A “Mystery” is not healthful for any one; even when the secret
originates in brains as youthful as Octave’s; and though it did not
solve the problem for the household, yet the visit of Miss Kinsolving
had somewhat the effect of a thunder-storm upon a murky atmosphere.
Certainly, after her few words of apology and approbation to Paula,
that painstaking girl felt too happy to pay any further attention to
the vagaries of the “conspirators,” Melville and Octave; Content had
her thoughts drawn from it by the arrival of fresh letters and parcels
from Japan; Christina was deep in some new volumes of old-time fairy
tales, which her aunt had substituted for Luke’s story papers; and
little Fritz lived mostly out of doors.
So if the “Mystery” did not die, the interest of those not immediately
connected with it did die; and The Snuggery, for several consecutive
days, appeared as the abode of perfect peacefulness.
“There is somethin’ boun’ ter happen!” said Rosetta to Abraham.
“Whenever them young ones is still a minute it’s ’cause they’re
a-hatchin’ out fresh monkey-shines. They hain’t any on ’em done nothin’
out o’ the beaten track this week er more. Not since Miss Ruth was to
home.”
“Wall, I shouldn’t think ye’d hanker to hev ’em step off the ‘beaten
track,’ as ye tell about. I’ve noticed that when they does step off
they mostly steps a good pace. There was Octavy, now, who’d ever thort
of a gal a-turnin’ a hull hay-riggin’ over on top of her; but she done
it an’ come out purty near as good as ever. Reckon she is--jest as well
as she was afore, an’ ’pears ter be gettin’ as plump as a pa’tridge.
But Pauly, she don’t never seem to get inter no scrapes, like the rest
on ’em.”
“Humph!” retorted Rosetta, drawing off the yellow buttermilk for
Abraham to carry away to the pigs. “She got inter one the very fust
night she arriv’. She scairt the life clean out o’ poor Mis’ Capers,
but you seem ter fergit thet.”
“I hain’t bed no chance ter fergit it, bein’s ye keep talkin’ ’bout
it. But don’t ye worry; this here Sunday-meetin’ sort of doin’s ain’t
a-goin’ ter last long enough ter hurt us. My! but that buttermilk is
rich!” And, wiping his lips on his shirt-sleeve, the farmer walked away
stywards.
It is rarely safe to prophesy evil. It seemed as if the very mention of
“scrapes” was enough, in that household, to induce one.
All summer long the pigs, which were the pride of Abraham’s heart, had
been allowed to run about in some fields, and get their living pretty
much as they would have done in a native state. But haying was over,
and the good man had more time to devote to his “stawk” than he had had
during that busy season just past. It appeared to him time to begin
“fattenin’,” and that very day he had driven the pigs into a nearby
enclosure, intending to shut them into their pens at night and feed
them there.
For that purpose he had collected all the buttermilk Rosetta had to
spare, and, walking noiselessly along over the grass-grown path, he
raised the pail to the top of the high, board fence above the trough
and emptied the contents in one mighty swish.
Though his eyes had been diverted by the gambols of some kittens in
a tree, his feet had “almost gone theirselves” over the familiar way
which led to the “fattening” quarters of many pigs departed long since,
and it was an almost mechanical motion which had emptied the pail.
There was nothing mechanical, however, about the yells and shrieks
which followed, nor in the tremendous jump which Abraham’s long limbs
made backwards. The startled man stumbled over a milking-stool which
he had also brought along, and landed beneath the kittens’ tree with a
thud which sent them shying still farther upwards.
Then two heads appeared over the sty-wall, and two very red and angry
faces gleamed from amid a flood of thick and clinging buttermilk.
“By the jingo!” cried Luke, in the accents of a story-paper hero. But
his feelings were not at all story-paper-like, nor his further language
that which would have been most approved.
“What in the name of apple-sass be ye a-doin’ thar?” demanded Abraham,
as soon as he had picked himself up, and recognized the drenched
persons as Luke and little Fritz.
“Why can’t ye mind yer own business?” retorted the angry Luke.
“I was. I was a-feedin’ the pigs--an’ if so be that ye belongs amongst
’em, all right. Ye’ve had yer supper.” And chuckling quietly to
himself, the busy man stalked off, leaving his victims to recover their
tempers and their cleanliness at their leisure.
“Jest as I was a tellin’ ye, Rosetty, ye needn’t ha’ worrited. Some
kinks was a-boun’ ter happen. Thar was that lazy houn’, Luke, a settin’
in the pig-sty, an’ Fritzy alongside on him. I doused ’em both with
buttermilk, an’ on your ’count I’m sorry, ’cause I s’pose ye’ll hev the
youngun ter clean. But I ain’t sorry noways elst. I s’picioned that boy
of mine was a readin’ them air yarns ter Fritzy, ’cause the little chap
he’s full of the oddest kind o’ sayin’s ye ever heerd; an’ now I’ve
kotched him. You lay it down, Luke Tewkskury won’t git no great chanst
in the futur’ ter waste Mis’ Kinsolving’s time a readin’ trash, not
whilst I’m his daddy! If he wants ter be sentimental, I’ll gin him a
chanst ter be, a-plowin’ that ten-acre lot.”
This was all quite true, as Abraham had surmised. The disused
pig-sty, shady and grass-grown, had formed a capital and unsuspected
hiding-place for the fiction-loving Luke to while away an hour of time,
nor did he know that it was so soon to be occupied by its natural
tenants; and after Christina’s refusal to read any more of his exciting
tales, he had turned to Fritz for sympathy, filling that youngster’s
mind with the strangest muddle of stuff which ever floated through a
little brain.
Fortunately, but a fraction of all he heard was comprehended, and a
smaller fraction yet it was which remained to puzzle and excite the
always excitable and, till now, carefully reared child.
A tiny seed of evil stayed,--so small that no one would have dreamed it
could ever have worked him ill. It was the idea of “ghosts.” Not ghosts
as they are usually considered, nor at all as they appeared to the
impressible soul of Luke. A “ghost,” young Tewksbury would no sooner
have tackled than a regiment of soldiers, and his own predilection was
for “burglars.” Had he known it, “ghosts” and “burglars” meant, to
Fritz, one and the same thing; and both he and his instructor longed
for a chance to show their prowess and “have a fight with one.” Luke
felt himself a hero of the deepest dye, and what Fritz thought of his
own capacity to meet any and every emergency can be imagined.
Both were to have an opportunity of proving their own merits, and it
came speedily on the heels of that buttermilk episode.
Luke slept in the house, though his father lodged at their own cottage,
some little distance away. Sometimes Fritz was allowed to share Luke’s
pleasant apartment, especially when there was a hunting trip in
contemplation; for, young as he was, it had been one of Uncle Fritz’s
requests that the little boy should be allowed the use of fire-arms,
believing, it may be wisely, that if one is early trained to them,
there is less danger of accident than when left to find out their use
by lonely experiment. Luke was a “crack shot,” and game on the mountain
was abundant. Fritz had already won a fair record,--for “going on
nine,”--and he was ambitious of further achievements.
The lads, big and little, went to bed, and soon to sleep; Fritz’s small
rifle and Luke’s pistol lying ready at hand against an early waking.
But visions of white, drenching floods, burglars, and ghosts mingled
with little Fritz’s dreams; induced in great measure by an unusually
bountiful supper which Rosetta had given him as a consolation for his
accident, and partly by their having sat up quite late to finish a most
thrilling tale and to taste of a lunch which had been put up for their
out-of-door breakfast.
“If we eat it over-night, we’ll make sure of it,” said Luke,
facetiously. He was always hungry, and Fritz was not to be outdone in
that or any other matter by any big boy living. So he ate as long as
he could, and then he dreamed as fast as he could; and in the midst of
both, it always afterwards seemed to him, he had sat up in bed and seen
Luke at the window, looking out with a very mysterious air.
“What is it, Lukey?”
“Whis-st! Bu-ur-gla-rs!”
Fritz could almost hear Luke’s teeth chatter.
“Cracky! I bet he’s afraid! Abry-ham said he would be, if a real one
came to town. I ain’t, though. I’m a gentleman. Gentlemen ain’t never
afraid of nothin’. Pooh! I’ll show him!”
Creeping so softly out of bed in his bare feet that his companion did
not hear him, he seized his little rifle and cautiously crept to the
other open window.
On the grass below, a white figure was moving slowly about, in a vague
sort of fashion, which, had either protector of the defenceless been
wiser, he would have known belonged neither to any burglar nor ghost
which ever troubled the repose of the peaceful.
Luke’s own weapon was poised, but he was so nervous and intensely
excited that he delayed to fire; else would the tragedy have been
great. But while he paused to steady himself, crack went the other
rifle, and down dropped the “ghost.”
Then and there arose such shrieks and screams as no burglar or
disembodied spirit ever uttered, and which drove Luke in despair to
hide his head beneath the bed-clothes, and Fritz to stand and gaze with
rueful, half-dazed wonder upon one--two--three--a whole yard full of
ghosts!