ALL ABOUT THE BOATHOUSE GHOST
Susan, her black face set in a very grim expression, came to wait upon
Mrs. Cupp. "Go 'long, chillen," she commanded, "I'll 'tend to her."
"But she's been dreadfully frightened, Susan," cried Nan,
sympathetically.
"She saw a ghost, Susan," whispered Bess, perhaps a little wickedly.
Susan rolled her eyes. "Go 'long, chile! Wot ghos'?"
"The boathouse ghost, I declare!" said Bess, with decision. "Wasn't it,
Nan? All black--and small--and it squealed. Didn't it, Nan?"
"It was a boy," said her chum. "And he ran down cellar. Somebody ought
to look into it."
"Into the cellar?" asked Bess, with a giggle, as Susan "shooed" them out
of the matron's room and shut the door at their backs.
"Yes. Just that," said Nan, decidedly.
"Where do you suppose that boy went--if it was a boy?"
"I know," Nan said, hesitating at the top of the stairs.
"You _know_?" cried Bess.
"Positively!"
"Goodness me! Is this another of your secrets, Nan Sherwood? You are the
very meanest girl for a chum----"
"I never told you about this because so many other things came in
between and made me forget," confessed Nan, quickly. "Come on! Let me
show you."
She started down the basement stairs, but Bess hung back.
"I don't know about following a ghost."
"Nonsense! It's only a boy," said Nan. "He's the very boy who pulled me
out of the water the other morning. And he's somebody else, too!"
"I don't know what you mean, and I don't know where you're leading me,"
grumbled Bess.
"To the trunk-room," said Nan, answering one question.
"But that boy could not get in there. The door's locked."
"We'll see," said Nan, hurrying on.
In a few moments they were down the dark passageway and at the door. It
was wide open.
"Now, how do you suppose that happened?" queried Bess. "Mrs. Cupp is so
particular about keeping it locked."
"The boy opened it when he came through," said Nan.
"_From the inside?_" gasped Bess. "Do you think he's been hiding in one
of the trunks?"
Nan showed her quickly that the knob of the spring lock was on the
inside of the trunk-room door. One could easily get out of the room
without a key.
"But for goodness' sake!" cried Bess. "Tell me how he got in here?"
"That's what I am going to show you," said her chum, laughing. As they
walked down the long room, Nan snapping on a light here and there to
show the way, she told her chum about the movable part of the partition
and how she had made the discovery.
Bess' interest and curiosity was roused to the highest point.
"What did I tell you, Nan Sherwood?" Bess cried. "There is an
underground passage down to the boathouse!"
"We'll just see," agreed Nan.
They pushed down the movable part of the partition. It was dark inside,
and dank, and there was a musty smell. Once assured that there was
nothing supernatural about the black figure they had seen, Bess was as
brave as a lion. She ran for a lantern which she knew was in the
scullery, lit it, and brought it to Nan, who sat on the door over the
mysterious well. By the light of the lantern the chums saw a flight of
stone steps cut in the very rock of the bluff on which Lakeview Hall
stood leading downward into a seemingly bottomless, walled pit.
"Here's the smugglers' path to the boathouse!" Bess declared eagerly.
"Oh, nonsense!"
"Well, I don't care," cried Bess, pouting, "I bet this is the way the
boy went down. And came up, too, to frighten Mrs. Cupp."
"That may be," agreed Nan.
"What did he want to frighten her for?" demanded Bess. "Did you hear
what he said about his money? Maybe he's crazy. Oh, my!" and Bess
hesitated with her foot on the top step.
"If he is, we two can manage him," said Nan, decidedly. "Come on."
Nan was sure that the strange boy who had helped her out of the water
more than a week before, was the figure she and Bess had seen in the
boathouse, and who had chased Mrs. Cupp the night of the boathouse
party.
Why he was hanging about the school, and was troubling Mrs. Cupp and her
sister, Miss Sadie Vane, was explained by the story Susan had told Laura
Polk about the boy who had been "Miss Vane's bond-slave." Nan could
imagine grim Miss Vane being very severe with boys; nor did Mrs. Cupp
love them.
Nan and Bess went down the long flight of subterranean stairs, quite as
long, of course, as the outside steps down the face of the bluff. They
finally came to an unsuspected cellar under the unused portion of the
boathouse. There was a trap in the ceiling of this cellar, and it was
open. Bess held the light and Nan reached up, took hold of the edges of
the hole, and drew herself up into the room. Then she stooped down and
gave her hand to Bess, who quickly came up with the lantern.
"Great!" gasped the eager Bess. "If Mrs. Cupp knew we were doing this,
she'd have a sure-enough 'conniption,' as Laura calls it."
"My! I hadn't thought of that," Nan said doubtfully.
"Oh, come on," cried the more reckless Bess.
"Well--we've come, so far, we might as well see it through."
Just then they heard excited voices outside.
"Oh! what's that?" whispered Bess.
"It's Walter's voice!" Nan exclaimed.
"And that squeally one is the ghost's," Bess declared.
The two girls ran to the side door. It, likewise, was unlocked. On the
step, Walter Mason held the smaller boy so that he could not get away.
"Hullo, girls!" was Walter's greeting. "Why, Nan! I'm glad to see you
out again. But what are you doing down here at the boathouse? And who is
this chap I just caught coming out?"
"It's the ghost," cried Bess, giggling.
"I ain't no ghost," protested the boy in black, shivering in the cold.
He wore no overcoat, his shoes were broken, and his hands uncovered.
"The ghost?" repeated Walter, puzzled. "Is he what frightened you girls
around here?"
"And Mrs. Cupp! Oh, he frightened her awfully!" cried Bess.
"Well, I don't care! she was mean to me," declared the boy. "And Miss
Vane tied my hands and feet to a chair and made me sit up all night in
the dark. And now a feller who used to live at the poor farm and who I
met when I ran away from Miss Vane told me that some money had been left
me by my father's uncle. And Miss Vane and Mrs. Cupp's got it, I don't
doubt!"
"Who are you?" asked Nan, softly. "Don't be afraid of us. If we can, we
will help you. Bring him inside, Walter. It isn't as cold here as it is
out of doors. Do come in."
"I'm Hiram Pease," said the strange boy, plainly glad to tell his tale
to anybody who showed sympathy. "Miss Vane took me from the poor farm.
I'm an orphan. She treated me real mean. And I don't like Mrs. Cupp,
either. I don't see how you girls stand her."
"I guess she likes girls better than she does boys," said Nan, quietly.
"And now I bet they have got that money from my great uncle, and I want
it!" exclaimed Hiram, who seemed to be of a rather vindictive nature,
and not a very pleasant person. He was underfed, undersized, and
unhealthy looking.
"How have you lived here all this time?" cried Nan, pitying the boy.
"I stole some of that stuff you girls had for your party," replied Hiram
Pease, grinning. "And I took other things. I found that flight of steps
up into the cellar of the Hall. So I could get to the kitchen at night.
"And then I worked around for some of the folks that live up on the back
road; and others gave me things----"
"And I guess you helped yourself to some of my pigeons and squabs," put
in Walter, with some disgust. "I found where you roasted them."
"Well! I had to eat somehow," pleaded Hiram, in defense. "And if I ever
get my money, I'll pay you back."
"What'll we do with him?" asked Walter, of the girls.
"You take him home and feed him and give him an old overcoat to wear,"
said the practical Nan.
"All right."
"And let him tell your father about his money--if _that's_ true," said
Nan, more doubtfully. "Your father is a lawyer. He will know just what
to do."
"All right!" cried Walter, again. "I'll do that. Come on, Hiram
Beans----"
"Pease."
"All right. Peas or Beans--what's the odds?" said Walter, laughing.
"What Nan says to do is always right."
The boys departed, and then the chums hurried back to the hall by the
subterranean passage. Nobody had discovered their absence; but afterward
they told Dr. Prescott about their adventure, and the door in the
partition between the trunk-room and the well was nailed up.