HARVEST TIME
NO one said a single word for the better part of a minute, after Toby
had made this astonishing statement. They continued to exchange uneasy
looks, and then cast furtive glances up toward the particular window at
which Toby had been pointing his trembling finger.
It was however excitement, not fear, that made Toby shiver; for after
all he was the first to break the sombre silence, and then it was to
make a proposition.
"Let's go back up there, and take a turn around," he said, eagerly;
"mebbe we did miss some room, and after all there's somebody ahidin' in
the blooming haunted house. What d'ye say, fellows?"
"I'm on!" replied one of them before Toby had really finished speaking;
and of course it was Chatz who agreed so readily.
Elmer immediately made a move that announced his readiness to do what
the first discoverer of the ghost proposed; Ted and Toby followed suit;
and finally George, shrugging his shoulders as though he considered it
all folly, came tagging along at their heels grunting to himself.
In this fashion they entered the house, and immediately passed up to the
second floor, looking curiously about them again. Nothing was in sight,
not even a trespassing bat, for the little creatures had all been
alarmed when the boys made their first entry, and flown through various
openings into the outer air.
"Now be sure you pick out the right window, Toby," warned Chatz.
"I counted 'em from the outside," replied the other, with a
business-like air, "and it was exactly the seventh from the end; and
here she is. Everybody count and see for yourselves."
"That's all right," remarked George, triumphantly; "but suppose you show
us your old ghost, Toby."
"Never said it was one," protested the other, as he looked about in a
puzzled manner; "what I did remark, and I stand back of it still, was
that if ever there was such a thing as a spook in this world that must
have been one."
George sniffed contemptuously.
"Go on and poke him out, then; I want to be shown, if I ain't from
Missouri!" he told Toby, who turned his back on him.
"Well, there doesn't seem to be anything here, Toby, for a fact," said
Elmer, as he looked carefully around, up and down, on the floor, and
along the hall.
"It's disappeared, as sure as shooting, Elmer," admitted the pilot of
the ghost-hunting expedition; "but I give you my affidavy that I did see
a face, a white one at that, though it flipped out of sight before I
could grab a second look."
"Beats the Dutch what an _imagination_ some fellows have got," grumbled
George.
"I tell you I did see something, George!" repeated Toby, firmly.
"Sure, you might have done that," agreed the other, cheerfully; "but
it's my honest opinion that it might have been just a little flash of
sunlight on a window pane. I've known such a thing to startle me more'n
once. And when you shifted your head, why, you got out of focus, and the
thing disappeared as you say, like a wreath of smoke. Now, I'm one of
the kind that likes to look deep into things; and I never let a mystery
grip me. Make up your mind, Toby, that it was something like I'm telling
you, and let it go at that."
Toby did not answer. Truth to tell he did not know what to say, for
while he still firmly believed he had seen a human face at the window
there was nothing around by means of which he could prove it.
He went to the window and looked out.
"Anyhow," he remarked, disconsolately, "even if I was fooled by
something, it sure wasn't the sun, because it never strikes this side of
the house after noontime; and look at the heavy trees shading it, will
you? I give the thing up, and yet I'd like to take a look over this
floor."
"Suppose we start in and do it, then?" remarked Elmer, quietly.
Even George accompanied them, though he continued to look superior, and
allowed a skeptical expression to appear on his face. Possibly, in
spite of his avowed disbelief in ghosts, George did not really care to
be left alone in that house; his valor might all be on the surface.
Nothing was found, and Toby finally admitted that it seemed useless
wasting any more time prowling around.
"But I'll always believe I did see something," he avowed, as they
started out of the building again; "and if we come up here to camp
during the Thanksgiving holidays we ought to look into this business
closer. P'raps something might show up in the night time that'd be worth
seeing."
"Do you really think so, Toby?" exclaimed Chatz, with rapture, as though
even the mention of it gave him secret delight.
"Rats!" sneered the unconvinced George.
They had gone only a little way from the house when Elmer called a halt.
"Just wait for me a few minutes, boys," he said; "or, if you feel like
it, fetch the wagon around to load up our sacks of nuts."
With these words he turned and went straight back into the house. The
others exchanged looks, but did not say anything, though they must have
thought this queer on the part of the scout master. But then Elmer was a
privileged character, and often did things that mystified his chums,
explaining later on, to their complete satisfaction. Perhaps he may have
dropped something up there on that second floor, or else conceived a
sudden idea which caused him to return for another look around.
"Might as well get loaded up, as hang around here any longer?" suggested
Toby.
"I think the same," added George, "for there's no telling who'll be
seeing all sorts of queer things next. Must be in the air. Once that
sort of thing begins to get around, and it takes a solid mind to ward it
off. Never bothers _me_, though."
"I'll bring the horse up," suggested Toby, with a grin; for in spite of
finding himself the target for these shafts of ridicule on the part of
the scoffer, Toby dearly loved to hear George offering objections.
"Guess you'd better, because Nancy knows you more'n she does any of the
rest of us; and a hoss is a rantankerous creature," said Chatz.
"Particularly a mare," added Toby, as he hurried away; but they noticed
that he cast many side glances at the surrounding dense foliage as he
went in the direction of the spot where they had left Nancy and the
wagon when approaching the grove of nut trees, as though he did not
wholly fancy finding himself alone amidst such weird surroundings.
Once the wagon was brought up it did not take the scouts long to get all
the sacks of nuts loaded. When they saw what a splendid showing the
collection made it caused a fresh outbreak of congratulations all
around.
"There never was such a grand lot of nuts brought into town from the day
the first cabin was built away back!" declared George, who could not
see any reason to throw cold water on this positive fact, with the
evidence plainly before him.
"That's what comes of having an idea," remarked Toby, proudly; "if I
hadn't engineered this plan we might have spent a hard day in the woods,
and only brought home a single bag to show for it. Just look at that
wholesale lot, will you?"
"Yeth, and we're all ready to thay you did it with your little hatchet,
Toby; it taketh you to hatch up plans, thure it doeth," admitted Ted.
"Wonder what's keeping Elmer?" Chatz observed, as he turned to look
toward the house, glimpses of which they could catch through small
openings in the dense growth of trees; to immediately add: "there he
comes right now."
"Hope he found what he was looking for," George ventured, and nothing
further was said in regard to the matter.
Elmer quickly joined them. Chatz looked keenly at his face, and fancied
that he could detect something like a faint smile there; but even if the
scout master had made any sort of discovery on his last visit to the
haunted house, he did not seem ready to take his chums into his
confidence.
"Well, that looks like something, boys," he remarked, as he surveyed the
great load of filled bags that occupied nearly every bit of space in the
wagon bed.
"Oh! we believe in doing a wholesale business when we get started,"
laughed Toby; "the only thing that's bothering me is where Chatz, Ted
and George can find room to sit. Guess they'll have to fix it so as to
stretch out on top of our load."
"Ted can crowd in with the two of us on the front seat, if he wants,"
explained Elmer; "and if somebody gives me a hand we'll soon arrange a
place for the other seat back here on top of these four partly filled
sacks."
"Consolation prizes, you mean!" muttered George, who did not exactly
like the idea of their going to all the trouble of carrying the extra
sacks home just to drop them in the yards of the members of the Mallon
crowd; George was inclined to be proud, and it seemed to smack too much
of pulling "chestnuts out of the fire" for others.
"Well, after all, suh, they worked hard enough to knock those nuts down
to be entitled to a share," Chatz remarked, that fine Southern sense of
justice cropping up again, despite his dislike for Connie Mallon and all
those who trained in his camp.
"Not to speak of the bruises and black eyes some of them must have
picked up when they conducted that masterly retreat," Elmer added; "I'll
never forget that panic; for I don't believe I ever saw fellows more
frightened than they were."
"Well, do you blame them?" asked Ted; "if I got it in my head that bunch
of ghosth had it in for me on account of my breaking in on their haunt
I'd run like a whitehead too, and thatth right."
"I'd like to see Connie's face when he discovers that sack of nuts in
his yard to-morrow A. M.," George continued, actually pursing up his
lips in a smile, something he was seldom guilty of.
"Reckon he'll think it rained down in the night," chuckled Chatz.
"More'n likely he'll begin to believe he's only been dreaming that these
things happened, and that he did fetch the nuts home with him, after
all," Toby volunteered.
"But when the other counties are heard from, and they all compare notes,
won't they get on to the game then?" George asked.
"How about that, Elmer?" Toby inquired, turning to the scout master.
"I don't see how they can help but figure it out as it stands," came the
reply.
"That is, they'll guess we fetched back their bags for 'em, and not
wanting to turn the same over empty, just chucked a lot of nuts in to
make 'em stand up," and George as he said this looked as consequential
as though he had solved some great problem.
"All I'm afraid of," resumed Toby, "is they'll get the idea in their
dense heads that we're only doing this because of fear; that is, we're
offering a bribe, hoping they'll forgive us for frightening them, and
won't hold us to a reckoning. I don't like knuckling down that way. I
wish we thought to put a note in each sack telling them we only turned
these nuts over because we had more than we could use ourselves, and
thought they'd worked hard enough to earn some."
Elmer, however, shook his head.
"That wouldn't be worth while trying!" he declared. "I think it'd only
make them more bitter against us. The best way to do is just to leave
the bags in their yards, and say nothing. If they ever ask us why we did
it, let's say we thought it only fair they should have some of the
proceeds of the raid on the Cartaret grove, because they worked hard
enough for it. If they want to make trouble after that why we'll have to
accommodate them, that's all."
That settled the matter. When Elmer clinched an argument he seldom left
any ground for the others to stand on; and in this case all of the boys
seemed to be satisfied to let him do as he proposed, though several
privately disliked the idea of carrying that additional weight back
home, just to turn over to that turbulent, trouble-making crowd.
"There's nothing more to keep us here, seems like," suggested George;
"so what do you say to going home?"
"It's time," admitted Chatz, "and if Nancy is able to draw such a heavy
load, we ought to get there before dark, which comes along about five,
these November days."
"It's mostly down-grade," Toby went on to say, as he climbed to his
seat, and took up the lines; "besides, I told you the animal needed a
good haul to take some of that extra spirit out of her. All aboard,
fellows; those who can't get a board find a rail. Homeward bound, and
with the greatest load of bouncing big nuts ever harvested along Hickory
Ridge."
They were a merry lot as they found places on the wagon.
"Hope Nancy behaves herself going home," George remarked, as he tried to
fix himself firmly in his seat; "if she took a notion to cut up all of a
sudden where d'ye think we'd land back here, with the wagon so full?"
"Plenty of room on the road, George; and believe me you wouldn't have to
question where you'd dropped, because it'd be a convincing argument,"
Elmer told him.
So they started, and all of them turned to take a last look in the
direction of the haunted house, as they caught a glimpse of it through
the trees.
"Good-bye old ghost!" cried Toby, waving the hand that did not hold the
reins; "we'll come again and interview you, mebbe. Take care of
yourself, and don't play any mad pranks while we're away."
As they rode off, making their way among the trees, and heading for the
vicinity of the road, Chatz turned to Ted, who was sitting in the middle
again, having decided to cast his fortunes with the comrades of the rear
seat, and remarked in what he meant to be a low tone:
"I'd give something to know, suh, whether Elmer _did_ find out about
that _thing_ when he went back into the old house again!" but Ted only
shook his head in reply, as though the subject was too deep for him, or
else he believed Elmer would take them all into his confidence when he
saw fit to do so.