Mr. Bangs proved to be a genial companion in the days that followed. Nothing suited him better than to fill up theFlyawaywith the crew of campers and go sailing on the pond. No longer seeking to support a fallen dignity as skipper, he was pleased to receive instruction from Henry Burns and Harvey, and even occasionally from Little Tim, in the art of sailing.
They showed him how to sail the craft nicely to windward, without the sail shaking; how to run off the wind, with no danger of jibing her; how to reef with safety, and how to watch the water for signs of squalls. He, in turn, told them good stories of the Fishing Club; and, as he really did know how to fish, he returned their instruction with lessons in this art.
It was certainly a pretty piece of sport, when Mr. Bangs would take his light, split-bamboo fly-rod and send fifty feet of line, straightening out its turns through the air, and dropping a tiny fly on the water as easily as though it had fallen there in actual flight. Even Harvey, and Tom and Bob, who had done some little fly fishing, found Mr. Bangs an expert who could teach them more than they had ever dreamed, of its possibilities. Little Tim, who had threshed brook waters with an alder stick, using a ragged fly, was an apt pupil, when Mr. Bangs entrusted to him his fine rod, and showed him how to make a real cast.
"There, you're catching it, now," exclaimed Mr. Bangs to Tim, one morning, as they floated on the still surface of the pond, about a half mile above the camps. "Don't let your arm go too far back on that back cast. Don't use your shoulder. You're not chopping wood. Just use the wrist on the forward stroke, when you get the line moving forward."
Tim, enthusiastic, tried again and again, striving to remember all points at once, and now and then making a fair cast.
It was only practice work; but, somehow or other, a big black bass failed to understand that, and suddenly Tim's quick eye saw the water in a whirl about his fly. He struck, and the fish was fast.
"Well, by Jove!" exclaimed Mr. Bangs. "One never knows what's going to happen when he's fishing. I didn't think they'd take the fly here at this time of year. Let him have the line now, when he rushes. That's it. Now hold him a little."
The light fly-rod was bending nearly double. Intermittently, the reel would sing as the fish made a dash for freedom and the line ran out.
"Look out now; he's turned. Reel in," shouted Mr. Bangs, more excited even than Little Tim. He wouldn't have had that fish get away for anything. "Here he comes to the top," he continued. "Reel in on him. Hold him. There, he's going to jump. Hold him. Don't let him shake the hook out."
The black bass, a strong active fish, made a leap out of water, shook his jaws as though he would tear the hook loose, then shot downward again.
"Give him a little on the rod when he hits the water," cried Mr. Bangs. "That's right. Keep him working now. Don't give him any slack."
Little Tim, alternately reeling in and lifting on the road, and letting the fish have the line in his angry-rushes, was playing him well. Mr. Bangs applauded. Gradually the struggles of the big bass grew weaker. His rushes, still sharp and fierce, were soon over. By and by he turned on his side.
"Careful now," cautioned Mr. Bangs. "Many a good bass is lost in the landing. Draw him in easy."
Little Tim followed instructions, and Mr. Bangs deftly slid the landing net under the prize. He dipped the bass into the boat, took out a small pair of pocket-scales and weighed him.
"It's a five-pounder!" he exclaimed. "You've beat the record on Whitecap this year. Well, fisherman's luck is a great thing. You're a born lucky fisherman."
"Now," he added, "we'll just row down to your camp and I'll cook a chowder that'll make your eyes stick out, and have it all ready when the boys return. Save them getting a breakfast."
They went back along shore to the empty camp, deserted by the boys, who were out for early morning fishing.
"What do you say?" inquired Mr. Bangs, "Think they'll care if I go ahead and cook up a chowder? Guess I can do it all right. Oh, I've seen 'em made, a thousand times, up at the Fishing Club."
"They'll be glad of it," said Little Tim. "Go ahead."
Mr. Bangs, rummaging through the campers' stores, proceeded to construct his chowder; while Tim busied himself about the camp, after building a fire.
Mr. Bangs, stirring the mess in a big iron kettle suspended above the blaze, waved a welcome to the boys, as they came in.
"Thought you'd like to have breakfast all ready," he cried. "TheFlyaway'swaiting for us all to get through."
They thanked him warmly.
"Oh, I'm having as much fun as you are out of it," he responded. "Get your plates and I'll fill 'em up."
He ladled out a heaping plate of the chowder for each, and they seated themselves on two great logs. Henry Burns tasted his mess first, and then he stopped, looked slyly at his comrades and didn't eat any more. Harvey got a mouthful, and he gave an exclamation of surprise. Little Tim swallowed some, and said "Oh, giminy!" Tom and Bob and the Ellison brothers were each satisfied with one taste. They waited, expectantly, for Mr. Bangs to get his.
Mr. Bangs, helping himself liberally, started in hungrily. Then he stopped and looked around. They were watching him, interestedly. Mr. Bangs made a wry face and rinsed his mouth out with a big swallow of water.
"Well, I'll be hanged!" he exclaimed. "If it isn't sweet. Sweet chowder! Oh dear, isn't it awful? What did it?"
Henry Burns, looking about him, pointed to a tell-tale tin can which, emptied of its contents, lay beside the fire.
Mr. Bangs had made his chowder of condensed milk, sweet and sticky.
"I say," he exclaimed, "just throw that stuff away and we'll go up to the landing for breakfast. I thought milk was milk. I never thought about it's being sweetened."
They liked Mr. Bangs, in spite of his mistakes; and he wasn't abashed for long, when he had pretended to be able to do something that he didn't know how to do, and had been found out. He had a hearty way of laughing about it, as though it were the best joke in all the world—and there was one thing he could really do; he could cast a fly, and they admired his skill in that. And when it came time for them to leave, and bid him good-bye, they were heartily sorry to take leave of him, and hoped they should meet him again.
But Mr. Bangs was not to be gotten free from abruptly. There was bottled soda and there were stale peanuts over at the landing, where Coombs kept a small hotel a little way up from the shore; and Mr. Bangs insisted that they should go over and have a treat at his expense.
"You don't have to start till four o'clock," he urged. "You've got plenty of time." And they needed no great amount of persuasion.
"Funny old place Coombs keeps," he remarked, as they walked from the camps over to the landing. "All sorts of queer people drop in there over night. Last night, there were some show people in some of the rooms next to mine—they're going to leave to-morrow, for the fair up at Newbury—and they kept me awake half the night, with their racket.
"They've got a fortune-teller among them, too," he continued. "Say, she's a shrewd one. Of course, she's one of the fakers, but she's downright smart—told me a lot of things about myself that were true. Suppose she looked me over sharp. Say, I tell you what I'll do; I'll get her to tell your fortunes. How'd you like to have your fortunes told? I'll pay."
As matter of fact, they were not so enthusiastic over it as was Mr. Bangs; but they didn't like to say so, since he seemed to take it for granted that they did. So, after they had had the soda and peanuts, Mr. Bangs ushered them, one by one, into a room, where the fortune-teller awaited them.
Perhaps she flattered most of them over-much; perhaps she even hinted at certain bright-eyed, yellow-haired young misses, whom some of them might fancy, but were not of an age to admit it. At all events, as they came forth, one by one, they made a great mystery of what she had said to them. Little Tim didn't take kindly to the idea at all, in fact; and, when it came his turn, Henry Burns and Harvey had to take him and shove him into the room.
He was inclined to be a bit abashed when he found himself in the presence of a tall, dark, thin-faced woman, whose keen, black eyes seemed to pierce him through and through. In fact, those shrewd, quick eyes were about all anyone might need, to discover a good deal about Little Tim, whose small but wiry figure, tanned face, bare feet and dress indicated much of his condition in life.
"Come over here and sit down," said the woman, as Tim stood, eying her somewhat doubtfully. The boy complied.
"So you want your fortune told, do you?" she asked.
"I dunno as I care much about it," answered Tim, bluntly.
The woman smiled a little. "No?" she said. "Let's see your hand."
Tim extended a grimy fist across the table, the lines of which were so obscured with the soil of Coombs's landing that it might have puzzled more than a wizard to read them. But the woman, her keen eyes twinkling, remarked quickly, "That's a fisherman's hand. You're the best fisherman on the pond."
Tim began to take more interest. "I've caught the biggest bass of the year," he said.
"That's it; what did I tell you?" exclaimed the woman. "I think you're going to have a lot of money left to you some day," she added, noting at a glance Tim's poor attire. Little Tim grinned.
"You have some courage, too," continued the woman, who had not failed to observe the boy's features and the glance of his eye. But at this moment Little Tim gave an exclamation of surprise. Surveying the room he had espied the lettering on a partly unrolled banner in one corner, where the words, "Lorelei, the Sorceress," were inscribed.
"Why, I've seen you before," he said. "That is, I haven't seen you, either; but I've seen your picture on that canvas—and you don't look like that at all."
The woman laughed heartily. "You're sure you don't think it looks like me?" she added, and laughed harder than ever. "Well, I should hope not," she said; "but I fix up like that some, for the show. Where'd you see me?"
"Why, it was down at Benton," answered Tim. "You were with the circus."
Then, as the full remembrance of the occasion came to him, Tim became of a sudden excited. "Say," he asked, "what did Old Witham want?"
The woman looked at him in surprise.
"Old Witham," she repeated, "I don't know who you mean. I don't know any Old Witham."
"Oh, yes you do," urged Tim; and he described the unmistakable figure and appearance of the corpulent colonel, together with the time and night of his visit. The woman's eyes lit with amusement. She remembered how the colonel had parted with his money painfully.
"Oh, he didn't want much," she said. "Somebody had hidden some papers in a factory or mill of some sort—that's what I thought, anyway—and he wanted me to tell him where they were."
"Oh," replied Tim, in a tone of disappointment. "Is that all?" He had really fancied the colonel might have a love affair, and that it would be great fun to reveal it to the boys.
"Why, what business is it of yours, what he wanted?" inquired the woman.
"It ain't any," answered Tim. "Guess I'll go now;" and he made his escape through the door.
"Oh, she didn't tell me anything," said Little Tim, as the boys surrounded him a moment later. "Said I could catch fish, though. How do you suppose she knew that?"
Mr. Bangs seemed much amused. "She's a real witch," he exclaimed. "Well, good-bye, boys. Come again next year."
They said good-bye and started off.
"Say, Jack," said Little Tim, as they walked along together, "that's the fortune-teller that was down to Benton with the circus. Remember I told you we caught Witham coming out of the tent? Well, I asked her what he was there for, and it wasn't anything at all. He was only hunting for some papers that somebody had hidden—"
"What's that—tell me about that?"
Henry Burns, who had been walking close by, but who had been not greatly interested up to this point, had suddenly interrupted. "What did Witham want?" he repeated.
Little Tim repeated the fortune-teller's words.
Henry Burns, hurrying ahead to where the others were walking, caught John Ellison by an arm and drew him away. "Come back here a minute," he said. "Here, Tim, tell John what the fortune-teller said about Witham."
John Ellison, listening to Tim Reardon, grew pale and clenched his fist.
"That's it," he cried. "Therearesome other papers, don't you suppose? Lawyer Estes said there might be; but they couldn't find them, though they hunted through the mill. I just know there are some. Witham knew it, too. That's what he was after. Tim, you've found out something big, I tell you. We've just got to get into that mill again and go through it. Don't you say a word to anybody, Tim."
Tim's eyes opened wide with astonishment—but he promised.
All through the work of striking and packing the two tents, and stowing the stuff into the wagon, Henry Burns and John Ellison discussed this new discovery; what it might mean and what use could be made of it. And all the way home, on the long, dusty road, they talked it over. They were late getting started, and it was eight o'clock when they turned in at the Ellison farm.
The mill had ceased grinding for two hours, and night had settled down. But, as they got out of the wagon, John Ellison called to Henry Burns and pointed over the hill toward the mill.
"Do you see?" he said softly, but in excited tones. "Do you see? That's what I see night after night, sometimes as late as nine o'clock."
There was somebody in the old mill, evidently, for the light as from a lantern was discernible now and again through one of the old, cobwebbed windows; a light that flickered fitfully first from one floor, then from another.
"It's Witham," said John Ellison. "He's always in the mill now, early and late. I'll bet he's hunted through it a hundred times since he's had it. It gets on his mind, I guess; for I've seen him come back down the road many a night, after the day's work was over, and he'd had supper, and go through the rooms with the lantern."
"Well," said Henry Burns, quietly, "we'll go through them, too. We'll do it, some way."
"Say, Henry, guess what I'm going to do," said John Ellison, as he met Henry Burns in the road leading from Benton, a few days following the return from camp.
Henry Burns, leaning on the paddle he was carrying, looked at his friend for a moment and then answered, with surprising assurance, "You're going to work for Witham."
John Ellison stared at his friend in amazement.
"You ought to be a fortune-teller," he exclaimed. "You can't have heard about it, because I haven't told anybody—not even the folks at home. How'd you know?"
"I didn't," replied Henry Burns, smiling at the other's evident surprise. "I only guessed. I knew by the way you looked that it was something unusual; and I know what you're thinking of all the time; it's about those papers. So I've been thinking what I'd do, if I wanted a chance to look for them, and I said to myself that I'd try to go to work in the mill, and keep my eyes open."
"Well, you've hit it," responded John Ellison. "I know he needs a man, and I'm big enough to do the work. Say, come on in with me to-morrow, will you? I hate to go ask Old Witham for work. You don't mind. Come in and see what he says."
"I'll do it," replied Henry Burns. "I'll meet you at the foot of the hill to-morrow forenoon at ten o'clock. Perhaps he'll hire me, too."
"You! you don't have to work," exclaimed John Ellison.
"No, but I will, if he'll take me," said Henry Burns. "I'll stay until I get one good chance to go through the mill, and then I'll leave."
"You're a brick," said John Ellison. "I'm going to tell mother about the scheme now. She won't like it, either. She'd feel bad to have me go to work there for somebody else, when we ought to be running it ourselves. Where are you going—canoeing?"
"Yes; come along?" replied Henry Burns. But John Ellison was too full of his plan to admit of sport, and they separated, with the agreement to meet on the following day.
John Ellison was correct in his surmise that Mrs. Ellison would oppose his intention to work for Colonel Witham. Indeed, Mrs. Ellison wouldn't hear of it at all, at first. It seemed to her a disgrace, almost, to ask favour at the hands of one who, she firmly believed, had somehow tricked them out of their own. But John Ellison was firm.
It would be only for a little time, at most; only that he might, at opportune moments, look about in hope of making some discovery.
"But what can it possibly accomplish?" urged Mrs. Ellison. "Lawyer Estes has had the mill searched a dozen times, and there has been nothing found. How can you expect to find anything? Colonel Witham wouldn't give you the chance, anyway. He's always around the mill now, and he's been over it a hundred times, himself, I dare say. Remember how we've seen his light there night after night?"
But John Ellison was not to be convinced nor thwarted. "I want to hunt for myself," he insisted. "You kept it from me, before, when the lawyers had the searches made."
"I know it," sighed Mrs. Ellison. "I hated to tell you that we were in danger of losing the mill."
"Well, I'm going," declared John Ellison, and Mrs. Ellison gave reluctant consent.
Still, she might have saved herself the trouble of objecting, and let Colonel Witham settle the matter—which he did, summarily.
It was warm, and miller Witham, uncomfortable at all times in summer sultriness, was doubly so in the hot, dusty atmosphere of the mill. The dust from the meal settled on his perspiring face and distressed him; the dull grinding of the huge stones and the whirr of the shaftings and drums somehow did not sound in his ears so agreeably as he had once fancied they would. There was something oppressive about the place—or something in the air that caused him an unexplainable uneasiness—and he stood in the doorway, looking unhappy and out of sorts.
He saw two boys come briskly down the road from the Ellison farm and turn up the main road in the direction of the mill. As they approached, he recognized them, and retired within the doorway. To his surprise, they entered.
"Well, what is it?" he demanded shortly as John Ellison and Henry Burns stood confronting him. "What do you want? I won't have boys around the mill, you know. Always in the way, and I'm busy here."
"Why, you see," replied John Ellison, turning colour a bit but speaking firmly, "we don't want to bother you nor get in the way; but I—I want to get some work to do. I'm big enough and strong enough to work, now, and I heard you wanted a man. I came to see if you wouldn't hire me."
Colonel Witham's face was a study. Taken all by surprise, he seemed to know scarcely what to say. He shifted uneasily and the drops of perspiration rolled from his forehead. He mopped his face with a big, red handkerchief, and looked shiftily from one boyish face to the other.
"Why, I did say I wanted help," he admitted; "but,"—and he glanced at the youth who had spoken,—"I didn't say I wanted a boy. No, you won't do."
"Why, I'm big enough to do the haying," urged John Ellison. "You've got the mill now. You might give me a job, I think."
Possibly some thought of this kind might have found fleeting lodgment in the colonel's brain; of Jim Ellison, who used to sit at the desk in the corner; of the son that now asked him for work. Then a crafty, suspicious light came into his eyes, and he glanced quickly at John Ellison's companion.
"What do you want here, Henry Burns?" he demanded. "I had you in my hotel at Samoset Bay once, and you brought me bad luck. You get out. I don't want you around here. Get out, I say."
He moved threateningly toward Henry Burns, and the boy, seeing it was useless to try to remain, stepped outside.
"No, I don't want you, either," said Colonel Witham, turning abruptly now to John Ellison. "No boys around this mill. I don't care if your father did own it. You can't work here. I've no place for you."
Despite his blustering and almost threatening manner, however, Colonel Witham did not offer to thrust John Ellison from the mill. He seemed on the point of doing it, but something stopped him. He couldn't have told what. But he merely repeated his refusal, and turned away.
It was only boyish impulse on John Ellison's part, and an innocent purchaser of the mill would have laughed at him; but he stepped nearer to Colonel Witham and said, earnestly, "You'll have to let me in here some day, Colonel Witham. The mill isn't yours, and you know it." And he added, quickly, as the thought occurred to him, "Perhaps the fortune-teller you saw at the circus will tell me more than she told you. Perhaps she'll tell me where the papers are."
For a moment Colonel Witham's heavy face turned deathly pale, and he leaned for support against one of the beams of the mill. Then the colour came back into his face with a rush, and he stamped angrily on the floor.
"Confound you!" he cried. "You clear out, too. I don't know anything about your fortune-tellers, and I don't care. I've got no time to fool away with boys. Now get out."
John Ellison walked slowly to the door, leaving the colonel mopping his face and turning alternately white and red; and as he stepped outside Colonel Witham dropped into a chair.
Then, as the boys went on together up the hill to the Ellison farm, Colonel Witham, recovering in a measure from the shock he had received, arose from his chair, somewhat unsteady on his legs, and began, for the hundredth and more time, a weary, fruitless search of the old mill, from the garret to the very surface of the water flowing under it.
And as Colonel Witham groped here and there, in dusty corners, he muttered, "What on earth did he mean? The fortune-teller—how could he know of that? There's witchcraft at work somewhere. But there aren't any papers in this mill. I know it. I know it. I know it."
And still he kept up his search until it was long past the time for shutting down.
Three days after this, Lawyer Estes was talking to John Ellison at the farmhouse.
"Well, I've run down your witch," he said, smiling; "and there isn't anything to be made out of her. I've been clear to the fair-grounds at Newbury to see her. She's a shrewd one; didn't take her long to see that something was up. Sized me up for a lawyer, I guess, and shut up tighter than a clam. I told her what I knew, but she swore Tim Reardon was mistaken.
"Those people have a fear of getting mixed up with the courts; naturally suspicious, I suppose. She declared she had said that the man she talked with asked about some letters he had lost, himself; and that was all she knew about it. No use in my talking, either. I didn't get anything more out of her. We're right where we were before."
"Well, I'm going to get into that mill and look around, just the same," exclaimed John Ellison. "I'll do it some way."
"Then you'll be committing trespass," said Lawyer Estes, cautiously.
"I don't care," insisted the boy. "I won't be doing any harm. I'm not going to touch anything that isn't ours. But I'm going to look."
"Then don't tell me about it," said the lawyer. "I couldn't be a party to a proceeding like that."
"No, but I know who will," said John Ellison. "It's Henry Burns. He won't be afraid of looking through an old mill at night—and he'll know a way to do it, too."
John Ellison tramped into town, that afternoon, and hunted up his friend.
"Why, of course," responded Henry Burns; "it's easy. Jack and I'll go with you. It won't do any harm, just to walk through a mill." And he added, laughing, "You know we've been in there once before. Remember the night we told you of?"
John Ellison looked serious.
"Yes," he replied, "and there was something queer about that, too, wasn't there? You said father went through the mill, upstairs and down, just the same as Witham does often now."
"He did, sure enough," said Henry Burns, thoughtfully. "I wish I'd known what trouble was coming some day; I'd have tried to follow him. Well, we'll go through all right—but what about Witham?"
"That's just what I've been thinking," said John Ellison.
"Well," replied Henry Burns, after some moments' reflection, "leave it to me. I'll fix that part of it. And supposing the worst should happen and he catch us all in there, what could he do? We'll get Jack and Tom and Bob—yes, and Tim, too; he's got sharp eyes. Witham can't lick us all. If he catches us, we'll just have to get out. He wouldn't make any trouble; he knows what people think about him and the mill."
So John Ellison left it to Henry Burns; and the latter set about his plans in his own peculiar and individual way. The scheme had only to be mentioned to Jack and the others, to meet with their approval. They were ready for anything that Henry Burns might suggest. The idea that a night search, of premises which had already been hunted over scores of times by daylight, did not offer much hope of success, had little weight with them. If Henry Burns led, they would follow.
The night finally selected by Henry Burns and John Ellison would have made a gloomy companion picture to the one when Harvey and Henry Burns first made their entry into the mill, under the guidance of Bess Thornton, except that it did not rain. Henry Burns and John Ellison had noted the favourable signs of the weather all afternoon; how the heavy clouds were gathering; how the gusts whipped the dust into little whirlwinds and blew flaws upon the surface of the stream; how the waning daylight went dim earlier than usual; and they had voted it favourable for the enterprise.
Wherefore, there appeared on the surface of Mill stream, not long after sundown, two canoes that held, respectively, Henry Burns and Harvey and Tim Reardon, and Tom Harris and Bob White. These two canoes, not racing now, but going along side by side in friendly manner, sped quietly and swiftly upstream in the direction of the Ellison dam. Then, arriving within sight of it, they waited on the water silently for a time, until two figures crept along the shore and hailed them. These were John and James Ellison.
"It's all right," said John Ellison, in answer to an inquiry; "Witham's at home, and the place is deserted. And who do you suppose is on watch up near the Half Way House, to let us know if Witham comes out? Bess Thornton. I let her in on the secret, because I knew she'd help. She knows what Old Witham is."
"Have you got it?" inquired Henry Burns, mysteriously.
"Sure," responded John Ellison. "It's up close by the mill. Come on."
They paddled up close to the white foam that ran from the foot of the dam, where the falling water of the stream struck the basin below, and turned the canoes inshore. There, up the bank, John Ellison produced the mysterious object of Henry Burns's inquiry. It proved to be an old wash-boiler.
Harvey and the others eyed it with astonishment.
"What are you going to do with that old thing?" asked Harvey. "This isn't Fourth of July."
"That's my fiddle," replied Henry Burns, coolly. "I've got the string in my pocket."
With which reply, he took hold of one handle of the wash-boiler and John Ellison the other; and they proceeded up the bank. The others followed, grinning.
"Play us a tune," suggested young Tim.
"Not unless I have to," replied Henry Burns. "You may hear it, and perhaps you won't."
All was desolate and deserted, as they made a circuit of the surroundings of the mill. It certainly offered no attractions to visitors, after nightfall. The crazy old structure, unpainted and blackened with age, made a dark, dismal picture against the dull sky. The water fell with a monotonous roar over the dam; the cold dripping of water sounded within the shell of the mill. The wind, by fits and starts, rattled loose boards and set stray shingles tattooing here and there. Dust blew down from the roadway.
"He'll not be out to-night," remarked Harvey, as they looked up the road in the direction of the Half Way House.
"You can't tell," replied John Ellison. "We've seen the light in here some nights that were as bad as this. What say, shall we go in?"
They followed his lead, around by the way Henry Burns and Harvey had once before entered, and, one by one, went in through the window. Then they paused, huddled on a plank, while John Ellison scratched a match and lighted a sputtering lantern, the wick of which had become dampened. Across the planking they picked their way, and entered the main room on the first floor.
Then Henry Burns and John Ellison made another trip and brought in Henry Burns's "fiddle," greatly to the amusement of the others.
"That goes on the top floor," said Henry Burns, and they ascended the two flights of stairs with it, depositing it upside down, in a corner of the garret that was boarded up as a separate room, or large closet. Then Henry Burns, producing from his pocket a piece of closely woven cotton rope, skilfully tossed one end over a beam above his head; seized the end as it fell, quickly tied a running knot and hauled it snug. The rope, made fast thus at one end to the beam, drew taut as he pulled down on it.
"That's the fiddle-string, eh Jack?" laughed Henry Burns. "We've made a horse-fiddle before now, haven't we? that rope's got so much resin on it that it squeaks if you just look at it."
He passed the free end of the resined rope through a hole in the bottom of the upturned wash-boiler, and knotted it so it would not pull out again.
"Now where's the fiddle-bow, John?" he asked.
John Ellison forthwith produced a long bent bow of alder, strung with pieces of tied horse-hair.
"Listen," said Henry Burns; and he drew the bow gently across the resined rope. The sound that issued forth—the combined agony of the vibrating wash-boiler and the shrill squeak of the rope—was one hardly to be described. It was like a wail of some unworldly creature, ending with a shuddering twang that grated even on the nerves of Henry Burns's companions. Then Henry Burns laid the bow aside and was ready for the search.
"That sounds nice on Fourth of July night," he remarked, "but not in here. Let's see what we can find, John."
They lighted two more lanterns that they had brought and began their search. Strangely enough, however, the possibilities that had seemed so real to John Ellison, as he had gazed day by day upon the old mill he knew so well, seemed to vanish now that he was within. He had thought of a hundred and one odd corners where he would search; but now they offered obviously so little chance of secreting anything that he felt his hopes begin to wane.
Still, they went at it earnestly and thoroughly. Through the garret, with their lanterns lighted, they hunted; lifting aside boxes and barrels; opening dingy closets; peering into long unused bins. Hoppers that had been once a part of the mill's equipment, but which had been displaced by others, were carefully examined; even the rafters overhead were scrutinized, lest some overlooked box might be found hidden thereon.
They went to the floor below, where the great grinding stones were; and where a tangle of belting and shaftings half filled one room. There were hiding places a-plenty here; but not one of them yielded anything. Then, on the main floor, where there was a great safe hidden in one corner, and the desk. Here they were on forbidden ground. The property was clearly Witham's, and they would not touch that. They could only search about the nooks and corners, and sound the boards for secret hiding-places.
So on, up and down, in and out; even through the outer room of the mill, where all was rough and unfinished, and only a plank thrown across here and there to walk on. There were places enough where a box or package might be hidden—but where nothing was.
Yet they continued industriously, and were so absorbed in their search that they failed to notice that Little Tim had vanished, until Harvey called to him for something, and he was nowhere to be found.
They were half frightened for a moment, fearing lest he had slipped and fallen somewhere; but Harvey laughed at their fears.
"You can't hurt that little monkey," he said. "He can swim like a fish, and he's a regular cat on climbing. No, he's up to some trick or other."
They were aware of this presently—and just a bit startled—at the sound of a low whistle coming from the outer mill; then Tim Reardon darted in from the darkness, into the circle of lanterns.
"He's coming!" he gasped. "I just met Bess Thornton up the road. Cracky, how I did run! Look out the window; you'll see his lantern. Better turn ours down, quick."
They lost no time in following this advice; then crept to the window that looked on the road and peered out. The swinging and swaying of a lantern could be seen, indistinctly in the distance. Colonel Witham was coming. The boys sped quickly up two flights of stairs into the garret.
What should bring Colonel Witham, night after night, to the old mill, where he had hunted long and fruitlessly? He, himself, could hardly have told. Possibly he felt somehow a sense as of security; that, so long as he was there, there could be nobody else on hand, to search; that he was guarding his property—against, he knew not what. And, if ever the thought came to him, that perhaps it had been better for his peace of mind never to have come into possession of the old mill at all, why, he did not allow his mind to dwell upon it. That usually set him to hunting.
Now the door opened, and Colonel Witham stepped within the mill. And for all his being there voluntarily, one might have seen by the pallor of his face that he was half afraid. There, in the shadow, just beyond the rim of his own lantern light, was the desk where Jim Ellison used to sit—and sneer at him. Did Colonel Witham recall that? Perhaps. He lifted the lantern and let the light fall on the spot. The place was certainly empty.
For all the relief of that, Colonel Witham uttered a cry very much like a frightened man, the next moment. Then he was angry, as he felt the goose-flesh prickling all over him. The sharp night wind had slammed the little door leading to the outer mill, with a bang, and the noise had echoed through all the rooms.
There was nothing in that to be afraid of, and Colonel Witham seated himself in a chair by the desk, with the lantern beside him on the floor. Now that he was here, he scarce knew why he had come.
What was that? Was that a foot-fall on some floor above? Colonel Witham sat bolt upright in his seat and listened. He took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. Then he was angry with himself again. He was certainly nervous to-night.
Nervous indeed; for he came out of his chair with a bound, as the wind suddenly swooped down on the old mill, shrieked past one corner, with a cry that was almost like a voice, and went on up the stream, crackling the dead branches of trees and moaning through the pines.
Colonel Witham started for the door. It was no use; nature was against him—conspiring to fill him with alarm. He was foolish to have come. He would go back to the inn.
But then his natural stubbornness asserted itself. Should a wild night drive him out of his own mill—when the law couldn't? He turned resolutely and went slowly back. Nor did he pause on the main floor, but started up the first flight of stairs.
Another shriek of the wind, that rattled the loose window panes on the floor above, as though by a hundred unseen hands. The colonel crouched down on the stairs for a moment—and then, oh, what a hideous sound was that!
Somewhere, from the vague spaces of the upper part of the mill, there was wafted down to him such a noise as he had never heard; it squeaked and it thrummed; it moaned deep, and it wailed with an unearthly, piercing sound. There was the sorrow and the agony of a thousand voices in it. It blended now with the wind, and added to the cry of that; again it rose above the wind, and pierced the colonel's very soul.
Colonel Witham, clutching his lantern with desperation, fairly slid down the stairs, his legs wabbling weakly as he tried to stay himself. He landed in a heap at the foot. Then, rising with a mighty effort, he fled from the mill, up the road to the Half Way House.
Some moments later, seven boys, shaking with laughter, emerged from the garret room and resumed their search.
Colonel Witham had heard the strains of Henry Burns's horse-fiddle.
"Let's look, Tim! Let me see. Say, where'd you find it? Bring it here to the light."
The crowd of boys, much excited, was jostling Little Tim, plying him with more questions than he could answer, and each one trying to grasp at something that he held in his hand.
Proceeding into the main room of the mill, Tim held his prize close to the light of three lanterns. It was a small box, tied with cords, and contained apparently something like coin, by the clinking sound that came from within.
"I found it out in the mill, where the water comes in and where the big wheels are," said Tim, breathlessly. "Sounds as though there was money in it, don't it? It was just where one of the shafts goes through part of a beam. The beam is cut away there, and room enough left for this, right under the shafting. Nobody'd ever think of going near it when the mill was running; but I climbed up there and took hold of the shaft, and I spied it."
He was tearing off the cords as he spoke; and now, as he opened the cover, sure enough, there was disclosed a handful or two of small coin: some quarters and dimes and pennies—but nothing of great value. These were intermingled with some papers, folded small.
John Ellison snatched at these and quickly unfolded them. But they read disappointment for him. They were nothing more than a lot of receipted bills, for supplies brought to the miller. Then they counted the coin. There was a dollar and eighty odd cents in cash.
Tim Reardon was elated enough, and evidently thought the discovery justified any amount of laborious searching; but the faces of John Ellison and Henry Burns were eloquent of disappointment.
"Too bad, John," remarked Henry Burns, putting his hand on the other's shoulder. "I thought we'd struck it at last. Want to hunt any more?"
John Ellison shook his head. "I've got enough," he said. "I give it up. We've looked everywhere I can think of."
"And who gets the money?" inquired Tim, eagerly.
"I don't know," replied John Ellison, "and I don't care much. But I don't know as we've got any right to it—though these bills aren't Witham's, and I suppose the money isn't. The mill is his now, and I guess we haven't any right to come in here and take this."
"Well," suggested Henry Burns, "why not ask Witham about it?"
"Ask Witham!" exclaimed John Ellison. "I won't. I don't want ever to speak to him again. You can, though, if you want to."
"All right," said Henry Burns. "I'll ask him. And I'll get the money for you."
"I don't want it," exclaimed John Ellison, whose disappointment was evident in his tone of bitterness. "Give it to Tim—if you get it."
"All right," said Henry Burns.
Tim's eyes twinkled.
It was evening of the following day, and Colonel Witham sat on the porch of the Half Way House, smoking his pipe. It had been a puzzling day for him, and he was thinking it over. Going through the mill, along in the afternoon, he had come upon an extraordinary looking object in the garret—an old wash-boiler, inverted, with a resined cord running from the bottom of it up to a beam. And near by lay a sort of bow, strung with horse-hair.
What on earth could that be, and how had it come there? Colonel Witham, at first, had thought it might be some sort of an infernal machine, put there to destroy the mill. But he had investigated, cautiously, and demonstrated its harmlessness. And about the floor were a few half burned matches. Somebody had been in the mill. A faint perception began to dawn upon him, as the day passed, that it might have been the boys; but he couldn't wholly figure it out, and it bothered him not a little.
He thought of notifying the police—but he didn't want them hunting about the mill—or anybody else. The best thing, he decided, was to keep quiet, and watch out sharper than ever.
He was not in a friendly mood, therefore, when, gazing down the road, he espied Henry Burns approaching on a bicycle, followed closely by Jack Harvey and Tim Reardon. Moreover, his suspicions were aroused. He was somewhat surprised, however, when the boys dismounted at a little distance, leaned their wheels against some bushes and approached the porch.
Greater still was the colonel's surprise—indeed, he was fairly taken aback—when Henry Burns, having bade him good-evening, broached his subject abruptly, without any preliminaries.
"Colonel Witham," said Henry Burns, coolly, "we were up in the mill last night."
The colonel's eyes stuck out, and he glared at Henry Burns with mingled astonishment and wrath.
"Eh, what's that?" he exclaimed, "you were in my mill! Why, you young rascals, don't you know I could have you all arrested as burglars?"
"No," replied Henry Burns, "we didn't go to take anything of yours. We were after some papers that belonged to John Ellison's father. We weren't going to keep them either, if we found them; just turn them over to Lawyer Estes."
"Well, then, it was trespass," cried Colonel Witham, wrathfully. "Who told you there were papers in the mill. Lawyer Estes didn't—he knows better."
"No," replied Henry Burns, "but you told the fortune-teller so."
"I didn't say that," bellowed Colonel Witham, rising from his chair. But it was plain the suggestion of the fortune-teller worried him. "What did you do in there?" he added. "If you did any harm, you'll suffer for it."
"We didn't," said Henry Burns. "We only played on a horse-fiddle once or twice. You know there are rats in the mill, colonel. I guess they scampered when they heard that."
Colonel Witham had been about to burst forth with an angry exclamation; but the thought of his own ignominious flight made him pause. Rats, indeed! He knew there wasn't a rat in the whole mill that had been half so terrified as he.
"Now see here," he said, shaking his fist for emphasis, "I know you didn't do any harm in the mill. It was one of your crazy pranks. But don't you ever go in there again, or I'll make trouble for you."
"We're not going to," said Henry Burns.
"There isn't anything in there, anyway," urged Colonel Witham. "I've heard that talk, around Benton, and it's all nonsense. You couldn't find anything in there, if you hunted a hundred years."
"But we did find something," said Henry Burns, in a matter-of-fact way.
Colonel Witham's jaw dropped, and he looked at Henry Burns almost helplessly. He couldn't speak for a moment. Then he asked, huskily, "What was it you found? None of your pranks now; what did you find?"
"A small box, with some coins in it," replied Henry Burns; and he described the hiding place. "There was a dollar and eighty-six cents."
Colonel Witham looked relieved. "Give them to me," he cried. "You've got no right to the stuff."
"Wasn't it Ellison's?" inquired Henry Burns.
"Never you mind whose it was," cried Colonel Witham. "It was in my mill. Give it to me, or I'll have the law on you."
"There were some papers, too," continued Henry Burns.
Colonel Witham staggered again. The hand that held his pipe shook. Then his eyes twinkled craftily.
"Well, you're right smart boys," he said. "Keep the money, if you want it, or give it to John Ellison. Yes, it was Jim Ellison's—the money was. But the papers are mine. Have you got them? Give me the papers, and keep the money. I don't claim the money."
"Yes, I've got the papers," replied Henry Burns. "Here they are. There's all there were."
He handed the package to Colonel Witham, who took it with trembling hand. Then Henry Burns and his friends made a hurried departure. By the time the colonel had made an examination of the papers, and had turned, white with anger, to vent his rage upon them, they were spinning down the road.
"Tim," said Henry Burns, as they rode along, "you get the money."
It was a day or two later, on a sultry afternoon, and Bess Thornton stood in the doorway of the old house where she and Granny Thornton lived, looking forth at the sky. A passing shower was sprinkling the doorsteps with a few big drops, and the girl drew back with a look of disappointment on her face.
"It always rains when you don't want it to," she said. "Wish there was somebody to play with. It's pokey here, with gran' gone to Witham's. I don't know what to do."
Something suggested itself to her mind, however, for presently she opened the door leading to the attic and went up the stairs. It was dark and silent in the attic, but she threw open a window at either end, unfastened the blinds, and the daylight entered. It disclosed a clutter of old household stuff: some strings of pop-corn and dried apples and herbs hanging from the rafters, and a lot of faded garments, suspended from nails.
She tried on an old-fashioned poke-bonnet, looked at herself in a bit of cracked mirror that leaned against a wash-stand, and laughed at the odd picture she made. Then, by turns, she arrayed herself in some of the antiquated garments. She rummaged here and there, until she came to the old bureau.
"Gran' always keeps that locked," she said. "I guess nobody'd want to steal anything from this old place, though. She needn't be so particular. I wonder where she keeps the key."
There was no great difficulty in finding that, either, once she had set about it; for soon her hand rested on the key, as she felt along the tops of the beams, and came to the one where Granny Thornton had laid it.
"I'm going to have a look," said the girl softly to herself. "Gran's always telling me to keep out of here." Then, as the thought struck her, she exclaimed, "I'll bet here's where she put the coin."
The lock of the upper drawer of the bureau yielded readily to the pressure of the key; she drew the drawer out, and looked within. There was a mixture of curious odds and ends, from which she picked up a tiny white dress.
"That's funny," she exclaimed. "It's a baby's dress. I wonder what gran' keeps it for; perhaps 'twas mine. It's small, though. Wonder if I was ever as little as that."
She took the tiny garment by the sleeves, and held it up against herself. Then she laughed merrily. "I wish I could ask gran' about it," she said.
A small box attracted her eye and she seized that. She got a surprise then. She had thought that perhaps it might contain the coin. But it contained that and more. There, indeed, was the golden coin; but, strangely enough, it was not as she and Tim Reardon had found it, but affixed to a small golden chain.
"Oh!" she exclaimed; "Gran' was right, then. It did belong to us, after all. My, it's pretty, too. Gran' ought to let me wear it."
She tried to hang it about her neck, but the chain was too short. She remedied that, however, by piecing it out with two bits of ribbon which she found in the drawer. These she knotted in a bow at the back of her neck, and danced over to the mirror, to note the effect of the chain with its ornament. It was a rare piece of finery in her eyes, and she gazed upon it long and wistfully.
"I'm going to wear it awhile," she exclaimed. "It won't hurt it any. Gran' said I wore it once, when I was little. It's mine, I guess, anyway."
She continued her rummaging through the drawer, but it yielded nothing more to her fancy. She shut the drawer and locked it, and went to look at herself once more in the piece of mirror. The sun came out from behind the passing clouds, and, as it streamed in at one of the windows, it shone on the chain and the coin and on the girl's face.
"I just can't take it off yet," she said; and, closing the blinds, tripped down the stairs. But, as she looked out the door, she espied Granny Thornton coming in at the gate. She thought of the chain and its coin; and, realizing it was too late to regain the attic and replace it, slipped quietly out at the shed door and ran down through the fields to the brook, before Granny Thornton had espied her.
As she came to the edge of the brook, a small boy, that had been lying face down on the turf, with an arm deep in the water, rose up and greeted her.
"Why, hello, Tim," she said, surprised; "what are you doing?"
"Trying to tickle that big trout," replied Tim Reardon. "I've been here half an hour, without moving, but I can't find him. There's where he lies, though; I've seen him often. But he won't come near; he's too smart. I'm going to try the pickerel. See here, look what I've got."
He put a hand into his trousers pocket, and drew forth an object wrapped in a piece of newspaper. It proved to be a new spoon hook, bright and shiny, with gleaming red and silver, and a bunch of bright feathers covering the hooks at the end.
"Isn't that a beauty!" he exclaimed. "Cost a quarter. I bought it. John Ellison gave me that money I found in the mill."
"It's fine," replied the girl. "Going to try it?"
"Sure," answered Tim. "My rod's hid down by the stream. I wanted to try to tickle a trout when the shower ruffled the water here. Ever tickle a trout?"
Bess Thornton laughed. "No," said she; "nor you, either, I guess."
"Honest injun, I have," asserted Tim, warmly. "You just put your hand down in the water, and keep it still for an awful while; and by and by perhaps a fish'll brush against it. Then he'll keep doing it, and then you just move your hand and your fingers easy like, and the trout, he kind er likes it. Then, when you get a good chance, you just grab quick and throw him out on shore."
"Hm!" exclaimed the girl; "I'd like to see you do it."
They went along the brook to the road, passed up the road to a point some way above the dam, when Tim Reardon presently disappeared in a clump of bushes; from this he soon emerged, with his bamboo fish-pole. They went down through the field to the shore.
Jointing up the rod and affixing the reel, Tim Reardon ran out his line, tied on the bright spoon-hook and began trolling. The allurement proved enticing, and presently he hooked a fish. Tim gallantly handed the rod to Bess Thornton.
"Pull him in," he said. "I've caught lots of 'em. You can land this one."
The girl seized the rod, with a little cry of delight, and lifted the fish out of water. Then she swung it in on shore, where it lay, with its green body twisting about in the grass, and its great jaws distended, showing its sharp teeth.
"My, isn't he ugly looking!" she exclaimed. "You take the hook out, will you, Tim?"
Tim, grasping the squirming fish tightly behind the gills, disengaged the hook and threw the fish down in the grass again. "That one's yours," he said.
The girl still held the pole.
"Let me try just a minute, will you?" she asked. "If I get another, you can have it."
Tim assented readily, and she swung the pole and cast the hook far out upon the water. She drew it back and forth past a clump of lily pads, and then cast again. She was not as skilful with the long rod as the boy had been, however; and once, as she cast, the line did not have time to straighten out behind her, and the hook fell in the water close by the shore. She jerked it out and tried to cast again.
The hook swung in, almost striking her in the face; and both she and Tim Reardon dodged. The next moment, she made a sweep with the rod, to throw the hook back toward the water. Something caught, and she felt a slight tug at her neck. She dropped the rod and uttered a cry of dismay.
"What's the matter?" cried Little Tim. "Did you get hooked?"
But the girl made no answer. She stood, holding the ends of the broken chain in either hand, anxiously looking all about her.
"The coin!" she gasped. "Tim, I've lost the coin. Oh, won't gran' give it to me if I've lost that again!"
They hunted everywhere about them, parting the tufts of grass carefully and poking about on hands and knees. But the coin was nowhere to be seen.
"I tell you what," suggested Tim, "it's gone into the water. Never mind, though; I can get it. I'll dive for it."
They were at the edge of a little bank, from which the water went off deep at a sharp angle. They gazed down into the water, but there was not light enough within its depths, nor was it sufficiently clear to enable them to see the bottom.
"I'm going in after it, too," exclaimed Bess Thornton; "but I can't in this dress." She glanced at the sailor-suit she wore. "I'm going back to the house and put on the old one. You try for it while I'm gone, won't you, Tim?"
The boy nodded; and Bess Thornton, half in tears, started off on a smart run to the old house. In her dismay, she had forgotten that Granny Thornton had returned from the inn; but she was speedily aware of that fact as she darted in at the kitchen door. There stood Granny Thornton, with mingled anger and alarm depicted on her countenance.
"Oh," she cried, "I'd just like to shake you, good. Give me back that chain and the coin. Don't say you didn't take it. I found it gone. What do you mean by going into that drawer? Don't you ever—"
She stopped abruptly, for Bess Thornton was facing her, the tears standing in her eyes, and she held in her hand the broken chain.
"Oh, gran'," she cried, "don't scold. I didn't mean any harm. I just wanted to wear it a little while. But it's—it's gone."
And she told the story of the loss of the coin.
Granny Thornton stared at the girl in amazement. Then she burst forth in querulous tones, seemingly as though she were addressing the girl and soliloquizing at the same time.
"It's gone!" she gasped. "Gone again—and sure there's a fate in it. Plenty of chains like that to be had, but never another coin of the kind seen about these parts. Oh, but you've gone and done it. Don't you know that coin meant luck for you, girl? You might have gone to the big house to live some day; but you'll never go now. You've lost the luck. You're bad—bad. There's no making you mind. Give me the chain."
Her voice grew more harsh and angry. "Let the coin go," she said. "You've lost it, and you can suffer for it. You'll not go out of this house again to-day."
Puzzled at her strange words, and hurt at the scolding, Bess Thornton sat sullenly. "I'll get it back to-morrow, if I can't to-day," she said. "I'm going to dive for it."
"You keep away from the water, do you hear?" replied Granny Thornton; but, a half-hour later, she seemed to have changed her mind. "Go and get it, if you can," she said, shortly. "Change that dress—and don't get drowned."
But Little Tim, in the mean time, had not been idle. Hastily throwing off his clothing, he dived again and again into the deep pool, swimming to the bottom and groping about there. He brought up handfuls of sticks and small stones, and the debris of the water's bed. A dozen times he was unsuccessful—and then, at last, as he clung to the bank and opened his fist for the water to thin the mud and ooze that he had clutched, there lay the golden coin, bright and shining in his palm.
He scrambled out, had his clothes on in a twinkling, dropped the coin into one of his pockets, and started off on a run down the road.
Perhaps old Granny Thornton had been right, however, when she exclaimed that there was a fate in the mysterious foreign piece; for when Tim Reardon reached his hand into his pocket presently, to see that the coin was safe—lo, it had once more disappeared. Little Tim, with a look of chagrin, turned his pocket inside out. A tell-tale hole in one corner accounted for the disappearance. Tim, muttering his disgust, slowly retraced his steps, kicking away the dust with his bare feet.
He was still searching for the coin when Bess Thornton returned. They were both searching for it an hour later. But the coin was lost.
"I'm awful sorry," said Tim, as they finally relinquished the search. "I'll tell you what, though. It's my fault, and I've got a dollar and sixty cents left at home, and I'll give you that."
The girl shook her head sadly. "I wouldn't take it," she replied.
Two hours later, Benny Ellison, strolling homeward, with gun over shoulder, and two pickerel dangling from a crotched stick, espied something gleaming in the grass by the roadside. He stooped and picked up a golden coin.
"What luck!" he exclaimed. He put the coin in his pocket and carried it home. He had a collection of curiosities there, in an old cabinet, that he valued highly: coins, stamps, birds' nests, queer bits of stone and odds and ends of stuff. Seeing that the coin was punched, and foreign, and not available for spending money, he placed it among his treasures. He was a curiously unsocial youth; had few pleasures that he shared with his cousins, but gloated over his own acquisitions quietly like a miser. He rejoiced silently in this new addition to his hoard, and said nothing about it.
The days went by, and summer was near its end. Then, with the vacation drawing to a close, there came a surprise for Henry Burns, in the form of a letter from his aunt. It was she with whom he lived, in a Massachusetts town; but now she wrote that she had decided to spend the winter in Benton, and that he must enter school there at the fall term, along with Tom Harris and Bob White. "Then I stay, too," exclaimed Jack Harvey, when he had read the important news—and he did. The elder Harvey, communicated with, had no objection; and, indeed, there was a most satisfactory arrangement made, later, that Jack Harvey should board with Henry Burns and his aunt; an arrangement highly pleasing to the two boys, if it added later to the concern and worry of the worthy Miss Matilda Burns.
The days grew shorter and the nights cool; and, by and by, with much reluctance, the canoes were hauled ashore for the last time, of an afternoon, and stored away in a corner of the barn back of the camp; and fishing tackle for summer use was put carefully aside, also. There were lessons to be learned, and fewer half-days to be devoted to the sport for which they cared most.
The pickerel in the stream and the trout in the brook sought deeper waters, in anticipation of winter. The boys spent less and less of their time in the vicinity of the old Ellison farm.
Tim and Young Joe Warren stuck mostly by the camp, and drew the others there on certain select occasions. For Little Tim, by reason of long roving, had a wonderful knowledge of the resources of the country around the old stream. He had a beechnut grove that he had discovered, three miles back from the water, on the farther shore; likewise a place where the hazel bushes were loaded with nuts, and where a few butternut trees yielded a rich harvest. Young Joe and he gathered a great store of these, as the nights of early frost came on; and they spread a feast for the others now and then, with late corn, roasted in questionable fashion over a smoky box-stove that heated the camp stifling hot.
October came in, with the leaves growing scarlet in the woods and sharp winds whistling through the corn and bean stacks. Henry Burns and his friends had seen but little of the Ellisons, who were out of school for the winter, caring for the farm; but now the night of the 31st of October found Henry Burns and Jack Harvey, George Warren, Bob White and Tom Harris seated in the big kitchen of the Ellison farmhouse.
It was plainly to be seen that, although the Ellisons had been reduced in circumstances through the loss of the mill, there was still an abundance of its kind yielded by the farm. On a table were dishes of apples and fall pears; two pumpkin pies of vast circumference squatted near by, close to a platter of honey and a huge pitcher of milk.
It was dark already, though only half-past seven o'clock, and the lights of two kerosene lamps gleamed through the kitchen windows.
As hosts on this occasion, John and James Ellison presently proceeded to introduce their city friends to the delights of milk and honey; a dish composed of the dripping sweet submerged in a bowl of creamy milk, and eaten therewith, comb and all.
"Never hurt anybody eaten that way," explained John Ellison, "and this is the real thing. The milk is from the Jersey cows in the barn, and the honey's from the garret, where there's five swarms of bees been working all summer."
They need no urging, however.
"Poor Joe! He'll die of grief when I tell him about this," remarked George Warren, smacking his lips over a mouthful.
"Why didn't you bring him along?" asked John Ellison. "I wanted you all to come."
"Arthur's off down town, and Joe's gone to the camp with Tim Reardon," explained the eldest of the Warren brothers. "Tim and Joe'll be sky-larking around somewhere later. They're great on Hallowe'en night, you know. They've got a supply of cabbage-stumps to deliver at the doors."
And thus the talk drifted to Hallowe'en, the night when, if old romances could only be believed, there are witches and evil spirits abroad, alive to all sorts of pranks and mischief.
In the midst of which, and most timely, there came suddenly a sharp tap at one of the windows. They paused and turned quickly in that direction. James Ellison sprang to the window and peered out.
"Nothing there," he said; "one of those big beetles, I guess, attracted by the light."
They fell to eating again, when presently another smart rap at the window startled them.
John Ellison laughed. "It's some of fat old Benny's nonsense," he said. "He wouldn't come in, because you city chaps were coming. He's rigged a tick-tack; I can see the string of it. Wait a minute and I'll just steal 'round the other door and catch him at it. You fellows go on eating, and don't pay any attention. I'll catch him."
They resumed the feast; and again the sharp rap sounded upon the window pane, caused by the clicking of a heavy nail—suspended from the window sash by a pin and string, and yanked by somebody at the end of a longer string attached—swinging in against the glass.
There came a yell of surprise shortly; and, in a moment, there appeared John Ellison clutching the culprit by the collar. Which culprit, to their astonishment, proved to be, not Benny Ellison but Young Joe.
"Here he is," laughed John Ellison, dragging in his prisoner. "What'll we do with him?"
"Clean him," suggested George Warren, winking at the others. "He's got a dirty face."
True enough, Young Joe had, in the course of his evening's adventures, acquired a streak of smut across one cheek.
Roaring at the suggestion, they seized the struggling captive, lifted him up bodily to the sink, where they held him face upward under a stream of water, pumped with a vigour. When they had done with him, Young Joe's face was most assuredly clean.
"Now," said John Ellison, as they set Joe on his feet again, "there's a towel. Dry up and come and have some honey."
Young Joe, grinning, and with a joyous vision of honey and pumpkin pie before him, obeyed with alacrity.
"Say," he said, cramming a spoonful of the mess into his mouth, and gulping it with huge satisfaction, "can Tim come in? He's out there."
"Sure, bring him in," assented John Ellison.
A few shrill whistles from Young Joe brought his companion to the door; and Tim Reardon was soon likewise equipped with bowl and spoon—but not before he had got his ducking at the kitchen pump, which he took with Spartan fortitude.
Honey and milk, pies and fruit soon disappeared rapidly at the renewed attack. A fresh pie, added largely for the benefit of Young Joe and Tim, went the way of the others. Young Joe gave a murmur of surfeited delight as the last piece of crust disappeared; while Little Tim was gorged to the point almost of speechlessness, and could hardly shake his head at the proffer of more.
"Well," said George Warren, at length, "what are you two chaps doing around here, anyway—I'll bet Joe smelled the food, clear down to the camp."
Young Joe, in reply, turned to John Ellison, and motioned toward the farmyard. "Give us one of those pumpkins?" he asked.
The pumpkins referred to lay in a great golden heap beside one of the barns; and there were a few scattered ones lying out in the corn-field beyond.
"Why, sure," responded John Ellison. "Have as many as you want." And he added, with a sly wink at George Warren, "We give a lot of them to the pigs. You're welcome."
Young Joe, lifting himself out of his chair with some effort, due to the weight of pie and honey stowed within, disappeared through the door. He returned, shortly, carrying a large handsome pumpkin on his shoulder.
"What are you going to do with it?" asked John Ellison.
Young Joe grinned. "Going to give it to Witham," he said.
In preparation for this act of generosity, Young Joe proceeded to carve upon one side of the pumpkin a huge, grinning face. Having finished which, with due satisfaction to artistic details, he stood off and admired his own handiwork.
"Looks a little like Witham," he said. "Only it looks better-natured than he does."
"You'd better let Witham alone," said George Warren, assuming the patronizing tone of an elder brother. "He's in a bad humour these days."
"Not going to do any harm," replied Young Joe. "Going to put it up on the flag-pole, eh Tim? Come along with us?"
"Why, if it's got to be done," said Henry Burns, speaking with the utmost gravity, "I suppose we might as well go along and see that it's done right and shipshape;" and he arose from his chair. So, too, the others, save John Ellison.
"You fellows go ahead," he said, "and then come back. I don't feel like playing a joke on Witham. I'm too much in earnest about him."
"That's so," returned Henry Burns. "I don't blame you. We'll be back in no time."
They went down the hill, soon after, carrying the pumpkin between them by turns. They cut across the field on the hill slope, crossed the old bridge over the brook, and went on up the road toward the Half Way House.
"Look out for Bess Thornton," said Jim Ellison, who had accompanied them. "She and the old woman are here now for the winter, keeping house for Witham."
"She won't let on, if she comes out," said Tim.
But they saw nothing of her. Tired out with her day's work, the girl had gone to bed and was soundly sleeping.
They arrived presently at a little plot of grass in front of the inn, from the centre of which there rose up a lofty flag-pole. It had been erected by some former proprietor, for the patriotic purpose of flying the American flag; but, to Colonel Witham's thrifty mind, it had offered an excellent vantage for displaying a dingy banner, with the advertisement of the Half Way House lettered thereon. This fluttered now in a mournful way, half way up the mast, as though it were a sign of mourning for the quality of food and lodging one might expect at the hands of Colonel Witham.