CHAPTER XXII
CALLERS--AND THE GHOST
"I do wonder!" said Tess, with a sigh.
"What do you wonder?" asked Ruth, mildly.
"Sounds like a game," Agnes observed, briskly. The Corner House girlswere sitting on the porch with their sewing, and it was a very warmAugust forenoon. "'Cumjucum--what do you come by? I come by the letterT'--which stands for 'Tess' and 'Trouble,' which last is theexpression on Tess' face," concluded Agnes, with a laugh.
Tess' train of thought was not to be sidetracked so easily. "I wonderwhatever became of Tommy Rooney?" she said.
"You don't really believe that was Tommy you saw the day it rained sohard?" cried Agnes.
"Yes, I do. And we know that Tommy stole cherries from Mr. Pease, andmilk from Mrs. Adams. Didn't he, Dot? And then, we saw Mr. Pinkney andthat bulldog chasing him."
"He ran into our yard to escape the dog," said Dot, seriously.
"Well," said Ruth, "if it was Tommy, I wish he had come to the house,so we could have fed him. Mrs. Rooney must be awfully worried abouthim. It's been a month since we heard he had run away."
"And he'd been gone a week, then," added Agnes.
"Well," said Tess, "I guess he hasn't killed any Indians here inMilton, or we would have heard about it."
"I guess not," chuckled Agnes.
"I always look for him, when I'm on the street," said Dot.
"We'll look for him to-day," said Tess, "when we go to see Maria."
Tess and Dot were going over to Meadow Street that afternoon to callon the Maronis and Mrs. Kranz. The condition of the Maronis hadgreatly improved during these weeks. Not only Joe and Maria, but thewhole family had begun to be proud of living "like Americans."
Mrs. Kranz, out of the kindness of her heart, had helped them a greatdeal. Maria helped the good German lady each forenoon, and waslearning to be a careful little housekeeper.
"She iss a goot maedchen," declared the large lady. "Aind't idtvonderful how soon dese foreigners gets to be respectable, ven dey isslearndt yet?"
Tess and Dot went up stairs to make themselves ready for their visit,before luncheon. Upon their departure, Eva Larry and Myra Stetsonappeared at the front gate.
"Oh, do come in, girls!" shouted Agnes, dropping her sewing.
"We will, if you'll tie up your ghost," said Eva, laughing.
"Hush!" commanded Ruth. "Don't say such things--not out loud, please."
"Well," Eva said, as she and Myra joined them on the porch, "Iunderstand you have ransacked that old garret. Did you chase out Mr.Ghost?"
"What is that?" demanded Mrs. Treble's shrill voice in the doorway."What does that girl mean by 'ghost'?"
"Oh, Mrs. Treble!" cried the teasing Eva. "Haven't you heard of thefamous Garret Ghost of the old Corner House--and you here so long?"
"Oh, don't!" begged Ruth, sotto voce.
Mrs. Treble was not to be denied. Something evidently had escaped hercuriosity, and she felt cheated of a sensation. "Go on and tell me,girl," she commanded Eva.
Eva, really nothing loath, related the story of the supposedsupernatural occupant of the garret. "And it appears on stormy, windydays. At least, that's when it's been seen. It comes to the window upthere and bows, and flutters its grave clothes--and--and all that."
"How ridiculous!" murmured Ruth. But her face was troubled and Mrs.Treble studied her accusingly.
"That's why you forbade my Lillie going up there," she said. "A ghost,indeed! I guess you have something hidden up there, my girl, that youdon't want other folks to see. You can't fool me about ghosts. I don'tbelieve in them," concluded the lady from Ypsilanti.
"Now you've done it, Eva," said Agnes, in a low voice, when Mrs.Treble had departed. "There isn't a place in this house that shehasn't tried to put her nose in _but_ the garret. Now she'll go upthere."
"Hush," begged Ruth, again. "Don't get her angry, Agnes."
"Oh! here comes Mr. Howbridge!" exclaimed the other Kenway girl, gladto change the subject.
Ruth jumped up to welcome him, and ushered him into the dining-room,while the other girls remained upon the porch. As she closed the door,she did not notice that Mrs. Treble stood in the shadow under thefront stairs.
"I have been to see this Mrs. Bean," said the lawyer, to Ruth, whenthey were seated. "She is an old lady whose memory of what happenedwhen she was young seems very clear indeed. She does not know thisMrs. Treble and her child personally. Mrs. Treble has not been to seeher, since she came to Milton."
"No. Mrs. Treble has not been out at all," admitted Ruth.
"Mrs. Bean," pursued Mr. Howbridge, "declares that she knew Mr.Treble's mother very well, as a girl. She says that the said mother ofJohn Augustus Treble went west when she was a young woman--before shemarried. She left behind a brother--Peter Stower. Mrs. Bean has alwayslived just outside of Milton and has not, I believe, lived a veryactive life, or been much in touch with the town's affairs. To hermind, Milton is still a village.
"She claims," said Mr. Howbridge, "to have heard frequently of thisPeter Stower, and when she heard he had died, she wrote to thedaughter-in-law of her former friend. That is her entire connectionwith the matter. She said one very odd thing. That is, she clearlyremembers of having hired Peter Stower once to clean up her yard andmake her garden. She says he was in the habit of doing such work atone time, and she talked with him about this sister who had gonewest."
"Oh!" gasped Ruth.
"It does not seem reasonable," said Mr. Howbridge. "There is a mixupof identities somewhere. I am pretty sure that, as much as Mr. PeterStower loved money, he did not have to earn any of it in such a humbleway. It's a puzzle. But the solving of the problem would be very easy,if we could find that lost will."
Ruth told him how she and Agnes had thoroughly examined the garret andthe contents of the boxes and furniture stowed away there.
"Well," sighed the lawyer. "We may have to go into chancery to havethe matter settled. That would be a costly procedure, and I dislike totake that way."
Directly after luncheon Tess and Dot started off for Meadow Streetwith the convalescent Alice-doll pushed before them in Dot'sdoll-carriage. Mrs. Treble, who had begun to eat down stairs again,although Lillie was not allowed out of her room as yet, marchedstraight up stairs, and, after seeing that Lillie was in order,tiptoed along the hall, and proceeded up the other two flights to thegarret door.
When she opened this door and peered into the dimly lit garret, shecould not repress a shudder.
"It is a spooky place," she muttered.
But her curiosity had been aroused, and if Mrs. Treble had onephrenological bump well developed, it was that of curiosity! In shestepped, closed the door behind her, and advanced toward the middle ofthe huge, littered room.
A lost will! Undoubtedly hidden somewhere in these old chests ofdrawers--or in that tall old desk yonder. Either the Kenway girls havebeen very stupid, or Ruth has not told that lawyer the truth! Thesewere Mrs. Treble's unspoken thoughts.
What was that noise? A rat? Mrs. Treble half turned to flee. She wasafraid of rats.
There was another scramble. One of the rows of old coats and the like,hanging from nails in the rafters overhead, moved more than a little.A rat could not have done that.
The ghost? Mrs. Treble was not at all afraid of such silly things asghosts!
"I see you there!" she cried, and strode straight for the corner.
There was another scramble, one of the Revolutionary uniform coats waspulled off the hook on which it had hung, and seemed, of its ownvolition, to pitch toward her.
Mrs. Treble screamed, but she advanced. The coat seemed to muffle asmall figure which tried to dodge her.
"I have you!" cried Mrs. Treble, and clutched at the coat.
She secured the coat itself, but a small, ragged, red haired, and muchfrightened boy slid out of its smothering folds and plunged toward thedoor of the garret. In trying to seize this astonishing apparition,Mrs. Treble missed her footing and came down upon her knees.
The boy, with a stifled shout, reached the door. He wrenched it openand dove down the stairway. His bare feet made little sound upon thebare steps, or upon the carpeted halls below. He seemed to know hisway about the house very well indeed.
When Mrs. Treble reached the stairs and came down, heavily, shriekingthe alarm, nobody in the house saw the mysterious red haired boy. ButUncle Rufus, called from his work in the garden, was amazed to see asmall figure squeezing through a cellar window into the side-yard. Ina minute the said figure flew across to the street fence, scrambledover it, and disappeared up Willow Street, running almost as fast as adog.
"Glo-ree!" declared the black man, breathlessly. "If dat boy keeps onrunnin' like he's done started, he'll go clean 'round de worl' an' beback fo' supper!"