“Oh, Gladys, do you have to go home, now that your mother and father are
back?” asked Migwan, anxiously.
“Not unless you want to, Gladys,” said Mrs. Evans. “If you would rather
stay out here until school opens, you may. Father and I are going to
Boston in a few days, you know.”
So there was no breaking up of the group before they all went home, with
the exception of Ophelia, or rather Beatrice, as we will have to call
her from now on, for, of course, she was to go with her mother.
“What must it be like, anyway,” said Hinpoha, “not to have any last name
until you’re nine years old and then be introduced to yourself? To
answer to the name of Ophelia one and ‘Miss Beatrice Palmer’ the next?
It must be rather confusing.”
Little Beatrice went to Boston with her mother and father and uncle and
aunt and Onoway House missed her rather sorely. Calvin Smalley also got
a measure of happiness out of the restoration of the lost child, for
Uncle Lynn was so beside himself with joy over the event that he was
ready to bestow favors on anyone connected with Onoway House, and
promised to see that Calvin got through school and college. He would
give him a place to work in his office Saturdays and vacations.
For several days now there had been no sign of the mysterious visitor,
and the well digger’s ghost had also apparently been laid to rest. Then
one morning they woke to the realization that the unseen agency had been
at work again. Pinned on the front door was a piece of paper on which
was scrawled,
“_If you folks know what’s good for you you’ll get out of that
house._”
“We’ll do no such thing!” said Migwan, with unexpected spirit “I’ve
started out to earn money to go to college by canning tomatoes, and I’m
going to stay here until they’re canned; I don’t care who likes it or
doesn’t.”
“That’s it, stand up for your rights,” applauded Sahwah.
“But what possible motive could anyone have for wanting us to get out of
the house?” asked Migwan. Of course, there was no answer to this.
“Do you suppose the house will be burned down as the tepee was?” asked
Gladys, in rather a scared voice. This suggestion sent a shiver through
them all.
“We must get the policeman back again to watch,” said Mrs. Gardiner.
Accordingly, the redoubtable constable was brought on the scene again.
“Well, well, well,” he said, fingering the mysterious note. “Thought
he’d come back again now that the coast was clear, did he? You notice,
though, that he didn’t make no effort while I was here. You can bet your
life he won’t get busy again while I’m here now. You ladies just rest
easy and go on with your peeling.”
Scarcely had he finished speaking, when from the bowels of the earth and
apparently under his very feet, there came the strange sound as of blows
being struck on hard earth or stone. The expression on Dave Beeman’s
face was such a mixture of surprise and alarm that the girls could not
keep from laughing, disturbed as they were at the return of the sounds.
“By gum,” said the constable, looking furtively around, “this is
certainly a queer business.” He had heard the story of the well digger’s
ghost and it was very strong in his mind just now. “Maybe it’s just as
well not to meddle,” he said under his breath.
Off and on through the day they heard the same sounds issuing from the
ground, and at dusk the weird moaning began again. The constable showed
strong signs of wishing himself elsewhere. When darkness fell the noises
ceased and were heard no more that night. But another sort of moaning
had taken its place. This was the wind, which had been blowing strongly
all day, and early in the evening increased to the proportions of a
hurricane. With wise forethought Sahwah and Nyoda brought the raft and
the rowboat up on land. Leaves, small twigs and thick dust filled the
air. Windows rattled ominously; doors slammed with jarring crashes.
Migwan, foreseeing a devastating storm, set all the girls to picking
tomatoes as fast as they could, whether they were ripe or not, to save
them from being dashed to the ground. They could ripen off the vines
later.
At last the sandstorm drove them into the house, blinded. Then there
came such a wind as none of them had ever experienced. Trees in the yard
broke like matches; the Balm of Gilead roared like an ocean in a
tempest. There was a constant rattle of pebbles and small objects
against the window panes; then one of the windows in the dining-room was
broken by a branch being hurled against it, and let in a miniature
tempest. Papers blew around the room in great confusion. Migwan rolled
the high topped sideboard in front of the broken pane to keep the wind
out of the room. At times it seemed as if the very house must be coming
down on top of their heads, and they stood with frightened faces in the
front hall ready to dash out at a moment’s notice. A crash sounded on
the roof and they thought the time had come, but in a moment they
realized that it was only the chimney falling over. The bricks went
sliding and bumping down the slope of the roof and fell to the ground
over the edge.
“I pity anybody who’s caught in this out in the open,” said Migwan. “I
believe the wind is strong enough to blow a horse over. I wonder where
Calvin is now.” Calvin had gone to the city with Farmer Landsdowne on
business and intended to remain all night.
“He’s probably all right if he has reached those friends of the
Landsdownes’,” said Hinpoha.
“The Smalleys are out, too,” said Sahwah. “I saw them drive past after
dark, going toward town, just before it began to blow so terribly. Oh,
listen! What do you suppose that was?” A crash in the yard told them
that something had happened to the barn. Gladys was in great distress
about the car, and had to be restrained forcibly from running out to see
if it was all right. The wind continued the greater part of the night
and nobody thought of going to bed. By morning it had spent its force.
Then they looked out on a scene of destruction. The garden was piled
with branches and trunks of trees, and strewn with clothes that had been
hanging on wash-lines somewhere along the road. Up against the porch lay
a wicker chair which they recognized as belonging to a house some
distance away. Everywhere around they could see the corn and wheat lying
flat on the ground, as if trodden by some giant foot. The roof of the
barn had been torn off on one side and reposed on the ground, more or
less shattered. The car was uninjured except that it was covered with a
thick coating of yellow dust. It was well that they had thought to pick
the tomatoes, for the vines and the frames which supported them were
demolished. All the telephone wires were down as far as they could see.
Calvin was not to return until night, and they felt no great anxiety
about him, but often during the day a disquieting thought came to
Migwan. This was about Uncle Peter, the man who lived in the cottage
among the trees. Suppose something had happened to him? From Sahwah’s
report, the house was very old and frail. She watched the Red House
closely for signs of life, but apparently the Smalleys had not returned.
The doors were shut and there was no smoke coming out of the kitchen
chimney.
“Nyoda,” said Migwan, finally, “I’m going over and see if that old man
is all right. I can’t rest until I know.”
“All right,” said Nyoda, “I’m going with you.” Sahwah was over at Mrs.
Landsdowne’s, but they remembered her description of the approach to the
cottage, and made the detour around the field where the bull was and the
marsh beyond it, coming up to the cottage from the other side. It was
still standing, although the big tree beside it had been blown over and
lay across the roof.
“Would you ever think,” said Migwan, “that there was anyone living in
there? I could pass it a dozen times and swear it was empty, if I didn’t
know about it.”
“Well,” said Nyoda, the house is still standing, “so I suppose the old
man is all right.”
“I wonder,” said Migwan. “He may have been frightened sick, and he may
have nothing to eat or drink, now that the Smalleys are kept away. We’d
better have a look. He can’t hurt us. If Sahwah spent the whole
afternoon with him we needn’t be afraid.”
They tried the door, but, of course, found it locked, and were obliged
to resort to the same means of entrance as Sahwah had employed. They saw
the key in the other door just as Sahwah had and turned it and opened
the door. The old man was sitting by the table in just the position
Sahwah had described. Apparently he was neither frightened nor hurt. He
looked up when he saw them in the doorway and motioned them to come in.
There was nothing extraordinary in his appearance; he was simply an old
man with mild blue eyes. Obeying the same impulse of adventure which had
led Sahwah across the threshold, they stepped in and sat down. The room
was just as Sahwah had told them. The table was littered with wheels and
rods which the old man was fitting together. As they expected, he worked
away without taking any notice of them.
“Did you mind the storm?” asked Nyoda.
“Storm?” said the old man. “What storm?”
“He never noticed it!” said Migwan, in an aside to Nyoda.
“What are you making?” asked Migwan, wishing to hear from his own lips
the explanation he had given Sahwah.
After his customary interval he spoke. “It’s a machine that reclaims
wasted moments,” he explained. “Every moment that isn’t made good use of
goes down through this little trap door, and when there are enough to
make an hour they join hands and climb up on the face of the clock
again.”
Migwan and Nyoda exchanged glances. The ingenious imagination of the old
man surpassed anything they had ever heard. They stayed awhile, amusing
themselves by looking at the books and clocks in the cabinets, and then
rose, intending to slip away quietly when he was absorbed in his work,
as Sahwah had done. A dish of apples standing on one of the cabinets
indicated that he was not without food and their minds were now at rest
about his welfare. But when they moved toward the door he turned and
looked at them.
“What do you think of it?” he asked.
By “it” they figured that he meant the machine he was working on. “It’s
a very good one indeed,” said Nyoda, “very interesting.”
“Do you want to buy the rights?” asked the old man, taking off his hat
and putting it on again.
“He thinks he’s talking to some capitalist!” whispered Migwan.
“We’ll talk over the plans first among ourselves and let you know our
decision,” said Nyoda, not knowing what to say and wishing to appear
politely interested. This speech would give them an opportunity to get
away. But to her surprise Uncle Peter drew a sheet of paper from among
those on the table and gravely handed it to her.
“Here are the plans,” he said. “Take them and look them over and let me
know in a week.” Then he fell to work and forgot their presence. Holding
the paper in her hands Nyoda walked out of the room, followed by Migwan.
They left the house as they had entered it and returned by a roundabout
way to Onoway House. Nyoda put the plans of the remarkable machine away
in her room, intending to keep it as a curiosity. Soon afterward they
saw the Smalleys driving into the yard of the Red House.
It took the girls most of the day to clear the garden of the rubbish
which had been blown into it and tie up the prostrate plants on sticks.
Calvin came back at night safe and relieved the slight anxiety they had
felt about him. As they sat on the porch after supper comparing notes
about the storm they heard the muffled sounds which told that the well
digger’s ghost was at work again. It continued throughout the evening.
“I’ll be a wreck if this keeps up much longer,” said Migwan. A perpetual
air of uneasiness had fallen on Onoway House and it was impossible to
get anything accomplished. How could they settle down to work or play
with that dreadful thud, thud pounding in their ears every little while?
Dave Beeman had taken himself home after the storm to see what damage
had been done and they were again without the protection of the law.
“Maybe it’s some animal under the ground,” suggested Calvin. “It
certainly couldn’t be a person down there.” This seemed such an
amazingly sensible solution of the mystery that the girls were inclined
to accept it.
“I suppose imagination does help a lot,” said Migwan, “and if we hadn’t
heard that story about the well digger we would never have thought of a
man with a pickaxe. It’s undoubtedly the movements of an animal we
hear.”
“But what animal lives underground without any air?” asked Sahwah.
“There’s probably a hole somewhere, only we haven’t found it,” said
Migwan, who seemed determined to believe the animal theory.
“But what about the note on the door and the lime on the tomatoes and
the burning of the tepee?” asked Sahwah. “You can’t blame that onto an
animal, can you?”
“That’s very true,” said Migwan, “but it is likely there is no
connection between the two mysteries. It’s just a coincidence. I for one
am going to be sensible and stop worrying about that noise in the
ground.” And most of them followed Migwan’s example.
The next morning was such a beautiful one that they could not resist
getting up early and running out of doors before breakfast. “Let’s play
a game of hide-and-seek,” proposed Sahwah. The others agreed readily;
Hinpoha was counted out and had to be “it,” and the others scattered to
hide themselves. One by one Hinpoha discovered and “caught” the players,
or they got “in free.” Calvin startled her nearly out of her wits by
suddenly dropping out of a tree almost on top of her.
“Are we all in?” asked Migwan, fanning herself with her handkerchief.
She was out of breath from her strenuous run for the goal.
“All but Sahwah,” said Hinpoha. She started out again to look for her,
turning around every little while to keep a wary eye on the goal lest
Sahwah should spring out from somewhere nearby and reach it before she
did. But Sahwah was evidently hidden at some distance from the goal, and
Hinpoha walked in an ever increasing circle without tempting her out.
The others, tired of waiting for her to be caught, joined in the search
and beat the bushes and hunted through the barn and looked up in the
trees. But no Sahwah did they find.
Breakfast time neared and Hinpoha called loudly, “In free, Sahwah,
game’s over.” But Sahwah did not emerge from some cleverly concealed
nook as they expected.
“Maybe she didn’t hear you,” said Migwan. “Let’s all call.” And they all
called, shouting together in perfect unison as they had done on so many
other occasions, making the combined voice carry a great distance. An
echo answered them but that was all. The girls looked at each other
blankly.
“Do you suppose she’s staying hidden on purpose?” asked Calvin.
“No,” said Nyoda, emphatically, “I don’t. Sahwah’s had enough experience
with causing us worry by disappearing never to do it on purpose again.
She’s probably stuck somewhere and can’t get out. Do you remember the
time she was shut up in the statue and couldn’t talk? Something of the
kind has occurred again, I don’t doubt. We’ll simply have to search
until we find and release her.”
They began a systematized search and minutely examined every foot of
ground. Thinking that the barn was the most likely place to get into
something and not get out again, they opened every old chest there and
pried into every corner, and moved every article. They went up-stairs
and looked through the lofts and corners. The roof being partly off, it
was as light as day, and if she had been there anywhere they would
surely have seen her. But there was no sign of her. They looked under
the roof of the barn that lay on the ground, thinking that she might
have crawled under that and become pinned down, but she was not there.
“Could she have fallen into the river?” asked Calvin.
“It wouldn’t have done her any harm if she had,” said Hinpoha. “Sahwah’s
more at home in the water than she is on land. It wouldn’t have been
unlike her to jump in and swim around and duck her head under every time
I came near, but then she would have heard us calling for her and come
out.”
They parted every bush and shrub, and looked closely at the branches of
every tree, half fearing to find her hanging by the hair somewhere.
“Do you suppose she went up the Balm of Gilead tree and into the attic
window?” asked Migwan. They searched through the attic, and a laborious
search it was, on account of the quantities of furniture and chests to
be moved. They pulled out every drawer and burst open every trunk and
chest, thinking she might have crawled into one and then the lid had
closed with a spring lock. It was fully noon before they were satisfied
that she was not up there.
“Could she be in the cellar?” asked Hinpoha. Down they went, carrying
lights to look into all the dark corners. But the search was vain. The
girls became extremely frightened. Something told them that Sahwah’s
disappearance was not voluntary. They looked at each other with growing
fear. What had the message on the door said?
“_If you folks know what’s good for you you’ll get out of that
house._”
Was that a warning of what had happened now? Was it a friendly or a
sinister warning? Migwan was almost beside herself to think that
anything had happened to Sahwah while she was staying with her. The day
dragged along like a nightmare. In the afternoon Calvin had an
inspiration. “Why didn’t I think of it before?” he almost shouted.
“Here’s Pointer; he’s a hunting dog and can follow a trail. We’ll set
him to find Sahwah’s trail.”
“That’s right,” said Migwan, in relief, “we’ll surely find her now.”
They gave Pointer a shoe of Sahwah’s and in a moment he had started off
with his nose to the ground. But if they had expected him to lead them
to her hiding-place they were disappointed, for all he did was follow
the trail around the garden between the house and the river. Once he
went down cellar, straining hard at the chain which held him, and they
were sure he would find something they had overlooked in their search,
but the trail ended in front of the fruit cellar.
“Sahwah came down here early this morning to bring up those melons,
don’t you remember?” said Migwan. “That’s all Pointer has found out.”
They kept Pointer at it for some time, but he never offered to leave the
garden.
“Are you sure he’s on the trail?” asked Hinpoha, doubtfully.
“Yes,” said Calvin, “he never whines that way unless he is. That long
howl is the hunting dog’s signal that he’s on the job. When he loses the
trail he runs back and forth uncertainly.”
“According to that, Sahwah must be very near,” said Gladys. “Are you
sure there isn’t any other place in the house, cellar or barn that she
could have gotten into, Migwan?”
“Quite sure,” said Migwan, disheartened. “You know yourself the way we
finecombed every foot of space.”
“There’s another thing that might have made Pointer lose the trail,”
said Nyoda. “Do you remember that he stopped short at the river once?
Well, it is my belief that Sahwah ran down to the river and either fell
or jumped in and swam away. That would destroy the trail, and Sahwah
might be miles away for all we know.” She carefully refrained from
suggesting that anything had happened to Sahwah and she might have gone
under the water and not come up again, but there was a fear tugging at
her heart that Sahwah had dived in and struck her head on something and
gone down.
But several of the others must have had much the same thought, for
Gladys remarked, without any apparent connection, “_You can see the
bottom almost all the way down the river._”
And Hinpoha said, “_Those tangled roots of trees in the river are nasty
things to get into._”
And Calvin set the dog free immediately and untied the rowboat. He and
Nyoda rowed down the river while the rest followed along the banks. The
stream was clear most of the distance and they could see to the bottom.
Here and there were sharp rocks jutting up and casting shadows on the
sunlit bottom, and in places the water had washed the dirt away from the
roots of trees so that they extended out into the river like
many-fingered creatures waiting to seize their prey. But nowhere did
they see what they feared. In the lower part of the river, toward the
mouth, the water was deeper and had been dredged free of all
obstructions, so while it was muddy and they could not see into its
depths they knew that nothing was to be found here.
Vaguely relieved and yet dreadfully anxious and mystified they returned
to Onoway House. “Do you suppose she was carried away by an automobile
or wagon?” asked Migwan. “Does anyone recall seeing anything of the kind
going by when we started to play?” Nobody did. While they were
discussing this new theory, Pointer, who had been left to run loose
while they were searching the river, came running up to them. With much
wagging of his tail he went to Calvin and laid something at his feet For
a moment they could not make out what it was. Migwan recognized it
first.
_It was Sahwah’s shoe, completely covered and dripping with black mud._
“Where did you find it, Pointer?” asked Calvin. Pointer wagged his tail
in evident satisfaction, but, of course, he could not answer his
master’s question.
“Is that the shoe Sahwah had on this morning?” asked Nyoda.
“Yes,” said Hinpoha. “I remember asking her why she wore those shoes
with the red buttons to run around in and she said they were getting
tight and she wanted to wear them out.”
“Where does that black mud come from around here?” asked Gladys.
It was Nyoda who guessed the dreadful fact first. All of a sudden she
remembered cleaning her shoes after she had come home from her visit to
Uncle Peter.
“_The marsh!_” she gasped. “_Sahwah’s caught in the marsh!_ It’s the
same mud. I went to the edge of the marsh the other day to see it and
got some on my shoe.”
Without stopping to hear more, Calvin dashed off in the direction of his
father’s farm, with Pointer at his heels and Gladys and Nyoda and
Hinpoha and Migwan and Tom and Betty trailing after him as fast as they
could go. Mrs. Gardiner followed a little distance behind. She could not
keep up with them. Calvin tore a flat board from one of the fences as he
ran along and called on the others to do the same thing. A little
farther on he found a rope and took that along. They reached the edge of
the marsh and looked eagerly for the figure of Sahwah imprisoned in the
treacherous ooze. But the green surface smiled up innocently at them.
Not a sign of a struggle, no indentation in the level, no break. To the
unknowing it looked like the smoothest lawn lying like a sheet of
emerald in the sun. But on second glance you saw the water bubbling up
through the grass and then you knew the secret of the greenness. Nowhere
could they see Sahwah.
Migwan had to force herself to ask the question that was in everybody’s
mind. “Has she gone under?”
“No,” said Calvin, positively. “It can’t be possible in so short a time.
They say that a horse went down here once long ago, and it took him more
than two days to be covered entirely.”
After being wrought up to such a pitch of expectancy it was a shock to
find that Sahwah was not in the marsh. _But how had her shoe come to be
covered with marsh mud, and what was it doing off her foot?_ Where had
Pointer found it?
“Oh, if only dogs could speak!” said Hinpoha. “Pointer, Pointer, where
did you find it?” But Pointer could only wag his tail and bark.
From where they stood at the edge of the marsh they could see the
cottage among the trees. A look of inquiry passed between Nyoda and
Migwan. Calvin saw the look and understood it.
“Would you like to look in Uncle Peter’s house?” he asked. His face was
very pale, and Nyoda, watching him keenly, thought she detected a sudden
suspicion and fear in his eyes. He looked apprehensively over his
shoulder at the Red House as they started to skirt the bog. Nyoda
understood that movement. Abner Smalley did not know that they knew
about Uncle Peter, and Calvin had said he would be very angry if he
found it out. Now he would be sure to see them going toward the house.
But this thought did not make Nyoda waver in her determination to search
the cottage. The urgency of the occasion released them from their
promise of secrecy. As Calvin had no key they were obliged to enter by
the window as on former occasions. But the front room was absolutely
blank and bare and they saw the impossibility of anyone’s being hidden
there. It was a tense moment when they opened the door of the inner room
and the girls who had never been there stepped behind the others and
held their breath. Uncle Peter sat at the table just as Nyoda and Migwan
had seen him a day or two before, playing with his rods and wheels. His
mild blue eyes rested in astonishment on the number of people who
thronged the doorway.
“Come in, ladies,” he said, politely. The room was exactly as it had
been the other day and apparently he had not stirred from his position.
They all felt that Sahwah had not been there and that the old man knew
nothing about the matter. But Calvin spoke to him.
“Uncle Peter,” he said. The man turned at the name and stared at him but
gave no sign of recognizing him. “Do you know me, Uncle Peter?” said
Calvin. “It’s Calvin, Jim’s boy.”
The old man smiled vacantly and held out the bit of machinery he was
working on. “It’s a machine for saving time,” he said. “As the minutes
are ticked off——” There was nothing to be gotten out of him, and they
withdrew again. Calvin looked around him fearfully as they returned
through the fields, to see if his uncle had watched him take the girls
to the cottage, but there was no sign of him anywhere, at which he
breathed an unconscious sigh of relief. Tired out with their ceaseless
searching and sick with anxiety, they returned to Onoway House.
If we were writing an ingeniously intricate detective story the thing to
do would be to wait until Sahwah was discovered by some brilliant piece
of detective work and then have her tell her story, leaving the
explanation of the mystery until the last chapter, and keeping the
reader on the verge of nervous prostration to the end of the piece. But,
as this is only a faithful narrative of actual events, and as Sahwah is
our heroine as much as any of the girls, we know that the reader would
much prefer to follow her adventures with their own eyes, rather than
hear about them later when she tells the story to the wondering
household. And we also think it only fair to say that if Sahwah’s return
had depended on any brilliant detective work on the part of the others
we have very grave doubts as to its ever being accomplished. We will,
then, leave the dwellers at Onoway House to their searching and
theorizing and bewailing, and follow Sahwah from the time they started
to play hide-and-seek and Hinpoha blinded her eyes and began to count
“five, ten, fifteen, twenty.”
Sahwah ran across the garden toward the house, intending to swing
herself into one of the open cellar windows. Near this window was a
flower bed which Migwan had filled with especially rich black soil. That
morning she had watered the bed and had done it so thoroughly that the
ground was turned into a very soft mud. Sahwah, not looking where she
was going, stepped into this mud and sank in over her shoe top with one
foot. When she had entered the window she stood on the cellar floor and
regarded the muddy shoe disgustedly. Feeling that it was wet through,
she ripped it off and flung it out of the window. It landed back in the
muddy bed and was hidden by the growing plants. Sahwah then proceeded to
hide herself in the fruit cellar. This was a partitioned off place in a
dark corner. She sat among the cupboards and baskets and watched Hinpoha
pass the window several times as she hunted for the players. Once
Hinpoha peered searchingly into the window and Sahwah thought she was on
the verge of being discovered and pressed back in her corner. There was
a basket of potatoes in the way of her getting quite into the corner and
she moved this out. There was also a barrel of vinegar and she slipped
in behind this. As she moved the barrel it dropped back upon her
shoeless foot and it was all she could do to repress a cry of pain as
she stood and held the battered member in her hand. But the pain became
so bad she decided to give up the game and get something to relieve it.
She pushed hard against the barrel to move it out, but this time it
would not move. She pushed harder, bracing her back against the wooden
wall behind her, when, without warning, the wall caved in as if by
magic, and she fell backwards head over heels into inky darkness. The
wall through which she had fallen closed with a bang.
Sahwah sat up and reached mechanically for the hurt foot. The pain had
increased alarmingly and for a time shut out all other sensations. Then
it abated a little and Sahwah had time to wonder what she had fallen
into. She was sitting on a stone floor, she could make that out. It must
be a room of some kind, she decided, but the darkness was so intense
that she could make nothing out. “There must have been another part to
the cellar behind the fruit cellar, although we never knew it,” thought
Sahwah, “and the back of the fruit cellar was the door.” As soon as she
could stand upon her foot again she moved forward in the direction from
which she thought she had come and searched with her hands for a
doorknob. But her fingers encountered only a smooth wall surface and
after about five minutes of careful feeling she came to the startled
conclusion that there was no such thing. “I must have got turned around
when I tumbled,” she thought, “and am feeling of the wrong wall.” She
accordingly moved forward until her outstretched hands encountered
another hard surface and she repeated the process of looking for a
doorknob. No more success here. “Well, there are four walls to every
room,” thought Sahwah, “and I’ve still got two more trys.” Again she
moved out cautiously and with ever increasing nervousness admitted that
there was no door in that direction. “Now for the fourth side, the right
one at last,” she said to herself. “One, two, three, out goes me!” She
moved quickly in the fourth and last direction. Without warning she ran
hard into something which tripped her up. She felt her head striking
violently against something hard and then she knew no more.
She woke to a dream consciousness first. She dreamed she was lying in
the soft sand on the lake shore near one of the great stone piers, where
a number of men were at work. They were pounding the stones with great
hammers and the vibrations from the blows shook the beach and went
through her as she lay on the sand. Gradually the sparkling water faded
from her sight; the sky grew dark and night fell, but still the blows
continued to sound on the stone. Just where the dream ended and reality
began she never knew, but, with a rush of consciousness she knew that
she was awake and alive; that everything was dark and that she was lying
on her face in something soft that was like sand and yet not like it.
And the pounding she had heard in her dream was still going on. Thud,
thud, it shook the earth and jarred her so her teeth were on edge. For a
long time she lay and listened without wondering much what it was. Her
head ached with such intensity that it might have been the throbbing of
her temples that was shaking the earth so. After a while that dulled,
but the jarring blows still kept up. With a cessation of the pain came
the power to think and Sahwah remembered the strange noises they had
heard issuing from the ground. It must be the same noise; only it was a
hundred times louder now. It was a sort of clanging thump; like the
sound of steel on stone. Even with all that noise going on Sahwah
slipped off into half consciousness at times. Although there did not
seem to be any doors or windows, she was not suffering for lack of air,
but at the time she was too dazed to notice this and wonder at it.
She woke with a start from one of these dozes to the realization that
there was a broad streak of light on the floor. Fully conscious now, she
raised her head and looked around. She was lying in a bin filled with
sawdust. When she held up her head her eyes came just to the top of it.
By the light she could see that she was indeed in a sort of sub-cellar.
It must have been older than the other cellar for the floor was made of
great slabs of mouldy stone. Her eyes followed the beam of light and she
saw that a door had been opened into still another cellar beyond. In
this chamber a lantern stood on the floor, whence came the light, and
its ray produced weird and fantastic moving shadows. These shadows came
from a man who was wielding a pickaxe against a spot in the stone wall.
It was this that was causing the jarring blows. Startled almost out of
her senses at seeing a man thus apparently caged up in the sub-cellar of
Onoway House, Sahwah could only lay back with a gasp. She could not
raise her voice to cry out had she been so inclined.
But fast on the heels of that shock came another. The worker paused in
his exertions to wipe the perspiration from his brow, and stood where
the light of the lantern shone full in his face. Sahwah’s heart gave a
great leap when she recognized Abner Smalley. Abner Smalley in the
hidden sub-cellar of Onoway House, digging a hole in the wall! Sahwah
forgot her own plight in curiosity as to what he was doing. She lay and
watched him fascinated while he resumed his pounding. So he was the
mysterious intruder who had wrought such terror among them! This, then,
was the well digger’s ghost! What could he be searching for in the
cellar of his neighbor’s house? Sahwah dug her feet into the soft
sawdust as she watched the pick rise and fall. She had no idea of the
flight of time. She thought it was only a few minutes since she had
fallen into the sub-cellar. She lay thinking of the expressions on the
faces of the girls when she would tell them her discovery. To think that
she had been the one to solve the mystery! She felt a little
disappointed that the mysterious intruder should have turned out to be
someone they knew. It would have been more in keeping with her idea of
romance to have found a prince shut up in the cellar.
While she was thinking these thoughts the light suddenly vanished and
she heard the bang of a door shutting. She was in darkness once more. In
a moment she heard footsteps retreating and dying away in the distance.
All was silent again. It took her some moments to collect her thoughts
sufficiently to realize a new and significant fact. _Abner Smalley had
not gone out by the door into the fruit cellar. There must be, then,
another way of egress from the sub-cellar._ Instantly Sahwah made up her
mind to follow him and see how he had gotten out at the other end. Her
feet were imbedded deeply in the sawdust and she became aware of the
fact that her shoeless foot was resting against something with a sharp
edge. She drew it away and then carefully felt with her hands for the
object. She could not see it when she had it but it felt like a metal
box of some kind, possibly tin. She carried it with her and moved toward
the place where she now knew there was a door. She found the handle
easily and opened it. This was the side of the wall toward which she had
moved when she had run into the bin before, and so she did not discover
it. A strong breath of air struck her as she advanced into this chamber.
It was scarcely more than a passage, for by reaching out her arms she
could touch the wall on both sides. She moved cautiously, fearing to
fall again in the dark. She felt the place in the wall where Abner
Smalley had made an indentation with his pick. She was wondering where
this passage led and wishing it would come to an end soon, when she
struck the already sore foot against what must have been the pickaxe set
against the wall and fell on her nose once more. The tin box she carried
was rammed into the pit of her stomach and knocked the breath out of
her, but this time she had not hit her head.
She lay still for a moment trying to get her breath back. Her eyes were
becoming accustomed to the inky darkness by this time. She looked down
and saw a stone floor beneath her. She turned her head to one side and
saw a stone wall beside her. She turned over altogether and looked
up—and saw the constellation Cassiopea flashing down at her from the
sky. For a moment she could not believe her senses. Of all the strange
sights she had seen nothing had affected her so powerfully as the sight
of that familiar group of stars. What she had expected to see she could
not tell, stone perhaps, but anything except the open sky. She sat up in
a hurry and began to investigate where she was. The wall around her
seemed to be circular and all of a sudden Sahwah had the answer. She was
in the cistern—the old unused cistern which was not a great distance
from the house. This, then, was the opening of the sub-cellar, the way
in which Mr. Smalley had made his escape. There was usually a covering
over the cistern, but he had evidently been in a hurry and left it off.
The fact that there were stars out took Sahwah’s breath away. It was
night then; had she been in that cellar all day? It was inconceivable,
yet it was undoubtedly true. By the faint glimmer of the stars she could
make out that there were hollows in the stone side of the cistern by
which a person could easily climb out. She lost no time in climbing when
she made this discovery. What a joy it was to be coming up into God’s
outdoors again! As she emerged from the cistern she saw Migwan standing
in the garden beside the back porch. The moon shone full on her as she
stepped out of the hole in the ground and just then Migwan caught sight
of her. The apparition was too much for Migwan and she screamed one
terrified scream after another until the girls came running from all
over to see what fresh calamity had happened. Only seeing Sahwah
standing in their midst and not having seen her appear magically out of
the depths of the ground, they could not understand Migwan’s terror.
“Stop screaming, Migwan,” said Sahwah, and when Migwan heard her voice
and saw that it was really she, she quieted down and listened while
Sahwah told her tale of adventure since going down into the cellar to
hide. The day had passed so quickly for Sahwah, she having lain
unconscious until late in the afternoon, that she, of course, knew
nothing of their frantic search for her and so could not comprehend why
they made such a fuss over her return. They laughed and cried all at
once and hugged her until she finally protested.
“What have you brought along as a souvenir of your trip?” asked Nyoda,
who had regained her light-hearted manner now that Sahwah was safely
back.
Sahwah looked down at the box she held in her hand. “I found it in the
bin of sawdust,” she said. “It was just like playing ‘Fish-pond’ at the
children’s parties. You put your hand in a box of sawdust and draw out a
handsome prize.” And Sahwah laughed, her familiar long drawn-out giggle,
that they had despaired of ever hearing again. She laid the box on the
table. It was of tin, about nine inches long by three inches wide by
three high, with a closely fitting cover. “Shall I open it, Nyoda?” she
asked.
“I don’t see any harm in doing so,” said Nyoda. Sahwah took off the
cover. There was nothing in the box but a folded piece of paper. She
took it and spread it before them on the table.
“What is it?” they all cried, crowding around. The first thing that
caught their eye was a slanting line drawn across the paper in heavy
ink. There was some writing beside it, but this was so faded that it
took some studying to make it out. Finally they got it. It read:
“_Supposed extension of gas vein._” The upper end of the line was marked
“_36 feet west of cistern._” There was a cross at that point also, and
this was marked, “_Place where gas was struck at 300 feet._”
“The Deacon’s gas well!” they all exclaimed in chorus. It was true,
then.
“And there was a well digger’s ghost, even if it didn’t turn out to be
the one we expected!” said Migwan.
That day was never to be forgotten, although the next cleared up the
mystery and brought still another surprise. Dave Beeman, the constable,
was once more brought out and this time furnished with information that
nearly caused his eyes to start from his head. Abner Smalley, the (as
everyone supposed) respectable citizen of Centerville Road, breaking
into his neighbor’s house and deliberately trying to dig a hole in the
stone wall. It was the sensation of his career. “Well, I’ll be
jiggered!” he gasped.
But his surprise was nothing compared to Abner Smalley’s when he was
confronted with the accusation without warning. He turned so pale and
trembled so much that it was useless to deny his guilt.
“You are guilty, Abney Smalley,” said the constable, in such a solemn
tone that the girls could hardly keep straight faces. “You’d better make
a clean breast of it and tell what you were doing in that house or it
might go hard with you.”
Abner Smalley, although he was a bully by nature, was a coward when the
odds were against him, and he had always had a wholesome fear of the
law, so at Dave Beeman’s suggestion he decided to “make a clean breast
of it.” We will not weary the reader with all the conversation that took
place, but will simply tell the facts of the story.
Some time ago, while the old caretaker lived on the place yet, the story
of the Deacon’s gas well had come to Abner Smalley’s ears. He heard a
fact connected with it, however, that was not generally known, namely,
that the Deacon had made a record of the place where the gas was found.
Believing that the Deacon had left it hidden somewhere in the house, he
had devised a means of breaking in and searching for it. His first plan
had been to frighten the dwellers in the house and make them believe
there was a ghost in the attic so they would give the place a wide berth
at night and leave him free to ransack the Deacon’s old furniture. He
frightened the Mitchells so that they moved. But no sooner had the
Mitchells departed than the new caretakers had come; and they were a
much bigger houseful than the others.
He had tried the same plan with them as he had with the others, namely,
mysterious noises around the place at night. But what had frightened
Mrs. Mitchell into moving had no effect on these new farmers. They shot
off a gun when he was doing his best ghost stunt, namely, blowing into a
bottle, which had produced that weird moaning sound. He it was who had
dressed up as a ghost and appeared to Nyoda in the tepee; throwing the
red pepper into her face when she made as if to attack him with a pole.
It was he whom they had seen coming out of the barn that night, and
later it was he again whom Migwan had seen during the hail storm. He had
disappeared so utterly by jumping down the cistern. That was the first
time he had been down, and on this occasion he had discovered the
passage leading to the sub-cellar. It was he the girls had heard in the
attic on numerous occasions. He had entered and gone out after dark by
means of the Balm of Gilead tree. One time he broke the window. He had
been down cellar that night when Sahwah nearly caught him. He was
looking for the other entrance to the sub-cellar, which he never found.
He knocked over the basket of potatoes which had mystified them so. He
had been on the point of entering the house that day when Sahwah
suddenly returned from town after he thought the whole family was gone
for the day. When he saw her go off along the river he went in anyway
and was nearly caught in the attic by the girls. He had escaped
detection by hiding in a large chest.
The day they had gone for the picnic he saw them go and spent all day
looking through the desks in the house. Finally the dog barked so he
gave him the poisoned meat he had brought along to use if necessary.
Then the family had returned and he had had a narrow escape into the
cistern. He had stayed there until night, when he had set fire to the
tepee, not knowing that anyone was sleeping in it. After starting the
blaze he had again sought refuge in the cistern and when the crowd had
gathered, came out in their midst so that his absence from such an
exciting event in the neighborhood would cause no comment among the
farmers. The cistern was in the shadow and everyone was watching the
fire so intently that he was able to emerge unseen.
He had sprayed the tomatoes with lime and written the note which they
found on the door. He had left the chisel in the automobile on one
occasion when he had been hunting through the things in the barn;
forgetting to take it with him when he went out.
He wanted to get hold of that record secretly and be sure whether the
great vein of gas which the Deacon knew existed was on the property now
owned by the Bartletts or that of the Landsdownes, and then he was going
to buy that property before the owners knew about the gas, as the land
would be worth a fortune if that fact ever became known. He was pretty
sure, after discovering that sub-cellar, that the Deacon had left his
papers down there when he went to California. By pounding on the walls
he had discovered one place which he was sure was hollow. If the stone
that covered the place could be removed by any trick he failed to
discover it and had to resort to digging it out with a pick. This, as we
already know, produced the dull thudding sound underground which had
frightened the household almost out of their wits. The reason he could
prowl around in the yard at night after they had set the dog to watch
was that Pointer knew him and made no disturbance upon seeing him.
Abner Smalley was marched off triumphantly by Dave Beeman, and was held
on such a complicated charge of house-breaking, arson, assault and
battery, and intimidating peaceful citizens, that it took the combined
efforts of the village to draw it up. Thus ended the great mystery which
had kept Onoway House in more or less of an uproar all summer.
“I never saw anything like the way we Winnebagos have of falling into
things,” said Sahwah. “Here Mr. Smalley made such elaborate efforts to
find that record, using up more energy and ingenuity than it would take
to dig up the whole farm and hunt for the gas well; and he didn’t find
it in the end; and all I did was drop in on top of it without even
suspecting its existence.”
“There must be a special destiny that guides us,” said Migwan. “Perhaps
we possess an enchanted goblet, like the ‘Luck of Edenhall,’ only it’s
‘The Luck of the Winnebagos.’”
“Cheer for the ‘Luck of the Winnebagos,’” said Sahwah, who never lost an
occasion to raise a cheer on any pretext. And at that Sahwah never
dreamed of the extent of the good fortune she had brought the Bartletts
by her lucky tumble. The vein of gas which was struck when they
subsequently drilled proved a sensation even in that notable gas region
and made millionaires of its owners. And the reward which Sahwah
received for finding the record, and that which the others received
“just for living,” as Migwan expressed it—for though they had not found
the sub-cellar themselves it was due to their game that Sahwah had found
it—drove the memory of their fright from their heads. But we are getting
a little ahead of our story. There is one more chapter yet to the Luck
of the Winnebagos before that remarkable summer came to an end.
After the departure of Abner Smalley things grew so quiet at Onoway
House that Migwan, who had declared before that she would be a wreck if
the excitement did not cease soon, was now complaining that things
seemed flat and she wished the mystery hadn’t been cleared up because it
robbed them of their chief topic of conversation.
“Well, I’m going to take advantage of the quiet atmosphere and
straighten out my bureau drawers,” said Nyoda. “I haven’t been able to
put my mind to it with all this excitement going on. And they’re a sight
since you girls went rummaging for things for the Thieves’ Market.” In
doing this she came upon that strange creation of Uncle Peter’s brain,
the plan for the “Wasted Minute Saving Machine.” She showed it to the
girls and they examined it wonderingly.
“What is this on the other side?” asked Migwan. “It’s a will!” she
cried, reading it through. “It says, ‘I, Adam Smalley, give and
bequeathe my farm on the Centerville Road to my son Jim, as Abner has
already had his share in cash.’”
“Let me see!” cried Calvin. “It’s the latest one!” he shouted, reading
the date. “It’s dated 1902 and the one Uncle Abner found was 1900. The
farm is mine after all! Uncle Peter had this will in his possession and
didn’t know it! How can I thank you girls for what you’ve done for me?”
“It was all Migwan’s fault,” said Hinpoha. “She insisted upon going to
see whether the old man was all right after the storm.”
Migwan declared that she had had nothing to do with it; it was the Luck
of the Winnebagos that had given her the inspiration. But Calvin knew
well that in this case the Luck of the Winnebagos was only Migwan’s own
thoughtfulness.