CHASED BY A GHOST
Following the enemy chief’s imprisonment in Aunt Polly’s spare
bedchamber, I went to the old mill to tell Peg the exciting news and to
find out from him how things were at his end.
We certainly had our hands full. Plainly, there would be no more soap
peddling for the present. I was kind of disappointed in that, for we
had earned several dollars as assistant beautifiers. And it is always
pleasing to a boy to earn money.
I found my big chum on his stomach in the mill-yard weeds. The spy was
in the mill he told me.
“You can hear him if you sharpen your ears. He’s been thumping on the
mill wall all morning.”
“Queer,” I reflected, “that he should steal the talking frog before he
had located the hidden fortune.”
“He probably had his orders to steal it to-day.”
“Orders from young Gennor?”
“Of course.”
“Then why doesn’t he deliver the stolen frog at the hotel?”
“Give him time. The day’s young.”
I told the other about my bell-boy job.
“I bet it’s fun,” Peg grinned.
“I couldn’t have worked it so slick,” I said, “if I hadn’t gotten mixed
up in the soot.”
On the way to the hotel I met the Stricker gang.
“How’s Mr. Gallywiggle?” grinned Bid. “Is he still manufacturing beauty
soap?”
“I hope so,” I returned quickly, giving the questioner a cold eye. “For
you certainly need a pile of it.”
“Mr. Gallywiggle,” he recited, flourishing his hands, “the man who has
taken more warts from women’s noses than all of the talking machines in
the world. The man who——”
“How did you find out about it?” I cut in.
“Oh,” he laughed, winking at his companions, “I met old fuzzy-wuzzy
yesterday when I delivered Miss Prindle’s beauty letter to him at the
old mill.”
My eyes went narrowed in sudden suspicion. Then, as quickly, I told
myself that I was foolish to let myself be troubled by such thoughts.
The Strickers might have delivered the letter, but the letter itself
was no trick of theirs. It couldn’t be a trick, I concluded. For I had
seen the transformed dressmaker with my own eyes.
“Did you know,” grinned Bid, “that Douglas Fairbanks is in town?”
I kept shut. For I wasn’t going to bite on his old gag, whatever it
was.
“He’s here to sign up Miss Prindle,” the gang leader went on. “He wants
her to be his leading lady. Five hundred thousand dollars a year.
Better than pumping a sewing machine, hey? Oh, I tell you, your beauty
soap is wonderful stuff.”
“Beat it,” I scowled. “You can’t string me.”
“You’re awful smart, aren’t you?”
“I’m not bragging about it.”
The leader laughed and gave his companions another wink.
“We know something that you don’t know.”
“Haw! haw! haw!” went the gang. “Beauty soap. Haw! haw! haw!”
They didn’t know much I told myself, turning stiffly away.
While I was on bell-boy duty that afternoon a factory site committee
came to the hotel and waited restlessly in the lobby for more than an
hour. But Gennor, of course, failed to keep his appointment. Finally
they went away, muttering and wagging their heads.
Evening came.
“Whar’s he gone to?” inquired Uncle Sam, sort of puzzled-like, when
Gennor failed to appear on time at the supper table.
“Don’t you know?” I countered, acting innocent.
This brought a scowl into the thin face.
“If I knowed,” he snapped at me, “I wouldn’t be askin’, would I?”
It came eleven o’clock and the hotel was closed for the night. Thus
released, I got into my everyday clothes and beat it for the brick
house.
The shadows under the whispering pine trees seemed to crowd in on me as
I ran up the path. My heart was in my mouth, sort of. I had the feeling
that something was watching me—a hidden, formidable something. And on
the instant all of the stories that I had heard about Mr. Matson’s
ghost jumped helter-skelter through my mind.
I was trembling when I came to the porch. I ran for the door. And
finding it locked, I beat on the panels and cried to my companions to
let me in.
Footsteps sounded on the hall floor.
“It’s Jerry,” I cried.
“Just a minute,” said Scoop, fumbling with the key.
And now comes the part of my story that always gives Mother the
shivers!
There was a sound from behind. And wheeling, I got the scare of my
life. For coming at me out of the shadows was a white, vapory, gliding
thing, shaped like a man, yet without arms or legs.
I screeched and pounded. And every second that Scoop fumbled with the
lock the ghost glided closer and closer. Its invisible feet were now on
the porch steps. I could detect a pair of horrible, consuming eyes.
“I’ve been using the wrong key,” muttered the fumbler.
Well, I guess I would have jumped right through the door if it hadn’t
swung open.
I tumbled in a heap at my companion’s feet. Sort of clutching his legs
for protection.
“The ghost!” I screeched. “Shut it out—quick!”