there was no rush of tiny feet now, no swift leap
to her shoulder, no clinging of furry arms about her neck.
Tears came to Bab’s eyes and she wiped them away quickly, hoping no one
had noticed the weakness.
Suddenly Gerry gave a little scream. She pointed to what had once been
the library, only a few beams left standing, the floor thick with
débris.
But what the girls and boys saw was something beyond the ruined library
wall--indestructible, everlasting--a stairway of stone, leading
downward!
“Bab! Boys!” cried Gerry. “Do you see what I see?”
They scrambled across the intervening sea of débris, falling over one
another, half wild with excitement.
“The stairway! The hidden stairway!” cried Bab. “Get out of my way,
Gerry Thompson!” almost fiercely, as her best friend tried to pass
before her. “It’s my house! It’s my stairway! I’m going first!”
They half ran, half fell down the slippery steps and found themselves
in a damp, dark place, smelling like a dungeon.
“The subcellar!” cried Gordon. “This was what the Hindu was trying to
find with his hammer. Anybody got a match?”
Charlie found and produced a precious box of them.
“Let me!” begged Bab. “Let me be the first to make a light!”
“You bet you shall!” cried Gordon, groping for her. “Oh, here you are.
Now, then!”
So it was Bab’s hand that first pushed back the shadows of that secret
place. The match wavered in her trembling fingers; the flame threw a
flickering and uncertain light over the scene. They could see nothing
but the strained, expectant faces of each other.
Bab dropped the match with an impatient exclamation.
“It burned my fingers. We’ll have to feel----”
“Wait a minute,” said Gordon. “I saw a lamp on this shelf here. Strike
another match, will you, Bab?”
They found to their joy that there was oil left in the lamp and enough
wick to produce a feeble light. Gordon raised the lamp high above his
head, piercing the shadows.
Suddenly Bab gave a wild cry.
“That old chest! Over there in the corner! Oh, Gerry, Gordon, Charlie,
can that be the treasure?”
Without waiting for answer, she darted forward, fell to her knees
beside an ancient strong box that had been pushed into a far corner of
the cavernous place. The others followed, fascinated, breathless.
What were they to see?
Bab tried the lid impatiently, tugging at it with her eager hands.
“It’s stuck!” she cried. “Probably locked.”
“We’ll have to pry it up----” began Gordon, when Gerry interrupted by
pushing something into his hand.
“I stumbled over this hatchet just now,” she said. “I guess you can
break the lock with that. I almost broke my head.”
After a few moments of heartbreaking tension, the lock cracked, then
yielded.
“There you go, Bab!” cried Gordon in a voice harsh with excitement. “Up
with the lid!”
“Hurry, Bab, hurry!” cried Gerry, half sobbing in her excitement.
“Oh, I daren’t!” whispered Bab. “I daren’t!”
Slowly--slowly--the lid was pushed back.
Bab looked--gasped--then began to laugh wildly, hysterically.
“Gold!” she babbled. “Gerry, boys, a sea of it! See! I’ve got my
hands in it, almost up to the elbow. It isn’t real, is it? I’m
dreaming--I----”
The two boys and Gerry flung themselves to their knees beside her,
staring down at the contents of that old, battered strong box.
“Bab, Bab!” cried Gordon. “Why, you’re rich! There must be hundreds of
thousands of dollars worth of gold here!”
“Look!” Gerry pulled out a small compartment and revealed something
that shimmered and gleamed entrancingly in the lantern light.
“Jewels!” said Charlie incredulously. “Emeralds, Bab--rubies, diamonds,
sapphires----”
“Oh, stop!” cried Bab. “I can’t--I can’t believe this! It isn’t
happening to me!”
“Oh, but it is, Bab, it is!” Gordon’s fine, young face was alight
with a joy and wonder almost as keen as Bab’s. “Here is where the old
gentleman stored that hoarded wealth of his, here in this old subcellar
at the foot of a secret stairway.”
“This is what the Hindu was looking for,” broke in Charlie Seymour. “It
was for this he threatened the old man and had to be discharged from
his service!”
“And this,” said Gerry dramatically, her hands full of sparkling gems,
“is the secret chamber!”
“It’s too much,” whispered Bab, staring at that gleaming mass of gold.
“There _was_ a panel, then, in the library wall----”
“So cleverly concealed as to be almost impossible of detection,”
concluded Gordon.
“And the Hindu, in trying to drive us out of the house so that he could
have a clear field for himself, did us the greatest service of all----”
“By showing us the secret stairway,” finished Charlie.
“It’s rich,” said Gordon, bending over the chest. “Rich!”
“And so is Bab!” cried Gerry.
Bab nodded and, reaching into a small compartment, scooped up a handful
of shimmering, gleaming gems.
“I want you each to take one,” she said, her voice not quite steady,
“as a souvenir of this wonderful time and--and as a pledge of
friendship.”
When she put it that way they could not refuse. Gravely, with the air
of a ritual, they each chose a glittering jewel, saying, as they did so:
“To our undying friendship, Bab!”
When it was done tears glittered on Bab’s lashes. She raised the lucky
ring and looked at it wonderingly--the little grinning Buddha with the
glittering, jeweled eyes.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “Oh, Uncle Jerry, thank you!”
CHAPTER XXIV
BAB REGAINS HER INHERITANCE
When the young folks could force themselves to think coherently again,
it was decided that the boys should wait beside Bab’s miraculously
revealed fortune, guarding it there in its hiding place, while the
girls went back to the sheriff’s house and commandeered a horse and
wagon from his farm.
Bab had just turned from her treasure reluctantly and with many a
backward glance when there was a quick rush from the shadows behind
her. A small, furry animal jumped for the girl’s arm, caught it, and
swung himself up to her shoulder. The sapajou!
“Oh!” cried Bab, hugging the little creature close enough to have
killed a less hardy young sapajou. “Where have you been hiding, you bad
little thing? And all the time I thought you were dead!”
“Why, this is his regular hide-out, Bab,” said Gerry, as they all
crowded about to pet the little creature and make much of it. “I
suppose the monkey was down here all the time the house burned merrily
overhead.”
“I suppose this is where you took all the things that disappeared when
we first came here,” said Bab, frowning at the sapajou, who blinked and
chattered in response. “Gerry’s hairbrush, for instance.”
“We’ll look for the hairbrush while you’re gone,” suggested Charlie,
and Gerry threw him a laughing glance.
“I suppose that means you want to get rid of us,” she said. “All right,
we were going, anyway!”
During the walk back to the Rawsons’ home, the sapajou clung to Bab,
his funny little face pressed close to her radiant one. Bab never could
remember the particulars of that walk, for she was in an ecstatic daze
of happiness.
“I can’t believe it yet,” she said over and over again. “I keep
thinking that I’ll have to wake up and find it all a dream.”
“Want me to prove it isn’t a dream?” asked Gerry.
“No, thanks!” Bab dimpled. “You keep your distance, Gerry Thompson, or
I’ll sic the sapajou on you!”
When they reached the Rawson house they were surprised by the sound
of a motor horn close by. When Gerry would have rushed forward, Bab
stopped her with a warning gesture.
“Wait a minute,” she cried eagerly. “Those are Barbara Winthrop’s
parents, I think----”
“Her father and mother come to take her away,” breathed Gerry.
“Look!” cried Bab. “There’s Barbara on the porch.”
But before she had finished the sentence, Barbara was not on the porch.
She was flying down the steps toward an automobile from which a man and
a woman were hastily descending.
“Mother! Father!” sobbed the girl. “Don’t look like that! Don’t cry,
dearests. I’m all right now, truly I am. Don’t cry, Mother!”
But the man and the woman knelt in the dust of the road, their
arms about the girl. The woman had flung off her hat and tears were
streaming down her face. From where they stood, Bab and Gerry could
hear the man’s whisper, half-groan, half-prayer:
“God is good!”
Wet-eyed, the girls turned away, but in Bab’s full heart was a reverent
echo of that cry.
“Oh, God _is_ good,” she said.
* * * * *
Sheriff Rawson readily agreed to send a wagon and a team of horses to
the ruined house for the battered chest containing Bab’s fortune.
He stared open-mouthed as the girls gave an excited, incoherent account
of their wonderful adventure.
“To think Jeremiah Dare had all that and all the time livin’ as if he
hadn’t one cent to lay atop another! Well, it sure does beat all!” he
exclaimed.
Rosa Lee’s comment was characteristic.
“Well, all Ah has to say is dat de ole gene’lman might have left his
money in de bank an’ saved yo’-all a heap o’ trouble gettin’ it, honey.”
“And done us out of a heap of fun, too, Rosa Lee,” cried Gerry, eyes
dancing. “Don’t forget that part of it!”
“We wouldn’t have missed this party for worlds,” added Bab.
“Mebbe not,” grumbled Rosa Lee, unconvinced. “But it’s mah private
opinion dat dat ole Jeremiah Dare, he was jest a li’l bit touched in de
haid--yassir, dat’s mah opinion, an’ Ah sticks to it.”
“Why, it sounds like a story out of a book,” was Mrs. Fenwick’s
comment. “What a strange miser he must have been! But I am awfully glad
you found this wealth, Bab. I trust you will get great comfort out of
it--you and your grandparents.”
“You girls had better stay here and rest while Mr. Rawson goes for the
boys and the strong box,” suggested the sheriff’s wife. “You had an
exciting night and have been on the go all day. You’ll be worn out.”
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Gerry. “We want to go along! It was hard enough to
take our eyes off that chest long enough to come here to ask for the
wagon.”
“You can go, Miss Gerry,” interposed Rosa Lee. “But mah chile is goin’
to stay right here ’longside o’ me. Dat box’ll git here all right
widout you.”
Bab laughingly agreed to stay with Rosa Lee, and Gerry, saying it would
be “no fun” to go without her chum, also remained behind.
The sheriff set out with team and wagon for the ruins of the old house
in the glen and returned a short time later with the chest and the
boys--the latter sitting triumphantly upon the lid of the strong box.
Bab’s fortune was borne ceremoniously into the Rawson living room, to
be stared at incredulously by the sheriff and his family.
Gordon went over to Bab, who was petting the sapajou and looking on at
the scene with shining eyes, and dumped a pile of articles in her lap.
She cried out in amazement, and Gerry rushed over to her.
“Look!” cried Bab. “Your hairbrush, Gerry! And here’s your gold pin,
Charlie, that you mourned so----”
“And Gordon’s silver pencil--and Charlie’s penknife!” came from Gerry.
“Sure, we found the sapajou’s cache under a loose brick in the darkest
corner of the subcellar!” explained Gordon.
“Oh, you wicked little beast!” cried Bab, making believe to cuff the
monkey’s ear. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
“We found crusts of bread, too,” laughed Charlie, “and the remains of
one of Rosa Lee’s doughnuts.”
“Ah said from the beginning dat monkey was de debbil’s own chile!” said
Rosa Lee, shaking her head. “Yo’-all should ’a’ let me take a rollin’
pin to him when Ah fust had a mind to--yassir, dat’s what you should
’a’ done!”
CHAPTER XXV
THE FAIRY GODDAUGHTER
Two days later, having done some very necessary shopping in the
village, the girls and boys, Mrs. Fenwick, Rosa Lee, the sapajou and
Uncle Jerry’s battered chest, said good-by to Clayton and started back
to Scarsdale.
The monkey, a collar about his neck, was confined to the baggage car,
to the great amusement of the train hands.
The girls and boys were in irrepressible spirits during the long ride
home.
“Now that Bab’s an honest-to-goodness heiress, I suppose she will shake
us poor folk like the dust from her dainty feet,” twinkled Gerry.
Bab laughed happily.
“If there’s any shaking to be done, you will have to do it all, Gerry,”
she said. “Oh, isn’t it wonderful to be going home like this?”
“A real sensation in Scarsdale,” chuckled Gerry. “Beautiful Barbara
Winters Heir to Immense Fortune. Old House Burns, Revealing Hidden
Treasure. Can’t you just see it? All in headlines, too!”
“And to think,” said Bab dreamily, “that our ghosts were only a monkey
and a Hindu servant!”
Charlie looked across at Bab, speculation in his eyes.
“What are you going to do with your wealth, lucky girl?” he asked.
“Well,” said Bab, groping for the right words, “I promised myself
that if we really did find anything in the old house, I’d like to
spend some of that hoarded money sort of--well, _doing_ things for
people. I suppose there are lots of folks,” with a sigh born of her new
knowledge, “who only need a little money to be happy!”
“Bress yo’ heart, honey, so dey is,” said Rosa Lee. “Dey’s all over de
world, folks like dat. You can do a sight o’ good wiv yo’ money if you
likes.”
“Yes, indeed,” added Mrs. Fenwick. “One of the very finest things about
having money is that one may make others happy with it.”
“I know that,” said Bab, with conviction.
There was no one in particular to meet them at the Scarsdale station,
for Bab had urged that their homecoming be a surprise.
Here the young folks said good-by, exchanging promises to meet the
next day for a genuine celebration.
Bab took Mrs. Fenwick home first in the taxi, then Rosa Lee. At last
she was alone with the treasure chest and the sapajou. The driver
nodded in response to her directions and they sped off toward home--the
dear home that now need not be lost.
She had the taxi driver deposit the chest noiselessly on the side
porch. She paid him--much to his astonishment, with one of Uncle
Jerry’s gold pieces! Then, with the sapajou on her arm, entered the
house.
Her grandmother and grandfather were in the living room. She heard them
talking together.
“Randall was here again,” came in Grandmother’s tired old voice. “We
can’t fight any longer, Caleb. We’re too old. The house, our dear home,
must be sold----”
“And then,” cried Bab, a break in her gay voice, “entered the fairy
godmother--I should say, goddaughter--with a bag--of gold----”
She ran over to Gran and kissed the old gentleman’s ruddy cheek. The
sapajou, chattering wildly, sought the shelter of the chandelier.
Then, half-laughing, half-crying, Bab pushed her bewildered grandmother
back into the chair from which she had half risen, and flung a handful
of gold pieces into her lap.
“You are never to worry any more, never, never, never! You may have a
much handsomer house than this, dear grandmother, if you like, for I’ve
found Uncle Jerry’s hidden fortune--thousands and thousands of dollars’
worth of gold coins and jewels!”
“Hooray!” cried Granddaddy, like the eternal boy he was. “Where is it?”
“On the side porch. Grandmother, stop staring at me so. I’m not
crazy--really I’m not!”
They won a coherent account from her after a while, of course, and
afterward, three people, one very young, and two quite old, sat until
long after dusk talking over their miraculous good fortune and making
happy plans for the future.
“Poor Jeremiah,” sighed Grandmother once, during the discussion. “What
a cramped, lonely life he lived during his last years.”
“It does seem as though I might have done something for him--for Uncle
Jeremiah who did so much for me,” added Bab thoughtfully.
“Don’t let any such thought take hold of your mind, Bab,” said
Granddaddy sternly. “Your great-uncle chose his own way of life. You
could have done nothing.”
“I’m absolutely happy,” sighed Bab, at last. “I think I’m the luckiest
girl in the world.”
“Why shouldn’t you be?” asked Gran, smiling and stroking the soft,
fair curls. “Haven’t you got the lucky ring?”
* * * * *
Several years flew by and Bab became a young lady grown. And on this
particular night in June Bab was giving a party.
Gerry Thompson was there, of course, for Gerry and Bab were still
inseparable. And there was Gordon, just home from a Western university,
and Charlie Seymour, not nearly so cocky and conceited as of old.
It was of Charlie that Bab was speaking now. She and Gordon were
sitting out a dance on the porch. Through the open door they could
watch the happy progress of the party.
“They are all having such a lovely time,” said Bab, with the
satisfaction of the young hostess whose party is a success.
Gordon chuckled.
“There go Gerry and Cousin Charles out the side door, into the garden,
presumably.”
“And they will probably come back engaged,” laughed Bab. “I’ve seen it
coming on for ages.”
“Charlie’s not a bad scout these days,” said Gordon thoughtfully. “Runs
like a streak; made the track team, you know, in good style. The dear
old college has made a man of him.”
“No,” said Bab dreamily. “It’s Gerry who has made a man of him. I told
you she would, don’t you remember ’way back in that wonderful summer
when we found Uncle Jerry’s fortune?”
Gordon turned to her with laughing speculation. What he saw was
an amazingly pretty girl with fair hair and deep, gray eyes and a
complexion that would have put the bloom of a peach to shame. Her hands
lay idly in her lap and on the finger of one of them glittered a ring,
a tiny, smiling Buddha with jeweled eyes.
Gordon took up the hand and examined the ring.
“It has brought you luck, hasn’t it, Bab?”
The girl nodded.
“Everything in the world you wanted?”
“We-ell,” said Bab, considering, “_almost_ everything.”
“I’d offer you me,” said the boy humbly, “only that wouldn’t be much to
offer a girl like you.”
“It’s all,” said Bab softly but very clearly, “that I ever want.”
Some time later Bab added:
“Could we go one place, Gordon--on our honeymoon, you know?”
“Anywhere!” returned the boy.
“I’ve been thinking--you know I’ve had the old house in the glen
rebuilt?”
Gordon nodded, his eyes on her face.
“I’d heard you had.”
“It’s lovely, Don, painted outside and in, and a garden about it where
there were only weeds before, and some of the woods cleared just a
little. And I’ve even had the old blacksmith’s shop restored--only now
it’s a model kitchen, yellow and white with windows all about it, and
two nice yellow cupboards for the pots and pans. It would be such a
lovely place for a--a----”
“Honeymoon?” suggested Gordon.
“And we could take Rosa Lee along to cook for us.”
Gordon did not answer at once. He was turning the “lucky ring”
around and around on Bab’s finger. At last he said, half-laughing,
half-serious:
“Don’t ever take it off, Bab. For it’s brought me luck, too, you know!”
“I’ll wear it,” said Bab, regarding the lucky ring solemnly, “I’ll wear
it as long as I live!”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
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Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
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