It was unlike any sound the girls had ever heard back at the Cove,
almost like a human being in distress and yet like some animal cry too.
“It’s a fox,” whispered Astrid, getting nearer to her big sister.
“No, it isn’t,” said Abby. “That’s a deer. They always yell like that
when there’s a full moon.”
“It was right near, I think, right outside.” Kit sat up, eager and
tense. “Shall I flash the light, Jean?”
“Not yet. Wait until it comes again. I think it was only some night
bird.”
So they waited breathlessly. Every tiny creaking noise in the old house
was intensified by the heavy silence. Jean rose and went to the window.
The moon was not up yet, and it was hard to distinguish objects, but
down in the garden she thought she saw something that looked like a cow
lying down.
“I can’t tell just what it is. It may be only a stray cow or horse,” she
said softly.
“Throw something at it,” suggested Kit hopefully. “Let’s all throw
something.”
“Just to see whether it jumps or not,” Astrid assented. She hunted
around and found some loose half bricks in the chimney place.
“Where’s Tip? He hasn’t barked once,” remarked Abby.
“Dogs are always frightened when they see ghosts. Let me fire away at it
first.” Astrid took aim and the half brick flew down at the dark thing
with a deadly thud, but there was no stampede. She leaned far out the
window, staring at it anxiously. “It seems to me I can see it move and
it has horns and a sort of woolly tail, kids.”
“Sounds like a yak,” Kit chuckled. “I’m willing to do this much. I’ll go
to the door and open it, and you girls stay here with bricks to throw,
and when I flash the light on it, if it jumps you can save me.”
But before she could carry out the plan the sound came again, longer and
more thrillingly penetrating than before. It was a wail and a challenge
and a moan all in one, not just one cry, but a prolonged succession of
them. As soon as it stopped Sally exclaimed, “Now I know. That’s an owl
and it comes from the little attic over the ell where we couldn’t climb
because there weren’t any stairs. Remember?”
“Sure, Sally?” Etoile’s tone was almost trembling. “Never have I heard
such a cry.”
“Oh, I have. It’s an owl, I know it is, one of those big ones. Riding
through the woods at night coming home from town I’ve been half scared
to death by one of them. Sounds like seventeen ghosts all rolled into
one. Come along, Kit, you and I’ll go hunt it up.”
The rest followed gingerly, a strange procession bearing candles, Kit
leading with the flashlight. Tip stumbled up drowsily from the kitchen
and barked at them.
“Oh, yes, it’s all very well for you to bark now,” laughed Jean. “Why
didn’t you go after that noise?”
They reached the ell room and found a trapdoor in the ceiling. Abby
remembered seeing a ladder out in the back entry behind the door, and
this was brought in.
“And see this, kids,” she exclaimed, running her finger over it. “No
dust on the rounds. That shows it’s been used lately.”
“Aren’t we the smart ones? Abby, I love the way you never miss
anything.” Kit leaned the ladder up against the wall and mounted it,
with Sally close behind and the other girls at its base. “What if it
shouldn’t be an owl—”
She stopped with her palm against the trapdoor. Raising it about an inch
she flashed the light, and there was a great fluttering overhead.
“What did I tell you!” Sally cried excitedly. “Do it again, Kit. It
can’t hurt you and the light blinds it.”
So the trapdoor was lifted again with the light of the flashlight turned
on full, and Kit cautiously pulled herself up into the opening. It was
tent-shaped and low, not more than four feet at its highest. But instead
of being bare like the rest of the old house, there were certainly
evidences that someone had been there. There was a tin can filled with
fresh water, and a strip of rag carpet laid down on the floor. A box of
fish hooks and neatly rolled lines lay on one side, and there was a
small frying pan and a knife and fork. Rolled up in one corner was a
pair of old overalls, and some books much the worse for wear lay beside
them. Kit’s glance took in everything, and last of all, backed into a
corner and blinking hard, was the ghost itself—a big white owl.
Sally pulled herself up too, and reached out after the books gently so
as not to frighten the owl any more. With a couple in her hand, they
lowered the door again, and joined the others.
“It’s an owl and a hermit’s nest,” Kit told them excitedly. “Open the
books, Sally, is there any name inside?”
Sally read off the titles, “_Treasure Island_ and _David Copperfield_!
He’s got a nice collection, hasn’t he, whoever he is? There isn’t any
name inside, though.”
“Well, there was certainly fresh water in that tin,” Kit said
positively, “and that shows the haunted house is inhabited by something
tangible, I mean something besides the owl. Let’s go to bed very calmly
and sleep. I’m sure we’ve laid the ghost.”
Evidently they had, for the rest of the night was peaceful and safe
except for the owl crying out lonesomely at intervals until about four
o’clock, when the dawn came. Rolled in their blankets, the girls slept
soundly until the sunlight threw broad golden beams into their quarters.
There was no rope on the windlass at the well, so Ingeborg proposed that
they go down to the river and wash there. It was lots of fun. They found
that the dark and fearsome object they had heaved bricks at the night
before was only a big gray rock half sunken in the ground.
Along the river margin turtles sunned themselves in rows on the
half-submerged logs, and a muskrat scuttled clumsily for cover at sight
of the invaders.
“I wish we could go right in,” said Jean, looking up and down the
winding course of the river as she parted the alders, “but it isn’t
really safe when you don’t know the water. This looks full of unexpected
holes and snags. Where does it run to?”
“Down past the two mills, and rises away up in the Quinnebaug Hills,”
Sally told her, kneeling on a flat rock and splashing herself well. “Did
you see that black snake slither out of the way then? They’re awful
cowards. Yes, Jean, this comes from Judge Ellis’ place about two miles
beyond here, three and a half by road.”
“Judge Ellis? Billie’s grandfather?”
“You talk just as if you knew him already, Doris.”
“Well, I feel as if I do, after all Rebecca has told us about him. And
when I do meet him, I’m going to make him my friend.”
“Who? The Judge?”
“No. This Billie person. Or I’ll take him home to Tommy—Tommy would be
crazy about him.”
“Hey! Look what I found,” Kit called out. “Here are some fishing poles
hidden in the bushes. Know what? There must be some boys around.”
All at once upstream they heard somebody whistling. At first it sounded
almost like a bird trilling high and clear, but then it suddenly changed
to boogie-woogie. The girls sat there on the bank, sheltered from view
by the alders, and waited until a flat-bottomed rowboat came into view.
Standing at the stern, one bare foot on the back seat and one on the
cross seat, with a long punting pole in his hands, was a boy of about
fifteen. He looked exactly like Huckleberry Finn, his head protected
from the sun by a limp straw hat and his tattered overalls rolled above
his knees.
Whistling recklessly, sure of himself and the solitude, he came down the
river and guided the boat to shore near where the girls sat scrutinizing
him. He hauled it up halfway out of the water, dropped the pole into it,
and started up the bank before he caught sight of them.
“That’s Billie Ellis,” Sally said quickly and waved her hand to him.
“Hi, Billie.”
“Hi,” Billie returned. “Where’d you come from?”
“Out of the blue,” Doris spoke up merrily. “Got some fish for
breakfast?”
Billie hesitated, trying to appear nonchalant, but plainly very much
rattled by these girls who had invaded his domain. He rolled down his
overalls very slowly and deliberately to gain time, and this gave the
others, particularly Doris, a chance to see just what he looked like. He
was quite tall, with crew-cut hair of a rather nondescript color, and
big brown eyes that were startlingly frank and uncompromising. He was
tanned a nice healthy brown, and his smile was eagerly friendly.
Altogether, the Craigs approved of Billie at sight. To the others he was
more or less familiar, even though none of them knew him well.
“Where you all going?” he asked.
“Just walking over the country,” Abby told him. “Where are you going,
Billie?”
Billie flushed at this direct question. “Oh, I don’t know,” he answered
lamely. “I come down the river a lot.”
“We fed the owl,” Doris said innocently. “Just some bread and ham. I
suppose it thought it was a new kind of mouse.”
Billie glared at her with quick indignation. They had not been satisfied
with finding out his landing place and swimming hole. They had gone into
the old house and discovered his secret den and the big white owl. He
had always regarded girls as semi-dangerous, but this was worse than
even he had expected. He turned to Sally as the one in the crowd that he
knew best.
“What did you go into the house for?”
“To stay the night,” Sally answered promptly. “The door was open and we
went in. If people don’t want company they should keep their doors
locked. Anyhow, nobody lives here and we didn’t hurt anything. We wanted
to see the ghost.”
Billie grinned at this admission, a quick mischievous grin that made his
whole face light up and seem to sparkle with fun.
“Did he come up and rattle his chains for you?”
“No, he didn’t, and I’ll bet he never did for anybody else.”
“Maybe not,” Billie agreed blandly. “How far up the river are you
going?”
“To Mount Ponchas.”
“That’s only seven and a half miles. You can go along up the hill road
from here, and when you come to the state road that has telegraph poles
on it, you turn off and go west. It’s three hills over and you pass
through one village, Shiloh Valley. When you come to Ponchas don’t
forget to look for the grave of the Cavalier.”
“Where’s that?” asked Doris. “We haven’t heard of it at all.”
This was touching Billie’s heart in the right spot. He knew every acre
of land for miles around Elmhurst and was especially interested in its
historic lore. The girls did not know it then, but life was quite dull
over at the Judge’s place. There were only the Judge; Mrs. Gorham, his
housekeeper; Farley Riggs, his general business man; and Ben Brooks, the
hired man. They were an unsympathetic household for a boy of fifteen,
especially one who had been unwelcome; but he had made friends with Ben
and had found him a treasure house of information.
There might be other sections of importance in the United States besides
Elmhurst, Connecticut, but Ben held them in slight esteem. He had been
born and brought up there and had never even wanted to go away. He was
about forty when Billie first came, genial, optimistic, rather
good-looking, and an insatiable reader.
Next to roaming over the country, Billie liked best to sit up in Ben’s
room, looking at his books and magazines and listening to him talk on
current topics and historic events. No subject was too intricate for Ben
to tackle. No government ever evaded him when it came to diplomatic
tricks or ways. He was on to them all, he told Billie.
It had been Ben who had first told Billie about the mysterious stranger
who had come to Elmhurst back in the pioneer days. The colonists had
suffered much from Indian raids until there came into their midst a man
whom they called the Cavalier. With his Negro servant, he had lived
among them and taught them defense against their savage enemies, taught
them the best way to win over the soil and reclaim the wilderness. Yet
when he died they knew no more of him than on the first day when he rode
into their village. His grave lay over on the south side of Mount
Ponchas where he had wished it to be, near a rock where he had often
held council with the Indians.
“Be sure to see it when you get there,” Billie advised. “I wish I was
going along with you.”
“Come over to our place, won’t you, Billie?” Doris asked in her most
neighborly way. “I’d like to ask you about some arrowheads we found.
Will you?”
Billie nodded his head nonchalantly. It was like giving a bird an
invitation to call on you, or handing your card to a rabbit. But he
watched them as they went up the hill road from the river, and when
Doris turned and waved, he waved back. At least he was interested in his
trespassers, even though he could not quite forgive them for having
discovered his pet hiding place.
18. Kit and Buzzy Devise
a Scheme
It was noon before they reached Ponchas, although they might have gone
ever so much faster if every new flower by the way had not coaxed them
to linger. They camped at the base to eat their lunch and then Kit and
Ingeborg went hunting the Cavalier’s grave. It was Hedda who found it
when she brought water from the spring house that had been built over a
live spring gushing out at the base of the rock. Near by was a heap of
gray moss-covered rock piled into a cairn, with a rugged rock cross at
the head. On it were cut out the words:
He succored us
The Cavalier
1679
“Well, I do think they might have told us more than that,” Jean said,
when the others came to look at it. “Perhaps, though, this would have
pleased him better.”
They stood for a few moments gazing at the quiet resting place,
wondering what the Cavalier’s real story was.
“I think his servant could have told us if he had wanted to,” Etoile
said wisely. “I’ll ask my dad about him. He knows many of the old
stories of the places around here. He came here from Canada when he was
a very little boy. There were wolves around in the wintertime, and the
spring came earlier then. He has found arbutus as early as the first
week in March.”
When they started back they sang along the road, first the songs that
all of them knew, and then Hedda sang two strange Icelandic songs her
mother had taught her, lullabies with a low minor strain running through
them. She had a strong, sweet voice, and sang with much feeling.
After hearing the other girls Jean said they ought to have a glee club,
even if they met only once a month.
“Just for music. Mom told me that music is the universal language that
everyone understands. Let’s meet at our house next week, and we can
start learning the folk songs of other countries. Etoile can teach us
French songs, Ingeborg and Astrid the Swedish ones, and Hedda the songs
of Iceland. We could learn a great deal that way and enjoy ourselves at
the same time.”
“I think we ought to meet somewhere else, not all the time at your
house, Jean,” Etoile demurred in her courteous French way. “We would
love to have you come any time.”
“Then we will come, won’t we, girls?” Jean said. “And Lucy will enjoy
that because she can sing too, and it will be near home for her.”
But the next few weeks were filled with home activities and it was hard
to squeeze in time for all that they had outlined. There were berries to
can and preserve, and Ralph McRae prolonged his stay, but only on one
condition—that he be allowed to take hold of the farm, with Buzzy’s
help, and manage the haying and cultivating for them.
“I had no idea a man could be so handy,” Jean declared. “He’s mended the
sink, and he’s burned up the rubbish at the end of the lane, and he put
new roofing on the hen houses, and he even climbed into the big elm and
put up Doris’ swing for her.”
Kit smiled to herself at this, for secretly she thought Ralph McRae was
just right for Jean. And she, too, liked him enormously, he was like the
big brother she’d always wanted. She resolved to talk it over with
Buzzy, who had become her fast friend, and see if together they could
work out some scheme.
“He’s very capable,” Kit agreed. “I think by the time he goes we will
have everything on the place mended and repaired.”
“He’s a good doctor too,” replied Jean. “Dad’s been so much better since
he came. I wish when he goes back to Saskatoon that he’d take Buzzy with
him. He’s got his heart set on going West.”
“Yes,” agreed Kit, “it would be wonderful for Buzzy. Not having a father
he should have the companionship of an older man.”
“What do you mean ‘an older man’?” said Jean indignantly. “To listen to
you, a person would think Ralph was a decrepit old man of thirty-five.
He’s only twenty-four.”
“How do you know how old he is? Did you ask him?”
“No. Becky told me. And I don’t think that’s old at all.”
It took three days to cut the hay, even with the girls and Tommy helping
Buzzy and Ralph. One morning when Buzzy and Kit were working together
apart from the others, Kit saw her opportunity to discuss her plan for
Jean. Buzzy regarded the idea disdainfully at first, but Kit seemed so
anxious he rather half-heartedly agreed to do what he could.
Buzzy had a brilliant if indefinite plan to offer. “Look, Kit,” he
began. “It’s almost certain that Mom will let me go back to Saskatoon
with Ralph. We’ve talked it over and Mother knows how much I want to
learn about ranching. Maybe when we get out there, you and Jean could
come out and visit us.”
“Wel-l,” Kit said dubiously, “it’s an awfully long way and the trip
would cost too much. Besides, he’s here now. Can’t you think of
something that would get results right away?”
“Gosh, what are you trying to do, marry her off or something?”
“Of course not, silly. What would I want to do that for? I’m going to
miss you, Buzzy,” she added irrelevantly.
“I won’t be leaving until the end of July, so don’t get mournful, yet.”
Later that day, Kit’s confidence in Buzzy was restored, when he came up
with a pail of spring water and remarked to Jean, “Say, if you go down
where Ralph’s cutting now, you’ll see a bobwhite’s nest and speckled
eggs. Don’t take any, though.” And Jean ran off to inspect the nest. “Is
that what you meant, Kit?” he said, after Jean had gone.
“You’re getting the idea.”
Ralph was almost finished cutting the hay when Jean ran up. “Buzzy said
you found a bird’s nest over here. I came to see it.”
“It’s over this way. Come on, I’ll show it to you,” Ralph said, taking
her hand.
“Gee,” said Jean, when he had pointed out the nest with the three
speckled eggs, “the country holds so many surprises. Where I used to
live we never saw things like this, except in the educational movies
they showed us at school. Even in the short time we’ve lived here, I’ve
learned so much about the outdoors. Why, now I can name the birds I hear
singing in the woods and recognize the wildflower plants even when
they’re not in bloom. It’s really amazing.”
“I know,” said Ralph, looking down at her and smiling. “Even I have
learned a good deal during my visit. It’s much different from the
prairies that I’m used to.”
“Really?” said Jean, returning his gaze. “Tell me what the country out
there is like. You haven’t said much about it, you know.”
So Ralph began telling her of his work on the ranch. “I wish you could
see it, Jeannie, it’s really beautiful, those rolling prairies and the
cattle roaming over the land.”
It was nearly time for supper, so the two walked back to the house
together, leaving the others to bring in the wagonload of hay. Ralph
went on to talk of other things and by the time they reached the house,
Jean felt as though she had known him a long, long time instead of only
a few short weeks.