CHAPTER XXIV A Strange Woman
In real panic, Arden and Sim wheeled about, dropping some of the branchesthey had treasured. Fairly glaring at them from the small stone buildingwas Viney Tucker. She wore a heavy black cloak and had on a black bonnetfrom the edges of which had escaped several wisps of straggling grayhair. What a startling picture she presented!
"What do you want here?" she asked again.
"Oh, how do you do!" greeted Sim, though the words were rather shaky. Shehad heard about the queer cousin from the other girls and felt she knewViney well enough not to be afraid of her.
"I'm as well as I ever expect to be," was the somewhat ungracious answer,and she gave the old bonnet a vicious tug.
"We thought you were away," Arden told her kindly.
"Who told you that?" she snapped.
"Dick."
"Hum! Young folks know too much nowadays. It was different in my time.Then children were seen and not heard!"
"Do you--do you object to us taking some of this mistletoe?" asked Arden.
"Mistletoe! That isn't mistletoe, though lots of folks think it is. No, Ican't say I object. This place isn't anybody's now. Do as you like. Turnout the rightful owners!" Her voice was vindictive.
"We aren't turning anyone out." Sim tried to make her voice very gentle.Really she felt sorry for the old lady, who did not seem to have theresigned spirit of Granny Howe.
"Well, the state is doing it, and you're part of the state, aren't you? Iam, so you must be."
"Yes, I suppose we can call ourselves citizens of the state," admittedArden.
"Well, the state is turning me and my cousin out of our property. Makinga park of it for folks to ride horses in and birds to feed in. Bah! Don'ttalk to me! The state! I'd state 'em if I had my way!"
"Please don't blame us," urged Sim. "We really would love to help you andGranny Howe get money for this place and perhaps----"
"Ahem!" coughed Arden loudly.
"Better get back home where you belong, not out here catching cold!"snapped Viney Tucker. "Terrible weather! I hate snow!"
"I guess she hates everything and everybody," thought Arden.
The strange old woman stood in the open doorway of the old stonebuilding. From the footprints in the snow the girls could easily guessthat she had recently entered it. Also it was plain that she had comefrom over a distant hill and not from Granny Howe's cottage, whichnestled in a little hollow about a quarter of a mile back of the oldHall.
"Then you don't mind if we take some of this mistletoe?" asked Sim, aftera pause.
"No! Why should I? You can settle with the _state_," and she laughedscornfully. "It doesn't belong to my folks any more. Only don't call it_mistletoe_."
"What is it?" asked Sim.
"How should I know? I'm not a botanist or a bird-sanctuary teacher."
Really Viney Tucker must have arisen from the wrong side of her bed thatmorning, Sim reflected. She surely was cross.
"So you didn't go away?" asked Arden, wondering what the next move wouldbe.
"Yes, I did. Went to stay with Sairy Pendleton. But she and I never couldget along, so I came back. I came out here to the old smokehouse to getaway from everybody. Folks get on my nerves--more than often! This oldsmokehouse sort of sets me up--better than the perfume you girls use.Bah!"
Sim and Arden were aware of a distinctly smoky odor floating out to themabove the head of Viney Tucker. They were aware, now, of the use to whichthe small stone building had formerly been put. In the old days hams andbacon were cured there over a fire of hickory branches and corncobs, andthat smoky smell always remained. It was a curious whim of the old ladyto come there for solitude; surely lonely and uncanny.
"Well, if you've got all that wrongly called mistletoe you want," VineyTucker suggested after rather an awkward pause, "you might as well takeyourselves back home so you won't catch cold."
"Won't you catch cold, staying out in this bleak place?" asked Sim.
"No. I never catch cold. It's only this soft new generation that catchescolds. Silly of 'em. Good-bye!"
She popped back into the smokehouse and closed the door.
Sim and Arden stood there, looking at each other in astonishment.
"Come on," Sim whispered after a pause. "We have enough--mistletoe andsmokehouses."
"Yes," Arden agreed. "Let's go."
"And enough of such a strange woman," added Sim as they walked away fromthe smokehouse.
"She is strange," Arden agreed. "But I feel sorry for her."
"So do I, in a way. But I feel a lot more sorry for Granny Howe. Shetakes it standing up. This creature whines and moans."
"She does," Arden admitted. "But different people have a different way oftaking adversity. Granny is sweet and serene."
"And Viney Tucker is bitter--but not sweet. Oh, well, it takes all sortsto make a world. This will be something to tell Terry and Dot, won't it?"
"Indeed it will."
"I wonder why she comes to such a lonesome smelly place as the oldsmokehouse to brood over her troubles?"
"It must bring back the days when she was a girl," suggested Arden. "I'veheard my father, who was born on a farm, tell how they used to smoke hamsand bacon in a little house like that one." She looked back toward it.There was no sign of Viney Tucker. She had shut herself in the strangeplace. "Probably," went on Arden, "Viney used to help smoke the hams outhere. They must have had a delicious flavor."
"Not like the chemically prepared hams _we_ have to eat," Sim surmised."Moselle was saying, only yesterday, that she wished she had a Smithfieldrazor-back ham to bake with cloves for Christmas."
"Maybe Mrs. Tucker could supply one," suggested Arden.
"I wouldn't ask her."
"No, I don't believe it would be wise. But isn't it queer of her to gooff visiting, and then return and go sit out in an old smokehouse?"
"Very queer," agreed Sim.
Carrying their "mistletoe," the girls went back to their parked car. Asthey were passing the Hall, they noticed the front door was closed asthey had left it. There were no footprints in the snow other than thosethey themselves had made.
"Hark!" suddenly exclaimed Arden as they were at the edge of the saggingold front porch.
"What?" asked Sim.
"Didn't you hear a noise?"
"Where?"
They stood still and listened.
There was no doubt of it. Echoing footsteps were coming from the oldmansion. Faint but unmistakable. They floated out of one of the upperwindows, the frame of which had been torn away by the wreckers.
"Someone is in there!" whispered Sim.
"Well, they can stay there for all I'll ever do to get them out!" gaspedArden. "Come on!"
They ran back to the car, not pausing to listen any further.
Tossing their branches into the rumble seat, the two girls climbed intothe roadster. Sim's trembling foot pressed the starter switch.
"Oh, I'm so glad it went off with a bang like that," she murmured as themotor chugged into service. Steering rather wildly, Sim shot up the hilland out upon the main road and away from Jockey Hollow.
"What do you think it was?" asked Arden when they had their hearts andbreaths under control.
"Haven't the least idea."
"We must tell Harry."
"Of course. He may be able to figure out how noises can come from an oldhouse when there isn't a single mark in the snow to show that anyone hasentered."
"The scream happened that same way; no one went in, but the scream cameout, he said."
"Oh, it's all so mysterious!" sighed Sim. "Shall we ever be able to solveit? Seems to me it gets worse."
"I hope we can solve it," said her companion solemnly.
They created quite a sensation when they reached Sim's house, not onlywith the "mistletoe," over which Dot went into wild raptures, but withtheir story of Viney Tucker and the strange noises.
"What a queer old woman," s
aid Dorothy. "I wouldn't want to meet heralone in the dark."
"Oh, I guess she's just a poor old crank whose troubles have gotten thebest of her," said Arden. "I feel sorry for her."
"She must be a trial to Granny Howe," suggested Terry, who seemed muchimproved.
"Granny isn't the sort that gives way to trials," said Sim. "Oh, it willbe so wonderful if we can help her!"
"Leave it to Harry," said Arden. "And, by the way, don't you think we hadbetter tell him the latest happening?"
"Of course," said Dorothy quickly. "Shall I telephone him?"
"Why--er--yes," said Sim slowly, with a quick look at Arden and Terry.
"I'll tell him to come over to dinner, shall I?" Her eyes were shining.
"Yes," said Sim, smiling a little. "Harry is always welcome."
"And if he can make anything out of this latest development," said Arden,"he's a wonder."
"I think he's quite wonderful anyway," said Terry, snuggling a littledeeper down in the bed. "Wasn't he grand when he let us give him up andcollect the reward?"
"Them was the happy days!" laughed Arden.
"I'm going to phone," called Dot from the hall.