第17章

The narrow front stairs creaked as loudly in the daytime as they had on the previous night, but the long hall on the upper floor was neither dark nor terrifying.Nevertheless it was with just a suspicion of dread that Mrs.Barnes approached the large room at the end of the hall and the small one adjoining it.Her common-sense had returned and she was naturally brave, but an experience such as hers had been is not forgotten in a few hours.However, she was determined that no one should know her feelings; therefore she was the first to enter the little room.

"Here's where Laban bunked," said the captain."You'd think with all the big comf'table bedrooms to choose from he wouldn't pick out this two-by-four, would you? But he did, probably because nobody else would.He was a contrary old rooster, and odd as Dick's hat-band."

Thankful was listening, although not to their guide's remarks.She was listening for sounds such as she had heard--or thought she had heard--on the occasion of her previous visit to that room.But there were no such sounds.There was the bed, the patchwork comforter, the chair and the pictures on the walls, but when she approached that bed there came no disturbing groans.And, by day, the memory of her fright seemed absolutely ridiculous.For at least the tenth time she solemnly resolved that no one should ever know how foolish she had been.

Emily uttered an exclamation and pointed.

"Why, Auntie!" she cried."Isn't that--where did that lantern come from?"Captain Obed looked where she was pointing.He stepped forward and picked up the overturned lantern.

"That's Darius Holt's lantern, I do believe," he declared."The one Winnie S.was makin' such a fuss about last night.How in the nation did it get up here?"Thankful laughed."I brought it up," she said."I come on a little explorin' cruise when Emily dropped asleep on that sittin'-room lounge, but I hadn't much more'n got in here when the pesky thing went out.You ought to have seen me hurryin' along that hall to get down before you woke up, Emily.No, come to think of it, you couldn't have seen me--'twas too dark to see anything....

Well," she added, quickly, in order to head off troublesome questioning, "we've looked around here pretty well.What else is there to see?"They visited the garret and the cellar; both were spacious and not too clean.

"If I ever come here to live," declared Thankful, with decision, "there'll be some dustin' and sweepin' done, I know that."Emily looked at her in surprise.

"Come here to live!" she repeated."Why, Auntie, are you thinking of coming here to live?"Her cousin's answer was not very satisfactory."I've been thinkin'

a good many things lately," she said."Some of 'em was even more crazy than that sounds."The inside of the house having been thus thoroughly inspected they explored the yard and the outbuildings.The barn was a large one, with stalls for two horses and a cow and a carriage-room with the remnants of an old-fashioned carryall in it.

"This is about the way it used to be in Cap'n Abner's day," said Captain Obed."That carryall belonged to your uncle, the cap'n, Mrs.Barnes.The boys have had it out for two or three Fourth of July Antiques and Horribles' parades; 'twon't last for many more by the looks of it.""And what," asked Thankful, "is that? It looks like a pigsty."They were standing at the rear of the house, which was built upon a slope.Under the washshed, which adjoined the kitchen, was a rickety door.Beside that door was a boarded enclosure which extended both into the yard and beneath the washshed.

Captain Bangs laughed."You've guessed it, first crack," he said.

"It is a pigpen.Some of Laban's doin's, that is.He used to keep a pig and 'twas too much trouble to travel way out back of the barn to feed it, so Labe rigged up this contraption.That door leads into the potato cellar.Labe fenced off half the cellar to make a stateroom for the pig.He thought as much of that hog as if 'twas his own brother, and there WAS a sort of family likeness."Thankful snorted."A pigsty under the house!" she said."Well, that's all I want to know about THAT man!"As they were returning along the foot-path by the bluff Captain Obed, who had been looking over his shoulder, suddenly stopped.

"That's kind of funny," he said.

"What?" asked Emily.

"Oh, nothin', I guess.I thought I caught a sight of somebody peekin' around the back of that henhouse.If 'twas somebody he dodged back so quick I couldn't be sure.Humph! I guess I was mistaken, or 'twas just one of Solon Taylor's young ones.Solon's a sort of--sort of stevedore at the Colfax place.Lives there and takes care of it while the owners are away.No-o; no, I don't see nobody now."Thankful was silent during the homeward walk.When she and Miss Howes were alone in their room, she said:

"Emily, are you real set on gettin' back to South Middleboro tonight?""No, Auntie.Why?"

"Well, if you ain't I think I'd like to stay over another day.

I've got an idea in my head and, such a thing bein' kind of unusual, I'd like to keep company with it for a spell.I'll tell you about it by and by; probably 'twon't come to anything, anyway.""But do you think we ought to stay here, as Miss Parker's guests?

Wouldn't it be--"

"Of course it would.We'll go over to that hotel, the one we started for in the first place.Judgin' from what I hear of that tavern it'll be wuth experiencin'; and--and somethin' may come of that, too."She would not explain further, and Emily, knowing her well, did not press the point.

Hannah Parker protested volubly when her "company" declared its intention of going to the East Wellmouth Hotel.

"Of course you shan't do no such thing," she declared."The idea!