TABLES TURNED
Jess and Polly looked over their shoulders as they walked to the
garden, which was at one side of the house, but the others marched
briskly along. In the summer Mr. Williamson had a flourishing “truck
patch,” and even now there were some late vegetables still in the
ground. The patch was protected from frost, and Fred sometimes
boasted of getting cabbage or parsnips “from the garden” as late as
Thanksgiving Day.
“Now, how do we do this stunt, Artie?” asked Fred, when they had
reached the row of cabbages. “You pull one and show us.”
Artie pulled a fine large cabbage and exhibited its roots to the
interested audience.
“Lots of dirt on it,” he pointed out--indeed, in his zeal, he had
loosened perhaps half a peck of earth, most of which clung to the
roots--“and that shows I will be very rich some day.”
“Maybe Fred will,” said Polly, mischievously. “That dirt is from his
father’s garden.”
“It’s just a sign,” explained Artie, hastily.
Margy stooped and brought up another cabbage, but as she lifted it she
shook it carefully and nearly all the dirt fell off.
“There goes your fortune!” cried Jess. “You mustn’t shake it, Margy.”
“It’s too heavy with all that dirt on it,” Margy complained.
“Well, if there’s a bag of gold at the bottom of this one, it’s going
to stay right there,” announced Polly, tugging at the nearest cabbage.
A shriek from Margy startled her. She let go the cabbage in time to
look up and see a tall white figure land in the patch, apparently
from the skies. They all saw it at the same instant, and, cabbages
forgotten, they rushed madly for the house. Margy was crying wildly,
Polly pulled Jess along by the hand, and poor Ward and Artie fell down,
but scrambled up again and managed to get over the ground in spite
of their costume, which was never designed for a running suit. They
reached the back porch, stumbled pell-mell up the steps and into the
kitchen. Margy closed the door with a bang that shook the house.
“Oh-oo!” she wept, her teeth chattering. “What was it? What was it?”
“I think--I think it was a ghost,” quavered Jess.
“It was a million feet high--almost,” said Artie. “Did you see how it
was waving its arms?”
“There are no such things as ghosts,” declared Polly, firmly. “It
couldn’t have been a ghost, could it----” She had meant to say, “Could
it, Fred?” but at that moment she made an alarming discovery.
Fred wasn’t in the kitchen with them!
“Where’s Fred?” asked Polly, anxiously. “Didn’t he come in? Has any one
seen him?”
“The ghost has carried him off!” cried Margy, in alarm. “He’s gone! Oh,
my, what will Mother say?”
“It wasn’t a ghost,” said Polly again. “I tell you, there are no
ghosts. And if it was a ghost, it couldn’t carry Fred off--a ghost
can’t carry anything.”
“You just said there aren’t any ghosts,” objected Margy.
“Well, I mean if there were ghosts, they couldn’t carry any one off,”
Polly explained.
“Then where is Fred?” asked Artie, quite as though he thought Polly
would be able to tell him.
“I don’t know,” Polly admitted. “You don’t suppose he could have fallen
down a hole somewhere, do you? I don’t remember having seen him after
I saw the ghost--and that was just before I started to pull up the
cabbage.”
No one remembered having seen Fred.
“But then,” added Ward, “I couldn’t see anything, really. The flannel
slipped down over my eyes and I couldn’t see where I was going, let
alone any one else. I don’t know where Fred went.”
“I read once about a man who fell down a canyon and was never seen
again,” contributed Artie, helpfully.
“There isn’t any canyon for Fred to fall down,” declared Jess, with
some scorn. “I think we ought to go over and get Mr. Williamson,
though; perhaps he could find Fred.”
“But if we go outdoors, that ghost--or whatever it is--will grab us,”
said Margy, fearfully.
It was what they were all thinking, and no one wanted to be the first
to volunteer to go over to the Larue house and summon aid.
Ward looked at Artie. They did not think of themselves as brave, but
it really required the strongest kind of courage for them to make the
suggestion that Ward presently offered.
“We’ll go out and look all over the garden, Artie and I,” he said.
“There’s no use in scaring Mrs. Williamson; we may find Fred and then
everything will be all right.”
“I can come, too, and hold a lantern for you,” offered Polly, bravely.
“I’d like to do it.”
“You needn’t come. Girls shouldn’t--shouldn’t--expose themselves to
danger,” said Ward, feeling remarkably like a policeman--or as he
thought a policeman must feel. “But I’d like a lantern. Where is there
one, Margy?”
“Down cellar,” said Margy, rolling her eyes.
“I’m afraid to go down cellar,” announced Jess, flatly. “Goodness only
knows what’s down there. It’s as dark as pitch.”
“We’ll all go down,” suggested Polly. “You can turn on the light at the
head of the stairs, can’t you, Margy?”
Most of the houses in River Bend were wired for electricity, and there
was a switch at the head of the Williamsons’ cellar stairs. Margy
pressed the button, but even the flood of light which lit the cellar
did not give any of them any great confidence. They went down the steps
slowly, and not for anything in the world would they have looked over
their shoulders.
Margy found the lantern behind the furnace, and, as they had not
brought matches, there was no reason for staying, since to light it
they would have to go back to the kitchen. Jess led the way upstairs,
and as she gained the top step, she cried out. Fred was just closing
the outside door.
“Hello!” he said comfortably. “Where’ve you all been?”
“Where have you been?” Margy countered. “You scared us pretty near into
fits. We thought the ghost had caught you.”
“Ward and I were coming out to hunt for you,” Artie said, waving the
lantern. “We went down cellar to get this.”
“Huh, that wasn’t a ghost,” replied Fred. “If you’d hung around a
little, the way I did, you would have found it out pretty quick.”
Margy switched off the cellar light and shut the door.
“What was it, if it wasn’t a ghost?” she asked.
“Joe Anderson,” was Fred’s surprising reply. “He thought he’d be smart.
You haven’t been crying, have you, Margy?”
“Only a little,” said Margy, hastily.
“She thought something had happened to you,” said Polly. “What did you
do, Fred? And weren’t you frightened?”
“I was at first,” acknowledged Fred. “That white thing came up on us
so quietly, it rather took my breath away. But when you all started to
shriek and run, I heard Joe Anderson laugh. I’d know his snicker if I
heard it in China. So I hid behind the pear tree. I thought I’d get a
chance to punch his nose for him.”
“Did you?” chorused Artie and Ward interestedly.
“Well, no, I didn’t,” said Fred. “He followed you up to the porch steps
and then came back, but Albert Holmes came out of the summerhouse--he
must have been hiding there with Joe--and they began talking. And
they’re going to try to play another trick on us in a few minutes. I
heard them planning it. They want to wait till we get quieted down
from this scare, and then Joe is going to ring the doorbell. He thinks
whoever comes to the door will have a fit when they see a giant ghost.”
“A giant ghost?” repeated Polly.
“Yes, a giant ghost. Albert is going to sit on Joe’s shoulder and that
will make the ghost about eight feet high,” said Fred. “I wish I could
think of something to do that would make them feel cheap.”
“Let’s go upstairs and pour water out of the window on them when they
ring the bell,” suggested Jess, excitedly.
Fred shook his head.
“I wonder----” he said slowly. “Yes, I do believe it will work!”
“What will work?” demanded Margy, eagerly. “What will work, Fred?”
“Well, I’ll step into the first half of the giraffe,” explained Fred,
“and Artie can manage the back feet--Ward will get out of breath too
quickly to do what I want done. When the bell rings, we’ll go out the
back door and amble around to the front of the house and just wrap Mr.
Ghost lovingly around with that nice, long, rubber-hose neck. That
ought to give our friends a thrill. They won’t know what has them in
the dark.”
“Oh, yes,” approved Polly. “I think that’s a fine plan. Hurry, Ward,
and let Fred get into your half; the bell may ring any minute.”
Ward would have liked to have guided the giraffe’s neck himself, but he
knew as well as Fred that excitement took his breath away as quickly
as running. Fred had the longer arms, too, and would be able to give a
longer reach to the animal’s long neck.
Fred had hardly slipped into the flannel casing and drawn it tightly
about him and Artie was practicing his best giraffe step, when the
bell over the door leading into the front hall rang sharply. Every one
jumped, though it was a noise they were expecting.
“Stay right where you are,” Fred directed. “If Joe sees you through the
curtains or the glass door, he’ll be suspicious. Come on, Artie, we’ll
have to hurry.”
He and Artie loped down the back steps and sped around the side of the
house. A cautious look showed Fred a towering ghost standing on the
front steps, waiting patiently. Tiptoeing, he and Artie stole up to it
and before the ghost knew what was happening, a long slim, tight coil
was fastened about it.
“Ow! Help! Take it away!” shrieked Joe Anderson’s voice. “Quick,
Albert, take it off! Help! Something’s got me!”
Albert was sitting on Joe’s shoulders, and in his terror and excitement
he began to kick wildly, hammering the unfortunate Joe on the face and
shoulders unmercifully. Fred couldn’t unwind the length of hose--though
he tried--because the end was pinioned under one of Albert’s arms, and
the more the two boys who formed the ghost struggled, the tighter the
coils seemed to grow.
“Help! help!” called Joe, beside himself with fear.
“Ow! Joe! Joe! It’s choking me!” screamed poor Albert, twisting and
turning madly, for his pillow case had slipped too far over his head
and he felt as though he was smothering.
The other children had rushed to the door when they heard the racket.
Across the street in the Larue house lights were blazing through the
windows as the shades were run up, for the noise had reached the
grown-ups there.
“Take it off, Fred,” called Artie. “Hurry--take it off! I can’t see a
thing in here.”
“It--won’t--come--off!” gasped Fred. “Don’t you see me pulling?”
He took a step backward, his foot caught one of Artie’s, and they went
down together, dragging the kicking ghost on top of them. When Mr.
Williamson and Mr. Larue and Mr. Marley reached the spot a few minutes
later, to their astonishment they saw what looked like a brown and
white animal with spots thrashing about on the ground and apparently
fitted with dozens of legs and arms.