Part 8

“I can’t think about his looks, Doris,” Jean replied blushingly. “All I can do is wonder what he has come after. Does he want the house and farm? Or has his conscience troubled him so much about Sally and her mother and Buzzy that he’s going to lay Woodhow on their front doorstep in restitution? Or did he just want to see what we all looked like?”

“Ask him,” suggested Kit blandly. “He seems to be a very approachable young man so far as I can see.”

“He wanted to go up to Rebecca’s for the night and Mother wouldn’t let him. That shows that she likes him.”

The next day Mr. Craig sat out in a big chair on the porch with their guest, and seemed to enjoy his company wonderfully.

“I do believe, Mom,” Jean said, “that poor Dad has been smothered with too much coddling. Just look at him brace up and talk to Mr. McRae.”

“I hope we can persuade him to stay with us while he is in Elmhurst.”

“He doesn’t act as if he needed much persuading. They’ve discovered that they were both in the Army and are comparing the Canadian Army with ours. They’ve already discussed salmon culture and whether a soy bean crop will do well in Connecticut. We girls think it’s unfair of Dad to monopolize such a charming guy.”

“Jeannie, you’d better come and help me put up our lunch,” called Doris from the kitchen. “Bacon and eggs are going to be the main course, with gingerbread and fruit for dessert.”

It had been agreed that the girls should meet at Woodhow that afternoon. Buzzy had been sent up to Maple Grove with the news that Ralph McRae had arrived, and an invitation for Rebecca to come down for supper. She drove down about four, fresh and cool-looking, wearing a black and white dress and a wide-brimmed black straw hat. Ralph helped her out of the car and stood smilingly while she examined him closely and patted his shoulder as she expressed her obvious approval.

“Just the sort of boy I expected Francelia’d have,” she said happily. “Well built and handsome too. Going to stay awhile, Ralph, and get acquainted?”

“Why, I’d like to, Miss Becky. It gets kind of lonesome out West with none of my own people there. I’ve always wanted to come back here and see all of you. Mother used to talk a lot about you all to me when I was little. She didn’t have anybody else to tell things to.”

“Like enough,” Becky responded rather soberly. “You must meet your cousins.”

“I didn’t know I had any.”

Miss Craig glanced over to the woodpile where Buzzy was sawing some chestnut tops for dry wood to mix in with the birch.

“Come over here, Buzzy,” she called briskly. “This is the boy cousin and Sally’s the girl, both children of your mother’s own sister Luella. Guess we’ll get this straightened out some time. Buzzy, this is Ralph McRae, your own blood cousin.”

Ralph took Buzzy’s tanned, supple hand in his, and held it fast, looking down at his cheery, freckled face.

“I think we’re going to be pals, Buzzy,” he said, and Buzzy’s heart warmed to him. Nobody had ever called him that before.

When Sally arrived with the other girls, she too was introduced, but she proved less pliable than Buzzy. Straight and tall, she faced her new cousin, every flash of her eyes telling him that she resented his having all while they had nothing, and Ralph could make no headway with her.

At five they were ready to start. Lucy could not go, nor Anne, Charlotte, or Tony.

But the older girls were all there, and at the last minute Abby Tucker came hurrying along the road with a large paper bag.

“Thought I’d never get here, but I did,” she said triumphantly. “I made popcorn balls for all of you. And I’ve got some red pepper too. Going to throw it at the ghost.”

“Why you cold-blooded person,” Kit exclaimed. “Red pepper at a poor harmless ghost! Shame on you.”

But Abby only smiled mysteriously and gave the girls to understand that red pepper was the very latest weapon for vanquishing ghosts.

Jean had told each girl to bring a blanket. These were spread down and rolled up army-fashion until they looked like life buoys, then slung over the girls’ shoulders. The commissary department consisted of Kit, Hedda and Ingeborg, who counted over their supplies. There were jam turnovers and deviled-egg sandwiches, loaf cake and cheese, ham-on-rye sandwiches, cherries, and gingerbread.

“You’re equipped for a journey over Chilkoot Pass,” Ralph told them teasingly. “How many weeks will you be gone?”

“We’ll be home tomorrow about sundown,” Kit retorted haughtily. “Should you see the distant light of a signal fire you may come after us.”

Jean looked hopeful at this remark, almost as though she wished it might happen. She suddenly seemed reluctant to leave on this long-planned hike.

The girls left Woodhow and turned into the open road. The first couple of miles went fast enough and then Etoile glanced back over the shadowy road behind them and said, “It’s getting a little dark.” Even though it was still broad daylight.

“We’ve got a flashlight,” Astrid said comfortably, “and Tip for sentinel. There isn’t anything to be afraid of that I can see.”

“Speak for yourself,” retorted Kit. “If we don’t see or hear something I’m going to be awfully disappointed. And if we do hear anything coming slowly upstairs, don’t flash the flashlight right at it until it has a chance to show itself. I hope it will be a lovely pale green.”

Etoile stopped short in the middle of the road, her eyes wide with dread.

“I think perhaps I’d better go right back now, girls.”

But Kit and Ingeborg promised faithfully to guard her if she would only stick the night out. They went on up the long wood road, past the falls above the mill, past Mud Hole where the boys fished for eels, past Otter Island where Matt came to fish, and on to the old spring house. It was set far back from the road in a garden overgrown with weeds and tall timothy grass, and tiger lilies grew rankly in green clumps along the gray stone walls. The little wooden shelter over the well was knocked over and the boards that protected the windows had been pulled half off. Jean went to the kitchen door and found it unlocked. Only wasps and spiders were to be seen, and one stout old toad that backed hurriedly out of sight under the stone doorstep.

“Let’s look it all over before it gets really dark,” she said, and they went in and out of each bare room, upstairs and downstairs, into the old musty cellar, even into the low-roofed loft over the summer kitchen.

“Now, we know there’s nothing here, don’t we?” Kit said, after the tour of inspection was over, and they sat out on the grass near the well, with their food spread around them. “How perfectly wonderful things taste after you’ve walked, don’t they? More ginger cookies, please, Hedda.”

“Which room are we going to sleep in?” asked Abby. “I’d just as soon sleep out here all night on blankets, wouldn’t you, Etoile?”

“We don’t care if you want to,” Doris agreed. “Try it on the little side porch. Then you can watch the cellar entrance because the ghost may decide to come up that way.”

It was getting quite dark by the time the supper was cleared away. Candles were lighted and set on the mantel in the front room and in the kitchen. Kit and Hedda had returned from a successful foraging expedition around the barn and corn house, and had brought back armfuls of hay to spread under their blankets on the floor. Tip, the brown water spaniel, took the whole affair very seriously and made the circuit of the grounds over and over again, chasing imaginary intruders.

“Well, girls, I guess we’re all ready to go to bed, aren’t we?” Kit called finally. They agreed and went into the big living room where the fireplace was. The nights were still very cool up in the hills, so Hedda and Doris had been appointed wood-gatherers and a fine dry wood fire blazed on the stone hearth. After they were ready for the night, they sat around this in a semicircle, eating popcorn balls and telling stories, until all at once there came a sound that silenced everyone and left them wide-eyed and scared.

17. A Ghost Is Uncovered

It was unlike any sound the girls had ever heard back at the Cove, almost like a human being in distress and yet like some animal cry too.

“It’s a fox,” whispered Astrid, getting nearer to her big sister.

“No, it isn’t,” said Abby. “That’s a deer. They always yell like that when there’s a full moon.”

“It was right near, I think, right outside.” Kit sat up, eager and tense. “Shall I flash the light, Jean?”

“Not yet. Wait until it comes again. I think it was only some night bird.”

So they waited breathlessly. Every tiny creaking noise in the old house was intensified by the heavy silence. Jean rose and went to the window. The moon was not up yet, and it was hard to distinguish objects, but down in the garden she thought she saw something that looked like a cow lying down.

“I can’t tell just what it is. It may be only a stray cow or horse,” she said softly.

“Throw something at it,” suggested Kit hopefully. “Let’s all throw something.”

“Just to see whether it jumps or not,” Astrid assented. She hunted around and found some loose half bricks in the chimney place.

“Where’s Tip? He hasn’t barked once,” remarked Abby.

“Dogs are always frightened when they see ghosts. Let me fire away at it first.” Astrid took aim and the half brick flew down at the dark thing with a deadly thud, but there was no stampede. She leaned far out the window, staring at it anxiously. “It seems to me I can see it move and it has horns and a sort of woolly tail, kids.”

“Sounds like a yak,” Kit chuckled. “I’m willing to do this much. I’ll go to the door and open it, and you girls stay here with bricks to throw, and when I flash the light on it, if it jumps you can save me.”

But before she could carry out the plan the sound came again, longer and more thrillingly penetrating than before. It was a wail and a challenge and a moan all in one, not just one cry, but a prolonged succession of them. As soon as it stopped Sally exclaimed, “Now I know. That’s an owl and it comes from the little attic over the ell where we couldn’t climb because there weren’t any stairs. Remember?”

“Sure, Sally?” Etoile’s tone was almost trembling. “Never have I heard such a cry.”

“Oh, I have. It’s an owl, I know it is, one of those big ones. Riding through the woods at night coming home from town I’ve been half scared to death by one of them. Sounds like seventeen ghosts all rolled into one. Come along, Kit, you and I’ll go hunt it up.”

The rest followed gingerly, a strange procession bearing candles, Kit leading with the flashlight. Tip stumbled up drowsily from the kitchen and barked at them.

“Oh, yes, it’s all very well for you to bark now,” laughed Jean. “Why didn’t you go after that noise?”

They reached the ell room and found a trapdoor in the ceiling. Abby remembered seeing a ladder out in the back entry behind the door, and this was brought in.

“And see this, kids,” she exclaimed, running her finger over it. “No dust on the rounds. That shows it’s been used lately.”

“Aren’t we the smart ones? Abby, I love the way you never miss anything.” Kit leaned the ladder up against the wall and mounted it, with Sally close behind and the other girls at its base. “What if it shouldn’t be an owl—”

She stopped with her palm against the trapdoor. Raising it about an inch she flashed the light, and there was a great fluttering overhead.

“What did I tell you!” Sally cried excitedly. “Do it again, Kit. It can’t hurt you and the light blinds it.”

So the trapdoor was lifted again with the light of the flashlight turned on full, and Kit cautiously pulled herself up into the opening. It was tent-shaped and low, not more than four feet at its highest. But instead of being bare like the rest of the old house, there were certainly evidences that someone had been there. There was a tin can filled with fresh water, and a strip of rag carpet laid down on the floor. A box of fish hooks and neatly rolled lines lay on one side, and there was a small frying pan and a knife and fork. Rolled up in one corner was a pair of old overalls, and some books much the worse for wear lay beside them. Kit’s glance took in everything, and last of all, backed into a corner and blinking hard, was the ghost itself—a big white owl.

Sally pulled herself up too, and reached out after the books gently so as not to frighten the owl any more. With a couple in her hand, they lowered the door again, and joined the others.

“It’s an owl and a hermit’s nest,” Kit told them excitedly. “Open the books, Sally, is there any name inside?”

Sally read off the titles, “_Treasure Island_ and _David Copperfield_! He’s got a nice collection, hasn’t he, whoever he is? There isn’t any name inside, though.”

“Well, there was certainly fresh water in that tin,” Kit said positively, “and that shows the haunted house is inhabited by something tangible, I mean something besides the owl. Let’s go to bed very calmly and sleep. I’m sure we’ve laid the ghost.”

Evidently they had, for the rest of the night was peaceful and safe except for the owl crying out lonesomely at intervals until about four o’clock, when the dawn came. Rolled in their blankets, the girls slept soundly until the sunlight threw broad golden beams into their quarters.

There was no rope on the windlass at the well, so Ingeborg proposed that they go down to the river and wash there. It was lots of fun. They found that the dark and fearsome object they had heaved bricks at the night before was only a big gray rock half sunken in the ground.

Along the river margin turtles sunned themselves in rows on the half-submerged logs, and a muskrat scuttled clumsily for cover at sight of the invaders.

“I wish we could go right in,” said Jean, looking up and down the winding course of the river as she parted the alders, “but it isn’t really safe when you don’t know the water. This looks full of unexpected holes and snags. Where does it run to?”

“Down past the two mills, and rises away up in the Quinnebaug Hills,” Sally told her, kneeling on a flat rock and splashing herself well. “Did you see that black snake slither out of the way then? They’re awful cowards. Yes, Jean, this comes from Judge Ellis’ place about two miles beyond here, three and a half by road.”

“Judge Ellis? Billie’s grandfather?”

“You talk just as if you knew him already, Doris.”

“Well, I feel as if I do, after all Rebecca has told us about him. And when I do meet him, I’m going to make him my friend.”

“Who? The Judge?”

“No. This Billie person. Or I’ll take him home to Tommy—Tommy would be crazy about him.”

“Hey! Look what I found,” Kit called out. “Here are some fishing poles hidden in the bushes. Know what? There must be some boys around.”

All at once upstream they heard somebody whistling. At first it sounded almost like a bird trilling high and clear, but then it suddenly changed to boogie-woogie. The girls sat there on the bank, sheltered from view by the alders, and waited until a flat-bottomed rowboat came into view. Standing at the stern, one bare foot on the back seat and one on the cross seat, with a long punting pole in his hands, was a boy of about fifteen. He looked exactly like Huckleberry Finn, his head protected from the sun by a limp straw hat and his tattered overalls rolled above his knees.

Whistling recklessly, sure of himself and the solitude, he came down the river and guided the boat to shore near where the girls sat scrutinizing him. He hauled it up halfway out of the water, dropped the pole into it, and started up the bank before he caught sight of them.

“That’s Billie Ellis,” Sally said quickly and waved her hand to him. “Hi, Billie.”

“Hi,” Billie returned. “Where’d you come from?”

“Out of the blue,” Doris spoke up merrily. “Got some fish for breakfast?”

Billie hesitated, trying to appear nonchalant, but plainly very much rattled by these girls who had invaded his domain. He rolled down his overalls very slowly and deliberately to gain time, and this gave the others, particularly Doris, a chance to see just what he looked like. He was quite tall, with crew-cut hair of a rather nondescript color, and big brown eyes that were startlingly frank and uncompromising. He was tanned a nice healthy brown, and his smile was eagerly friendly. Altogether, the Craigs approved of Billie at sight. To the others he was more or less familiar, even though none of them knew him well.

“Where you all going?” he asked.

“Just walking over the country,” Abby told him. “Where are you going, Billie?”

Billie flushed at this direct question. “Oh, I don’t know,” he answered lamely. “I come down the river a lot.”

“We fed the owl,” Doris said innocently. “Just some bread and ham. I suppose it thought it was a new kind of mouse.”

Billie glared at her with quick indignation. They had not been satisfied with finding out his landing place and swimming hole. They had gone into the old house and discovered his secret den and the big white owl. He had always regarded girls as semi-dangerous, but this was worse than even he had expected. He turned to Sally as the one in the crowd that he knew best.

“What did you go into the house for?”

“To stay the night,” Sally answered promptly. “The door was open and we went in. If people don’t want company they should keep their doors locked. Anyhow, nobody lives here and we didn’t hurt anything. We wanted to see the ghost.”

Billie grinned at this admission, a quick mischievous grin that made his whole face light up and seem to sparkle with fun.

“Did he come up and rattle his chains for you?”

“No, he didn’t, and I’ll bet he never did for anybody else.”

“Maybe not,” Billie agreed blandly. “How far up the river are you going?”

“To Mount Ponchas.”

“That’s only seven and a half miles. You can go along up the hill road from here, and when you come to the state road that has telegraph poles on it, you turn off and go west. It’s three hills over and you pass through one village, Shiloh Valley. When you come to Ponchas don’t forget to look for the grave of the Cavalier.”

“Where’s that?” asked Doris. “We haven’t heard of it at all.”

This was touching Billie’s heart in the right spot. He knew every acre of land for miles around Elmhurst and was especially interested in its historic lore. The girls did not know it then, but life was quite dull over at the Judge’s place. There were only the Judge; Mrs. Gorham, his housekeeper; Farley Riggs, his general business man; and Ben Brooks, the hired man. They were an unsympathetic household for a boy of fifteen, especially one who had been unwelcome; but he had made friends with Ben and had found him a treasure house of information.

There might be other sections of importance in the United States besides Elmhurst, Connecticut, but Ben held them in slight esteem. He had been born and brought up there and had never even wanted to go away. He was about forty when Billie first came, genial, optimistic, rather good-looking, and an insatiable reader.

Next to roaming over the country, Billie liked best to sit up in Ben’s room, looking at his books and magazines and listening to him talk on current topics and historic events. No subject was too intricate for Ben to tackle. No government ever evaded him when it came to diplomatic tricks or ways. He was on to them all, he told Billie.

It had been Ben who had first told Billie about the mysterious stranger who had come to Elmhurst back in the pioneer days. The colonists had suffered much from Indian raids until there came into their midst a man whom they called the Cavalier. With his Negro servant, he had lived among them and taught them defense against their savage enemies, taught them the best way to win over the soil and reclaim the wilderness. Yet when he died they knew no more of him than on the first day when he rode into their village. His grave lay over on the south side of Mount Ponchas where he had wished it to be, near a rock where he had often held council with the Indians.

“Be sure to see it when you get there,” Billie advised. “I wish I was going along with you.”

“Come over to our place, won’t you, Billie?” Doris asked in her most neighborly way. “I’d like to ask you about some arrowheads we found. Will you?”

Billie nodded his head nonchalantly. It was like giving a bird an invitation to call on you, or handing your card to a rabbit. But he watched them as they went up the hill road from the river, and when Doris turned and waved, he waved back. At least he was interested in his trespassers, even though he could not quite forgive them for having discovered his pet hiding place.

18. Kit and Buzzy Devise a Scheme

It was noon before they reached Ponchas, although they might have gone ever so much faster if every new flower by the way had not coaxed them to linger. They camped at the base to eat their lunch and then Kit and Ingeborg went hunting the Cavalier’s grave. It was Hedda who found it when she brought water from the spring house that had been built over a live spring gushing out at the base of the rock. Near by was a heap of gray moss-covered rock piled into a cairn, with a rugged rock cross at the head. On it were cut out the words:

He succored us The Cavalier 1679

“Well, I do think they might have told us more than that,” Jean said, when the others came to look at it. “Perhaps, though, this would have pleased him better.”

They stood for a few moments gazing at the quiet resting place, wondering what the Cavalier’s real story was.

“I think his servant could have told us if he had wanted to,” Etoile said wisely. “I’ll ask my dad about him. He knows many of the old stories of the places around here. He came here from Canada when he was a very little boy. There were wolves around in the wintertime, and the spring came earlier then. He has found arbutus as early as the first week in March.”

When they started back they sang along the road, first the songs that all of them knew, and then Hedda sang two strange Icelandic songs her mother had taught her, lullabies with a low minor strain running through them. She had a strong, sweet voice, and sang with much feeling.

After hearing the other girls Jean said they ought to have a glee club, even if they met only once a month.

“Just for music. Mom told me that music is the universal language that everyone understands. Let’s meet at our house next week, and we can start learning the folk songs of other countries. Etoile can teach us French songs, Ingeborg and Astrid the Swedish ones, and Hedda the songs of Iceland. We could learn a great deal that way and enjoy ourselves at the same time.”

“I think we ought to meet somewhere else, not all the time at your house, Jean,” Etoile demurred in her courteous French way. “We would love to have you come any time.”

“Then we will come, won’t we, girls?” Jean said. “And Lucy will enjoy that because she can sing too, and it will be near home for her.”

But the next few weeks were filled with home activities and it was hard to squeeze in time for all that they had outlined. There were berries to can and preserve, and Ralph McRae prolonged his stay, but only on one condition—that he be allowed to take hold of the farm, with Buzzy’s help, and manage the haying and cultivating for them.

“I had no idea a man could be so handy,” Jean declared. “He’s mended the sink, and he’s burned up the rubbish at the end of the lane, and he put new roofing on the hen houses, and he even climbed into the big elm and put up Doris’ swing for her.”

Kit smiled to herself at this, for secretly she thought Ralph McRae was just right for Jean. And she, too, liked him enormously, he was like the big brother she’d always wanted. She resolved to talk it over with Buzzy, who had become her fast friend, and see if together they could work out some scheme.