CHAPTER V. THE SUSAN HOUSE CELLAR.
It was not pleasant to stand in a strange house in an unknownneighborhood, drenched, hungry and unprotected, hearing fearfulsounds like danger threatening under foot.
Corinne felt a speechless desire to be back in the creek again andon the point of drowning; that would soon be over. But who could tellwhat might occur after this groaning in the cellar?
"I heard a noise," said Grandma Padgett, to bespeak their attention,as if they could remember ever hearing anything else.
"It's cats, I think," said Robert Day, husky with courage.
Cats could not groan in such short and painful catches. Conjecturesof many colors appeared and disappeared like flashes in Bobaday'smind. The groaner was somebody that bad Dutch landlord had halfmurdered and put in the cellar. Maybe the floor was built to give wayand let every traveller fall into a pit! Or it might be some boy orgirl left behind by wicked movers to starve. Or a beggarman, wantingthe house to himself, could be making that noise to frighten themaway.
The sharp groans were regularly uttered. Corinne buried her head inher mother's skirts and waited to be taken or left, as the Booggarpleased.
"Well," said Grandma Padgett, "I suppose we'll have to go and seewhat ails that Thing down there. It may be a human bein' in distress."
Robert feared it was something else, but he would not have mentionedit to his grandmother.
"What'll we carry to see with?" he eagerly inquired. It was easy tobe eager, because they had no lights except the brands in thefireplace.
Grandma Padgett, who in her early days had carried live coals fromneighbors' houses miles away, saw how to dispense with lamp orcandle. She took a shovel full of embers--and placed a burning chipon top. The chip would have gone out by itself, but was kept blazingby the coals underneath.
"Shall I go ahead?" inquired Robert.
"No, you walk behind. And you might carry a piece of stick," repliedhis grandmother, conveying a hint which made his shoulder blades feelchilly.
They moved toward the cellar entrance in a slow procession, to keepthe chip from flaring out.
"Don't hang to me so!" Grandma Padgett remonstrated with herdaughter. "I sh'll step on you, and down we'll all go and set thehouse afire."
Garrets are cheerful, cobwebby places, always full of slits wherelong, smoky sun-rays can poke in. An amber warmth cheers the darknessof garrets; you feel certain there is nothing ugly hiding behind theremotest and dustiest box. If rats or mice inhabit it, they arejovial fellows. But how different is a cellar, and especially acellar neglected. You plunge down rough steps into a cavern. A mouldyair from dried-up and forgotten vegetables meets you. The earth maynot be moist underfoot, but it has not the kind feeling of sun-warmedearth. And if big rats hide there, how bold and hideous they are!There are cool farmhouse cellars floored with cement and shelved withsweet-smelling pine, where apple-bins make incense, and swinging-shelvesof butter, tables of milk crocks, lines of fruit cans and home-madecatsup bottles, jars of pickles and chowder, and white covered pastryand cake, promise abundant hospitality. But these are inverted garrets,rather than cellars. They are refrigerators for pure air; and they keepa mellow light of their own. When you go into one of them it seems asif the house were standing on its head to express its joy and comfort.
But the Susan House cellar was one of dread, aside from the noiseproceeding out of it. Bobaday knew this before they opened a doorupon a narrow-throated descent.
One of Zene's stories became vivid. It was a story of a house wherenobody could stay, though the landlord offered it rent-free. Butalong came two good youths without any money, and for board andlodging, they undertook to break the spell by sleeping there threenights. The first two nights they were not disturbed, and sat withtheir candle, reading good books until after midnight. But the third,just on the stroke of twelve, a noise began in the cellar! So theytook their candle, and, armed with nothing except good books, wentbelow, and in the furthest corner they saw a little old man with ared nightcap on his head, sitting astride of a barrel! In Zene'sstory the little old man only had it on his mind to tell these goodyouths where to dig for his money; and when they had secured themoney, he amiably disappeared, and the house was pleasant to live inever afterward.
This tale, heard in the barn while Zene was greasing harnesses, andheard without Grandma Padgett's sanction, now made her grandsonshiver with dread as his feet went down into the Susan House dungeon.It was trying enough to be exploring a strange cellar full of groans,without straining your eyes in expectation of seeing a little old manin a red nightcap, sitting astride of a barrel!
"Who's there?" said Grandma Padgett with stern emphasis, as she heldher beacon stretched out into the cellar.
The groaning ceased for an awful space of time. Aunt Corinne wasbehind her nephew, and she squatted on the step to peer withdistended eyes, lest some hand should reach up and grab her by thefoot.
It was a small square cellar, having earthen sides, but piles ofpine boxes made ambushes everywhere.
"Come out!" Grandma Padgett spoke again. "We won't have any tricksplayed. But if you're hurt, we can help you."
It was like addressing solid darkness, for the chip was languishingupon its coals, and cast but a dim red glare around the shovel.
Still some being crept toward them from the darkness, uttering aprolonged and hearty groan, as if to explode at once theaccumulations of silence.