Laurie laughed. “What did she say to that?” he asked.
“She said if I wanted it bad enough to pay twenty cents for it she guessed it was worth twenty-five, and went off and didn’t come back.” Polly laughed and then sighed. “I’m awfully tired. Doesn’t that music sound lovely? Do you dance?”
Laurie shook his head. “No; but, say, if you want to go in there, I’ll watch the booth for you.”
Polly hesitated. “It’s funny you don’t,” she said. “Don’t you like it?”
It was Laurie’s turn to hesitate. “No, not much. I never have danced. It – it seems sort of silly.” He looked at Polly doubtfully. Although he wouldn’t have acknowledged it, he was more than half sorry that dancing was not included among his accomplishments.
“It isn’t silly at all,” asserted Polly, almost indignantly. “You ought to learn. Mae could teach you to one-step in no time at all!”
“I guess that’s about the way I’d do it,” answered Laurie, sadly – “in no time at all! Don’t you – couldn’t you teach a fellow?”
“I don’t believe so. I never tried to teach any one. Besides, Mae dances lots better than I do. She put the things she had left on Grace Boswell’s booth and went inside the minute the music started. She wanted me to come, but I thought I shouldn’t,” added Polly, virtuously.
“You go ahead now,” urged Laurie. “I’ll stay here till you come back. It isn’t fair for you girls to miss the dancing. Besides, I guess there won’t be much more sold now. Folks have begun to go, some of them, and most of the others are inside.”
Polly looked toward the house. Through the big wide-open windows the lilting music of a waltz floated out. The Banjo and Mandolin Club was really doing very well to-night. Polly sighed once and looked wistful. Then she shook her head. “Thanks, Nod,” she said, “but I guess I’ll stay here. Some one might come.”
“What do you care? You don’t own ’em! Anyway, I guess I could sell a post-card if I had to!”
“You’d have trouble selling any of those pictures,” laughed Polly. “Aren’t they dreadful? Where did they come from?”
“Pretty fierce,” Laurie agreed. “They came from the Metropolitan Furniture Store. The man dug them out of a corner in the cellar. I guess he’d had them for years! Anyway, there was enough dust on them to choke you. He seemed awfully tickled when we agreed to take them and let him alone!”
“I should think he might have! We girls agreed to buy things from each other, just to help, but the only things they bought from me were post-cards!” Polly laughed as though at some thought; and Laurie, who had elevated himself to an empty corner of the booth and was swinging his feet against the blue draping in front, looked inquiringly. “I was just thinking about the boys,” explained Polly.
“What about them? What boys do you mean?” Laurie asked coldly.
“The high school boys. They’re awfully peeved because we girls took part in this, and not one of them has been here, I guess.”
“Cheeky beggars,” grumbled Laurie. “Guess we can do without them, though. Here comes Bob’s father.”
Mr. Starling was bent on a most peculiar mission. Laurie and Polly watched him stop at the next booth and engage in conversation. Then a fat pocket-book was produced, a bill was tendered, and Mr. Starling strolled on. At the Yale booth he stopped again.
“Well, Turner,” he greeted, “this affair looks like a huge success, doesn’t it? Why aren’t you young folks inside there, dancing?”
“I don’t dance, sir,” answered Laurie, somewhat to his chagrin in a most apologetic tone. “And Polly thinks she ought to stand by the ship. This is Polly Deane, Mr. Starling.”
Bob’s father shook hands cordially across the depleted counter and assured its proprietor that he was very glad indeed to make her acquaintance. Then he added: “But you don’t seem to have much left, Miss Polly. Now, I’m a great hand at a bargain. I dare say that if you made me a fair price for what there is here I’d jump at it. What do you say?”
Polly apparently didn’t know just what to say for a minute, and her gaze sought counsel of Laurie.
“If you ask me,” laughed the latter, “I’d say fifty cents was a big price for the lot!”
“You’re not in charge,” said Mr. Starling, almost severely. “I’m sure the young lady has better business ability. Suppose you name a price, Miss Polly.”
“We-ell – ” Polly did some mental arithmetic, and then, doubtfully: “A dollar and a half, sir,” she said.
“Done!” replied Mr. Starling. He drew forth a two-dollar bill. “There you are! Just leave the things where they are. I’ll look after them later. Now you youngsters go in and dance. What’s this? Change? My dear young lady, don’t you know that change is never given at an affair of this kind? I really couldn’t think of taking it. It – it’s a criminal offense!” And Mr. Starling nodded and walked away.
“By Jove, he’s a brick!” exclaimed Laurie, warmly. “Look, he’s doing the same thing everywhere!”
“I know,” answered Polly, watching. “It’s just dear of him, isn’t it? But, Nod, what do you suppose he will do with these awful pictures?”
“The same thing he will do with that truck he’s buying now,” was the laughing reply. “He will probably put them in the furnace!”
“Well,” said Polly, after a moment, “I suppose we might as well go inside, don’t you? We can look on, anyway, and” – with a stifled sigh – “I’d ’most as lief look on as dance.”
Laurie followed, for the second time in his life wishing that the Terpsichorean art had been included in his education!
CHAPTER XV – NED HAS AN IDEA
“Three hundred and thirty-three dollars and eighty-five cents,” said Ned, in very satisfied tones. “We took in three hundred and sixty-three five, but we had twenty-nine twenty to come out for expenses. Not so bad, what?”
“But something tells me,” answered Laurie, mournfully, “that if all our expenses were deducted we’d have less than that. You see,” he explained to Polly, “I lost the piece of paper that I set down the money I paid out on, and I just had to guess what it all came to, because I’d never had time to add it up.”
“I dare say you guessed enough,” replied Ned, untroubled.
“I dare say I didn’t, then!” was the indignant response. “If I did, where’s all the money I had when I started? I’ve got a dollar and ninety cents left, and I had over four dollars when you roped me in on the thing! I’m more than two dollars shy, I tell you!”
“Oh, well, it’s gone for a worthy cause,” laughed Ned.
“Maybe,” Laurie grumbled, “but I notice that none of yours has gone that way. You always made me pay for everything!”
“Well, I think you did it beautifully,” said Polly. “I never suspected you’d make so much!”
They were in the little garden behind the shop. It was the second day after the fête, and the bell in the Congregational church tower had just struck two. There was a perceptible nip in the air to-day, and the flowers in the border showed blackened leaves, while the nasturtiums were frankly limp and lifeless. But here in the sunshine it was warm enough, and Laurie, spurning the bench, was seated tailor fashion on the yellowing turf. Polly had stated her absolute certitude that he would catch cold, but Laurie derided the idea.
“We’re awfully much obliged to you girls,” said Ned. “We wouldn’t have done nearly so well if you hadn’t helped. I think the committee ought to give you a – a vote of thanks or something.”
“Oh, we all loved it!” Polly assured him earnestly. “We had heaps of fun. Why, I wouldn’t have missed that disappearing trick for anything. I was positively thrilled when Laurie came running up the garden!”
The boys’ laughter interrupted, and Polly looked puzzled.
“That wasn’t Laurie,” explained Ned. “That was me.”
“But I was sure you were the one in the chair! And if you were in the chair, how could you – ”
“I wasn’t, though. That was Laurie.”
Polly sighed despairingly. “I’ll never get so I can tell you apart,” she said; “unless I hear you talk, that is! I don’t see yet how it was done. Won’t you please tell me?”
“It was as easy as easy,” replied Ned. “You see, the way I planned it first – ”
“The way who planned it?” inquired Laurie.
“Well, the way we planned it, then.”
“Hold on! Whose idea was it in the first place, partner?”
“Oh, don’t be so fussy! Anyway, you couldn’t have done it without me!”
“I never said I could. But you’ve got a lot of cheek to talk about the way you —”
Polly clapped her hands to her ears. “I’m not being told how it was done, and I do want to know. Go on, Ned.”
“Well, it was done like this. You see, Laurie was tied to the chair, and I was hiding out at the other end of the garden. Then Lew Cooper put the screen around the chair.” Polly nodded. “Then I started toward the platform, and every one turned to look at me.” Polly nodded again. “Well, right behind the platform was the bulkhead door into the cellar. When Cooper shouted to me to come on, two fellows who were on the stairs waiting pushed the door open, grabbed Laurie, chair and all, and whisked him down cellar. Then they put another chair, just like the first one, behind the screen, and when Cooper pulled the screen away, there it was, just as if Laurie had somehow untied himself and – and vanished! Of course, if any one had been looking at the screen instead of at me just then, he might have seen what was going on, although it was pretty dark behind there and he mightn’t have. Anyway, no one was, I guess. The trick depended on the – the faint similarity between us. Lots of fellows who knew us were on to it, but the folks from the village were puzzled for fair!”
“Indeed they were,” agreed Polly. “They just couldn’t understand it at all!”
“It would have been better,” mused Laurie, “if we could have taken the screen away and showed the empty chair before Ned came into sight; but there didn’t seem to be any way of doing that. We had to have the people looking the other way, and we had to work quick. As it was, I was half killed, for Wainwright and Plummer were in such a hurry to get the other chair up there that they just dumped me on my back! And then they ran upstairs through the kitchen to see the end of it, and I was kicking around down there for five minutes!”
“Well,” said Ned, a few minutes later, “I’m not finding out what to do with this.” He opened one hand and exposed some bills and two ten-cent pieces folded into a wad. “Your mother says she won’t take it, Polly – that she didn’t understand we were going to pay her for the cream-puffs. Gee, we wouldn’t have thought of asking her to make them for nothing!”
Polly nodded sympathetically. “Mother says, though, that the boys bring so much trade to her that it’s only fair for her to help them.”
“That’s poppy-cock!” said Laurie. “Seven dollars and twenty cents is a lot of money. Look here; don’t you think she ought to take it, Polly?”
Polly was silent a moment. Then she nodded affirmatively. “Yes, I do,” she said frankly. “She really needs the money, Ned. I wouldn’t tell any one else, but we’re just frightfully hard up, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Mother had to give up here before very long.”
“Give up!” exclaimed Ned. “You mean – go away?”
“Yes. You see, she doesn’t make very much money in the store; nothing like she used to before the war sent prices so high. And then, what with taxes and water and light, and the interest on the mortgage, why, it hardly pays. Just the same, if she says she won’t take the money, Ned, why, I guess she won’t, and that’s all there is to it. But she ought to!”
“Can’t she charge more for things?” asked Laurie. “Everyone else does nowadays. That bake-shop down on Hudson Street gets eight cents for cream-puffs and éclairs, and you sell them for six.”
“I know; but Mama says six cents is enough and that the boys oughtn’t to have to pay any more. And lots of things she sells for hardly any more than she used to before prices advanced. Why, I have to watch all the time; and when bills come in for things, I have to compare them with what we’re getting for them, and lots of times I find that Mama’s been selling for less than what she’s paid! She just won’t be a profiteer, she says!”
“Gee! I hope you don’t have to shut up,” said Laurie. He looked around the little garden. “It – it’s such a jolly place! And the house and everything. Gee, that would be a shame!”
Polly sighed while she nodded. “It is nice,” she agreed; “but there are so many things that ought to be done! Uncle Peter never would do much for us. He did promise to have the house painted, but he died about a month after that, and so it was never done.”
“Suppose he up and died so’s he wouldn’t have to do it?” inquired Laurie, suspiciously.
Polly shook her head and looked a trifle shocked, until she caught the smile in Ned’s eyes.
“It doesn’t look as if it would cost much money to paint it,” remarked Ned, looking up at the rear of the little two-and-a-half-story building. “It’s not much more than a doll’s house, anyway. How many rooms are there, Polly?”
“Three upstairs, and then a sort of attic room under the roof; and two downstairs.”
“Uh-huh. I just wondered. It wouldn’t be much of a trick to paint the outside. Bet you I could do it in a couple of days.”
Laurie gasped. “A couple of days! You? How do you get like that? It would take a real painter a week to do it!”
“Maybe; but I’m not a real painter,” answered Ned, grinning. He glanced at the crumpled wad in his hand and held it tentatively toward Polly. “Maybe you’d better take charge of this, Polly, until we decide what to do with it.”
But Polly put her hands resolutely behind her, and shook her head with decision. “No, Ned, I’d rather not. If Mama says she won’t have it, she won’t, and you might just as well give it back to the – the fund.”
Somewhat to Laurie’s surprise, Ned pocketed the money without further protest. “All right,” he said. “It’s very kind of your mother. We mustn’t forget to see that her name’s included in the list of those who donated things, Laurie. This week’s ‘Messenger’ is going to tell all about it. Well, I’ve got to pull my freight. You coming, partner?”
“Yes, I guess so,” replied Laurie, without much enthusiasm. “I promised Bob and George to get another fellow and play some tennis this afternoon.”
“Gee! it must be great to have nothing to do but play,” sighed his brother.
“Huh, any one would think, to hear you talk, that you were working,” replied Laurie, crushingly. “All you do is stand around and watch the others.”
“Think so?” Ned smiled in a superior way. “You come down this afternoon and see how much standing around I do. Joe Stevenson says I’ve got to practise goals now. Isn’t that the limit?”
“I suppose it pains him to see you loafing,” said Laurie. “Anyway, I dare say it’ll keep you out of mischief.”
Laurie led the way to the back fence, against which leaned a plank with two pieces of wood nailed across it. This afforded a short cut to and from school, and was an idea of Bob’s. From the top of the fence they dropped into the shrubbery and then made their way to the side gate.
The arbor had not yet been denuded of its evergreen clothing, and there were other evidences of the recent festival in the shape of crumpled paper napkins lying on the ground. Thomas had taken down the lanterns and was packing them away in their case by the kitchen porch, and the boys called a greeting to him as they passed.
“Bob still mean to make a tennis-court here?” asked Ned, as they went through the gate.
“Yes. He’s going to tear down that arbor right away, he says. So far, though, he hasn’t found any one to do the work on the court. Every one is busy. I don’t believe he will get it done in time to use it this fall.”
“Of course he won’t. It’s nearly November now. Say, you’d better take this money and hand it over to Whipple. You’ll see him before I do. And tell him to put Mrs. Deane’s name down with the other folks who contributed, will you?”
“All right; but I think it’s a shame to let her stand for all those cakes.”
“So do I; only – ”
“Only what?”
“Maybe we can make it up to her another way. I’ve got an idea, Laurie.”
“I hope it’s better than most of ’em. What is it?”
And when Ned had explained it, Laurie considered a long moment and then indorsed it enthusiastically. “That’s corking!” he cried. “For once, Ned, the old bean has worked! Only, when could we – ”
“Christmas vacation,” said Ned. “We won’t have much to do then. What do you say?”
“I say that, for the first time in my life, Neddie, I’m proud to acknowledge you as my twin!”
CHAPTER XVI – POLLY TELLS A SPOOK STORY
Assured of sufficient funds to complete its season without financial embarrassment, the Hillman’s football team seemed to take a new and firmer grip on things. Practice went well that week, and the players showed vim and snap. Perhaps the colder weather helped, too. The line-up that faced the scrubs on Friday for a short scrimmage was, barring accidents, that which would, four weeks later, start the game against Hillman’s old rival, Farview Academy. Farley and White were at the ends, Captain Stevenson and Pringle were the tackles, Emerson and Corson were the guards, and Kewpie Proudtree was at center. Frank Brattle at quarter, Mason and Slavin for halves, and Pope at full-back composed the rest of the team. There were some weak places, to be sure; but, on the whole, Coach Mulford was fairly satisfied that he had the parts for a capable machine.
Ned was still playing on the scrub eleven, and doing rather well. As a punter, at least, he deserved his position at left half, and it might be that he would develop into a fair goal-kicker; for in the last four days, under the tuition of the coach and full-back Pope, he had shown excellent promise. Those morning lessons, now abandoned, had grounded Ned well in the art of toeing the pigskin, and, whatever fame the future might hold for him as punter or drop-kicker or place-kicker, much of the credit would be Kewpie’s.
To-day, in the second ten minutes of the scrimmaging, – there was but twenty minutes in all, – Thursby, playing quarter, and probably acting under instructions, gave Ned his first chance to show what he could do in the way of field goals. Unable to reach a point nearer than twenty yards to the school team’s goal, Thursby called for “kick formation, Turner back,” and Ned went up-field with his heart in his mouth. Although the cross-bar was less than thirty yards from where he took his stand and almost directly in front of him, it looked to Ned to be a woeful distance away and the angle much more severe than it was. But he didn’t have much time for reflection, for Thursby called his signal quickly, and the leather came back to him at a good pass, and the school team was crashing through.
Ned always thought that he closed his eyes when he swung his toe against the rebounding ball and trusted to luck, but I doubt it, for the pigskin described a perfect arc and went well and true over the bar, and if Ned had had his eyes closed I don’t believe the pigskin would have acted that way at all. Most of the scrub team players thumped him on the back and showed their delight in other ways, for they had not scored on the school team for nearly a week; while, at a little distance, Coach Mulford nodded his head almost imperceptibly. It was too bad Ned didn’t see that nod, for it would have pleased him far more than the buffets of his team-mates.
The next day Hillman’s made a trip to Warring and played the Lansing team to a standstill, returning with a 22-0 victory tucked under its belt. Ned got into the game for a bare five minutes at the last, as did half a dozen other substitutes; but he was not called on to kick any goals, for which he was at once sorry and glad. To have had the eyes of nearly a thousand persons on him would, he thought, have precluded any possibility of success; but, on the other hand, had he succeeded – He sighed for lost opportunities!
The attendance that afternoon was a matter of great joy to Manager Dave Murray, for Hillman’s went home with a neat sum as its share of the day’s profits, a sum far larger than he had counted on – large enough, in fact, to make up the difference between the net receipts from the fête and the three hundred and fifty dollars aimed at.
Hillman’s good fortune held for another week. There were no accidents during practice; every fellow in the line-up played for all that was in him; and the scrubs took a licking every afternoon. Ned twice more gained glory as a drop-kicker, although on a third occasion he failed lamentably. Unfortunately, neither of his successes brought victory to his team, since the opponents had on each occasion a safe lead in the scoring. Every afternoon, following the scrimmage, Ned was presented by the coach with a nice battle-scarred football, and instructed to go down to the east goal and “put some over.” Sometimes Hop Kendrick or Ben Thursby went with him to hold the ball while he tried placement-kicks, and always an unhappy substitute was delegated to retrieve the pigskin for him; but the coach let him pretty much alone, and Pope looked on only occasionally and was surprisingly sparing of comment or advice. And yet, Ned improved, rather to his surprise, since he felt himself neglected and, as he said to Laurie, didn’t see how they expected a fellow to learn goal-kicking if they didn’t show him a little! But, although he didn’t realize it, Ned had reached a point in his development where he was best left to his own devices, and Coach Mulford knew it and forbore to risk confusing him with unnecessary instruction. So Ned pegged away doggedly, and got results, as he considered, in spite of the coach!
Against the Queens Preparatory Institute, which journeyed up from the city on Saturday, the Blue was able to emerge from four grueling fifteen-minute periods with the score 6-6, from the Blue’s standpoint a very satisfactory showing, for Q. P. I. was a much-heralded team and had downed stronger elevens than Hillman’s. So November began its second week, and cloudy days and not infrequently rainy ones took the place of the sunny weather of October.
Laurie would have been somewhat at a loss for a way in which to spend his afternoons at that time, had it not been for Bob Starling’s overmastering desire to build a tennis-court in the garden of the Coventry place. The weather was far too cold for tennis, although now and then he and Bob played George and Lee Murdock, and the wrecking of the old grape-arbor, preparatory to digging up the sod, proved a welcome diversion. Sometimes Thomas took a hand; but Thomas had plenty to do indoors, and the work was accomplished almost wholly by Bob and Laurie, with the occasional moral support of George or Lee.
Usually an hour’s labor with hammer or crowbar ended with an adjournment to the Widow Deane’s, by way of the back fence, for refreshments. Sometimes it was warm enough to foregather in the little garden behind the shop and, armed with cream-puffs or tarts, spend a jolly half-hour in the society of Polly and Mae. At such times Mrs. Deane, hearing the shouts and laughter, came to the back door and smiled in sympathy.
One glorious afternoon of mingled sunlight and frost there was an excursion afoot out into the country in search of nuts. Polly and Mae and Laurie and George and Bob and Lee formed the party. They carried two baskets, one of which George wore on his head most of the way, to the wonderment of the infrequent passers. Mae knew, or thought she knew, where there were chestnut trees, and led the way for three miles to what is called Two Jug Ridge. The chestnut trees, however, were, according to Laurie, away for the afternoon. They found some hickory nuts, not quite ready to leave their husks, and a few beech-nuts, and after gathering those they sat on a broad, flat boulder and looked down on Orstead and Little Windsor and some twelve miles of the Hudson River, and talked a good deal of nonsense – all except Lee, who went to sleep with his cap pulled over his eyes, and had a cold in his head for days after. George decided that when he was through college and was married, he would come back there and build a bungalow just where they were seated.
“This will do for the front door-step,” he expounded, “and over there will be a closed-in porch with an open fireplace and a Gloucester hammock.”
“That all you’re going to have?” asked Bob. “No kitchen?”
“Oh, there’ll be a kitchen, all right, and a dining-room – no, I guess we’ll eat on the porch. Wouldn’t it be a dandy place, though? Look at the view!”
“Fine,” said Laurie, without much enthusiasm, remembering the last uphill mile. “Don’t mind if I don’t come to see you often, though, do you?”
“Not a bit! Nobody asked you, anyway.”
“You could live on nuts,” murmured Polly, “and could have shaggy-barks for breakfast and beech-nuts for dinner and – ”
“Grape-nuts for supper,” said Laurie, coming to the rescue.
“And you could call the place the Squirrel-Cage,” suggested Bob.
And that reminded Mae of a story her father had told of a man who had lived in the woods farther down the river some years before, and who ate nothing but nuts and things he found in the forest. “He lived all alone in a little cabin he’d built, and folks said he was a deserter from the army, and – ”
“What army?” George asked.
“The Northern Army, of course.”
“I thought you might mean the Salvation Army. Then this was quite awhile ago, wasn’t it?”
“Of course, stupid! Years and years ago. And finally, when he died, folks found that he wasn’t a deserter at all, but a general or a major or something, and they found a prize that the government had given him, some sort of a medal for bravery in battle. Wasn’t that sad?”
“Well,” replied Laurie, doubtfully, “I suppose it was. I suppose the government would have shown better judgment if they’d given him a bag of nuts. Of course, he couldn’t eat that medal!”
“You’re horrid! Anyway, it just shows that you mustn’t judge folks by – by outward appearances, doesn’t it?”
“Rather! I’ve always said that, too. Take George, for example. Just to look at him, you’d never think he had any sense at all; but at times – ”
“Lay off of George,” interrupted that young gentleman, threateningly. “If folks judged you by the way you talk, you’d be inside a nice high wall!”
Why the talk should have drifted from there to the subject of ghosts and uncanny happenings isn’t apparent, but it did. In the midst of it, Lee gave a tremendous snore that scared both the girls horribly, and sat up suddenly, blinking. “Hello!” he muttered. Then he yawned and grinned foolishly. “Guess I must have dropped off,” he said apologetically.
“You didn’t,” said George. “If you had you’d have waked up quicker! Cut out the chatter; Polly’s telling a spook yarn.”
Lee gathered up a handful of beech-nuts and was silent except for the sound he made in cracking the shells.
“It isn’t much of a story,” disclaimed Polly, “but it – it was funny. It began just after Mama and I came here. I mean, that was the first time. One night, after we had gone to bed, Mama called me. ‘I think there’s some one downstairs, Polly,’ she whispered. We both listened, and, sure enough, we could hear a sort of tapping sound. It wasn’t like footsteps, exactly; more – more hollow, as if it came from a long way off. But it sounded right underneath. We listened a minute or two, and then it stopped and didn’t begin again; and presently we lighted a candle and went downstairs, and nobody was there and everything was quite all right. So we thought that perhaps what we’d heard was some one walking along the street.
“We didn’t hear it again for nearly two weeks, and then it lasted longer – maybe two minutes. It got louder; and stopped, and began again, and died away; and we sat there and listened, and I thought of ghosts and everything except robbers, because it didn’t sound like any one in the store. It was more as if it was some one in the cellar.”
“Well, maybe it was,” suggested Laurie, when Polly paused.
“That’s what we thought, Nod, until we went to see. Then we remembered that there wasn’t any cellar!”
“Oh!” said Laurie.
“What happened then?” asked Lee, flicking a shell at George.
“It kept on happening every little while for two years. We got so we didn’t think any more about it. Mr. Farmer, the lawyer, said what we heard was probably a rat. But I know very well it wasn’t that. It was too regular. It was always just the same each time. At first we could just hear it a little, and then it grew louder and louder, and stopped. And then it began again, loud, and just sort of – of trailed off till you couldn’t hear it at all. I suppose we never would have heard it if it hadn’t been for Mama not sleeping very well, because it always came after midnight, usually about half-past twelve. After a while I didn’t hear it at all, because Mama stopped waking me up.”
“Spooks,” declared George, with unction. “The house is haunted, Polly.”
“Wish I lived there,” said Bob eagerly. “I’m crazy about ghosts. They told me that old Coven – I mean your uncle, Polly – haunted the house we’re in; but, gee! I’ve been around at all times of night and never seen a thing! There are lots of jolly, shivery noises – stairs creaking, and woodwork popping, and all that, you know; but nary a ghost. Look here, Polly! Let me sit down in the store some night, will you? I’d love to!”
“You’ve got funny ideas of fun,” murmured George.
“Oh, but it’s gone now,” said Mae. “Hasn’t it, Polly? You haven’t heard the noise for a long time, have you?”
“No, not for – oh, two years, I think. At least, that’s what Mama says. Maybe, though, she sleeps better and doesn’t hear things.”
“I guess Mr. What’s-his-name was right,” said Lee. “It was probably a rat, or a family of rats.”
“Rats wouldn’t make the same sound every time,” scoffed Laurie.
“They might. Trained rats might. Maybe they escaped from a circus.”
“And maybe you escaped from an asylum,” responded Laurie, getting up. “Let’s take him home before he gets violent.”