Miss Howes, left to share with General Jackson the “sociability” of the
shed, watched that lantern with faint hope and strong anxiety. She
saw it bobbing like a gigantic firefly about the walls of the house,
stopping here and there and then hurrying on. Soon it passed around the
further corner and disappeared altogether. The wind howled, the rain
poured, General Jackson stamped and splashed, and Emily shivered.
At last, just as the watcher had begun to think some serious accident
had happened to her courageous relative and was considering starting on
a relief expedition, the lantern reappeared.
“Emily!” screamed Mrs. Barnes. “Emily! Come here!”
Emily came, fighting her way against the wind. She found her cousin
standing by the corner of the house.
“I've got it,” cried Aunt Thankful, panting but triumphant. “I've
got it. One of the windows on the other side is unfastened, just as I
suspicioned it might be. I think one of us can get in if t'other helps.”
She seized the arm of her fellow castaway and together they turned the
corner, struggled on for a short distance and then stopped.
“This is the window,” gasped the widow. “Here, right abreast of us.
See!”
She held up the lantern. The window was “abreast” of them, but also it
was a trifle high.
“It ain't fastened,” shouted Thankful; she was obliged to shout in order
to be heard. “I could push it open a little mite from the bottom, but
I couldn't reach to get it up all the way. You can if I steady you, I
guess. Here! Put your foot on that box. I lugged it around from the back
yard on purpose.”
Standing on an empty and shaky cranberry crate and held there by the
strong arm of Mrs. Barnes, Emily managed to push up the lower half
of the window. The moment she let go of it, however, it fell with a
tremendous bang.
“One of the old-fashioned kind, you might know,” declared Thankful. “No
weights nor nothin'. We'll have to prop it up with a stick. You wait
where you are and I'll go get one. There's what's left of a woodpile out
back here; that's where that crate came from.”
She hastened away and was back in a moment with a stout stick. Emily
raised the window once more and placed the stick beneath it.
“There!” panted her companion. “We've got a gangway anyhow. Next thing
is to get aboard. You come down and give me a boost.”
But Emily declined.
“Of course I shan't do any such thing,” she declared, indignantly. “I
can climb through that window a great deal easier than you can, Auntie.
I'm ever so much younger. Just give me a push, that's all.”
Her cousin demurred. “I hate to have you do it,” she said. “For anybody
that ain't any too strong or well you've been through enough tonight.
Well, if you're so set on it. I presume likely you could make a better
job of climbin' than I could. It ain't my age that bothers me though,
it's my weight. All ready? Up you go! Humph! It's a mercy there ain't
anybody lookin' on. . . . There! all right, are you?”
Emily's head appeared framed by the window sash. “Yes,” she panted.
“I--I think I'm all right. At least I'm through that window. Now what
shall I do?”
“Take this lantern and go to one of the doors and see if you can
unfasten it. Try the back door; that's the most liable to be only bolted
and hooked. The front one's probably locked with a key.”
The lantern and its bearer disappeared. Mrs. Barnes plodded around to
the back door. As she reached it it opened.
“It was only hooked,” said Emily. “Come in, Auntie. Come in quick!”
Thankful had not waited for the invitation; she was in already. She took
the lantern from her relative's hand. Then she shut the door behind her.
“Whew!” she exclaimed. “If it don't seem good to get under cover, real
cover! What sort of a place is this, anyhow, Emily?”
“I don't know. I--I've been too frightened to look. I--I feel like a--O,
Aunt Thankful, don't you feel like a burglar?”
“Me? A burglar? I feel like a wet dishcloth. I never was so soaked, with
my clothes on, in my life. Hello! I thought this was an empty house.
There's a stove and a chair, such as it is. Whoever lived here last
didn't take away all their furniture. Let's go into the front rooms.”
The first room they entered was evidently the dining-room. It was quite
bare of furniture. The next, however, that which Emily had entered
by the window, contained another stove, a ramshackle what-not, and a
broken-down, ragged sofa.
“Oh!” gasped Miss Howes, pointing to the sofa, “see! see! This ISN'T an
empty house. Suppose--Oh, SUPPOSE there were people living here! What
would they say to us?”
For a moment Thankful was staggered. Then her common-sense came to her
rescue.
“Nonsense!” she said, firmly. “A house with folks livin' in it has
somethin' in the dinin'-room besides dust. Anyhow, it's easy enough to
settle that question. Where's that door lead to?”
She marched across the floor and threw open the door to which she had
pointed.
“Humph!” she sniffed. “Best front parlor. The whole shebang smells shut
up and musty enough, but there's somethin' about a best parlor smell
that would give it away any time. Phew! I can almost smell wax wreaths
and hair-cloth, even though they have been took away. No, this is an
empty house all right, but I'll make good and sure for your sake, Emily.
Ain't there any stairs to this old rattle-trap? Oh, yes, here's the
front hall. Hello! Hello, up there! Hi-i!”
She was shouting up the old-fashioned staircase. Her voice echoed above
with the unmistakable echo of empty rooms. Only that echo and the howl
of the wind and roar of rain answered her.
She came back to the apartment where she had left her cousin.
“It's all right, Emily,” she said. “We're the only passengers aboard the
derelict. Now let's see if we can't be more comf'table. You set down on
that sofa and rest. I've got an idea in my head.”
The idea evidently involved an examination of the stove, for she opened
its rusty door and peered inside. Then, without waiting to answer her
companion's questions, she hurried out into the kitchen, returning with
an armful of shavings and a few sticks of split pine.
“I noticed that woodbox in the kitchen when I fust come in,” she said.
“And 'twa'n't quite empty neither, though that's more or less of a
miracle. Matches? Oh, yes, indeed! I never travel without 'em. I've been
so used to lookin' out for myself and other folks that I'm a reg'lar man
in some ways. There! now let's see if the draft is rusted up as much as
the stove.”
It was not, apparently, for, with the dampers wide open, the fire
crackled and snapped. Also it smoked a little.
“'Twill get over that pretty soon,” prophesied Mrs. Barnes. “I can stand
'most any amount of smoke so long's there's heat with it. Now, Emily,
we'll haul that sofa up alongside and you lay down on it and get rested
and warm. I'd say get dry, too, but 'twould take a reg'lar blast furnace
to dry a couple of water rats like you and me this night. Perhaps we
can dry the upper layer, though; that'll be some help. Now, mind me! Lay
right down on that sofa.”
Emily protested. She was no wetter and no more tired than her cousin,
she said. Why should she lie down while Aunt Thankful sat up?
“'Cause I tell you to, for one thing,” said the widow, with decision.
“And because I'm well and strong and you ain't. When I think of how I
got you, a half invalid, as you might say, to come on this crazy trip
I'm so provoked I feel like not speakin' to myself for a week. There!
now you LOOK more comf'table, anyhow. If I only had somethin' to put
over you, I'd feel better. I wonder if there's an old bed quilt or
anything upstairs. I've a good mind to go and see.”
Emily's protest was determined this time.
“Indeed you shan't!” she cried. “You shan't stir. I wouldn't have you go
prowling about this poky old place for anything. Do you suppose I could
stay down here alone knowing that you might be--might be meeting or--or
finding almost anything up there. Sit right down in that chair beside
me. Don't you think it is almost time for that driver to be back?”
“Land sakes--no! He's hardly started yet. It's goin' to take a good long
spell afore he can wade a mile and a half in such a storm as this and
get another horse and wagon and come back again. He'll come by and by.
All we've got to do is to stay by this fire and be thankful we've got
it.”
Emily shivered. “I suppose so,” she said. “And I know I am nervous and a
trial instead of a help. If you had only been alone--”
“Alone! Heavens to Betey! Do you think I'd like this--this camp-meetin'
any better if I was the only one to it. My! Just hear that wind! Hope
these old chimneys are solid.”
“Auntie, what do you suppose that man meant by saying he wouldn't enter
this house at night for anything?”
“Don't know. Perhaps he meant he'd be afraid of bein' arrested.”
“But you don't think we'll be arrested?”
“No, no, of course not. I'd be almost willin' to be arrested if they'd
do it quick. A nice, dry lock-up and somethin' to eat wouldn't be so
bad, would it? But no constable but a web-footed one would be out this
night. Now do as I say--you lay still and give your nerves a rest.”
For a few moments the order was obeyed. Then Miss Rowes said, with
another shiver: “I do believe this is the worst storm I have ever
experienced.”
“'Tis pretty bad, that's a fact. Do you know, Emily, if I was a believer
in signs such as mentioned a little while ago, I might almost be tempted
to believe this storm was one of 'em. About every big change in my life
has had a storm mixed up with it, comin' at the time it happened or
just afore or just after. I was born, so my mother used to tell me, on a
stormy night about like this one. And it poured great guns the day I was
married. And Eben, my husband, went down with his vessel in a hurricane
off Hatteras. And when poor Jedediah run off to go gold-diggin' there
was such a snowstorm the next day that I expected to see him plowin' his
way home again. Poor old Jed! I wonder where he is tonight? Let's see;
six years ago, that was. I wonder if he's been frozen to death or eat up
by polar bears, or what. One thing's sartin, he ain't made his fortune
or he'd have come home to tell me of it. Last words he said to me was,
'I'm a-goin', no matter what you say. And when I come back, loaded down
with money, you'll be glad to see me.'”
Jedediah Cahoon was Mrs. Barnes' only near relative, a brother. Always a
visionary, easy-going, impractical little man, he had never been willing
to stick at steady employment, but was always chasing rainbows and
depending upon his sister for a home and means of existence. When
the Klondike gold fever struck the country he was one of the first to
succumb to the disease. And, after an argument--violent on his part
and determined on Thankful's--he had left South Middleboro and
gone--somewhere. From that somewhere he had never returned.
“Yes,” mused Mrs. Barnes, “those were the last words he said to me.”
“What did you say to him?” asked Emily, drowsily. She had heard the
story often enough, but she asked the question as an aid to keeping
awake.
“Hey? What did I say? Oh, I said my part, I guess. 'When you come back,'
says I, 'it'll be when I send money to you to pay your fare home, and I
shan't do it. I've sewed and washed and cooked for you ever since Eben
died, to say nothin' of goin' out nursin' and housekeepin' to earn money
to buy somethin' TO cook. Now I'm through. This is my house--or, at
any rate, I pay the rent for it. If you leave it to go gold-diggin' you
needn't come back to it. If you do you won't be let in.' Of course I
never thought he'd go, but he did. Ah hum! I'm afraid I didn't do
right. I ought to have realized that he wa'n't really accountable, poor,
weak-headed critter!”
Emily's eyes were fast shutting, but she made one more remark.
“Your life has been a hard one, hasn't it, Auntie,” she said.
Thankful protested. “Oh, no, no!” she declared. “No harder'n anybody
else's, I guess likely. This world has more hards than softs for the
average mortal and I never flattered myself on bein' above the average.
But there! How in the nation did I get onto this subject? You and
me settin' here on other folks's furniture--or what was furniture
once--soppin' wet through and half froze, and me talkin' about troubles
that's all dead and done with! What DID get me started? Oh, yes, the
storm. I was just thinkin' how most of the important things in my life
had had bad weather mixed up with 'em. Come to think of it, it rained
the day Mrs. Pearson was buried. And her dyin' was what set me to
thinkin' of cruisin' down here to East Wellmouth and lookin' at the
property Uncle Abner left me. I've never laid eyes on that property and
I don't even know what the house looks like. I might have asked that
depot-wagon driver, but I thought 'twas no use tellin' him my private
affairs, so I said we was bound to the hotel, and let it go at that.
If I had asked he might at least have told me where. . . . Hey?
Why--why--my land! I never thought of it, but it might be! It might!
Emily!”
But Miss Howes' eyes were closed now. In spite of her wet garments and
her nervousness concerning their burglarious entry of the empty house
she had fallen asleep. Thankful did not attempt to wake her. Instead she
tiptoed to the kitchen and the woodbox, took from the latter the last
few slabs of pine wood and, returning, filled the stove to the top. Then
she sat down in the chair once more.
For some time she sat there, her hands folded in her lap. Occasionally
she glanced about the room and her lips moved as if she were talking to
herself. Then she rose and peered out of the window. Rain and blackness
and storm were without, but nothing else. She returned to the sofa and
stood looking down at the sleeper. Emily stirred a little and shivered.
That shiver helped to strengthen the fears in Mrs. Barnes' mind. The
girl was not strong. She had come home from her school duties almost
worn out. A trip such as this had been was enough to upset even the most
robust constitution. She was wet and cold. Sleeping in wet clothes was
almost sure to bring on the dreaded pneumonia. If only there might be
something in that house, something dry and warm with which to cover her.
“Emily,” said Thankful, in a low tone. “Emily.”
The sleeper did not stir. Mrs. Barnes took up the lantern. Its flame was
much less bright than it had been and the wick sputtered. She held the
lantern to her ear and shook it gently. The feeble “swash” that answered
the shake was not reassuring. The oil was almost gone.
Plainly if exploring of those upper rooms was to be done it must be done
at once. With one more glance at the occupant of the sofa Mrs. Barnes,
lantern in hand, tiptoed from the room, through the barren front hall
and up the stairs. The stairs creaked abominably. Each creak echoed like
the crack of doom.
At the top of the stairs was another hall, long and narrow, extending
apparently the whole length of the house. At intervals along this hall
were doors. One after the other Thankful opened them. The first gave
entrance to a closet, with a battered and ancient silk hat and a
pasteboard box on the shelf. The next opened into a large room,
evidently the spare bedroom. It was empty. So was the next and the next
and the next. No furniture of any kind. Thankful's hope of finding
a quilt or a wornout blanket, anything which would do to cover her
sleeping and shivering relative, grew fainter with the opening of each
door.
There were an astonishing number of rooms and closets. Evidently this
had been a big, commodious and comfortable house in its day. But that
day was long past its sunset. Now the bigness only emphasized the
dreariness and desolation. Dampness and spider webs everywhere, cracks
in the ceiling, paper peeling from the walls. And around the gables and
against the dormer-windows of these upper rooms the gale shrieked and
howled and wailed like a drove of banshees.
The room at the very end of the long hall was a large one. It was at
the back of the house and there were windows on two sides of it. It was
empty like the others, and Mrs. Barnes, reluctantly deciding that her
exploration in quest of coverings had been a failure, was about to turn
and retrace her steps to the stairs when she noticed another door.
It was in the corner of the room furthest from the windows and was shut
tight. A closet, probably, and all the closets she had inspected so
far had contained nothing but rubbish. However, Thankful was not in the
habit of doing things by halves, so, the feebly sputtering lantern held
in her left hand, she opened the door with the other and looked in. Then
she uttered an exclamation of joy.
It was not a closet behind that door, but another room. A small room
with but one little window, low down below the slope of the ceiling.
But this room was to some extent furnished. There was a bed in it, and a
rocking chair, and one or two pictures hanging crookedly upon the wall.
Also, and this was the really important thing, upon that bed was a
patchwork comforter.
Thankful made a dash for that comforter. She set the lantern down upon
the floor and snatched the gayly colored thing from the bed. And, as she
did so, she heard a groan.
There are always noises in an empty house, especially an old house.
Creaks and cracks and rustlings mysterious and unexplainable. When the
wind blows these noises are reenforced by a hundred others. In this
particular house on this particular night there were noises enough,
goodness knows. Howls and rattles and moans and shrieks. Every shutter
and every shingle seemed to be loose and complaining of the fact. As for
groans--old hinges groan when the wind blows and so do rickety gutters
and water pipes. But this groan, or so it seemed to Mrs. Barnes, had a
different and distinct quality of its own. It sounded--yes, it sounded
human.
Thankful dropped the patchwork comforter.
“Who's that?” she asked, sharply.
There was no answer. No sounds except those of the storm. Thankful
picked up the comforter.
“Humph!” she said aloud--talking to herself was a habit developed during
the years of housekeeping for deaf old Mrs. Pearson. “Humph! I must be
gettin' nerves, I guess.”
She began folding the old quilt in order to make it easier to carry
downstairs. And then she heard another groan, or sigh, or combination
of both. It sounded, not outside the window or outside the house, but in
that very room.
Again Mrs. Barnes dropped the comforter. Also she went out of the room.
But she did not go far. Halfway across the floor of the adjoining room
she stopped and put her foot down, physically and mentally.
“Fool!” she said, disgustedly. Then, turning on her heel, she marched
back to the little bedroom and picked up the lantern; its flame had
dwindled to the feeblest of feeble sparks.
“Now then,” said Thankful, with determination, “whoever--or--or whatever
thing you are that's makin' that noise you might just as well show
yourself. If you're hidin' you'd better come out, for I'll find you.”
But no one or no “thing” came out. Thankful waited a moment and then
proceeded to give that room a very thorough looking-over. It was such
a small apartment that the process took but little time. There was no
closet. Except for the one window and the door by which she had entered,
the four walls, covered with old-fashioned ugly paper, had no openings
of any kind. There could be no attic or empty space above the ceiling
because she could hear the rain upon the sloping roof. She looked under
the bed and found nothing but dust. She looked in the bed, even under
the rocking-chair.
“Well, there!” she muttered. “I said it and I was right. I AM gettin'
to be a nervous old fool. I'm glad Emily ain't here to see me. And yet I
did--I swear I did hear somethin'.”
The pictures on the wall by the window caught her eye. She walked over
and looked at them. The lantern gave so little light that she could
scarcely see anything, but she managed to make out that one was a dingy
chromo with a Scriptural subject. The other was a battered “crayon
enlargement,” a portrait of a man, a middle-aged man with a chin beard.
There was something familiar about the face in the portrait. Something--
Thankful gasped. “Uncle Abner!” she cried. “Why--why--”
Then the lantern flame gave a last feeble sputter and went out. She
heard the groan again. And in that room, the room she had examined so
carefully, so close as to seem almost at her very ear, a faint voice
wailed agonizingly, “Oh, Lord!”
Thankful went away. She left the comforter and the lantern upon the
floor and she did not stop to close the door of the little bedroom.
Through the black darkness of the long hall she rushed and down the
creaky stairs. Her entrance to the sitting-room was more noisy than her
exit had been and Miss Howes stirred upon the sofa and opened her eyes.
“Auntie!” she cried, sharply. “Aunt Thankful, where are you?”
“I'm--I'm here, Emily. That is, I guess--yes, I'm here.”
“But why is it so dark? Where is the lantern?”
“The lantern?” Mrs. Barnes was trying to speak calmly but, between
agitation and loss of breath, she found it hard work. “The lantern?
Why--it's--it's gone,” she said.
“Gone? What do you mean? Where has it gone?”
“It's gone--gone out. There wa'n't enough oil in it to last any longer,
I suppose.”
“Oh!” Emily sat up. “And you've been sitting here alone in the dark
while I have been asleep. How dreadful for you! Why didn't you speak to
me? Has anything happened? Hasn't that man come back yet?”
It was the last question which Thankful answered. “No. No, he ain't come
back yet,” she said. “But he will pretty soon, I'm sure. He--he will,
Emily, don't you fret.”
“Oh, I'm not worried, Auntie. I am too sleepy to worry, I guess.”
“Sleepy! You're not goin' to sleep AGAIN, are you?”
Mrs. Barnes didn't mean to ask this question; certainly she did not
mean to ask it with such evident anxiety. Emily noticed the tone and
wondered.
“Why, no,” she said. “I think not. Of course I'm not. But what made you
speak in that way? You're not frightened, are you?”
Thankful made a brave effort.
“Frightened!” she repeated, stoutly. “What on earth should I be
frightened of, I'd like to know?”
“Why, nothing, I hope.”
“I should say not. I--Good heavens above! What's that?”
She started and clutched her companion by the arm. They both listened.
“I don't hear anything but the storm,” said Emily. “Why, Auntie, you ARE
frightened; you're trembling. I do believe there is something.”
Thankful snatched her hand away.
“There isn't,” she declared. “Of course there isn't.”
“Then why are you so nervous?”
“Me? Nervous! Emily Howes, don't you ever say that to me again. I ain't
nervous and I ain't goin' to be nervous. There's no--no sane reason why
I should be and I shan't. I shan't!”
“But, Auntie, you are. Oh, what is it?”
“Nothin'. Nothin' at all, I tell you. The idea!” with an attempt at a
laugh. “The idea of you thinkin' I'm nervous. Young folks like you or
rich old women are the only ones who can afford nerves. I ain't either
young nor rich.”
Emily laughed, too. This speech was natural and characteristic.
“If you were a nervous wreck,” she said, “it would be no wonder, all
alone in the dark as you have been in a deserted house like this. I
can't forgive myself for falling asleep. Whose house do you suppose it
is?”
Aunt Thankful did not answer. Emily went on. Her short nap had revived
her courage and spirit.
“Perhaps it is a haunted house,” she said, jokingly. “Every village has
a haunted house, you know. Perhaps that's why the stage-driver warned us
not to go into it.”
To her surprise Mrs. Barnes seemed to take offense at this attempt at
humor.
“Don't talk silly,” she snapped. “If I've lived all these years and
been as down on spooks and long-haired mediums as I've been, and then
to--there--there! Don't let's be idiots altogether. Talk about somethin'
else. Talk about that depot-wagon driver and his pesky go-cart that got
us into this mess. There's plenty of things I'd like to say about THEM.”
They talked, in low tones. Conversation there in the dark and under such
circumstances, was rather difficult. Emily, although she was determined
not to admit it, was growing alarmed for the return of Winnie S. and
his promised rescue expedition. Aunt Thankful was thinking of the little
back bedroom upstairs. An utter lack of superstition was something upon
which she had prided herself. But now, as she thought of that room, of
the portrait on the wall, and what she had heard--
“Listen!” whispered Emily, suddenly. “Listen! I--I thought I heard
something.”
Mrs. Barnes leaned forward.
“What? Where? Upstairs?” she asked, breathlessly.
“No. Out--out there somewhere.” She pointed in the direction of the
front hall. “It sounded as if someone had tried the front door. Hark!
There it is again.”
Aunt Thankful rose to her feet. “I heard it, too,” she said. “It's
probably that driver man come back. I'll go and see.”
“No--no, Auntie, you mustn't. I--I shan't let you.”
“I shall! I shall, I tell you! If I've got any common-sense at all,
I ain't goin' to be scared of--Of course it's that driver man. He's
wonderin' where we are and he's lookin' for us. I'll go let him in.”
She broke away from Miss Howes' grasp and started for the front hall.
The action was a braver one than her cousin realized. If there was one
thing on earth that Thankful Barnes did not wish to do at that moment,
it was to go nearer the stairs landing to the rooms above.
But she went, and Emily went with her. Cautiously they peered through
the little windows at the sides of the front door. There was no one in
sight, and, listening, they heard nothing.
“I--I guess we was mistaken, Emily,” whispered Thankful. “Let's go back
to the fire.”
“But Auntie, I DID hear something. Didn't you?”
“Well, I thought I did, but I guess--Oh, DON'T stay here another minute!
I--I shall be hearin' 'most anything if we do.”
They returned to the room they had left. But they had scarcely entered
it when they stopped short and, clinging to each other, listened.
It was the latch of the kitchen door they heard click now. And the door
was opening. In the kitchen they heard the sounds of cautious footsteps,
footsteps which entered the dining-room, which came on toward the
sitting-room. And a voice, a man's voice, whispered:
“I told you so! I--I told you so! I said I see a light. And--and that
door was undone and--and--By time! Obed Bangs, you can go on if you want
to, but I tell you you're riskin' your life. I--I ain't goin' to stay
no longer. I'm goin' to fetch the constable--or--or the minister or
somebody. I--”
Another voice interrupted.
“Shut up! Belay!” it ordered. “If there's anybody or anything in this
house we'll have a look at it, that's all. You can go to the minister
afterwards, if you want to. Just now you'll come along with me if I have
to haul you by the neck. Let's see what's in here.”
There was a flash of light in the crack of the door leading from the
dining-room. That door was thrown open and the light became a blaze from
a big lantern held aloft.
“Hey! What!” exclaimed the second voice. “Who--women, by the
everlastin'!”
Mrs. Barnes and Emily clinging to each other, blinked in the lantern
light.
“Women! Two women!” said the voice again.
Thankful answered. The voice was real and it came from a human throat.
Anything human--and visible--she did not fear.
“Yes,” she said, crisply, “we're women. What of it? Who are you?”
The man with the lantern entered the room. He was big and
broad-shouldered and bearded. His companion was short and stout and
smooth-faced; also he appeared very much frightened. Both men wore
oilskin coats and sou'westers.
“Who are you?” repeated Aunt Thankful.
The big man answered. His sunburned, good-humored face was wrinkled and
puckered with amazement.
“Well,” he stammered, “I--we--Humph! well, we're neighbors
and--but--but, I don't know as I know you, ma'am, do I?”
“I don't know why you should. I don't know you, fur's that goes. What
are you doin' here? Did that depot-wagon man send you?”
“Depot-wagon man? No, ma'am; nobody sent us. Kenelm--er--Mr. Parker
here, saw a light a spell ago and, bein' as this house is supposed to be
empty, he--”
“Wait a minute!” Miss Howes interrupted. “Whose house is this?”
“Why--why, it ain't anybody's house, ma'am. That is, nobody lives here.”
“But somebody used to live here, it's likely. What was his name?”
“His name? Well, old Laban Eldredge used to live here. The house belongs
to Captain Abner Cahoon's heirs, I believe, and--”
Again Thankful interrupted.
“I knew it!” she cried, excitedly. “I wondered if it mightn't be so
and when I see that picture of Uncle Abner I was sure. All right,
Mr. Whoever-you-are, then I'm here because I own the house. My name's
Barnes, Thankful Barnes of South Middleboro, and I'm Abner Cahoon's
heir. Emily, this--this rattle-trap you and I broke into is the
'property' we've talked so much about.”