MRS. O’MALLY’S “GHOST”
To this day Poppy tells the crazy story that I screeched so loud that I
rocked the furniture. And the wonder is, he further kids me, that the
pipe organ didn’t streak it for the front door. Which is all bunk, of
course. Still, it is to be admitted that I _did_ break up the Sunday
School. Following a babble of excited voices, we heard quick footsteps
coming toward the basement door. Then the door opened. But by this time
the leader had his head in the window.
“Quick!” says he, going over the sill on his stomach. To hurry me along
he got down on his knees and gave me his hands. I have a hunch that
whoever led the way down the stairs caught a glimpse of my flying legs
as I went out through the window. But that was nothing to worry about.
Getting to my feet, the first thing I did, of course, like Poppy, was
to look around for the cat killer. But, to my surprise, there was
no one in sight. Determined not to let the fellow get away from us,
we scooted, tandem-style, around the church. Still no success. Nor
could we see anybody in the street except two gray-haired ladies in an
old-fashioned buggy who were arguing in the deaf-and-dumb language over
which hitching post they should use: the one in front of the church or
the one at the parsonage. Next we ran to the alley, where we saw plenty
of ash cans, but nothing on two legs except a junky-acting rooster.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” panted Poppy. “Where in Sam Hill did he go
to, anyway?--into the earth?”
This new stuff tangled us up worse than ever. If the man had been
listening to us, as seemed probable, considering how very careful he
had been to keep back out of sight, why had he jerked the cat through
the window? Was it to scare us?
But how strange, to go deeper, that he had been so close to us when we
least suspected it! Still, on that point, all of his actions had been
strange. In many ways he was as mysterious as a shadow, itself.
A cat-strangling machine! Ugh! The poor cat had been given no chance
at all. But if the mystery of _how_ he did his cat strangling had thus
been cleared up to us, we had yet to learn _why_ he did it.
Having upset the Sunday School, we decided that it was a good place to
keep away from. So that was one Sunday that the church didn’t get our
two dimes. Our plan now was to see what information we could pick up at
Mrs. O’Mally’s house. And as we had a long dusty walk ahead of us on
the bottom road, we hurried home and changed our clothes.
“I haven’t told you,” says Poppy, when we were headed for the river,
“about my talk with Mrs. Clayton. She was awakened, she said, by a cat
scream--as she describes it, a most hideous scream. Thinking that the
house cat was in trouble, she started downstairs, but as Mr. Weckler
was ahead of her on the stairs she went back to bed. Just as she was
dozing off she heard a cry; then something fell. She almost fainted, I
guess, when she saw what had happened in the library. And as soon as
she could, of course, she got Doc on the telephone.”
“Did you tell her that Peter is dead?”
“Yes. And I took her outside and showed her the grave, so that she
could tell Mr. Weckler about it when he got up.”
I thought then of our early-morning work. Bill had wondered whether
or not the cat had been strangled before the attack on the old man or
afterwards. We knew now, from what Mrs. Clayton had told Poppy, that
it was the cat’s death cry, itself, that had gotten the awakened owner
out of bed. Yet the puzzling question still hung before us: _Why_ had
the housebreaker killed the cat? What had been his object? Having
invented some kind of a fearful cat-strangling machine, was it a mania
of his, or whatever you call it, to go around killing harmless cats?
And, if so, did he sometimes pick off bigger stuff than cats? Boys,
for instance, or even grown men? Of these thoughts, I had the sudden
shivery feeling that Poppy and I, as treasure hunters, had best watch
our “P’s” and “Q’s.”
Coming within sight of the old stone house at exactly twelve o’clock,
the leader suddenly was reminded of something.
“Say, Jerry, I haven’t told you yet about the bad news.”
That was so! In the morning’s excitement I had forgotten all about it.
But I wasn’t particularly worried.
“It can’t be any worse than the rotten pickles,” I grinned. “So spit it
out.”
“Last Thursday when I was in Rockford, my cousin, who works in a
wholesale grocery store, took me down to the office to meet the boss.
Our talk was mostly about cucumber pickles. Mr. Wiggins was very much
interested in our new pickle business. I spread a lot of gab, I guess.
And what do you know if I didn’t talk him into giving me an order for
two thirty-gallon barrels! Being Henny’s cousin helped, I suppose.
Anyway, whether it was that or just my line of gab, I got the order.
Boy, did I ever feel big! If we could sell barreled pickles to him, my
imagination began to jump around, why couldn’t we sell them by the
barrel to other wholesalers? I was sure that we could. And so that we
would have plenty of cucumbers to work on, and thus be able to fill the
whopping big pickle orders that we were going to get, I telegraphed to
Mrs. O’Mally, telling her that we’d buy her whole cucumber crop.”
“_What?_” I squeaked, staring at him.
“At two dollars a bushel.”
It was so much worse than what I had expected that I lost my voice. I
could only stare. Finally, though, I got my voice back again, after a
lot of gurgling and neck-stretching. I tightened up my wabbly legs,
too. And remembering that he was my best pal regardless, I shoved out a
fumbling paw.
“Poppy,” says I, wondering what made it so blamed hot all of a sudden,
“since I’ve known you you’ve made some beau-tiful high dives. But this
is one time, kid, when you sure landed flat on your little tummy. Seven
hundred bushels of cucumbers at two dollars a bushel! Wow!” I drew a
deep breath. Boy, it sure was hot! “But it’s you and me, kid,” I went
on, pumping his arm up and down, with the sweat running. “That’s the
way we started; and that’s the way we’re going to finish.” Then I tried
to be enthusiastic. “Anyway,” says I, “who knows but what we may be
able to think up a scheme for making cucumber watch charms or fancy
green doo-dads for ladies’ hats? So don’t start twiddling your thumbs
now, old hunk. Use your beezer. It looks just as good to me as it ever
did ... on the outside. And if you can’t get action any other way,
swallow a bumblebee.”
We were walking slower now.
“What are we going to tell Mrs. O’Mally?” says he, looking ahead.
“Why not wait and see what she tells us?”
“But suppose she asks us for money?”
“Write her out a check,” I made a big gesture. “We still have
thirty-two dollars in the bank.”
He sort of squeezed my arm.
“Jerry,” says he, “you’re a little brick. I really didn’t think you’d
take it so--so cheerful-like. In fact, considering how I had jumped
into it without telling you, I thought you’d be a little bit sore. And
I was all ready to have you pounce on me and call me a dumb-bell.”
Lots of times we slam-bang the “dumb-bell” stuff at each other in fun,
as I have written down. But to call that kid a dumb-bell in earnest
would be like telling a lily to go out in the kitchen and wash its
face. No, sir, a dumb-bell was one thing he wasn’t. _Ambition_ was what
had tripped him up. His ideas were too big for his shoes. So, in a way,
it isn’t to be wondered at that he had taken a flop. Of course, as his
partner, he should have gotten my advice before ordering the cucumbers.
But I wasn’t going to crab at him on that point. For he always took the
lead, anyway. And any scheme to save us would come out of his head, not
mine.
Having passed into the well-kept yard, I took a squint out back,
expecting to see a young cucumber mountain. But nothing of that kind
was in sight. Nor were the pickers at work, this being Sunday.
A few chickens ran out to meet us, as though expecting to be fed, and
at the side porch a big cat jumped out of a chair. Rapping on the
screen door, we heard footsteps. Presently Mrs. O’Mally came into sight.
“Come in,” she invited, holding the door open. In the careful
housekeeping way that many women have, she brushed out a fly or two
with her apron. “I was wonderin’,” she added, looking at us warmly, “if
ye wouldn’t be out to-day to see your cucumbers. ’Tis a whole cellar
full that I have for ye. Come! I’ll show ’em to ye.”
“There’s no hurry,” says Poppy, noticing that the woman had gotten
up from the dinner table. “We’ll just sit down and wait till you’re
through eating.”
There’s something particularly fine about Mrs. O’Mally. Like Mother.
When you’re around her you sort of have the feeling that she likes you
and wants you to know about it. Of course, she probably doesn’t like
everybody. But I know that she likes me! So I wasn’t surprised when she
warmly insisted on us sitting up to the table and eating dinner with
her. Nor did we refuse. For that wouldn’t have been polite.
“Sure,” she bustled around, getting more stuff out of the kettles on
the stove, “’tis a much finer dinner I would have had for ye could I
have known ahead of time that ye would be likely to drop in on me at
this particular hour. But if ye have to skimp on the taters ye can have
your fill of bread an’ jam. Then, too, ’tis a fine three-layer cake I
have in the pantry. An’ pickles! Sure, I can give ye plenty of _them_.
An’ all fresh made, too.”
“No, thanks,” I grinned. “I’m not eating pickles to-day.” Nor did
Poppy, I notice, show any interest in the pickles.
“Did you know,” says he, galloping into the food, “that the man who
built this house used to have a big cucumber patch out back where your
patch is?”
Coming out of the pantry with more bread on a plate, Mrs. O’Mally let
the slices fall to the floor. And seeing her face, as it turned white
at mention of the pirate, I kicked the leader under the table. She knew
secret stuff, all right!
Later she took us down a flight of heavy stairs into the deep,
dungeon-like cellar, where a week’s picking from the big cucumber patch
had been put into one huge bin. One hundred and thirty bushels, she
said proudly. I could imagine that she was saying “two hundred and
sixty dollars” in her mind. And all we had in the bank was thirty-two
dollars!
“I suppose,” says she, “that you’ll be comin’ after ’em soon.”
Poppy didn’t say anything. He felt kind of sneaking, I guess. But, to
that point, until we knew for sure that we were up a tree there was no
sense in alarming her.
“Had I not known Jerry’s pa and ma so well, I might have hesitated to
save the cucumbers for ye, as the telegram said. But ’tis confidence
I have a-plenty in the Todd family. For who give me the fine woolen
blankets for me bed last winter, when the snow was tin feet deep
between here and the river road? No one but Miz Todd, herself. An’ who
come with a truck-load of coal, even shovelin’ his way? Ye should know,
Jerry, for ’twas that elegant pa of yours. Sure, I wanted to pay him
for the coal, but would he take a penny? Not him! He had coal goin’
to waste in the brickyard, he said, like the magnificent liar that he
is, an’ it was a great accommodation to find some one who could make
good use of it.” The old woman was dabbing at her eyes with the corner
of her apron. “Yes, Jerry,” she put a trembling hand on my shoulder,
“’tis a fine pa and ma that ye have. An’ if ye say ’tis me entire
cucumber crop that ye want, God bless ye ’tis yours for the askin’. I
can even wait for me money, if necessary.”
I didn’t say anything. But I was doing a lot of deep thinking. _This_
showed how lucky a boy was to have a good pa and ma. Mrs. O’Mally
trusted me because she trusted my folks. Old Poppy, I stiffened, as I
saw where my duty lay, simply _had_ to squeeze a winning scheme out of
his beezer now. There were no “if’s” or “and’s” about that. For I saw
that if we skidded on paying for the cucumbers it would be just the
same as throwing dirt on the fine family reputation that Mother and Dad
had been carefully building up all these years.
Tap! Tap! Tap! It was a slight sound. Faint and far-away. And under
ordinary circumstances I might not have noticed it at all. For
frequently sounds of no consequence carry a long distance in the
earth, like the time in the Higby-ravine cave when we heard a farmer’s
water-pumping engine almost a mile away. This, though, was no such
sound as that. It was more like even rock-hammer blows. Tap! Tap! Tap!
Some one near us was working underground.
There was a cry from Poppy. And I wheeled to find him supporting Mrs.
O’Mally.
“Help me, Jerry. She’s fainted!”
There was some excitement then, let me tell you. But, to the woman’s
good fortune, her fainting spell wasn’t anything serious. Having
carried her upstairs, she opened her eyes when we sprinkled water on
her. And soon she was sitting up, quite as well as ever, except that
she looked peculiarly white.
“This,” says she, in a weary voice, “is the end. I’m goin’ to move. I
can stand it no longer. For me nerves is a wreck.”
Then, to our amazement, she told us a strange story of ghostly raps
and muffled hammer blows in the cellar walls. It had started about a
month ago, she said. At first she had thought that it was rats. But
she soon changed that belief. For no rats could have made the peculiar
sounds that she heard, both day and night. Nor did the sounds, as she
grew more familiar with them, seem earthly to her, which led to the
superstitious conclusion that the house was indeed haunted. What she
heard was a ghost! No doubt the ghost of the dead pirate, himself! Yet,
poor as she was, and alone in the world, she had tried to fight down
her fright. For if she let the ghost drive her out of the house she had
no place else to go. Then, too, the fear of ridicule had kept her from
going to the neighbors with her story.
We told her then about the gold cucumber and the things connected with
it. What she had heard, we said excitedly, wasn’t a ghost, but the
one-armed cat killer who was searching in the secret cellars of the old
house for the balance of the pirate’s hidden treasure, of which, no
doubt, the one gold cucumber that he had found was the key.
“Mither of Moses!” she cried, with terrified eyes. “A cat killer, did
ye say? ’Tis this very day I’ll move out of here.”
Poppy grinned.
“Don’t you worry, Mrs. O’Mally. We aren’t going to let him harm you.
In fact, we’re going to stay right here with you until we find out the
truth about this queer old place. So, there now!” he further comforted
her. “Just forget about your fears. And on top of taking good care of
you, if we _do_ find the hidden treasure, you’re going to get a third
of it. Don’t forget about that.”
Here a swell roadster drove into the yard.
“Young Pennykorn and his grandfather,” Poppy rubbered.
“The ould skin-flint,” says Mrs. O’Mally, watching the banker with
unfriendly eyes as he got out of the car and started stiffly toward
the house. “He has let me pile up cucumbers all week, thinkin’ that he
could come here to-day an’ Jew me down. I know _him_. But thank the
good Lord this is one time when I’m safe from his clutches--graspin’
ould miser that he is!”