CHAPTER XXIV
AUNT SARAH SPEAKS OUT
Tommy Rooney's capture explained some of the mysterious happeningsabout the old Corner House, but he could not satisfy Ruth regardingthe figure she had seen appear at the garret window. For _that_happened before Tommy had ever been in the house.
They were all kind to Tommy, however--all but Mrs. Treble--after Tesshad pleaded for him. Mrs. McCall washed his face and hands, and evenkissed him--on the sly--and then set him down to a very satisfyingmeal. For as often as he had raided Mrs. McCall's pantry at nightsince taking up his abode in the garret of the old Corner House, hehad not had a real "_square_" meal for a month.
The house was so big that, by keeping to the two upper floors of themain part during the daytime, and venturing out-of-doors by way of thecellar window only at night, Master Tommy had been able to avoid thefamily for weeks.
He had entered the house first on that evening when he was chased byMr. Pinkney and the bulldog. Finding the back door open, he had run upthe back stairs, and so climbed higher, and higher, until he reachedthe garret.
Nobody said anything to Master Tommy about the ghost, although Agneswanted to. Ruth forbade her to broach the subject to the runaway.
Tommy had made a nest behind the old clothes, but some nights he hadslept in a bed on the third floor. The day Ruth and Agnes ransackedthe garret for Uncle Peter's will, he had been down in that thirdfloor room. When Ruth discovered the print of his body on thefeather-bed, he was on the floor, under that bed, hidden by thecomforter which hung down all around it.
He was pretty tired of the life he had been leading. He admitted tothe Corner House girls that he had not seen a single Indian in all hiswanderings. He was ready to go home--even if his mother thrashed him.
So Ruth telegraphed Mrs. Rooney. She took Tommy to a nearby store anddressed him neatly, if cheaply, and then bought his ticket and put himin the care of the conductor of the Bloomingsburg train. Tommy, muchwiser than he had been, and quite contrite, went home.
"I s'pose he's a dreadful bad boy," sighed Dot. "But my! no girl wouldever have such things happen to her--would she?"
"Would you want to be chased by bulldogs, and live in garrets, andsteal just enough to keep alive--and--and never have on anythingclean, Dot Kenway?" demanded Tess, in horror.
"No, I don't s'pose I would," confessed Dot. Then she sighed, andadded: "It's _awful_ commonplace, just the same, bein' a girl, isn'tit?"
"I agree with you, Dot-ums," cried Agnes, who heard her. "Nothing everhappens to us."
Almost on the heels of that statement, however, something happened tothem that satisfied even Agnes' longing for romance, for some timethereafter.
It was on Saturday that Tommy Rooney went home to his anxious mother.The weather had been of a threatening character for several days. Thatnight the wind shrieked and moaned again around the old Corner Houseand the rain beat with impotent hands against the panes.
A rainy Sunday is not often a cheerful day. Ruth Kenway always triedto interest her sisters on such occasions in books and papers; or theyhad quiet talks about "when mother was with us," or those more ancienttimes "before father went away."
If they could possibly get to Sabbath School on such stormy days, theydid so. This particular mid-August Sunday was no exception.
The rain ceased for a while about noon and the four set forth, undertwo umbrellas, and reached the church in season. They were glad theyhad come, so few scholars were there, and they helped swell theattendance.
Coming home, it rained a little, and their umbrellas were welcome.Tess and Dot were under the smaller umbrella and the older girls hadthe larger one. Coming across the parade ground, the path theyfollowed approached the old Corner House from the side.
"Oh, see there!" cried Tess, suddenly. "Somebody's waving to us fromthe window."
"What window?" demanded Agnes, with sudden nervousness, trying to tipup the big umbrella, so that she could see, too.
"Why!" cried Tess. "It's in the garret."
"Oh, I see it!" agreed Dot.
"Oh! mercy me!" groaned Agnes.
"Stop that!" gasped Ruth, shaking her by the arm. "You want to scarethose children?"
"It's--it's the ghost," whispered Agnes, too afraid to look again.
Tess and Dot were merely curious. Ruth had seen the waving figure.Immediately it seemed to leap upward and disappear.
"Do you suppose it was Lillie?" asked Tess.
"We'll find out when we go in," said Ruth, in a shaken voice.
Agnes was almost in tears. She clung to Ruth's arm and moaned in afaint voice:
"I don't want to go in! I never want to go into that horrid old houseagain."
"What nonsense you do talk, Ag," said Ruth, as the little girls ranahead. "We have been all over that garret. We know there is reallynothing there----"
"That's just it," groaned Agnes. "It _must_ be a ghost."
Ruth, unhappy as she felt, determined to discover the meaning of thatspectral figure. "Let's go right up there and find out about it," shesaid.
"Oh, Ruth!"
"I mean it. Come on," said the older sister, as they entered the bighall.
Tess and Dot heard her, and clamored to go, too, but Ruth sent thesmaller girls back. At the head of the front stairs, they met Mrs.Treble.
"Have you, or Lillie, been up in the attic?" asked Ruth, sharply."There was something at the window up there----"
"What are you trying to do, girl?" demanded the lady from Ypsilanti,scornfully. "Trying to scare me with a ridiculous ghost story?"
"I don't know what it is," said Ruth. "I mean to find out. Were you upthere?"
"I should have gone to the garret had I wished," Mrs. Treble said,scornfully. "You must have something hidden away there, that you don'twant me to see. I wonder what it is?"
"Oh, Mrs. Treble!" began Ruth, and just then she saw that Aunt Sarah'sdoor was open. Aunt Sarah stood at the opening.
"Niece Ruth!" exclaimed the old lady, harshly, "why don't you sendthat woman away? She's got no business here."
"I've more right here than _you_ have, I should hope," cried Mrs.Treble, loudly. "And more right than these girls. You'll all find outwhen the courts take the matter up."
"Oh, Mrs. Treble! We none of us know----"
"Yes we do, too," declared the lady from Ypsilanti, interrupting Ruth."My husband's mother was Peter Stower's sister. Perhaps my Lillieshall have _all_ the property--and this ugly old house, too. I tellyou what I'll do first thing, when it comes into my hands as guardianof my child."
Ruth and Agnes were speechless. Mrs. Treble was more passionate thanshe had ever been before.
"I shall tear this ugly old house down--that's what I'll do," Mrs.Treble declared. "I'll raze it to the ground----"
Aunt Sarah suddenly advanced into the hall. Her black eyes flashed asthough there were sparks in them.
"You will do _what_?" she asked, in a low, hoarse voice.
"I'll tear down the house. It is no good."
"This beautiful old house!" groaned Agnes, forgetting about the ghostat that moment.
Aunt Sarah's wrath was rising. It broke the bonds she had put upon hertongue so many years before.
"You will tear this house down?" she repeated. "Niece Ruth! is thereany chance of this woman getting control of Peter's property?"
"We don't know," said Ruth desperately. "If we can't find UnclePeter's will that Mr. Howbridge made, and which leaves the estate toyou and us girls, Aunt Sarah--"
"There never was such a will," put in Mrs. Treble.
"Mr. Howbridge says there was. He thinks Mr. Stower must have hiddenit away with other papers, somewhere in the house----"
"And I know where," said Aunt Sarah, speaking out at last. "Peternever thought I knew where he hid things. But I did. You gals comewith me."
She stalked toward the stairs that led upward. Ruth and Agnes, halfawed by her manner and speech, followed her. So did Mrs. Treble.
Aunt Sarah went directly to
the garret. Agnes forgot to be scared ofthe ghost they had seen from outside, in her interest in this affair.
Aunt Sarah went to the old secretary, or desk, standing in the middleof the garret floor.
"Oh, we've looked all through _that_," whispered Agnes.
"You did not look in the right place," said Aunt Sarah.
Quite calmly she tapped with her fingers upon a panel in one end ofthe old desk. In a moment the panel dropped down, leaving in view avery narrow depository for papers. It was crammed with documents ofseveral different kinds.
Mrs. Treble sprang forward, with a cry. But Aunt Sarah got in front ofher. She seized her skirts with both hands and advanced upon the ladyfrom Ypsilanti with belligerence.
"Shoo!" said Aunt Sarah. "Shoo!"
As Mrs. Treble retreated, Aunt Sarah advanced, and, as though she were"shooing" a refractory chicken, she drove the lady from Ypsilanti outof the garret and closed the door firmly in her face.