6 files changed, 12044 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/10048-0.txt b/10048-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bd0661a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/10048-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5803 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10048 ***
+
+                    BILLIE BRADLEY AND HER INHERITANCE
+
+                                    OR
+
+                   THE QUEER HOMESTEAD AT CHERRY CORNERS
+
+                             BY JANET D. WHEELER
+
+                                   1920
+
+
+
+
+BILLIE BRADLEY AND HER INHERITANCE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+     I. AN ACCIDENT.
+
+    II. THAT HUNDRED DOLLARS.
+
+   III. CHET HELPS.
+
+    IV. THE LAST HOPE.
+
+     V. WORSE AND WORSE.
+
+    VI. DEBBIE DESERTS.
+
+   VII. A STRANGE BURGLAR.
+
+  VIII. STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS.
+
+    IX. GHOSTS AND THINGS.
+
+     X. OLD FURNITURE.
+
+    XI. BILLIE WINS OUT.
+
+   XII. GREAT PLANS.
+
+  XIII. CHERRY CORNERS.
+
+   XIV. WEIRD TALES.
+
+    XV. A NOISE IN THE DARK.
+
+   XVI. SHADOWS AND MYSTERY.
+
+  XVII. ONLY A BAT.
+
+ XVIII. A FISH STORY.
+
+   XIX. IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT.
+
+    XX. THE MOTOR AGAIN.
+
+   XXI. BOTH AT ONCE.
+
+  XXII. A THRILLING DISCOVERY.
+
+ XXIII. THE WRECKED AEROPLANE.
+
+  XXIV. COINS AND POSTAGE STAMPS.
+
+   XXV. "LARGE FORTUNES."
+
+
+
+
+BILLIE BRADLEY AND HER INHERITANCE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+AN ACCIDENT
+
+
+"Aren't you glad that we are only going back to school for a little
+while?" cried Billie Bradley, as she gave a little exultant skip.
+"Suppose it were fall and we were beginning high--"
+
+"Billie, stop it," commanded Laura Jordon, turning a pair of very blue
+and very indignant eyes upon her chum. "I thought we were going to forget
+school for a little while."
+
+"Well, we're not going back for anything I forgot," Billie was asserting
+when Violet Farrington, the third of the trio, interposed:
+
+"If you two are going to quarrel on a day like this, I'm going home."
+
+"Who said we were quarreling?" cried Billie, adding with a chuckle:
+"We're just having what Miss Beggs" (Miss Beggs being their English
+teacher) "would call an 'amiable discussion.'"
+
+"Listen to the bright child!" cried Laura mockingly. "I don't see how
+you ever get that way, Billie."
+
+"Neither do I," replied Billie, adding with a chuckle as they turned to
+stare at her: "Just natural talent, I guess."
+
+The three chums--and three brighter, prettier girls it would be hard to
+find--were on their way to the grammar school which had just closed the
+week before. Laura had forgotten a book which she prized highly and was
+in hope that the janitor, a good-natured old fellow, would let her in
+long enough to get it. At the last minute she had asked the other girls
+to go with her.
+
+The three chums had lived in North Bend, a town of less than twenty
+thousand people, practically all their lives. The girls loved it, for it
+was a pretty place. Still, being only forty miles by rail from New York
+City, they had been taken to the roaring metropolis once in a while as a
+treat, and it was only with great difficulty that their parents had
+succeeded in luring them home again.
+
+Among other things North Bend boasted a jewelry factory, of which Raymond
+Jordon, Laura's father, was the owner.
+
+Billie's father was the prominent Martin Bradley, well known among real
+estate and insurance men, and it was from him that Billie, whose real
+name was Beatrice, had taken her brown eyes and brown hair and even that
+merry, irrepressible imp of mischief that made Billie Bradley the most
+popular, best-loved girl in all North Bend.
+
+Her mother, Agnes Bradley, quiet, sincere and beautiful to look upon,
+kept just the check on her gay young daughter that the young girl needed.
+
+Billie had a brother, Chetwood Bradley, commonly known as "Chet"--a boy
+as different from his sister as night is from day, yet, in his own more
+quiet way, extremely attractive.
+
+Laura's brother, Theodore, known to his intimates as Teddy, was a
+handsome boy, as full of wild spirits as Billie herself. Teddy had
+entertained a lively admiration for Billie Bradley since he was seven and
+she was six. Teddy was tall for his fifteen years, and had already made a
+name for himself in the field of athletics.
+
+The third of the chums was Violet Farrington, a daughter of Richard
+Farrington, a well-known lawyer of North Bend, and Grace Farrington, a
+sweet, motherly woman.
+
+Nearly everybody loved Violet, who was tall and dark and sweet-tempered.
+She also acted as a sort of perpetual peace-maker between brown-eyed
+Billie and blue-eyed Laura.
+
+So now she was acting again on this glorious day in July when the roses
+were out and the birds were singing and the sun was shining its
+brightest.
+
+"What shall we do if we can't get in?" suggested Billie, waving her hand
+to Nellie Bane, another girl in her class, who passed on the opposite
+side of the street.
+
+"I suppose we'd have to go home again," answered Laura, adding with a
+little worried frown: "Oh, I do hope I can get the book. I wouldn't lose
+it for anything."
+
+"There goes Amanda Peabody," cried Violet suddenly, clutching
+Billie's arm.
+
+"That makes no difference in my young life," Billie slangily assured her.
+
+"As long as she _goes_, it's all right," added Laura, glancing after the
+lanky figure of Amanda Peabody as the girl swung off in the other
+direction.
+
+Amanda Peabody was not popular with the girls. Nor was she with anybody,
+for that matter. As far as the girls knew, she had not one friend in the
+whole school.
+
+Amanda was red-haired and freckled; and while these attributes alone
+could not have accounted for her unpopularity, she added to them a
+tendency to spy upon the other girls and then run and tell what she had
+seen or heard.
+
+It was this last characteristic that no fair-minded girl would tolerate
+and so Amanda had lived in practical ostracism ever since she had come to
+North Bend two years before.
+
+"I don't think we ought to be too hard on her," said Violet, as they
+turned the corner that brought the school into view. "She can't help her
+mean disposition, I suppose. And anyway, Miss Beggs says there's always
+some good to be found in everybody."
+
+"Maybe," said Billie skeptically, "but hers is so small you would need a
+microscope to see it. There's the janitor now, just going out. If we run
+we can catch him."
+
+And run they did, presenting themselves a minute later, rather red in the
+face and out of breath, before a very much amused janitor.
+
+"Hello," he cried, his twinkling eyes under their shaggy brows lighting
+with pleasure as he looked at the girls. "Are you young ladies tryin' to
+catch a train, or what?"
+
+"Oh, no, no," cried Violet eagerly. "We were just trying to catch you,
+Mr. Heegan."
+
+"Oh-ho! An' it's mighty flattered I am," said Mr. Heegan, his Irish
+brogue coming to the fore. "An' what, if I might be askin' you--"
+
+"It's a book we left here," Billie broke in quickly. "Laura wants to know
+if you will let us in long enough to get it."
+
+"Sure, an' I will that," Mr. Heegan assured them, leading the way into
+the school yard and pulling out his bunch of keys. "It must be a verra
+important book," he added, smiling at them as he fitted the key in the
+lock, "to be bringing you back to school after school's out."
+
+"It was a gift from Father," Laura explained. "And I wouldn't lose it
+for anything."
+
+"All right, there you go," said the good-natured janitor, swinging the
+door wide for them. "I'm goin' home, but I'll be comin' back in a few
+minutes to lock up. You'd best not be stayin' here then," he added, with
+a twinkling backward glance at them, "or it will be locked up for the
+night you'll be."
+
+"We won't be more than a minute," Violet assured him, and jubilantly the
+girls ran through the empty, echoing hall and stopped before a door at
+the farther end.
+
+"It seems so horribly quiet," said Violet, looking around at them with
+her hands on the door knob. "It makes you feel like a thief."
+
+"Must be your guilty conscience," said Laura wickedly. "Come on, Vi;
+we've got to hurry if we don't want to be 'locked in for the night.'"
+
+"Are you sure you left the book here, Laura?" asked Billie, as
+Violet opened the door and they crowded in. "It would be too bad if
+it were gone--"
+
+But a cry from Laura interrupted her.
+
+"There it is," she said, running to a desk at the farther end of the room
+and picking up from an inner corner a prettily bound book. "Just the very
+place I left it, too. My, but I'm glad to get it back again."
+
+"What do you think you're doing, Billie Bradley?" inquired Laura a
+minute later, for Billie had seated herself at the teacher's desk and was
+looking as severe as she knew how.
+
+"Take your seats," she now commanded, rapping vigorously on the desk and
+fixing them with her best school-teacher stare. "Violet Farrington, go to
+the board--"
+
+But she got no further, for with an indignant cry the girls had rushed on
+her. Dropping both her air of command and her dignity, Billie scurried
+wildly around the room, keeping the desks between her and her pursuers.
+
+"You can't catch me! You can't catch me!" she taunted them, as she
+dodged nimbly in and out among the desks. "I could keep this up all day,
+I could--"
+
+"Oh, you could, could you?" cried Laura, and, making a desperate lunge,
+she almost had her hand on Billie's dress. "We'll see about that. Billie!
+what are you doing?"
+
+For Billie had suddenly doubled on her tracks, rushed to the back of the
+room, put her foot upon a steam radiator pipe and was trying to clamber
+to the top of a bookcase.
+
+It was a tall bookcase, and on the top of it stood a marble statue.
+
+"Billie, look out!" screamed Violet as the bookcase shook and the statue
+seemed about to topple over by reason of Billie's wild scrambling.
+
+"You won't catch me this time," Billie was defying them, when--the awful
+thing happened!
+
+The marble statue toppled once more, trembled as though it were not quite
+sure whether to fall or stay where it was, then came tumbling to the
+floor with a crash.
+
+The girls cried out, and then stood dumbly looking at the pieces.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THAT HUNDRED DOLLARS
+
+
+Billie Bradley clambered down from her perch in awed silence.
+
+"Girls," she said, her voice very low and solemn, "that 'Girl Reading a
+Book' statue was worth a hundred dollars."
+
+The girls started, and Laura cried out:
+
+"How do you know it cost that much?"
+
+"I heard Miss Beggs say so," Billie replied dully. "Now I certainly have
+done it. Girls, what shall I do?"
+
+"It--it couldn't be put together again, could it?" suggested Violet
+weakly, leaning down to examine the pieces.
+
+"Of course it couldn't," sniffed Laura, adding suddenly: "I suppose we
+could run away and nobody would know the dif--"
+
+"Look," cried Billie, excitedly pointing to one of the windows.
+
+Following the direction of her glance the girls were just in time to see
+the freckled face and mean little eyes of Amanda Peabody disappear from
+the window.
+
+"Oh, that sneak!" cried Laura in a rage, rushing across to the window
+while the other girls followed close at her heels. "I wish I were a boy
+and she were another one. I'd just show her!"
+
+"Well, now she will tell and we couldn't run away even if we wanted to,"
+said Billie, sinking down on a bench and looking at them wistfully. "Of
+course we wouldn't really have wanted to," she added, after a minute of
+uncomfortable silence. "Only it makes me mad to _have_ to do the right
+thing. Oh, I don't see why somebody doesn't run that Amanda person out
+of town," she went on, doubling up her fists and looking as if it might
+have been just as well for that "Amanda person" that she was not there
+at the minute.
+
+"Teddy says he calls her 'Nanny,'" said Violet, with a flash of humor,
+"because it 'gets her goat.'"
+
+"Sounds just like Ted," said Billie, with a smile. Then her face sobered
+again as she realized the gravity of the situation.
+
+"Of course I'll have to make it good," she said, going over to the pieces
+again and regarding them mournfully. "But how in the world am I ever
+going to get together a hundred dollars? It might just as well be a
+thousand as far as I'm concerned." The last was a wail.
+
+"Won't your father give you the money?" asked Laura, for to Laura's
+father a hundred dollars was only a drop in the bucket.
+
+But Billie only shook her head while her face became still more grave.
+
+"He would if he could," she said, "but I heard him say only the other day
+that times are hard and everything is terribly expensive, and I know he
+is worried. Oh, girls, I'm in a terrible fix!"
+
+"I know you are, honey," said Violet, coming over and putting a
+comforting arm about her. "But there must be some way that we can fix
+things all right."
+
+"I'd like to know how," grumbled Laura, who had chosen to take the gloomy
+view. "We might," she added generously, after a moment's thought, "say
+that I broke it--"
+
+"Laura--dear!" cried Billie, not quite sure whether to be offended or
+grateful for the generous suggestion. "It's wonderful of you, of course,
+but you know I couldn't do that."
+
+"And there's Amanda Peabody," added Violet. "She wouldn't let us get away
+with anything like that."
+
+At which Laura nodded again, still more gloomily.
+
+"Well," cried Billie, straightening up suddenly and trying to look
+hopeful, "I suppose it won't do any good to stand here and look at the
+pieces. Besides," she added with a start, "we've been here a terribly
+long time, and we don't want the janitor to lock us in."
+
+They started for the door on the run, but Billie suddenly turned, ran
+back and began gathering up the pieces of the broken statue.
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Violet, regarding her curiously.
+
+"What does it look as if I were doing?" asked Billie, reaching for an old
+newspaper that lay in the forgotten paper basket. "I might as well have
+the evidence of my crime. Anyway, I want to take them to Miss Beggs."
+
+"Do you know where she lives?" asked Laura, stooping and helping Billie
+at her task.
+
+"She sent me there one time to get some papers," Billie explained, as she
+rose to her feet, clutching the newspaper package. "It's a boarding house
+on Main Street, only a few blocks from here."
+
+"Shall we go there now?" asked Violet as they closed the door softly
+behind them and started down the hall.
+
+"We might as well," answered Billie, with a sigh. "The sooner I get it
+over with, the better I'll feel. But oh, that hundred dollars!"
+
+"Never mind, we'll get it if we have to steal it," said Laura firmly, as
+they came out into the flower-sweet air.
+
+"That would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire," remarked
+Violet, at which the girls had to laugh.
+
+As they swung out through the gate they met Mr. Heegan coming in, and he
+smiled at them from under his bushy brows.
+
+"Did you get what you were after comin' for?" he asked them.
+
+"Yes. And something we didn't come for," answered Billie, while the color
+flooded her face and she felt like a criminal. She smiled a wry little
+smile and displayed the newspaper package.
+
+"Meanin'--" Mr. Heegan began, puzzled.
+
+"I--I broke a statue that was on the bookcase," explained Billie. "We
+were skylarking--"
+
+"And many's the time I've done the same in my day," said Mr. Heegan, with
+a nod, looking not nearly as shocked as the girls thought he would. "And
+sure, what are you made young for, if it wasn't that you was meant to be
+skylarkin' all the time?"
+
+The girls looked at each other. This strange sentiment had never occurred
+to them before, but they found it very comforting, nevertheless.
+
+"But--but," stammered Billie, "this statue cost a hundred dollars. And it
+was given to Miss Beggs by a rich uncle."
+
+"Well, all I have to say is, that any one who would spend a
+hundred dollars on a statue," said Mr. Heegan, "deserves to have
+it broken on him."
+
+And having delivered himself of this surprising comment, the janitor
+saluted and ambled off into the school yard, leaving the girls to look
+after him with laughing eyes.
+
+"You know I just love Irishmen," remarked Billie with emphasis, as they
+started on their way once more.
+
+In thoughtful silence, they walked the remaining three blocks to the
+boarding house where Miss Beggs lived.
+
+"This is it," said Billie, as she came to a stop before a three-story
+brick building that had all the respectable and uncomfortable appearance
+of a typical boarding house.
+
+"Just like Miss Beggs," Billie was conscious of thinking.
+
+"Well, let's go up," urged Laura, as Billie showed no inclination to
+move. "We might as well get the agony over with."
+
+"All right, come on," cried Billie, running ahead of them and taking two
+steps at a time. "As Dad says: 'A coward dies a thousand deaths, the
+brave man only one.'"
+
+The end of this quotation brought them to the porch, and Billie looked
+for the bell.
+
+"Now then," she said, and braced herself for the ordeal.
+
+A stout, middle-aged person, without any of the outward characteristics
+that are so often bestowed upon landladies in general, opened the door
+and looked at them inquiringly.
+
+"Is there some one you wish to see?" she asked them.
+
+"Yes," replied Billie in a weak little voice. "I would like to see
+Miss--Miss Beggs if she is at home."
+
+"She isn't," said the middle-aged person. "She went away for the summer
+two days ago."
+
+"Did she leave any address?" Billie managed to ask.
+
+"No, she didn't; but I guess I could find out from one of the other
+ladies who is a friend of hers," the woman volunteered obligingly. "That
+is, if it's very particular," she added.
+
+"Oh, yes it is," said Billie earnestly. "I would be very much obliged if
+you could get me her address."
+
+"Well, I can't just now, because the lady that knows it isn't at home.
+But if you'll leave me your address I'll send it to you as soon's I find
+it out. Have you paper and pencil?"
+
+The girls had not.
+
+"Wait then, and I'll get something on which to write your address."
+
+The landlady went inside, closing the door after her, and in spite of
+herself Billie uttered a little sigh of relief. She felt very much like a
+reprieved criminal.
+
+A moment later the woman reappeared with a pencil and paper and
+painstakingly wrote down the address Billie gave her.
+
+"Thank you so much," said the latter, as she turned away. "You won't
+forget to send it just the first minute you can, will you?"
+
+The woman nodded and closed the door with a little bang.
+
+"I wonder why she didn't ask us in," said Laura, as they ran down the
+steps. "It was queer to keep us waiting outside."
+
+"Yes, it makes you feel like a book agent," chuckled Billie. "But oh,
+girls," she added, "I didn't know how much I dreaded facing Miss
+Beggs till I found out I didn't have to. I don't mind writing to her
+nearly so much."
+
+With somewhat lighter steps and lighter hearts they turned toward home.
+But Billie could not get the hundred-dollar statue which she had broken
+out of her mind.
+
+"I feel," said Laura, as they were turning the corner into her own
+street, "as if I ought to pay for that horrid old statue, Billie."
+
+"What do you mean?" queried Billie, while Violet regarded her with wide
+open eyes.
+
+"Well, if it hadn't been for me and my old book," she explained,
+"we wouldn't have gone back to school, and then you wouldn't have
+gotten yourself into all that trouble. I really do feel guilty,"
+she added earnestly. "I wish you would at least let me help you
+pay for it, Billie."
+
+Billie put an arm about the girl and squeezed her lovingly.
+
+"And I suppose you're to blame for my climbing the bookcase, too," she
+chided her fondly. "No, Laura dear, it's all my fault and you can't make
+me put the blame on any one else. But, oh!" she wailed, "how in the world
+am I ever going to raise that hundred dollars?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHET HELPS
+
+
+The sun was flooding Billie Bradley's room when she awoke the next
+morning, and she sat up in bed with the feeling that it must be very
+late. She glanced at the little clock on the dresser and saw that its
+hands pointed to half past eight.
+
+"Oh, I'll be late to school," was her first thought. Then she checked
+herself and laughed.
+
+"School!" she said, stretching her arms above her head with a delicious
+sense of freedom. "As the old man said: 'They ain't no sech animile.' I
+guess I might just as well get up, though, for I feel as if I were
+starving to death."
+
+She was just putting her feet into very pretty bedroom slippers when she
+remembered the tragedy--or so it seemed to her--of the day before.
+
+The long night's rest had driven from her mind all thoughts of the
+statue. Was it really only yesterday that she had broken it? The thing
+seemed to have been on her conscience forever!
+
+"'Girl Reading a Book,'" she said disdainfully, as she began to brush her
+hair vigorously. "Horrid old thing! I suppose she was a grind anyway,
+like Amanda Peabody."
+
+The thought of Amanda did not serve to lift her spirits any, and it
+was in a rather gloomy mood that she finally descended to the
+breakfast table.
+
+To make things worse, she found that all the rest of her family,
+including Chet, had breakfasted bright and early, which meant that she
+would have to eat her breakfast in lonely state.
+
+The room was cheerful with sunlight, for Mrs. Bradley had often said that
+a bright dining-room had more to do with making a happy home than any
+other one thing. But this morning Billie did not even notice it.
+
+She opened the swinging door to the kitchen and peeped in cautiously to
+see whether Debbie, their black and much pampered cook, was in a good
+enough mood to cook her some breakfast.
+
+A cheerful aroma greeted her, and she sniffed at it longingly. Bacon and
+eggs and--was it corn bread that Debbie was just taking out of the oven?
+
+"Oh, Debbie, give me something to eat, quick," she cried. "I'm starving."
+
+Debbie turned and favored her with a large black stare.
+
+"Dem dat gets up at nine o'clock in de mo'nin'," she declared, "done
+deserves to go hungry, Miss Billie, beggin' your pardon." Her tone
+matched the severity of her gaze.
+
+"Oh, but, Debbie," said Billie, using the coaxing tone that even black
+Deborah, tyrant of the household, could never quite resist, "remember how
+many mornings I have had to get up at seven and go out in the drizzling
+rain and--"
+
+"All right, honey, all right," said Deborah, her heart touched by this
+reference to the hardships her young mistress had suffered. "You go in
+'tother room an' don't bother Debbie an' she'll bring you in the
+prettiest breakfast you ever did see."
+
+Somewhat cheered by this promise, Billie retreated into the sun-flooded
+dining-room, and, going over to a window under which flowers bloomed
+gayly in boxes, looked out at the pretty view.
+
+From where she stood she commanded a full view of the tennis court, on
+which she could see that a warm set of singles was in progress. One of
+the players was Chet, and as she watched she saw him fling his racket
+high in the air.
+
+"My set, Tom!" he cried. "That puts us even. Play you the rubber this
+afternoon. So long!" and with his tennis balls in his hand and his racket
+under his arm he sauntered over toward home.
+
+"Dear old Chet!" murmured Billie fondly.
+
+Then came the thought of that hundred dollars she must get some way or
+other, and suddenly there flashed into her mind a little ray of hope.
+
+"Maybe Chet could help," she thought, and then laughed at herself for
+thinking it. Chet had just about as much chance of getting that hundred
+dollars as she had herself.
+
+At that moment Debbie came in with her fruit and cereal, and she turned
+from the window with a sigh.
+
+"I might as well eat," she thought resignedly, "for if I starve myself to
+death or die of worry, there won't be anybody left to pay for that old
+book worm."
+
+Then her irrepressible imp of mischief reasserted itself and she laughed.
+
+"Hello, look at the grand lady," a fresh young voice called to her from
+the doorway. She turned with a spoon half way to her mouth to see her
+brother laughing at her.
+
+"What was that you called me?" she asked. As a matter of fact, her
+thoughts had been so far away that she actually had not heard what he
+said.
+
+"Say, what's the matter?" asked Chet, flinging his tennis racket into one
+chair and seating himself on the arm of another. "Are you sick?"
+
+"Yes. Or if I'm not, I ought to be," replied Billie ruefully, at which
+peculiar remark Chet looked still more amazed.
+
+"Now what particular thing is worrying you?" he asked in an argumentative
+tone, leaning toward her. "Come, 'fess up, Billie. What have you been
+doing when my back was turned? Robbing a bank?"
+
+"Oh, much worse than that!" cried Billie unexpectedly, and her brother's
+good-looking face began to take on an expression of alarm.
+
+"Worse?" he queried. "There's only about one thing worse--and
+that's murder."
+
+"Oh, Chet, that's just what I did," she cried, her imp of mischief
+uppermost. "I murdered a 'Girl Reading a Book.'"
+
+"Well," said Chet, taking this startling bit of information more calmly
+than would have been thought possible, "you don't seem very much worried
+about it."
+
+"Oh, but, Chet, I am!" once more the cloud banished the merry gleam in
+Billie's eyes. "Wait till I show you."
+
+She left her breakfast, ran upstairs, and was back in a minute with the
+newspaper parcel.
+
+"Here she is," she cried, displaying the contents tragically.
+
+Chet fingered one or two of the broken bits. Then he looked at her
+curiously.
+
+"Go on, 'fess up," he commanded. "Tell yours truly all about it."
+
+This Billie did in the fewest words possible and then sat down to the
+bacon and eggs that Debbie had placed temptingly on the table. And
+cornbread! Debbie's cornbread was a masterpiece.
+
+When Billie had finished Chet looked grave.
+
+"Well," he said, fingering the pieces thoughtfully, "it does seem as if
+the only square thing to do would be to replace it."
+
+"Oh, I must, Chet--I must!" she interrupted earnestly.
+
+"But how?" he asked. "A hundred dollars is a lot of money."
+
+"I know," agreed Billie miserably.
+
+"I don't think Dad will be able to make it good just now," went on Chet,
+in that sober tone that made people in North Bend feel confidence in
+Chetwood Bradley, young as he yet was. "I heard him say the other day
+that all his capital was tied up. And then it costs so much to live--"
+
+"Oh, I know all that!" broke in Billie desperately, then added, looking
+up at her brother appealingly: "Chet dear, I've got to find the money to
+replace that statue some way! Won't you help me?"
+
+"You bet your life I will," cried Chet, with a hearty boyishness that
+made Billie's eyes glow. "I'll do everything I can, Sis. I tell you--" he
+paused as a thought struck him.
+
+"Oh, what?" she cried, grasping his arm as he started from the room. "Oh,
+Chet, tell me."
+
+"I'll show you in a minute," he promised, and was off, up the stairs,
+taking them three at a time, judging from the noise he made.
+
+In what seemed to Billie no time at all he was back again, holding
+something in his hand that jingled.
+
+"Here's a dollar and fifteen cents," he said, holding out to her all
+his available wealth. "I almost forgot I had it. You can use it to start
+the fund."
+
+"Oh, Chet!" Billie's eyes were wet and she hugged him fondly. "You're the
+very darlingest brother I ever had!"
+
+"And the _only_ one--" Chet was beginning, when Billie interrupted him
+by breaking away and putting a finger to her forehead.
+
+"Let me think--"
+
+"Impossible," he cried in a deep voice.
+
+"Chet," she said, speaking quickly, "I have seventy-five cents myself,
+and that with your dollar--"
+
+"Dollar fifteen," Chet corrected gravely.
+
+"Will make quite a respectable start to our fund." And she was off up the
+stairs in her turn, making almost as much noise as Chet had done.
+
+In a moment she was back again with the precious seventy-five cents and a
+small tin box.
+
+"Here's the bank," she cried gayly. "It will be real fun filling it up."
+
+"Yes, but where are we going to get the money to fill it up with?" Chet
+reminded her and her bright face fell again.
+
+"Oh, we'll find a way," she said with a confidence she was far from
+feeling. "Maybe Dad will help a little."
+
+"Have you told him about it?" asked Chet.
+
+"No. But I will to-night," she said, with a little sinking feeling. "I
+hate to tell him, awfully, but I suppose I'll have to."
+
+"Well, don't worry anyway," said Chet, patting her shoulder reassuringly.
+"You know Dad says worry is a waste of time, because everything will all
+be the same a hundred years from now."
+
+But Billie's shake of the head was very doubtful.
+
+"I don't see how that helps me any--_now_," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE LAST HOPE
+
+
+That afternoon Billie took herself and a book out on the porch and tried
+hard, but unsuccessfully, to forget her troubles. The more she tried to
+fix her attention on the printed page before her, the more the broken
+statue rose before her eyes until at last she closed the book with a slam
+and bounced impatiently in her seat.
+
+"That horrid old 'Girl Reading a Book' has spoiled my whole summer for
+me," she said, her lips pouting rebelliously. "I wish I hadn't gone back
+to the old school anyway. I might have known it would bring me bad luck.
+Oh, here comes Laura," and her face brightened as she saw the familiar
+figure of her chum swinging up the street. "I wonder what she wants.
+Whatever it is, she seems to be in a terrible hurry about it."
+
+"Hello, what's the rush?" she sang out, as Laura Jordon ran up the steps
+of the porch.
+
+"It's--it's that--that Nanny goat Amanda Peabody!" cried Laura, panting a
+little, for she had indeed been in a hurry. "What do you think the old
+sneak has been up to now?"
+
+"What?" queried Billie, as she moved over to make room for her chum in
+the seat beside her. "Telling tales again?"
+
+"How did you guess it?" cried Laura, her face flushing with indignation.
+"And about you, Billie! Oh, I could have killed her!"
+
+"Well, we expected it, didn't we?" Billie asked, in a matter-of-fact
+tone. "We knew when we saw her looking in at the window that that was
+exactly what she would do."
+
+"Well, I know. But she went to the janitor about it." And Laura looked as
+if that in some way magnified the offense.
+
+"Well, there wasn't any one else to go to," remarked Billie reasonably.
+
+"Goodness! aren't you even mad about it?" asked Laura, her blue
+eyes snapping.
+
+"Not particularly," replied Billie, for she was beginning to be terribly
+tired of the whole subject. How she hated that imbecile "Girl Reading a
+Book" and Amanda Peabody and--and--everybody!
+
+"I got all over being angry with Amanda Peabody long ago," she said in
+answer to Laura's incredulous look. "If I should get that way every time
+she did anything, I'd never live to grow up!"
+
+In spite of her indignation, Laura chuckled.
+
+"I never did think of it in that way," she admitted, adding, after a
+minute's thought: "Billie, dear, haven't you thought of some way you
+might pay for the statue? I didn't sleep a wink last night for
+thinking of it."
+
+"Neither did I," said Billie gloomily, forgetting that she had in reality
+slept very soundly. "Chet and I have started a fund with a dollar fifteen
+of his and seventy-five cents of mine. That's as far as we have got so
+far. I did think of Uncle Bill," she added slowly, mentioning a great
+uncle who occasionally visited them.
+
+"Great! Uncle Bill!" repeated Laura, pricking up her ears. "The uncle who
+used to trot you on his knee and call you 'Bill's Billie'?"
+
+"Yes," Billie nodded. "Uncle Bill and I were always good chums, and I
+think if I told him what a fix I'm in, he might be able to help. He has
+loads of money too."
+
+"Billie," cried her chum rapturously, "why didn't you think of that
+before? Why, it's the very thing!"
+
+"But I hate to ask him," sighed Billie, not sharing Laura's enthusiasm in
+the least. "I never had to ask anything of anybody before."
+
+"Well, everything has to have a beginning," said Laura, lightly adding,
+as unconcernedly as she could: "I told Teddy about it last night."
+
+"You did!" cried Billie, turning upon her while the color flooded her
+face. "Laura, what did you do that for?"
+
+"You don't mind, do you?" queried Laura, wide-eyed. "I'm sure I never
+thought of your not wanting Teddy to know."
+
+"Oh, I suppose it doesn't make any difference," sighed Billie, adding
+plaintively: "Only I don't like everybody to know how crazy I am."
+
+"Teddy doesn't think you're crazy," said Laura, with a chuckle, regarding
+Billie out of the corner of her eye. "In fact, if I should tell you what
+he does think of you--"
+
+"Oh, don't be foolish," almost snapped Billie, and again Laura
+chuckled inwardly.
+
+"Well, you needn't be so cross," she said. "I can't help what Teddy does
+or thinks. Here he comes now," she added, glancing up the street.
+
+"Oh, and I'm a perfect fright!" cried Billie, her hands flying to her
+hair--hair, by the way, which was arranged in the very best manner to set
+off Billie's sparkling prettiness. "Laura," she turned accusing eyes upon
+her chum, "tell the truth. Did you know he was coming?"
+
+"No," said Laura honestly, adding with a little chuckle: "But I sort of
+had an idea that he might happen along."
+
+If ever a boy looked handsome, it was Teddy Jordon as he swung up the
+street to Billie's house. He was very tall, looking more like a lad of
+eighteen than the fifteen years he was. His fair hair waved back from a
+broad forehead, and his merry gray eyes sparkled with the joy of living.
+
+"Hello!" he greeted the girls, as he took the porch steps two at a time
+and seated himself on the railing. "Laura has been telling me of your
+escapade, Billie Bradley, and I've come to find out what you mean by
+going about busting busts--that isn't good English, is it?"
+
+"It doesn't sound just right," agreed Billie, dimpling adorably. "You
+speak as if I were bust--pardon me, _breaking_ busts for a living. And
+it wasn't a bust, but a whole statue. No part way things for me!"
+
+"There's Nellie Bane, I must speak to her," cried Laura, and before
+either of the others realized what she was up to, she was gone, leaving
+them alone.
+
+Quite naturally Teddy came over and took the seat his sister had vacated.
+
+"I say, Billie," he said, his handsome eyes regarding her frankly, "you
+know, I'm really awfully sorry about that business. It makes me mad that
+you should be troubled with it. You and I have always been pretty good
+friends, haven't we?" he finished unexpectedly.
+
+Surprised, Billie answered warmly: "The very best of friends, Teddy. We
+ought to be," she added with a little laugh. "We've known each other
+pretty nearly forever."
+
+"Then let me help," begged Teddy earnestly. "You know my allowance is
+away more than I need--"
+
+But Billie stopped him, shaking her head decidedly.
+
+"You're a perfect angel, Teddy, to want to do it," she said. "But I
+really couldn't let you. Don't you know I couldn't?"
+
+"I don't see why," grumbled Teddy, for after all he was only a boy,
+and just now a disappointed one. "Laura says you're set on replacing
+the thing--"
+
+"Of course I'll have to," Billie said.
+
+"And if you are going around getting yourself sick with worry, what sort
+of good time do you think the rest of us are going to have?" he burst out
+indignantly, and for the life of her Billie could not help smiling.
+
+For a moment Teddy seemed undecided whether to laugh or be angry, but
+ended, as he nearly always did, by laughing.
+
+"But it really isn't very funny," he reminded her when they had finished.
+
+"Goodness! you don't have to tell me that," said Billie ruefully. "This
+is the first good laugh I've had since I broke the old thing."
+
+Teddy looked penitent.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said, adding, with a sudden smile: "I'm glad to know I'm
+good for something, anyway. I can still make you laugh."
+
+"You very foolish boy," said Billie, patting his hand affectionately.
+"As if that were all you were good for!"
+
+"Well, if you feel that way, I don't see why you won't let me replace
+the statue," said Teddy, still nursing his disappointment. "Girls are
+funny, anyway."
+
+"We know it," said Billie lightly. "But we can't help it. Listen, Teddy,"
+and she leaned toward him confidentially. "I still have one hope left."
+
+Then she told him about Uncle Bill and his fondness for her, and during
+the recital the boy brightened noticeably.
+
+"Well, I hope the old boy comes up to the scratch," he commented
+disrespectfully, adding hurriedly as Laura said good-bye to Nellie Bane
+and started toward them: "And, Billie, if you change your mind about what
+I asked you let me know. Promise?"
+
+Billie promised, and a few minutes later said good-bye to the brother and
+sister and watched them down the street with a very warm feeling
+somewhere in the region of her heart.
+
+"Isn't it great to have friends?" she asked a robin that had perched
+itself on the edge of the porch and was looking at her knowingly. "And
+isn't Teddy the handsomest boy you ever saw?" to which the robin, knowing
+little rascal that he was, nodded not once but twice.
+
+Chet came up on the porch a few minutes later and enticed Billie out for
+a game of tennis with him, hoping to get her mind off the broken statue.
+But while she was too full of life and health not to enjoy the swift,
+swinging game that Chet gave her, the thought of "The Girl Reading a
+Book" stayed constantly in the back of her mind.
+
+That night after dinner Billie broke the news to her father, and her
+heart sank as she saw the harassed look that came into his eyes.
+
+"You say it cost a hundred dollars?" he queried, breaking a silence
+during which Billie had felt like a criminal awaiting sentence. Now she
+nodded unhappily.
+
+"A hundred dollars," her father repeated. "Well, that's a lot to pay,
+Beatrice, for just a few minutes' reckless fun. Of course I can pay it,
+but that will mean putting off some affairs of more pressing
+importance--"
+
+But Billie could stand it no longer, and with a little cry she flew to
+him and pressed her soft cheek against his.
+
+"Daddy, I'm a brute to worry you like this!" she cried, penitently.
+"Please don't worry any more, dear. I'll find some way to replace the old
+thing myself."
+
+Her father patted her cheek, but the worried frown still remained on
+his face. Billie started to leave the room but turned before she had
+reached the door.
+
+"Dad," she said hesitatingly, and he turned to her with a smile. "About
+Uncle Bill," she said. "He has always given me anything I wanted. Do you
+suppose he would help?"
+
+"He is out of the country--gone on a business trip that has taken him on
+an ocean voyage," said her father. "He will be gone for an indefinite
+period. I thought you knew, Billie. Though, as he just left, I suppose it
+is not strange you had not heard us speak of it." And with that Mr.
+Bradley relapsed immediately into his brown study.
+
+Billie opened the door and closed it softly behind her.
+
+"My last hope!" she sighed plaintively. "Now what shall I do?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WORSE AND WORSE
+
+
+Two weeks passed, and still Billie Bradley had found no solution to
+her problem. The broken statue seemed as far from being paid for as
+ever, and, as far as she was concerned, the summer vacation was
+completely spoiled.
+
+In this frame of mind she crushed a soft straw hat down over her brown
+hair one day and set out to find her chums, feeling the need of their
+sympathy. And how was she to know, poor Billie, that the news the girls
+would have to tell her would serve only to make her mood the blacker?
+
+As she neared the Farrington home, Violet herself came rushing out to
+meet her, looking unusually and feverishly excited.
+
+"Oh, Billie, what do you think?" she cried, encircling Billie with her
+arm and fairly dragging her up on the porch. "I have the most wonderful
+news to tell you!"
+
+"What?" gasped Billie, for the unexpected onslaught had literally
+taken her breath away. "Goodness! you might as well kill me as scare
+me to death."
+
+"Oh, but, Billie, you won't mind when I tell you," cried Violet,
+regarding her friend with dancing eyes. "The folks have decided to send
+me to Three Towers Hall!" Three Towers was a boarding school some
+distance from North Bend. "Laura is going too," Violet continued
+breathlessly. "And of course you will--" But something in Billie's face
+stopped her and she drew in her breath sharply.
+
+"Oh, Billie," she cried, her face falling, "you're never going to tell me
+you can't go!"
+
+"I guess that's just what I am going to tell you," said Billie, her fists
+clasped so tightly that the knuckles showed white. "I might have stood
+some chance if it hadn't been for that old statue. Now I can't get enough
+money to pay for that--much less go to Three Towers."
+
+"Oh, that old statue!" cried Violet desperately, adding, while her face
+grew longer and longer: "What fun will there be, I'd like to know, in
+going to Three Towers if you can't go with us? And oh, Billie, I was
+making such wonderful plans!"
+
+Billie had to turn away to hide the tears that sprang to her eyes. For to
+go to Three Towers Hall had long been the ambition of the chums, and now
+it was doubly hard to see her chance snatched away by an accident that
+could have been so easily avoided. If only she had not been so foolish!
+
+Violet came over and put a loving arm about her friend.
+
+"Never mind, honey," she said consolingly, forgetting her own
+disappointment in Billie's. "We'll find some way to get to Three Towers."
+
+Billie smiled a wry little smile and made an effort to look as if there
+were still something to live for in the world.
+
+"Laura told me that you thought your uncle might help you," said Violet,
+after an interval of unhappily trying to think of some way out of their
+trouble. "Neither Laura nor I will stir a step without you, that's a
+sure thing."
+
+"Why, of course you will," said Billie, stopping the swing short and
+looking at her chum in amazement. "I'm sure your folks aren't going to
+let you stay at home from the school they've decided on just because I
+can't go with you. Although," and her voice broke a little, "it's just
+wonderful of you, Vi, to feel that way. You will go, of course, and you
+can write me beautiful letters about the wonderful times you are having."
+
+"I won't do it!" cried Violet, springing to her feet. "I'm not going to
+Three Towers without you, and that settles it. I don't care if I had a
+thousand parents. Who's that turning the corner?" she interrupted herself
+to ask. "There's something familiar about that walk."
+
+"Why, it's Ferd Stowing," said Billie, getting to her feet for a better
+view. "My, but he looks happy about something. I wonder what's up."
+
+The next moment Ferd Stowing, one of the best-liked boys in the town,
+came rushing up the steps like a whirlwind, and it did not take the girls
+long to find out "what was up."
+
+"Hooray!" he cried, flinging his hat high in the air. "Wuxtry! All about
+Ferd Stowing and Ted Jordon!"
+
+"For goodness' sake, stop bellowing and behave," Billie commanded. "What
+have you and Teddy been doing now?"
+
+"Plenty. But that's nothing to what we're going to do," crowed Ferd
+exultantly. "He and I have at last persuaded our reluctant parents to
+send us to the military school. You know--the one that is only a little
+over a mile from Three Towers where you girls are going."
+
+Again Billie felt as if she had been treated to a shower of ice water.
+Teddy and Ferd were going to Boxton Military Academy, and Chet--her
+darling, loyal Chet--would not be able to go with them. Her own
+disappointment seemed nothing at all beside this new tragedy.
+
+"I was just on my way over to your house," Billie was conscious that Ferd
+was addressing her. "We haven't had a chance to get in touch with Chet
+yet. But the old boy will of course go with us, won't he? It wouldn't be
+any fun without Chet."
+
+Almost the very words Violet had said to her, thought Billie, as she
+tried to swallow a sob and only succeeded in turning it into a funny
+little cough.
+
+"He will, won't he?" Ferd was insisting, while Violet watched them with
+troubled eyes.
+
+"Why--why--I don't know, Ferd," Billie stammered, trying to make her
+voice sound natural. "I do know one thing, and that is that Chet is crazy
+to go and will if he gets half a chance."
+
+"Then I guess it's all right," said Ferd, leaning back with a sigh of
+relief. "Gee, I was afraid you were going to say he couldn't go, and so
+spoil everything. Say, can't you see the good times we're going to have
+with you girls at Three Towers Hall and we fellows such a little way off
+that we can see each other every once in a while? I can't make up my
+mind that it's real yet--" And so on and on, rapturously, while
+Billie's heart sank lower and lower and Violet's own warm one ached for
+her friend.
+
+Then just as Ferd started to go he spied Chet coming up the street and
+hailed him joyfully.
+
+"Just the fellow I wanted to see," he declared fervently. "Come on up
+here, old man, and hear the glad news."
+
+Billie groaned inwardly and seemed about to speak, but Violet stopped her
+with a hand on her arm.
+
+"Might as well get it over with," she whispered. "Chet is sure to hear
+of it later if he doesn't now."
+
+So Billie waited, but her heart ached as she watched Chet march up
+smilingly to hear "the glad news."
+
+"We're going to Boxton Military Academy." Ferd fairly shouted it at him.
+"How about it, old timer, are you going with us, or are you going to
+leave us in the lurch?"
+
+The glad tidings staggered Chet for a minute, but he came on quietly and
+perched himself upon the railing, one foot swinging idly.
+
+"You said you were going to the military academy?" he asked, his voice as
+quiet as his manner, but Billie noticed that the smile was gone. "By that
+I suppose you mean you and Teddy."
+
+"And you," added Ferd, beaming upon him. "Billie said you were
+crazy to go."
+
+Chet looked at Billie's unhappy face and tried to smile.
+
+"Crazy to go!" he repeated. "I'll say I am. But--"
+
+"But me no buts, Chet, my lad," broke in the impetuous Ferd. "I didn't
+ask you anything. I merely stated a fact."
+
+"I--I'd give almost anything I own to make it a fact," said Chet, his
+eyes on the ground. "But I'm very much afraid you'll have to guess
+again, old man."
+
+"Guess again? Well, I should say not!" cried Ferd, getting to his feet
+indignantly. "Why, the thing can't be done without you, Chet. Didn't
+Billie say--"
+
+"Billie only said," interrupted Violet, coming to Billie's rescue, "that
+Chet was crazy to go and would if he had half a chance."
+
+Ferd sank back in his chair, too dismayed to speak.
+
+"Well, of all--Say, old man, you've got to go," and he turned to Chet
+pleadingly. "What sort of a party do you think this is going to be
+anyway, with Billie at Three Towers Hall and you back here in North Bend?
+It's not fair."
+
+"Not fair," flared Billie. "You don't suppose I'd go to Three Towers and
+leave Chet here, do you?"
+
+"Then you're not going either?" cried Ferd, seeing all his castles in the
+air coming down about his ears with a crash.
+
+Billie shook her head unhappily.
+
+"No, I'm not going either," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DEBBIE DESERTS
+
+
+Billy Bradley really tried to be cheerful in the days that followed, but
+try as she would she could not altogether keep out the vision of Three
+Towers Hall, the boarding school to which she had wanted to go ever
+since--well, almost since she had wanted anything.
+
+Laura and Violet would go without her. They would have to go, even in
+spite of their loyal determination not to. Their parents would have
+something to say about that.
+
+And Chet was in just as bad a fix, for Boxton Military Academy had been
+his dream even as Three Towers Hall had been Billie's. Oh, if only they
+could all go what a wonderful time they could have! Oh, well--
+
+And Mr. and Mrs. Bradley, sensing something of all this, were very
+unhappy and cast about desperately for some way to give their boy and
+girl the advantages that the others would have. But money was very tight.
+Mr. Bradley had all his cash tied up in several real estate transactions.
+
+So for a little while the Bradleys were not a happy family--although
+they tried bravely not to show it, even to each other.
+
+Then one morning came a long, businesslike envelope, with a typewritten
+address, that caused a stir in the family circle.
+
+Mrs. Bradley opened it with a puzzled frown between her brows, then
+uttered a startled exclamation.
+
+"What is it, dear?" asked Mr. Bradley, while Billie and Chet crowded
+closer to her chair.
+
+"Aunt Beatrice Powerson is dead," Mrs. Bradley announced with a look more
+of shocked surprise than of grief. "She died in Canada quite suddenly,
+and this is from her attorney asking us," she looked across at her
+husband, "to be present at the reading of the will."
+
+"Well, well," said Mr. Bradley slowly, "poor Beatrice Powerson dead at
+last. I suppose she got as much out of life as any of us, though, in her
+eccentric way."
+
+"It was strange," remarked Billie slowly, "that I should have been
+speaking of Aunt Beatrice only the other day. Violet wanted to know if
+she was wealthy."
+
+"Was she, Dad?" asked Chet, with interest.
+
+"I imagine nobody knew," his father answered. "As you know, she was
+queer, and as tight as a clam when it came to talking about her personal
+affairs. The only thing we're sure of is that she had plenty of money to
+travel anywhere she wanted to, and that's saying something these days."
+
+"I say, Billie," cried Chet, his eyes shining with the thought--dear,
+unselfish Chet, his first hope even then was more for Billie than
+himself, "you are Aunt Beatrice's namesake, you know. Maybe she left you
+something in her will."
+
+"Chet," his mother chided gently, "don't you think it is rather heartless
+to be counting on what Aunt Beatrice has left when we have just heard of
+her death?"
+
+"I suppose so," said Chet, rather abashed. "But then you know we only saw
+her about once in every three years, and then she wasn't very friendly."
+
+"Are you really going, Mother, you and Dad?" asked Billie, for it seemed
+impossible to her that her father and mother should go off on such a long
+journey and leave her and Chet behind. "Are you?" she asked again
+anxiously.
+
+"Yes, I suppose we must," said Mrs. Bradley, looking across at her
+husband, who answered her with a smile.
+
+"I don't see what else we can do," he replied, as he looked at his young
+daughter. "You can keep house while we're gone, Billie, just to see how
+you like it."
+
+"Me keep house!" cried Billie, dismayed. "Why, I don't know the first
+thing about it!"
+
+"That's the best way to learn," returned her father, while Mrs. Bradley
+began to smile. "Experience is the very best teacher, you know."
+
+"That's all right, but you don't seem to realize that she will be
+learning at my expense," groaned Chet, adding as a horrible thought
+struck him: "Billie won't have to cook anything, will she?"
+
+"Of course not," laughed Mrs. Bradley, and Chet sighed with relief.
+"Debbie will be here as usual to do the cooking. And, of course," she
+added to Billie, putting an arm about her and drawing her close, "Debbie
+will help you with anything you want to know. We probably won't be gone
+more than a week, anyway."
+
+So it was arranged, and a couple of days later, with a wildly beating
+heart and a rueful smile upon her lips, Billie stood with Chet upon the
+station platform and waved good-bye to her father and mother.
+
+When the train had rounded the curve and disappeared with one last
+challenging blast of the whistle, Billie and Chet turned to each other,
+feeling as lost and forlorn as the babes in the wood.
+
+"Now, what do we do next?" breathed Billie, breaking the silence at last.
+"I feel helpless, Chet."
+
+"Well, I don't think you have anything on me," admitted Chet slangily. "I
+suppose the most sensible thing to do would be to go home and see how
+Debbie is getting on with the lunch."
+
+"Goodness, that's the first time I ever had to be reminded that I was
+hungry," said Billie, and with that they laughed and felt more natural.
+
+The rest of that day went off beautifully, and Billie was beginning to
+feel very confident when suddenly Debbie threw a suggestion bomb-like in
+the midst of her contentment.
+
+"I hate to bother you, miss," said the black cook, approaching her
+mistress the next morning--Billie, by the way, was busily dusting the
+living-room with a very becoming dust cap perched on top of her pretty
+hair, "but this is mah day out."
+
+"Your--day--out!" gasped Billie, sitting down hard on the chair she had
+been dusting and regarding Debbie's black face with dismay. "You never
+can mean that you are going to desert me, Debbie? Leave me to do all the
+cooking and--and--everything--" The awful vision was too much for her
+and her voice died down to a whisper.
+
+"I'm tur'ble sorry, Miss Billie," said Debbie, gently but very, very
+firmly, "but mah young man and me we has a mos' awful impo'tant
+in-gagement fo' dis aft'noon, an' I couldn't break it--no'm, much as I
+want to." She added that last in the evident hope of appeasing her young
+mistress, who was still regarding her with horrified eyes.
+
+"But, Debbie," gasped Billie when she could find her voice, "I don't know
+a thing in the world about cooking. Have you--have you--ordered
+anything?"
+
+"Yas, indeed," Debbie assured her, going on to explain that the meal was
+virtually prepared anyway. "I done made a salad for you and Chet, an' the
+butter beans am in de pan. Dere is some stew too, which all you has to do
+is to warm up, Miss Billie. An' I done make a big peach pie, an' dere's
+some whipped cream in de 'frig'rater. So I reckons you-all won't starve
+to death," she added, with a broad smile that showed all her strong white
+teeth back to the last molar.
+
+As for Billie, she could have hugged the mountainous black figure in the
+relief she felt. Why, with the dinner all prepared like this it would be
+just a lark to put it on the table--for just her and Chet alone.
+
+"Debbie, you're a darling and I love you!" she cried, joyfully. "But you
+know you really shouldn't have scared me so--it wasn't fair."
+
+For answer Debbie grinned again and began to get her bulky figure up
+the stairs, preparatory to dressing for the "in-gagement" with her
+"young man."
+
+Billie watched her go, and then with a little chuckle resumed her
+dusting.
+
+"I'd like to see Debbie's young man," she mused, a smile twisting the
+corners of her mouth. "He ought to be a giant. Anyway, I feel sorry for
+him if he isn't. Dear funny old Debbie--won't Chet and I have a picnic
+to-night?"
+
+And as she had predicted, they did have the time of their lives. Chet
+refused to sit in the dining-room in lonely state, and in masterly
+fashion invaded the kitchen.
+
+"Say, that smells good, Billie, old girl," and he sniffed hungrily at the
+stew. "Give me an apron and I'll help."
+
+"Oh, look who wants to help," cried Billie, finding an apron nevertheless
+and tying it around his waist so that he looked like a butcher's
+assistant. "You will probably only get under my feet and bother me to
+death, but I suppose I'll have to humor you. There, if you must do
+something, set the table."
+
+Now Chet did not want to set the table--it took him too far from the
+appetizing aromas in the kitchen. However, he obeyed grumblingly and was
+finally rewarded by being given a steaming dish of stew to carry in.
+
+"Chet," screamed Billie, following him in and checking him just as he
+was in the act of putting the hot dish on the tablecloth, "put a
+protector under it. Don't you know," as Chet started and looked
+reproachfully at her, "that you are apt to ruin the table? And it's
+almost a brand new one at that."
+
+"Well, you needn't scare a fellow to death," grumbled Chet. "I thought
+I'd stepped on the cat." But he obeyed instructions.
+
+"My! but doesn't everything look good?" cried Billie, sniffing hungrily.
+"Hurry up, Chet, take off your apron and dish up the stew while I pour
+the coffee. What do you know about that? _I_ made the coffee. And doesn't
+it smell good?"
+
+It was the jolliest of meals and finished up in royal fashion with the
+peach pie and whipped cream.
+
+In a very gale of merriment Chet and Billie cleared away the dinner
+dishes, and then, being tired by the unusual exertion, decided to go
+early to bed.
+
+For the first part of the night Billie slept soundly, but just as the
+clock downstairs was striking two, she awakened suddenly and lay still in
+bed listening. She was frightened, though she could not have told why.
+
+Rigidly she lay there hardly daring to breathe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A STRANGE BURGLAR
+
+
+What was it that had awakened Billie Bradley?
+
+Hardly had the girl asked herself that question when she heard it--a
+padding, stealthy, creeping noise that made her clutch the bed clothes
+and draw them tighter about her.
+
+Then in a panic she realized that whatever it was had started upstairs.
+
+Nearer, nearer came the stealthy padding, till Billie realized it had
+reached the landing. Her scalp crept and her hair began to stand on end.
+Her door was the nearest to the stairs, and she was all alone in the
+house with Chet!
+
+Swiftly, she threw off the covers, jumped out of bed, and with her
+limbs trembling under her, ran to the door and softly turned the key
+in the lock.
+
+Then she leaned weakly against the door and listened for the noise, but
+it had stopped. Evidently the burglar, if burglar it was, had paused to
+get his bearings.
+
+Then another horrible thought struck her. Chet was sleeping in the next
+room, and Chet's door was unlocked!
+
+On feet that seemed too weak to hold her she crept into Chet's
+room--luckily there was a connecting door between--and softly turned the
+key in his door also.
+
+Evidently she was just in time, for as she listened the stealthy noise
+began again and it was coming toward the very door she had just locked.
+
+She uttered a little involuntary sound, and Chet sat up in bed
+with a start.
+
+"Wh-what's up?" he demanded sleepily.
+
+"Oh, hush," cried Billie. Scurrying to his bed and leaning over, she
+whispered the awful words: "There's a burglar in the house, Chet."
+
+"A burglar?" repeated Chet, wide awake by this time. "Who says so?"
+
+"Don't be foolish! Didn't I hear him myself?" cried Billie in a desperate
+whisper. "Oh, Chet, he's on the stairs outside."
+
+"Well, why doesn't he come in? Is he bashful?" queried Chet, seeming not
+in the least alarmed. Billie shook him impatiently.
+
+"He probably would have come in if I hadn't locked the doors," she told
+him impatiently. "For goodness' sake, Chet, wake up and tell me what to
+do. He may have stolen everything we own by this time."
+
+"Hush," cried Chet, grasping her arm, and in a tense silence they
+listened.
+
+Yes, they could not be mistaken--something was surely brushing
+against the door.
+
+Thank heaven, she had locked it, thought Billie, as she began to feel her
+hair stand on end again.
+
+Once more came that brushing sound. And then, very distinctly, a sniff!
+
+"Oh, Chet," cried Billie, clutching her brother's arm spasmodically.
+
+"Nervy beggar," muttered Chet. "If I had a gun I'd know what to do. But
+say," he added, as a happy thought struck him, "there's Dad's!" He was
+out of bed and across the room before Billie could do more than gasp.
+Fearfully she followed after.
+
+Luckily Chet had elected to sleep in his parents' room during their
+absence so as to be nearer Billie, and he had happened to remember the
+secret hiding place that his father had shown him not long before where
+he kept his revolver always loaded and ready for action.
+
+"Oh, Chet, do be careful!" whispered Billie, as Chet drew the
+ugly-looking thing out of the hidden drawer and examined it. "I--I think
+I'm more afraid of that than I am of the b-burglar."
+
+Chet's only answer was a grim "Come on," from between set young lips.
+Fearfully they made their way over to the door.
+
+Their burglar seemed to have gone on to some other room, for they could
+hear the stealthy padding at the other end of the hall. But now he had
+turned in their direction.
+
+Very carefully Chet turned the key in the lock, and then, while Billie
+pressed both hands over her heart to quiet its pounding, Chet flung open
+the door and stepped into the hall. Billie was right at his heels.
+
+And then the impossible thing happened. A dark shape coming slowly toward
+them stopped at sight of them and uttered a low bark.
+
+Yes, the sound that issued from their supposed burglar was a very
+distinct and friendly canine bark.
+
+For a minute Chet and Billie just stared speechlessly. Then slowly the
+revolver in Chet's hand dropped to his side and he began to laugh. It was
+a weak laugh at first, but it gradually swelled into a roar as he took in
+the full humor of the situation.
+
+And Billie, after a moment during which she seemed undecided whether to
+laugh or cry, presently joined him.
+
+"A dog!" gasped Chet, when he could get his breath. "Come here, old man,
+and let's have a look at you."
+
+The dog that had caused all the disturbance came forward at Chet's
+command and stood looking up at them, his handsome brush waving genially.
+
+As the light of a street lamp shining through the window fell upon him,
+Billie uttered an exclamation.
+
+"Why, it's Bruce--Nellie Bane's collie," she cried. "How in the world did
+he ever get in? Come here, Bruce, old boy, and explain yourself."
+
+Obediently Bruce went over to her and laid a cold muzzle in her hand, his
+soft eyes looking lovingly into her face. For Billie had made much of
+Bruce on her frequent visits to Nellie Bane, and the dog, with the
+instinct of his kind, had developed a great liking for her--though the
+first in his loyal dog's heart was Nellie Bane, his mistress.
+
+"You're a great one!" Chet scoffed. "You get a fellow all worked up
+to catch a burglar, and then you produce a dog. I think you did it
+on purpose."
+
+"Yes, and I suppose I scared myself half to death on purpose too," said
+Billie sarcastically, as she patted the dog's great head. "Where are you
+going?" she asked, as Chet started back into his room.
+
+"To put this thing where I got it," he explained, holding up the pistol
+from which Billie shrank back. "Don't imagine we'll have any further need
+of it to-night."
+
+"Wait a minute," ordered Billie, and Chet turned back surprised. "We
+haven't found out yet how Bruce got in," she explained, looking fearfully
+over her shoulder, for the effects of her fright had not quite left her
+yet. "Don't you think we'd better take that along while we look through
+the house? We must have left a door or a window open somewhere. Bruce
+couldn't have come through the wall, you know."
+
+"Something--I don't know what it can be--makes me agree with you,"
+returned Chet sarcastically, but he turned to the stairs nevertheless,
+"Come on," he said. "If we have left a window open it is high time that
+that window was shut. Go ahead, Bruce, and show us where you got
+in--that's a good old boy."
+
+At the best it was rather an eerie business--searching through the empty
+house at that time of night--and it was especially nerve-trying for
+Billie after the fright she had had.
+
+And then they found it. The French window that opened from the
+dining-room upon the porch was swinging wide open--a wonderful invitation
+to enter for any sneak thief who might happen to pass that way.
+
+Billie shivered again as Chet, with a final pat, put Bruce outside and
+closed and locked the window.
+
+"There, I guess we won't have any more visitors to-night," he said, as
+they started through the dark living-room to the stairs.
+
+"Let's hope not," returned Billie fervently.
+
+When they reached their rooms upstairs they felt too excited for sleep,
+and sat for a long time talking over the incident.
+
+They could laugh now at their surprise in meeting friendly Bruce instead
+of a very unfriendly house-breaker, but more than once both of them
+caught themselves listening for sounds in the silent house below.
+
+"It was just luck," said Billie, as she rose at last to go to bed, "that
+it was Bruce that happened to find that open window instead of--of some
+one else!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS
+
+
+Chet and Billie were very careful to leave neither doors nor windows
+unlocked, and the rest of the week passed without further mishap.
+
+Then one morning came a telegram from their parents saying that they
+would be home the next day.
+
+"Goodness, now I have to get busy!" cried Billie, jumping up from the
+table in such a hurry that she very nearly upset Chet's coffee cup,
+thereby considerably surprising that boy.
+
+"Say, do you think it's catching?" he asked, with a smile. "What's the
+matter with you, Billie?"
+
+"Oh, of course you wouldn't understand--you're a boy," remarked his
+sister condescendingly, as she put on the becoming dust cap and pulled
+some gloves on her hands.
+
+"Don't you see," she added, as Chet continued to stare at her, "that this
+house has to be immaculate before mother gets back? I've simply got to
+live up to my reputation."
+
+"Never knew you had one," remarked Chet cruelly, as he turned back to
+his bacon and eggs with a relieved sigh. "If you need any help," he
+offered graciously, as Billie swept out of the room, "just call on me."
+
+"Thank you, I don't," called back Billie, making a face at him over
+her shoulder.
+
+And then followed such a whirlwind of sweeping and dusting and throwing
+about of furniture that poor Chet was dismayed and was forced to take
+refuge on the porch.
+
+However, when Billie, flushed and breathless and very, very pretty, took
+him by the arm and led him about to admire her handiwork, he told her
+that she was "some wonder."
+
+"Now how about lunch?" he asked, and Billie, appetite sharpened by work,
+enthusiastically agreed.
+
+It seemed an eternity to wait until the next morning, but somehow the
+time came at last, finding brother and sister on tip-toe with excitement.
+
+Long before it was time to go to meet the train, they were ready and
+waiting. Billie was swinging back and forth in the porch swing, grasping
+a cushion in each hand to keep her from jumping out, while Chet walked
+restlessly up and down.
+
+"If you don't sit down," said Billie so suddenly that her brother jumped,
+"I'll just scream."
+
+"Well go ahead, if it will make you feel any better," invited Chet
+amiably. However, for the sake of peace he seated himself in one of the
+broad armed chairs.
+
+"Isn't it train time yet?" asked Billie, as she had asked many times
+during the last fifteen minutes.
+
+"Here," said Chet, handing over his watch, "take this and keep looking at
+it. My voice is getting hoarse saying 'no.'"
+
+"But I don't see why we can't go down to the station anyway,"
+argued Billie.
+
+"Only that it's about a hundred times more comfortable to wait here."
+
+"But we might miss the train," wailed Billie, and Chet jumped to his feet
+with a chuckle.
+
+"Oh, come on," he cried. "We've missed the train several times according
+to you. In a minute you will almost have me worried."
+
+"You're a dear old bear," said Billie, snuggling her arm into his as
+they set off.
+
+"You certainly do have a way with you, Billie, that gets you what you
+want," he admitted, adding meaningly: "Besides, I'm thinking I'd better
+keep on the right side of you just now."
+
+"Why?" asked Billie, puzzled.
+
+"In case Aunt Beatrice left you something. You were her namesake,
+remember."
+
+Billie glanced up at him, an eager look in her eyes. But her glance fell
+again and she shook his arm severely.
+
+"What's the use of raising hopes?" she said dolefully, as a vision of
+the broken "Girl Reading a Book" rose reproachfully before her and she
+thought longingly of how happy she could be if it were only possible to
+replace it.
+
+And there was Three Towers Hall--but she shook off the thought and had
+opened her mouth to speak when the sharp blast of an engine whistle made
+them jump.
+
+"Chet," she gasped, "it's the train! We mustn't miss it."
+
+"We can make it if we run," said Chet, as he took hold of her arm. "Come
+on! No, not that way--the short cut. That's the idea."
+
+Warm and panting they came out upon the station platform just as the
+train drew in. They watched the passengers eagerly, but not at first
+seeing those they sought, had almost decided that they were coming on a
+later train when away down at the end of the platform, Billie espied a
+familiar hat.
+
+"There they are! Mother!" she cried, as they came within hailing
+distance. "We thought you weren't on the train. Oh, what a fright we
+had!"
+
+After the greetings were over Chet and Billie both noticed that their
+parents seemed to be in a state of suppressed excitement, and both of
+them wondered.
+
+However, they had too much to talk about just then to do much wondering
+about anything, and they walked slowly toward home, asking and answering
+a very flood of questions.
+
+Mrs. Bradley wanted to know how Billie had got along without her, at
+which both Chet and Billie tried to tell the story of Nellie Bane's
+collie at the same time and in the same breath.
+
+When they had finished Mr. Bradley chuckled, but Mrs. Bradley
+looked grave.
+
+"It happened to be funny," she said. "But it might have been very
+serious. I hope you were careful after that."
+
+"Were we!" they cried, and Billie added with a laugh: "We locked and
+double locked all the windows and doors, and if it hadn't been for Chet I
+would have piled furniture against the doors. But we want to know what
+you've been doing," she cried, turning to her mother eagerly. "Tell us,
+please, quick. We've been waiting so long."
+
+Again Mr. Bradley laughed and pinched his impatient young
+daughter's cheek.
+
+"I think our news can wait till we get to the house," he said.
+
+"But _I_ can't," protested Billie.
+
+"Anybody would think you really expected to hear something," chuckled Mr.
+Bradley, who seemed to be enjoying himself immensely over something.
+
+"Oh, please," begged Billie, almost beside herself with impatience by
+this time--and Chet, in his quiet way, was just as bad. There was
+something about their mother's and father's manner that told them
+something was in the wind.
+
+"I'm just dying by inches," went on Billie.
+
+But this time it was Mrs. Bradley who interrupted.
+
+"Here we are at home, dear," she said. "Can't you give Dad and me a
+chance to rest, and give us perhaps a cup of tea--"
+
+"Oh, I'm a selfish old beast!" said Billie penitently. "I might have
+known you would be terribly tired after that long train ride!"
+
+And still scolding herself she hurried them before her into the house and
+flew to find Debbie. She had not far to go, however, for Debbie was just
+lumbering, like a good-natured elephant, through the hall to greet her
+master and mistress. As soon as the greetings were over she lumbered back
+again to make the necessary tea.
+
+Billie and Chet controlled their impatience, answering the questions
+their mother had to ask them about all that had happened while they had
+been away, for Mrs. Bradley had been anxious.
+
+When they finally left the table and Mrs. Bradley led the way back into
+the library, Billie uttered a long sigh of relief.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Bradley, and they leaned forward eagerly, "we found
+that what we always supposed about the amount of money Aunt Beatrice had
+was right. She left only a few thousand, and that--queer soul that she
+was--she left to a missionary society."
+
+"Oh!" cried Billie, and it must be admitted that she both felt and
+looked horribly disappointed. She had not known just how much she had
+hoped, both for herself and for Chet, until this moment. And Chet, poor
+fellow, felt just as bad, although he showed it less.
+
+"Then she didn't leave anything either to you or Dad?" Chet asked.
+
+"No. But she did leave something to you and Billie," was Mrs. Bradley's
+startling announcement.
+
+Billie and Chet looked at one another as if to be sure that they had
+heard aright.
+
+"You say she left us something?" cried Billie breathlessly.
+
+"Yes. But don't let your hopes run away with you," Mr. Bradley warned
+them, "for it wasn't very much."
+
+"Oh, tell us," the two commanded eagerly and in unison.
+
+"She left a gold watch to Chet," Mrs. Bradley told them. "It is really a
+very beautiful watch, Chet, and worth a good deal of money. And to
+Billie--" She paused for emphasis and Billie wriggled impatiently. "And
+to Billie she left her rambling old homestead at Cherry Corners."
+
+"A homestead at Cherry Corners!" gasped Billie, unable to believe her
+ears while Chet looked interested. "What sort of a house is it, Mother?"
+
+"I haven't been there for a number of years," replied her mother,
+knitting her brows in an effort to recall the details of Billie's queer
+inheritance. "As I remember it, it is an old-fashioned rambling affair.
+It must have been considered rather handsome in its palmy years, and it
+has been in the Powerson family for generations. In fact, I believe it
+dates back to revolutionary days. It has great large rooms, and rather
+spooky, dark hallways. I'm afraid I wasn't very much impressed with it
+the first time I saw it," she finished, with a smile.
+
+"Wh-what a funny thing to leave me," said Billie, her eyes big and round
+with wonder. Then she added, without thinking--as Billie always did: "Oh,
+don't I wish she had left me a hundred dollars instead! It would have
+been much more useful!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+GHOSTS AND THINGS
+
+
+Billie was instantly sorry for her speech, as she saw the old troubled
+expression cross her father's face.
+
+"Forgive me, please!" she pleaded. "I think I must be the most ungrateful
+girl alive."
+
+"Well, I should say so!" cried Chet, to whom the description of the queer
+old house, while dismaying his sister, had appealed immensely. "Say, I'd
+like nothing better than to go out right now and look your property over,
+Billie. Big rooms and spooky halls and--say, Mother, it must have a
+cellar and an attic. What are they like?"
+
+"I suppose," said his mother, smiling at his enthusiasm, "that since you
+seem to like the ghostly part, you would be more than ever pleased with
+the attic and cellar."
+
+"As I remember it, the cellar was the most peculiar part of the whole
+queer place. Aunt Beatrice took me through it, and seemed immensely proud
+of the funny old tunnels and store-rooms that were tucked away in all
+sort of odd corners. The only thing I liked about it," she finished,
+with a reminiscent smile, "was the shelf-lined, icy room where she kept
+her fruit preserves."
+
+"This gets better and better!" fairly crowed Chet. "A damp, gloomy old
+cellar with tunnels and storerooms in queer corners and--But you were
+going to tell us about the attic."
+
+"Yes, the attic!" cried Billie, for by this time Chet had made her as
+much interested in her strange inheritance as he was. "Did it have trunks
+in it, Mother--and cobwebs?"
+
+"Trunks, yes, but not cobwebs," smiled her mother, "for Aunt Beatrice was
+an excellent housekeeper--when she was at home."
+
+"Then the attic wasn't spooky?" queried Chet, disappointed.
+
+"I should say it was!" returned his mother, with an emphasis that set all
+his fears at rest. "It was the creepiest place I have ever been in, and I
+was never gladder in my life than when we left it for the more cheerful
+lower floor--though goodness knows that was dreary enough."
+
+"Say, when are we going?" cried Chet, jumping to his feet, his face
+flushed with eagerness.
+
+"Where?" asked Mrs. Bradley.
+
+"To Cherry Corners, of course," answered Chet in a tone which very
+plainly meant, "why ask such a foolish question?" "To the ghosts that
+inhabit the garret and cellar of Billie's new house."
+
+"Hold on, hold on there!" cried Mr. Bradley, who had been listening to
+the proceedings in amused silence. "Do you happen to know how far Cherry
+Corners is from here?"
+
+"Very far?" asked Billie.
+
+"A whole day's ride, that's all," their father answered.
+
+"Say, Dad," cried Chet suddenly. "What do you suppose the old place
+is worth?"
+
+"I can't say, Chet," answered Mr. Bradley. "Being so far from good roads
+and the railroad, I am afraid the land is not worth much."
+
+"But it must be worth something," persisted the boy.
+
+Mr. Bradley smiled faintly.
+
+"For Billie's sake let us hope so. But you must remember, in this state
+there are thousands of abandoned farms. Folks simply can't make a living
+on them, and so they move away."
+
+"But the buildings must be worth something."
+
+"To live in, yes, but that is all. You can't move an old stone house to
+some other spot."
+
+"Why do they call it 'Cherry Corners?'" asked Billie, for she had
+been following a little train of thought all her own. "It's a very
+queer name."
+
+"Oh, they come by it naturally enough," her mother answered. "It is
+surrounded by a grove of cherry trees and is near a crossing of two rocky
+roads. So you see the reason for 'Cherry Corners.'"
+
+"Goodness, that sounds as if it were away off in the wilderness!" cried
+Billie, adding: "But wouldn't it be awful to have to live in that spooky
+old house all alone? Are there any houses near it, Mother?"
+
+"Not one for more than a mile," said Mrs. Bradley. "They are almost as
+isolated now as they used to be in the old Indian days."
+
+"Indians!" cried Chet, pricking up his ears again. "Did you say something
+about Indians, Mother?"
+
+"Why, I've heard Aunt Beatrice say," answered Mrs. Bradley, beginning
+to share in her children's enthusiasm, "that the Powersons who
+originally built the house built it especially for the purpose of
+resisting Indian attacks. Now that I come to think of it," she added,
+her eyes beginning to shine with excitement, "that was the reason for
+the winding tunnels and secret rooms. As the last resort, the family
+could take refuge in them."
+
+"Oh, boy!" cried Chet, springing to his feet for the second time. "Did
+you hear that, did you? Indian raids and--oh, gosh!" Words failed him and
+he sank back in his chair with a sigh of joy.
+
+"Isn't it wonderful!" breathed Billie. "At first I was disappointed but
+now--Is that all she left, Mother?"
+
+"Isn't that enough?" her father interjected, with a laugh.
+
+"I suppose so, but I thought--"
+
+"Why, yes, that was all," said her mother, adding the next moment,
+surprised that she should have forgotten the most important part of all:
+"Oh, I forgot to tell you--Aunt Beatrice left you the house with all its
+contents."
+
+"Oh!" breathed Billie again. "Now I know we're going to have a
+wonderful time!"
+
+"What does the old house contain?" questioned Chet. His mind was on
+getting some money out of the inheritance for Billie.
+
+"I am sure I do not know," answered his mother, "It may be completely
+furnished or it may be quite bare. I imagine, though, that Aunt Beatrice
+left it furnished. But everything is very old, and maybe the rats and
+moths have played sad havoc there."
+
+They talked for a little while more about this strange thing that had
+happened. Then Mr. Bradley went off to pick up the loose ends of his
+business and Mrs. Bradley adjourned to the kitchen to discuss supper
+preparations with the mountainous Debbie.
+
+Left alone, Billie and Chet looked at each other wonderingly.
+
+"Well," said Billie in a slightly, awed tone, "we expected something to
+happen, and it certainly did."
+
+"But we didn't expect her to leave you an old stone mansion," crowed
+Chet. "Say, Billie," he added, stopping before her in his excited
+pacing of the room to gaze at her eagerly, "aren't you crazy to go out
+and see it?"
+
+"I'd like," said Billie fervently, "to start for Cherry Corners on the
+very next train. But I'm not so sure I'd like to stay in that place after
+nightfall," she added on second thought.
+
+"Why, you're not afraid of the ghosts, are you?" he asked, with intense
+scorn. "Don't you know that ghosts are all in the imagination?"
+
+"Of course I do. Who said I was afraid of ghosts?" retorted Billie with
+spirit. "You know that I don't believe in them any more than you do."
+
+"Well, then what are you afraid of?" insisted Chet.
+
+"Oh, thieves and things. Tramps maybe," said Billie thoughtfully; then
+she added with spirit, as Chet smiled a superior sort of smile: "I just
+guess you wouldn't be able to spend a night in that sort of a gloomy old
+house away off from everybody without feeling nervous. Goodness! I'd be
+expecting every minute to have the ghosts of dead and gone Indians rise
+up and scalp me."
+
+"Thought you didn't believe in ghosts," gibed Chet.
+
+"I don't," flared Billie, adding rather weakly: "But I'm not going to
+take any chances, anyway."
+
+"But oh," she added after a few minutes of thoughtful silence, "I can't
+help it if it is ungrateful, but I do wish Aunt Beatrice had left me a
+few hundred dollars instead. We've still got that old statue to worry
+about, and Three Towers Hall and the military academy."
+
+Chet was silent for a minute, then he said with sudden inspiration:
+"There's the watch Aunt Beatrice left me, you know. Mother said it was
+very valuable."
+
+Billie's face lighted for a moment, then fell again.
+
+"But you know Uncle Bill always said that you never could get anything
+like the value for old gold. And anyway," she rose and put a loving arm
+about him, "I couldn't let you do that for me, Chet, dear. I think you're
+the dearest brother in the world."
+
+A few hours later Laura Jordon and Violet Farrington came over, trying
+their best not to look curious. They had waited as long as they could,
+but knowing about the death of Billie's queer old aunt and knowing also
+that Billie, as her namesake, might expect some share of the fortune--if
+there was one--they had been filled with excitement, and now as they ran
+up the steps to Billie's porch it was all they could do to keep from
+blurting out the question.
+
+For both Laura and Violet had been perfectly certain that Billie's Aunt
+Beatrice had been some sort of miser who had piled up an immense fortune
+simply for their chum's benefit.
+
+"Just think," Violet had said in one of their excited conferences on the
+subject, "what a wonderful thing it will be for Billie just now when she
+is so worried about that miserable old statue. And for Chet too!"
+
+"Yes, it would mean they could both go to school and we'd all have such a
+good time," Laura had chimed in. "Goodness!" she had added with a
+chuckle, "I feel almost as much obliged to Aunt Beatrice as Billie will."
+
+But now that the great moment had come, they sat decorously in Billie's
+porch swing and tried to appear not at all curious as to whether Billie
+had gathered in a fortune since they last had seen her or not.
+
+And Billie, her little imp of mischief at work again, guessed the object
+of their visit and decided with an inward chuckle to keep them guessing.
+
+She managed to accomplish her purpose for just about five minutes. Then
+Laura, unable to stand the suspense a moment more, took the bit in her
+teeth and bolted.
+
+"For goodness' sake, Billie," she cried desperately, "why don't
+you tell us?"
+
+"Tell you what?" asked Billie, trying to look innocent. "Haven't I been
+telling you--"
+
+"Yes, about the way Debbie makes potato salad," cried Laura disgustedly.
+"You know well enough why we came."
+
+"Why you came?" Billie repeated, looking still more surprised. "Why,
+naturally, I thought you came to see me."
+
+"Billie Bradley, if you don't tell us what we want to know this instant,"
+cried Laura, jumping to her feet and making a threatening movement toward
+Billie's mischievous head, "I'll--I'll--oh, I don't know what I'll do.
+Are you going to be good? Are you?"
+
+"Yes, yes," cried Billie, pretending immense fright, while her eyes
+danced with mischief. "Tell me what it is you want to know and I'll do
+my best, Your Highness," this last in such a very humble tone that
+Laura chuckled.
+
+"All right, go ahead then," she said while Violet leaned forward eagerly.
+"What did your aunt leave you?"
+
+"Straight from the shoulder," Billie murmured. Then as Laura made another
+threatening gesture toward her, added hurriedly: "All right. Don't shoot
+and I'll tell you everything. Only it will take time."
+
+Billie paused, to allow the proper amount of emphasis, then said, in a
+deep whisper:
+
+"She left me a--haunted house!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+OLD FURNITURE
+
+
+Laura screamed and Violet jumped clear out of her seat.
+
+They stared at Billie, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
+
+"Wh-what did you say?" asked Laura when she could get her breath.
+
+"I said," said Billie, speaking very distinctly and enjoying the
+sensation she had caused, "that Aunt Beatrice left me a haunted house."
+
+"Th-then I wasn't dreaming," stammered Violet, while Laura just continued
+to stare. "Is th-that all, Billie?"
+
+"Isn't that enough?" asked Billie, just as her father had done a few
+hours before.
+
+"It's either not enough or it is too much," replied Violet. "If I had to
+have the ghosts, I should want some very substantial compensations to
+make up for such housemates as those airy and playful ladies and
+gentlemen are said to make."
+
+"But it is a house," persisted Billie. "And you know it isn't everybody
+who can own a haunted house."
+
+"A haunted house!" said Laura, speaking in a hushed tone. "Is it a real
+haunted house, Billie, or are you fooling?"
+
+"Well, I don't know that it is a regular honest-to-goodness one,"
+admitted Billie reluctantly. "You see, it is the house Aunt Beatrice
+used to live in when she was at home, and she left it to me, with
+everything in it."
+
+"How perfectly glorious!" cried Laura, clapping her hands with delight.
+"Tell us about it, Billie. What made you say it was haunted?"
+
+Then did Billie tell them all that her mother had told her about
+her inheritance and, if the truth be told, even added a few details
+of her own.
+
+However that may have been, the fact remains that when she had finished
+the girls were as perfectly wild as Chet had been to visit the queer old
+place and, if need be, even confront its "ghosts!"
+
+"Think!" cried Laura, clasping her hands rapturously. "Just think of
+being able to roam all over that romantic old place and pry into
+corners--"
+
+"And get your hands dirty," interrupted Billie drily.
+
+"Why, Billie," Laura stopped in her transports to regard her friend with
+wide eyes, "aren't you simply wild about the place too?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose so," said Billie, adding as a shadow crossed her face:
+"The folks think I'm awful, all 'cept Chet, and I suppose I am--but I'd
+give the whole place, tunnels, spooky hallways, ghostly attic, and
+everything for just a few little hundred dollar bills."
+
+The girls were silent for a few minutes, realizing that Billie's strange
+inheritance did not do a thing toward solving the old problems of the
+broken statue and of going to boarding school.
+
+Then Violet, who was always thinking up some happy way out of a
+difficulty, gave a little bounce in the swing.
+
+"How do we know," she cried, as the girls looked at her half hopefully,
+"but what you could sell some of the furniture in the old house and get
+enough to pay for the statue?"
+
+"We might, at that," said Billie, her face lighting up again. "But mother
+said it must all be awfully old," she added doubtfully.
+
+"All the better," cried Violet, growing more and more enthusiastic. "You
+say that the old house dates back to revolutionary times, Billie. How do
+we know but what some of the old furniture would be very valuable as
+antiques?"
+
+"Violet, you're a wonder!" cried Billie, hugging her so hard that she
+gasped for breath. "I'd never have thought of that in a thousand years.
+Now you speak of it," she added thoughtfully, "I remember some antique
+furniture that Uncle Bill has in his library. He says it's worth all
+sorts of money, but I wouldn't give two cents for it."
+
+"Well, as long as somebody will, what should we care!" cried Laura
+flippantly. "Maybe you'll make a fortune for yourself after all, Billie."
+
+"Oh, and think what it would mean!" cried Violet, her eyes shining. "It
+would mean that you could pay for that beastly old statue, Billie. And it
+would mean that you could go to Three Towers with us."
+
+"And Chet could go to the military academy with Teddy and Ferd,"
+Laura added.
+
+"For goodness' sake!" cried poor Billie wildly. "You make me feel dizzy.
+What is the use of getting my hopes all raised? Probably Aunt Beatrice's
+furniture will be old, fallen-to-pieces stuff that nobody would give two
+cents for."
+
+"Goodness, what a wet blanket!" cried Laura reproachfully.
+
+"Well, I'd rather be a wet blanket," retorted Billie desperately, "than
+to plan for a lot of fun and then be disappointed. I--I've been
+disappointed enough, goodness knows."
+
+There was a quiver in Billie's brave little mouth and instinctively
+Violet and Laura put an arm about her.
+
+"We know what you mean," said Violet, soothingly. "And if you don't want
+us to, we'll try not to hope too hard."
+
+"Or if we do, we'll keep it to ourselves," added Laura, and Billie
+hugged them fondly.
+
+"I don't want you to stop hoping," she cried plaintively. "And I don't
+want to be a wet blanket, either. I'm just afraid, that's all."
+
+The girls swung back and forth in silence for a few minutes. Then it was
+Laura who spoke.
+
+"When are you going out to look over your property, Billie?"
+
+"Why, I don't know," answered Billie thoughtfully. "As soon as we can
+arrange it, I suppose. Dad says it's a full day's trip to get there, so
+we would have to make some arrangement to stay over night."
+
+"Couldn't you spend the night in the house?" suggested Violet.
+
+"We might," Billie answered doubtfully. "Although I must say I wouldn't
+like to--not the first night anyway. I'd want time to become acquainted
+with the place first."
+
+"If you will promise on your word of honor not to laugh at me," said
+Violet after another short silence, "I'll tell you that I have
+another idea."
+
+"We won't laugh," they promised, and Billie added eagerly: "Tell us about
+it, Violet. Even if we do laugh at your ideas at first, we generally end
+by following them."
+
+"But you said you wouldn't laugh this time," Violet reminded her, adding,
+as the worst threat she could think of: "If you do I won't let you
+follow out my idea."
+
+"All right," said Billie. "As Chet would say--'shoot.'"
+
+"Why, I was just thinking," said Violet, looking at them intently, "that
+we haven't a plan in the world for spending our vacation--"
+
+"Vi!" cried Laura joyfully, not waiting for her to finish, "you _have_
+a good idea this time. You were going to say, why not spend our
+vacation there?"
+
+"At Cherry Corners?" asked Billie surprised, adding with a demure
+glance: "Nobody seems to think of asking me about it. And it's my
+property, you know."
+
+"Gracious, isn't she stuck up?" cried Laura flippantly. "I'll have you
+know you're not the only property holder in the community, Billie
+Bradley. Dad gave me the deed to three lots in some outlandish place, I
+don't even know where it is."
+
+"Probably didn't have anything else to do with them, so wished them on
+you," said Billie cruelly.
+
+"Shouldn't wonder," said Laura, adding with a rueful little smile:
+"I've never been able to find out whether it was an April Fool's
+present or not."
+
+"Well, I don't see what all that has to do with my proposition," put in
+Violet patiently. "Now own up--don't you think it's a great idea?"
+
+"Wonderful," said Billie unenthusiastically. "I don't know when I've
+ever heard of anything so brilliant."
+
+"There's something wrong with Billie," said Violet, beginning to look
+anxious. "Don't you think we'd better send for a doctor, Laura?"
+
+"I think you are the one who needs a doctor," retorted Billie. "Who ever
+thought of spending a vacation out in the wilderness a million miles or
+so from nowhere in an old tumbled-down house that makes your flesh creep
+and the hair rise on your head just to look at it?"
+
+"My, but that must feel funny," said Laura, the irrepressible. "That's
+one experience I never did have."
+
+"What?" asked Billie.
+
+"Have my hair rise on my head. Please excuse me, Billie," as Billie in
+her turn looked threatening. "What was it you were about to say?"
+
+"Goose," commented Billie and then turned to Violet. "Did you really mean
+that about spending our vacation there?" she asked.
+
+"Of course I did," said Violet. "And I don't see what's so very funny
+about it anyway. We could take a chaperone, and maybe the boys could come
+along too."
+
+"Oh, that would be fun," cried Billie, then flushed as she met
+Laura's laughing eyes. "I meant," she added, angry because of the
+blush, "that the place wouldn't be quite so lonesome and horrid with
+the boys around."
+
+"Oh, yes, we know," said Laura, with an aggravating twinkle that made
+Billie long to shake her. "We know all about it, honey."
+
+Why, thought Billie, as she ignored the remark, pretending not to hear
+it, would Laura always be such a goose as to make a joke of the very
+real friendship between her and Teddy Jordon? She liked Teddy immensely
+and she was not going to stop liking him even if Laura would persist in
+being foolish.
+
+"Then you will admit it is a good idea?" Violet asked eagerly.
+
+"I liked it all, but Billie only likes the last part--about the boys,"
+said Laura, and again Billie had a wild desire to shake her.
+
+"It will be lots of fun," she said, beginning to see the possibilities in
+a vacation spent at Cherry Corners. "Mother says the rooms are large and
+there are plenty of them so we could have as big a party as we wanted.
+But I don't know how comfortable you would be," she warned them.
+
+"Who cares about being comfortable on a lark like that?" cried Laura
+airily. "The more uncomfortable we are the more fun we'll have. I say,
+Billie, don't you think we'd better take Gyp along?" Gyp was a
+thoroughbred bull terrier of which Laura was the proud owner. "He might
+come in handy if any ghosts showed up."
+
+The girls laughed at her.
+
+"As if Gyp would be any good against ghosts!" scoffed Violet. "Why, they
+would walk right through him."
+
+"Well," said Laura, with a little chuckle, "he could at least bark and
+let us know when they were coming!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BILLIE WINS OUT
+
+
+"But whom shall we get for a chaperone?" asked Laura Jordon, after they
+had thoroughly discussed these new and startling plans for a vacation.
+"We don't want to get any one who is too old and grouchy, and yet the
+folks probably wouldn't let us go unless we did."
+
+Billie and Violet laughed, for they realized the truth of what she said.
+
+"We do seem to be 'up against it,' as Ted says." Laura was always using
+her brother for an excuse for her own slang. "I can't think of a single
+person jolly enough to please us and dull enough to please the folks."
+
+"How about one of our mothers?" Violet suggested.
+
+"I know my mother wouldn't do it," said Billie. "The last time I
+asked her to chaperone us girls she said she would as soon chaperone
+a trio of eels."
+
+"And when I asked mother," Laura added, "she said she would have nervous
+prostration in a week."
+
+"My, we must have a terrible reputation," sighed Violet. "I never knew
+we were as bad as all that."
+
+"Oh, I have an idea!" cried Laura suddenly, clapping her hands.
+
+"Well, don't let it bite you," murmured Billie.
+
+"Wait till you hear and you won't be so sarcastic," retorted Laura. "I'm
+sure I have just the very person that we want."
+
+"Oh, who?" cried Violet.
+
+"Maria Gilligan, our housekeeper," Laura announced, and then sat back
+with an air that said just as plainly as words: "There! how's that for an
+inspiration?"
+
+"Maria Gilligan, your housekeeper?" Billie repeated.
+
+"I think it's a rather good idea, Laura," said Violet. "Isn't Mrs.
+Gilligan the one who is always playing jokes on her husband?"
+
+"Yes, she's the funniest thing you ever saw," Laura answered, her eyes
+beginning to twinkle at the memory of some of Mrs. Gilligan's
+escapades. "Why, one April Fool's Day she set the clock back an hour
+and Mr. Gilligan got up grumbling that it was awfully dark for six
+o'clock. Then when he was all ready and was starting out to work she
+told him about it."
+
+"What did he do?" asked Violet, interested.
+
+"I know what I'd have done if I'd been in his place," sniffed Billie.
+"I'd have tied her in a chair and gagged her and left her there all day."
+
+"Billie! how barbaric!" cried Violet. "What would you have done
+that for?"
+
+"Just so she could have thought over her sins," said Billie with a
+chuckle. "I never did believe in practical jokes."
+
+"And then another time," said Laura, her eyes twinkling, "she was
+upstairs straightening up the store-room when she pretended to have a
+tumble. You know she weighs about two hundred pounds--"
+
+"At a rough guess, I should say three hundred," murmured Billie, for
+Billie was in a very contrary mood that day.
+
+"And she came down with a thump that shook the chandeliers," Laura went
+on, ignoring the interruption, "and when Mr. Gilligan--you know he weighs
+only a hundred and fifty and is about half her size--"
+
+"Now I _know_ she weighs three hundred," interposed Billie again. "It's
+just a matter of arithmetic."
+
+"There she was with her head in her hands," went on Laura, too much
+amused by her story to notice the interruption, "sobbing as if her heart
+would break. And when he got down on his knees to comfort her, she just
+looked at him with a grin and said: 'April Fool.'"
+
+"Well, I should say he was," said Billie, with another sniff. "And not
+only an April Fool, either. She would try a trick like that just about
+once with me."
+
+"Well, anyway," Laura concluded, "I think she would be just the one
+to take on our trip with us. She's jolly and full of fun and yet
+she's old enough and fat enough to please our fathers and mothers.
+What do you say?"
+
+"Do you suppose she's fat enough to scare away the ghosts?" asked Billie,
+with a chuckle.
+
+"My, but I'd be sorry for any mistaken ghost that tried to have a set-to
+with her," laughed Laura. "She'd just laugh at them and say: 'Shoo,
+ghost, don't bodder me.'"
+
+"All right, let's ask her," decided Billie. "Now that we have made up
+our minds to change Cherry Corners into a summer resort, I can't wait to
+get started."
+
+"If only the folks will be willing," said Violet, looking worried.
+"Mother is funny about letting me go anywhere away from home
+without her."
+
+"I guess all our parents are," said Billie, then added, with a sudden
+inspiration: "I tell you what! Let's all go together and ask them. Three
+are always stronger than one."
+
+"You do have a good idea once in awhile, Billie!" exclaimed Laura,
+jumping out of the swing and holding out a hand to each of them. "Come
+on, we can't afford to waste any time."
+
+"Where shall we go first?" asked Violet.
+
+"To Laura's," Billie decided. "If we can get her mother and father to
+consent and then can get Mrs. Gilligan to go with us as chaperone, we'll
+have a pretty good argument to give our folks. Eh, what?"
+
+Gaily the girls set off to win Laura's parents over to their side, and
+they were lucky enough to find Mrs. Jordon at home. Also Teddy was there,
+sitting beside her on the veranda. At sight of Billie the boy jumped to
+his feet and came running down to her.
+
+"Hello," he cried. "I was just coming over your way, to see if Chet
+didn't want to fight out our singles tournament. He's two sets ahead of
+me now, and I'm thirsting for r-revenge."
+
+"I think he'll give it to you all right," laughed Billie, as Violet and
+Laura ran up the steps in front of them. "I've never seen the time yet
+when Chet refused a tennis game."
+
+"All right, I'm off then," he cried, and was starting away when she
+called him back.
+
+"Don't you want to know about my--inheritance?" she asked him, with a
+demure little glance.
+
+"Your what?" he cried, then suddenly he grasped her two hands and swung
+them joyfully back and forth. "Do you mean to say," he cried, "that your
+aunt really left you something? What is it, Billie? Go on, tell me."
+
+"If you want to hear all about it just stay around for a little while,"
+she laughed, leading him toward the group at the other end of the porch,
+two members of which were already in animated conversation.
+
+"May we get in on this?" she called, interrupting an eloquent appeal on
+Laura's part.
+
+"Oh, yes, come here, do," cried Laura, clutching at her dress and
+dragging her into the circle. "Mother's beginning to shake her head, and
+you mustn't let her, Billie. She'll do anything for you."
+
+Mrs. Jordon laughed and made room for Billie on the divan beside her.
+
+"Now perhaps you'll tell me," she said, "what this crazy daughter of mine
+is talking about. So far I've got a sort of confused jumble of a haunted
+house and vacations and Mrs. Gilligan. I must confess I don't see how the
+three can possibly be connected."
+
+Then Billie told all over again the story of her strange inheritance,
+while Mrs. Jordon and Teddy listened with interest and Violet and Laura
+now and then put in a word to plead their cause.
+
+As for Teddy, he was so busy watching Billie's flushed, excited and
+altogether charming face that he more than once lost the trend of the
+conversation.
+
+"I don't wonder Laura said mother couldn't refuse her anything," he
+thought. "I don't see how any one could refuse her when she talks and
+looks that way. Billie's a wonder, that's all."
+
+And in this case Billie did indeed prove herself to be a wonder. Within
+half an hour she had not only won Mrs. Jordon over to their side, but
+had persuaded her to let the girls borrow Mrs. Gilligan for the time of
+their vacation.
+
+"Of course," Mrs. Jordon warned them, as the girls were hugging each
+other triumphantly, "we aren't at all sure that Mrs. Gilligan will want
+to undertake such an expedition. I couldn't blame her very much if she
+didn't," she added, with a rueful little smile, "knowing you girls as
+she does."
+
+"I'll get her!" cried Laura, and promptly put her words into action.
+
+She appeared the next minute, dragging a very much astonished housekeeper
+after her, and proudly presented her prize to her mother.
+
+"She said she was busy, Mother, and couldn't stop," Laura said, adding,
+with a bright smile: "But I told her it was something awfully important
+you wanted to say to her."
+
+"Sure and I suppose the young girl is up to some of her tricks," said
+Mrs. Gilligan, beaming fondly upon her captor, "but I came with her,
+thinking it possible you might really have something to say to me,
+Mrs. Jordon."
+
+"Yes, I have, Mrs. Gilligan. Sit down, won't you please? It may take
+some time to persuade you--"
+
+And then and there began another campaign. However, with Mrs. Jordon as a
+powerful ally the girls had little trouble in overcoming Mrs. Gilligan's
+objections, and in the end came off with colors flying.
+
+"Now to see Billie's mother!" cried Laura.
+
+The girls hugged Mrs. Jordon, waved to their new chaperone, and ran
+gayly down the steps. Teddy, with a whispered word to his mother,
+followed them.
+
+"Say, wait for a fellow, can't you?" he cried, and they turned to
+wait for him.
+
+"Come on, Vi," cried Laura, catching hold of Violet's arm and
+hurrying forward. "Ted and Billie will get there some time. We can't
+wait for them."
+
+"How do you like our new plans?" asked Billie, looking up at him with
+sparkling eyes.
+
+"I think you ought to have all sorts of fun," he told her, adding
+with a funny little smile: "But I can't quite make out yet where we
+fellows come in."
+
+"Oh, didn't I tell you?" she asked, surprised. "Why, you are going with
+us!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+GREAT PLANS
+
+
+After permission for the outing was gained from all the parents concerned
+everything was bustle and excitement. For a week the girls spent the
+whole of every day at each other's houses, planning their vacation,
+talking about the clothes they would need to take with them, and
+generally enjoying themselves.
+
+As the time drew near they could hardly contain their excitement, and the
+boys, who had decided they would follow the girls some days later, were
+almost as bad.
+
+"I don't see why you don't come with us," Billie pouted one night, when
+the entire crowd of young folks had assembled at her home. "It would be
+lots more fun on the train if you boys were with us."
+
+"But there is the tennis match we promised to play with the fellows of
+the south end," Chet pointed out for perhaps the hundredth time. "We
+couldn't back out of it at the last minute, you know; they'd think we
+were afraid."
+
+"Now how do you know," Violet pointed out, "but what we will all have
+been eaten up by the ghosts by the time you get there?"
+
+"Ghosts!" scoffed Ferdinand Stowing, who was to go with Chet and Teddy.
+"I don't see where you girls get this ghost stuff. Just because a house
+happens to be old doesn't say it's haunted."
+
+"Gosh! listen to him," cried Chet indignantly. "Some one is always taking
+the joy out of life."
+
+"Say, you don't think it's haunted, do you?" asked Ferd, in surprise.
+
+"Of course not," answered Chet, adding, with a chuckle: "But I have
+my hopes."
+
+"Well, so have I," spoke up Laura promptly. "If there isn't a family
+ghost or two about the place, we just won't have any fun. What's the use
+of going off into the wilderness to a spooky house if we're not going to
+meet a ghost?"
+
+"Well, you know I didn't promise any ghosts," said Billie, looking up
+from a piece of fancy work she was embroidering. "If you are
+disappointed, you needn't blame it on me, Laura, or you either, Chet."
+
+"Well, I don't see why we shouldn't have a good time without ghosts," put
+in Violet. "In fact, I don't think I'd particularly enjoy meeting
+somebody's great-great-ancestor in the dark."
+
+"Oh, Vi, you give me the creeps," said Laura with a little shiver.
+"Billie, do you think half a dozen middies' would do? We won't want to
+dress up very much."
+
+"No, the ghosts probably wouldn't know the difference," said Teddy
+wickedly. "By the way, boys," he went on, imitating Laura's tone to
+perfection, "that's one important thing we haven't decided, yet. What are
+we going to wear?"
+
+"You poor fish!" cried Ferd, throwing a cushion at him. "Who let you in?"
+
+"Stop wrecking the furniture," exclaimed Billie, from her corner. "And do
+stop talking all at once. You make my ears ache. And besides, I want to
+say something."
+
+"Silence," cried Chet, in a dramatically deep voice. "The queen is about
+to speak."
+
+"He said something that time," whispered Teddy in her ear, and a little
+pink flush mounted to Billie's face, making her look prettier than ever.
+It was so nice to have one's friends like you!
+
+"Why, I was just thinking about the cooking," she said. "Do any of you
+boys know how to cook?"
+
+"Heavens, listen at her!" cried Ferd in alarm. "Is she going to set us to
+work already--before we get there? What's the idea, Billie?"
+
+"Well," replied Billie, biting off her thread calmly, "we have to eat
+while we're there, you know."
+
+"No!" cried Chet sarcastically. "You may, sweet sister, but not us. We
+are too ethereal."
+
+"Say, is he insulting us?" cried Ferd indignantly. "Say that again, I
+dare you--"
+
+"Oh, for goodness' sake keep still!" cried Laura, clapping her hands to
+her ears. "You make me deaf, dumb and blind. Now, Billie, what were you
+going to say?"
+
+"Simply, that since we do have to eat, Chet or anybody else to the
+contrary," she looked at her brother and dimpled adorably, "we will have
+to decide who is going to do the cooking."
+
+"Why, I suppose we'll take our turns at it, as we've done before when we
+have been camping," said Laura, in surprise.
+
+"I know. But what I want to find out is, are the boys going to do any of
+the work?"
+
+"Good land, is she asking us to cook?" asked Ferd. "Why, Billie, we don't
+know a thing about it!"
+
+"And don't want to learn," added Chet fervently.
+
+"Oh, you big fibbers!" Billie's eyes danced as she looked at them.
+"I remember--oh, I have a very good memory," and she glanced
+sideways at Teddy, who was beginning to look uncomfortable. "I
+remember a certain person telling me how beautifully you boys cooked
+while you were at camp."
+
+"Say, Billie, that's not fair," cried Teddy, with a guilty note in his
+voice that made his two comrades look at him accusingly.
+
+"Aha, we see the villain!" cried Ferd threateningly. "What'll we do with
+him, Chet?"
+
+"Nothing's bad enough for such a crime," said Chet ruefully. "What did
+you make such a break for, Ted? I thought I'd brought you up better."
+
+"Gee, Billie, do you see what you've let me in for?" said Ted miserably,
+but Billie only regarded him with laughing eyes while Laura and Violet
+seemed to be enjoying the situation immensely.
+
+"I don't see what I did," Billie replied innocently. "I thought I was
+paying you boys a compliment by saying that you could cook well."
+
+"But we can't," cried Ferd, seizing the opportunity eagerly. "Gee,
+Billie, you couldn't eat the awful messes we make. Why, you're a
+good cook--"
+
+Billie raised a cushion threateningly in the air.
+
+"None of that! None of that!" she warned him. "We see through you,
+villain!"
+
+"Say, she must think you're one of the Cherry Corners ghosts," broke in
+Teddy whimsically. "It's pretty hard on a fellow when you can see through
+him, Billie."
+
+"But honest you couldn't," Ferd insisted, not to be defeated in this one
+last hope. "Really, I don't know enough about an egg to take the shell
+off when I fry it."
+
+"Idiot," cried Billie, throwing the pillow at him in earnest. "Who ever
+heard of fried egg in the shell?"
+
+"I did," cried Ferd, unabashed by the laughter and the scornful glances
+turned his way. "Ladies and gentlemen, you see before you to-night the
+man that invented it."
+
+"Well, but nobody has answered my question," said Billie demurely,
+after the laughter had subsided. "Are the boys going to help cook or
+are they not?"
+
+"I tell you what," said Chet desperately. "We'll cook if you will promise
+to eat it."
+
+"Billie," cried Laura in alarm, "don't make any rash promises. They would
+probably put some awful thing into the food on purpose."
+
+"Laura, that's some idea," cried Ferd, looking at her admiringly while
+Teddy and Chet chuckled. "Thanks. We never would have thought of that
+ourselves."
+
+"Well," said Billie with a little chuckle, "I imagine we would rather eat
+our own cooking anyway, so you needn't worry. Only," she added warningly,
+as they sighed with relief, "there is one thing you _will_ have to do."
+
+"And what's that?" they cried fearfully.
+
+"Help wash the dishes," she said; and in her tone was no relenting.
+
+And so, even to the impatient girls the time passed quickly until at last
+the great day arrived.
+
+It was a wonderful day, sunshiny and warm without being too hot, and all
+three of them were up with the birds. They were to catch the eight
+o'clock morning train, and so they had no time to waste in bed.
+
+Billie was in a joyful mood as she got herself into the pretty new dress
+she was to wear on the trip. She ran around the room, humming to herself
+and every once in a while doing a little dance step as she realized that
+they were at last to embark upon their adventure.
+
+And an adventure she somehow felt sure it was to be. For even though,
+contrary to Chet's hopes, and she smiled as she thought of him, they did
+not meet with ghosts at Cherry Corners, there would be the fun of seeing
+for the first time her inheritance.
+
+It might be a queer old house and the contents and the grounds about it
+might be of small value, but there was a wonderful thrill nevertheless in
+being the owner of it.
+
+And there was the fact that it dated back to revolutionary times, it was
+really historic and--it all belonged to her!
+
+No wonder she sang as she gave a last fond pat to the pretty dress and
+tucked a wandering little strand of hair into place. Her eyes danced and
+her face was flushed, but Billie never noticed how pretty she was.
+
+She was the first in the dining-room that morning, but her mother soon
+came in, scattering advice as she came and all through the meal Billie
+tried hard to listen dutifully to all the "must nots" and "don't dos."
+But all the time her eyes were on the clock and her mind was saying over
+and over again:
+
+"In just half an hour we'll be on the train. In just half an hour we'll
+be on the train."
+
+Then Chet came in and her father, and, finding that it was almost train
+time, postponed their breakfast to see her off. A few minutes later they
+started off to pick up the girls on the way to the station.
+
+They found them waiting impatiently, and wildly eager to be off. About a
+block from the station they heard the whistle of the train, and the girls
+would run for it, though they really had plenty of time.
+
+At last they were in the train with the boys and their parents waving to
+them. Then suddenly they realized that they were moving. They were
+actually on their way!
+
+"Give my regards to the ghosts!" cried Chet as the train moved off, "and
+don't scare them all off before I get there!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHERRY CORNERS
+
+
+As the train drew out of the station Billie leaned back with a sigh of
+pure happiness.
+
+"You know," she said, looking at the girls with sparkling eyes, "this is
+the very first time that I have ever been away from North Bend without
+the folks."
+
+"But don't forget you've got me to look after you," put in Mrs. Gilligan,
+with a twinkle in her eyes. "I'm goin' to see that you don't get into
+mischief."
+
+"I don't know but what we shall have to look out that you don't get into
+mischief," said Laura with a chuckle. "Mr. Gilligan told me once that you
+weren't to be trusted out alone."
+
+"Huh," retorted Mrs. Gilligan good-naturedly, "it's him that I
+wouldn't be trusting. But what," she asked, looking curiously at
+Billie, "did your brother mean by saying not to scare away the ghosts
+before he gets there?"
+
+"Oh," laughed Billie, "he has a sort of idea that the house at Cherry
+Corners is inhabited by spirits--just because mother said that the
+halls and rooms were spooky. He will be terribly disappointed if he
+doesn't see half a dozen ghosts."
+
+"Well, I wouldn't," said Violet with a shudder, for now that they were on
+the way to their adventure, her courage was beginning to fail.
+
+"Ghosts!" repeated Mrs. Gilligan, with a fun-loving light in her eyes.
+"Better not any ghosts come around me or I'll give 'em a taste of the
+rolling pin."
+
+The girls laughed. The picture of Mrs. Maria Gilligan assaulting a ghost
+with a rolling pin was indeed a funny one.
+
+"Well," said Billie a little later, as she started to unpin her hat, "I
+don't know about you girls, but I'm going to be comfortable. We have a
+long ride before us."
+
+"I suppose we might as well take off our hats and stay awhile," agreed
+Laura, following suit. "Say, girls," she added, as she stuck her hat up
+in the rack above her head, "I just thought of something last night."
+
+"Was it anything important?" asked Billie, with a wicked little look.
+
+"I don't know whether you would think so," Laura retorted calmly. "I was
+wondering why we didn't take the night train that reaches Roland, the
+nearest station to Cherry Corners, in the morning."
+
+"That would have been a good idea, wouldn't it?" said Billie. "Now we
+will reach the house after dark."
+
+"When all the spooks are roaming," added Laura, in a ghostly voice.
+
+"Goodness!" cried Violet, turning uncomfortably in her seat, "if you
+girls don't stop talking about ghosts I'll just get out and go home."
+
+"Got your car fare?" asked Laura.
+
+"No. But I could always walk," returned Violet. "And I'd almost rather do
+it than spend the night in the company of ghosts."
+
+"Well, you'd better decide in a hurry," said Billie, with a chuckle,
+"because the longer you take to make up your mind, the farther you will
+have to walk back."
+
+"All right," said Violet, suddenly goaded into an unusual firmness. "You
+promise me this minute that you won't say another word about ghosts until
+we get there, or I'll get off at the very next station and walk back."
+
+"It's ten miles," Laura warned her.
+
+"I don't care if it's twenty," she returned stoutly, and laughingly the
+girls promised.
+
+"It would be a crime to wear out those perfectly good shoes," said
+Laura, looking at Violet's trim suede footgear. "Especially with prices
+going up."
+
+Billie groaned.
+
+"I think I'll have to try Violet's trick," she said. "If anybody mentions
+the high cost of living to me while we're away on this vacation, I'll
+get out and walk home. I don't care if it's a hundred miles."
+
+"Going up?" laughed Laura, but they promised just the same. For
+underneath Billie's lightness they knew that she was still puzzling her
+wits for some way to pay for that broken statue.
+
+"Here comes a man with magazines," said Laura. "We'd better get a couple
+to pass the time away. An all-day trip is pretty tiresome. At least I've
+heard mother say so."
+
+They bought the magazines, but they might just as well not have done so,
+for when they reached Roland late that afternoon they had hardly peeped
+inside the covers.
+
+The scenery was so beautiful and wild, the whole trip was so wonderfully
+novel that the time flew, and before they realized it they had reached
+the station next to Roland.
+
+"Goodness, I didn't think we were anywhere near there, yet!" cried
+Violet, as she began to gather up her things. "I never knew a day to go
+so quickly in my life. Billie, are these your candies? You'd better not
+leave them on the seat."
+
+"Who said I was going to?" cried Billie, rescuing her sweets just as
+Laura was in the act of sitting on them. "Here, there's just room
+for them in the corner of my grip. Mrs. Gilligan, have you got the
+trunk checks?"
+
+"I hope so," said the woman, opening her hand bag.
+
+The girls watched her breathlessly and sighed with relief when she drew
+out the checks.
+
+"All safe and sound," she said. "Now get on your hats and coats, girls.
+We're apt to have a wild scramble at the last if you aren't ready
+beforehand."
+
+So, laughing and excited, the girls obeyed her, putting on their wraps
+hurriedly and laughing at Laura when she got her hat over one eye.
+
+"Here, put it on straight," cried Billie, performing that service for
+her friend. "We don't want to have our reputations ruined the minute we
+step on the platform. Who ever heard of a perfect lady with her hat
+over one eye?"
+
+"Well, if you don't like my company--" Laura began good-naturedly, as she
+squinted at her distorted reflection in the little two-by-four mirror set
+in the tiny space of wall between the windows. "Gracious, Billie, you
+took it off of one eye to put it over the other. Do I look more like a
+perfect lady with my hat over my right eye?"
+
+Billie chuckled and pushed the hat over Laura's nose, at which Laura
+would have protested vigorously and, if must be, forcefully, if there had
+not been other passengers in the train besides themselves. As it was, she
+had to be content with an indignant stare, which Billie, with twinkling
+eyes, calmly turned her back upon.
+
+"Roland! Roland!" called the conductor in stentorian tones, and with
+little squeals of excitement the girls found their hand baggage, gave one
+last little pat to their hats, and started toward the door.
+
+"You go first, Mrs. Gilligan," cried Violet, pushing that woman
+before her.
+
+"I wonder if Vi expects the ghosts to meet us at the station?" chuckled
+Laura in Billie's ear. "She reminds me of a relative of ours who always
+pushes her escort in front of her when she meets a strange dog."
+
+Billie giggled, caught her grip on the arm of one of the seats, rescued
+it again, and finally made her way with the others to the platform.
+
+It was a rather old and broken-down platform, just as Roland proved to be
+a rather old and broken-down place, and the girls stood on it ruefully as
+they watched the train rumble off in the distance.
+
+"Now we're in for it," said Billie, her eyes taking in a
+disconsolate-looking store or two and a drooping post-office. "I wonder
+if this is what they call the village?"
+
+"Well, we're not going to live here," said Mrs. Gilligan briskly. "And
+you can't expect to find a thriving town away off a hundred miles from
+nowhere. Come on, let's see if we can find some sort of a wagon to take
+us and our belongings to Cherry Corners. I don't suppose," she added, as
+they crossed the street toward a building a little more dilapidated than
+the rest that had the words Livery Stable painted on a blurred sign over
+the door, "that there is any sort of hotel or boarding house where we
+might put up for the night."
+
+"Mother didn't remember about that. You see she had been here only once,"
+said Billie. "But I don't imagine there is--any place that we would want
+to stay at," she added, making a wry little face.
+
+The place, in truth, was not attractive, nor did it promise much,
+outwardly at least, as a refuge for the night. Besides the street on
+which were the forlorn looking stores and the post-office and a few
+other nondescript looking buildings that might have been used for
+almost any possible purpose, there seemed to be but two streets on
+which were built the dwelling houses. These, for the most part, were
+simple and plain enough, each with its yard, well or ill kept, in front
+and a garden and chicken yard behind. Only one was a little more
+pretentious in appearance, but that, too, had attached to it its garden
+and chicken yard.
+
+However, they found that there was no necessity for their finding a
+place, if place there was to be found to stay for the night. They found
+the owner of the livery stable with two old but well-preserved vehicles
+which he was eager to place at their disposal.
+
+They spent some time in getting enough provisions to last for a time and
+to supplement what had been sent from North Bend; then, in half an hour
+more, with their luggage coming on behind, they were lumbering off over a
+very rocky road toward the house at Cherry Corners.
+
+Mrs. Gilligan was sitting in front with the driver while the three girls
+were wedged uncomfortably in the back seat.
+
+"It--it's lucky we're not fat!" gasped Laura, as a particularly rough
+place in the road fairly shook the breath out of her. "I don't know where
+we would have put ourselves."
+
+"One of us would have had to sit on the trunks on the cart," chuckled
+Billie. "Ouch!" she cried, as they bounced over another "thank you
+ma'am," "I'm glad we haven't any more than five miles to go. There
+wouldn't be any of us left alive."
+
+"Five miles!" grumbled Violet. "And my foot's asleep already."
+
+"Here, have some candy," offered Billie soothingly, fishing one out of
+her pocket. "It may make you feel better."
+
+"Well, it couldn't make me feel worse," said Violet, accepting the
+offering. "Although," she added, with a laugh, "I don't see how it is
+going to help my sleepy foot."
+
+"Well, get up and stretch," advised Laura. "Seventh inning."
+
+Violet started to follow her advice but was flung back full force into
+Billie's lap, thereby squeezing out a startled "Umph!" from the sufferer.
+
+"Say, you needn't take it out on me," cried Billie indignantly. "I didn't
+put your foot to sleep."
+
+"She's no nurse girl," murmured Laura.
+
+The girls laughed and forgot their discomfort.
+
+After a long time of jostling and squeezing they rounded a turn of the
+road and Billie cried out.
+
+"There it is!" she said, standing up in the jolting vehicle. "Over there
+through the trees! Oh, girls! doesn't it look gloomy?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+WEIRD TALES
+
+
+"Aye, and it is gloomy."
+
+Startled, the girls looked around for the voice, then realized that it
+was their driver who had spoken. He had been silent all the way from the
+station, and they had all but forgotten him.
+
+"What made you say that?" asked Billie, rather wonderingly. For although
+the man had only repeated her own words, the tone in which he said them
+made them appear twice as ominous.
+
+"It's a gloomy place," he said once more, with a shake of his head. "Aye,
+and there be some folks around here as says it is haunted."
+
+"Do--do they really think so?" stammered Violet Farrington, beginning to
+wish herself back in North Bend.
+
+"Aye, they think so," he answered, in the same monotonous voice. "And
+there be some times that I don't blame 'em for what they thinks."
+
+"Do you think it's haunted?" asked Billie, with the hint of a laugh in
+her voice. Even here, in this forsaken place, with dusk coming on and the
+prospect of spending a night in a house people called haunted, Billie's
+sense of humor did not altogether leave her. "Do you?" she repeated, the
+laughter still more marked in her voice.
+
+The driver twisted around in his seat to see her before he answered.
+
+"It's all very well for you to laugh now," he answered. "But maybe you
+won't feel so much like laughin' in the morning."
+
+In spite of herself, Billie shivered a little, and the other girls looked
+frightened.
+
+"If I was you," the driver went on with his unasked advice, "I'd turn
+right back an' spend the night in Roland. There's a boardin' house--"
+
+"Nonsense, we're not going to turn back," spoke up Mrs. Gilligan, a
+trifle sharply, for she could see that the driver's evil prophecies were
+getting on the girls' nerves. "If there are any ghosts in that
+house--which of course there ain't--they'd just better show their faces
+around me, that's all. I'll give 'em such a taste of my rolling pin that
+they'll get discouraged for good and all."
+
+She nodded her head vigorously, and the girls laughed.
+
+"All right, all right," grumbled the driver, disgruntled at having his
+ideas treated in this highhanded manner. "You can laugh all you're
+wanting to. But I tell you, if it was me--"
+
+"Which it isn't," Mrs. Gilligan interrupted shortly.
+
+"I wouldn't stay in that there haunted place for a farm, I wouldn't."
+
+"What makes you think it's haunted?" Laura persisted, for, of the three
+girls, Laura was by far the most curious. "Do people see lights and hear
+funny noises and such things?"
+
+"Laura--" began Violet in protest.
+
+"Why no, Miss," said the driver reluctantly. "I don't know as they
+actually seen things, but they has heard queer noises. There was some
+boys once," he went on, warming to his task of story teller, "as
+thought they'd have some fun. You know the old lady what owned the
+place was nearly allus away and just left it to a caretaker that didn't
+take over much care of it--" He stopped to chuckle, and the girls
+leaned forward eagerly.
+
+"What about them?" asked Billie impatiently.
+
+"Well, they thought as they'd play burglar an' break into the place an'
+make a regular lark of it."
+
+"Weren't they afraid they'd get caught?" asked Laura.
+
+"Not with Sheriff Higgins on the job," chuckled the driver, in high good
+humor now that he was getting off his favorite yarn. They were nearing
+the house and the girls hurried him on impatiently.
+
+"Well, they heard such funny humming noises and jingling like the
+rattling of chains an' things," said the driver, "that they got most
+scared to death and ran back home like the old Nick was after them. Ever
+since then folks has said the place was haunted."
+
+"Stuff and rubbish!" said Mrs. Gilligan, as the team came to a stop
+before the house. "A nice lot o' talk I call that to fill the girls up
+with. Rattlin' of chains and hummin' noises! Huh!" And with her nose
+in the air to show her contempt of all such notions she swept out of
+the carriage.
+
+The girls followed, and ran back to the wagon that contained their
+luggage and some provisions. The boy who had been driving this wagon was
+already unloading it, and the old fellow who had told them such gloomy
+tales came hobbling back to lend a hand.
+
+Billie fished in her pocketbook for the key to the house which was
+supposed to be haunted, and, finding it, held it up with a hand that was
+not quite steady.
+
+"Come on," she said. "We've got to do it, I suppose."
+
+"Wh-who's going first?" asked Violet, regarding the gloomy bulk of the
+rambling old house, now half hidden in the dusk, with troubled eyes.
+
+"I am, of course," said Billie stoutly, adding with a gay little laugh:
+"I guess it's my right, isn't it? Why, this is my house--the first I've
+ever owned!"
+
+"And welcome you be to it," murmured the old man, to be promptly cowed
+by a withering look from Mrs. Gilligan.
+
+"Come on," cried Billie again. "I'll go first, but you'll have to promise
+to follow me in."
+
+"Why, of course we'll follow you in," said Violet, loyal through all
+her fear. "You don't suppose we'd let you go into that awful place
+alone, do you?"
+
+"Well, I like that!" cried Billie, leading the way up the stone-paved
+walk. "Calling my beautiful old homestead an awful place."
+
+"Yes, I'm surprised at you, Vi," added Laura, as she followed close at
+Billie's heels. "Don't you know you should have some tact? Even if it is
+awful, you shouldn't talk about it--"
+
+Billie stopped and stared indignantly.
+
+"If you say another word," she threatened, "I'll make you go first."
+
+The threat had the desired effect, and both Violet and Laura protested
+that it was the most beautiful place on the face of the earth, or words
+to that effect.
+
+"You'd better be giving the key to me," said Mrs. Gilligan. "We
+can't stand out here talkin' all night. Besides, the door probably
+has an old-fashioned lock on it, and they ain't a lock anywhere that
+can fool me."
+
+Billie meekly handed over the key, and Mrs. Gilligan marched majestically
+before them up to the front door. She bent down to examine the lock,
+then fitted the key into it.
+
+With a groaning and squeaking of rusty hinges, the heavy door swung
+inward, and the girls found themselves staring into a black well of
+hallway that seemed to have no windows anywhere.
+
+"Gracious! did anybody think to bring matches?" asked Laura in an
+awed whisper.
+
+"Sure and I did," Mrs. Gilligan's matter-of-fact voice reassured her.
+"Five whole boxes I brought. But I've got something even better than that
+for the present occasion."
+
+She drew from the pocket of her coat a small electric torch and flashed
+it into the interior of the house. The bright light showed them glimpses
+of queer chairs standing about in odd corners and finally lighted up a
+broad stairway.
+
+"It's the hall," announced Mrs. Gilligan. "Now forward march, and we'll
+soon find out where the lights are."
+
+"There must be a push button somewhere," suggested Violet, and even in
+their present nervous state the other girls laughed at her.
+
+"A push button!" cried Laura. "Do you expect to find electric lights out
+in this wilderness?"
+
+"We're lucky if we find a chandelier somewhere," added Billie. "I hope we
+don't have to burn candles or lamps. They aren't just exactly what you
+might call cheerful."
+
+"And something cheerful is what we need," added Laura ruefully.
+
+"Well, if you're after acetylene gas I guess you'll be disappointed,"
+said Mrs. Gilligan as her torch lighted up a wonderful old-fashioned
+richly carved candelabrum containing a dozen candles, half burned and
+looking rather wilted. "It's candles we'll be burning while we're here."
+
+The girls groaned.
+
+"But they give such a ghostly, flickering light," protested Violet, as if
+it were in some way Mrs. Gilligan's fault. "I know I'll never be able to
+stand it," and she glanced nervously over her shoulder.
+
+"Well, could you stand the dark any better?" asked Mrs. Gilligan
+practically, as she began to light the candles one after another. "There
+will probably be other candelabra in the house, and if you get enough of
+them burning there's nothing in this world that is prettier. For myself I
+just love candle light."
+
+"Yes, when you're in civilization," put in Laura. "But not out here."
+
+"I've found another one!" cried Billie, who had been prospecting on her
+own account. "And here's another! Why we'll have a big illumination
+before we're through."
+
+"That's the way to talk," said Mrs. Gilligan approvingly, as she crossed
+over to Billie's side of the large hall and began to light the other
+candles. "If we just make the best of everything and make up our minds
+to have a good time, we'll have a good time. And if we don't we might
+just as well take the driver's advice and go home again."
+
+"Go home? Well I should just say not!" cried Laura. "The very idea of
+such a thing! The boys would tease the life out of us. We'd never hear
+the end of it."
+
+"Well then, we're going to have a good time," Mrs. Gilligan decided,
+adding, as she turned toward the door: "Where have those men gone? I told
+them to bring in the things."
+
+She went out to see about it with the girls at her heels and found the
+old man and the boy in a heated argument over something.
+
+"Well, if you want to go into that there haunted house, it's your
+concern," the old man was saying in a querulous voice. "As for me,
+I wouldn't step a foot inside of it, no sir, not if you was to give
+me a farm!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A NOISE IN THE DARK
+
+
+"Maybe you wouldn't do it for a farm," said Mrs. Gilligan, striding
+resolutely toward the man and the boy, while the two drew apart and
+stared at her in surprise, "but you're goin' to do it for me. If you
+think I'm going to lug those trunks and provisions and things into the
+house all by myself, you never was so much mistaken in your life. What do
+you suppose I'm paying you my good money for? Now, get a move on and
+hurry those things inside, or I'll have to take a hand in the matter
+myself. Trunks first!"
+
+And too much surprised by this deluge of words to refuse, the old
+man turned to the trunks, and, assisted by the boy, carried them
+into the hall.
+
+"This is far enough," he said, but Mrs. Maria Gilligan, accustomed to
+having her own way, would have none of it.
+
+"Upstairs," she ordered. "You don't suppose we are going to sleep on
+the ground floor, do you? And we're not going to carry them
+ourselves, either."
+
+And once more the old man obeyed her, while the boy, wicked youngster,
+laughed at him behind his back.
+
+"If you meet a ghost coming downstairs, Gramper," he taunted, "just tell
+him to be careful and not stumble over you. There now, be careful, will
+you? You almost dropped the thing on my foot."
+
+The girls watched the two go upstairs with Mrs. Gilligan bringing up the
+rear to make sure they did not stop half way, and then turned to each
+other with a queer expression, half of amusement, half of uneasiness, on
+their faces.
+
+"Well, we always wanted an adventure," said Laura, as they turned back to
+the open door, feeling an instinctive need of getting out of the house,
+"and now we're having one."
+
+"A regular one," agreed Billie, adding decidedly: "And I'm going to enjoy
+myself. Why, Laura," with a touch of excitement, "did you notice those
+funny old chairs and things? They're really very pretty, and they are
+surely very old. I shouldn't wonder--"
+
+"Oh, Billie," cried Violet rapturously, "do you suppose you could get
+real money for them? If you could," she added with the air of a
+martyr that made the girls laugh, "it would be worth even braving the
+ghosts for."
+
+"You don't really believe that silly thing, do you?" asked Billie,
+turning back into the hall. "It's all in a foolish old man's
+imagination."
+
+"All right. And now you can bring in the provisions," they heard Mrs.
+Gilligan directing. "I don't know where the kitchen is, but I suppose
+there is one somewhere. I'll find it while you start to bring the
+things in."
+
+"We'll each take a candle," cried Billie, her eyes shining in the
+flickering candle light, "and look for the kitchen. Come on, girls,
+follow the leader."
+
+So, with Mrs. Gilligan at the head, they marched through what seemed to
+be a library, seen dimly by the light thrown by their four candles, into
+a room whose table and chairs showed it to be the dining-room.
+
+"The kitchen must be just beyond, then," said Laura, beginning to enjoy
+herself immensely. "There's a door, Mrs. Gilligan. Look out--don't bump
+your head."
+
+But Mrs. Gilligan had no intention of bumping her head. She swung open
+the door in question, and they found themselves in a butler's pantry that
+seemed almost as large as Billie's bedroom at home.
+
+"Goodness! the Powerson that first built the house must have expected
+to entertain lots of company," exclaimed Violet, looking with wonder
+at the rows of curtained cupboards. "I wonder if there are dishes in
+all of them?"
+
+"We haven't time to look now," said Mrs. Gilligan, stopping her as she
+was about to peep inside a closet. "We can do all that to-morrow when we
+have daylight. Ah, here's the kitchen," she added, as she stepped into a
+huge room--the regular type of a very old kitchen that could be used as
+sitting-room as well.
+
+"Gracious, it's a house!" cried Billie, moving her candle about in an
+effort to light up the corners of the place. "There isn't any end to it."
+
+"I'm glad I don't have to keep it clean as a steady job," said Mrs.
+Gilligan grimly. "Now, girls, let's go back and find our two friends with
+the provisions. I don't know how you feel about it, but as for me, a
+little something to eat wouldn't go at all bad."
+
+"We're just starved," they cried, and began a concerted rush back to the
+front of the house where their "friends with the provisions" were.
+
+However, when they arrived there, they found the provisions spread upon
+the driveway but the man and boy had disappeared.
+
+"Humph!" grunted Mrs. Gilligan, her mouth straightening to a grim line,
+"I had more than a notion that that old fellow would clear out, and of
+course the young one wouldn't stay alone. I shouldn't have trusted them
+out of my sight!"
+
+She began picking up bags and packages, and the girls followed suit.
+Before very long they had gathered up all the provisions and were
+staggering back, arms laden, toward the house.
+
+They found their way back to the kitchen again and dropped the things
+thankfully on the table.
+
+"Now for something to eat!" cried Laura. "What shall we have, Mrs.
+Gilligan? I suppose it will have to be a cold supper," she added,
+looking about for some means of cooking and discovering only an immense
+coal stove.
+
+"I suppose it would take forever to make a fire in that," said Billie,
+indicating the stove and thinking longingly of hot steak and potatoes,
+"even if they have any coal."
+
+"Here's plenty of coal," said Mrs. Gilligan, who had been finding things
+out in her own practical and efficient way, "and here is plenty of wood
+and old newspapers to start it going. Indeed and we're not going to have
+any cold supper," she added, while in imagination the girls already were
+sniffing the aroma of broiling steak. "Not after that long ride an'
+cheerful conversation!"
+
+With the prospect of supper, and a hot supper, so close at hand, the
+girls could laugh at the gloomy stories of the old driver.
+
+"We'll help," cried Laura. "Come on, girls, let's see if we can find
+enough dishes to set the table."
+
+So they went gayly to work, setting the table and peeling potatoes, which
+Mrs. Gilligan proceeded to fry, and enjoyed themselves immensely.
+
+"Shall we eat in the kitchen?" asked Violet, pausing with a pile of
+plates in her hand. "Or shall we be very proper and eat in the
+dining-room?"
+
+"Oh, the kitchen's a lot more cheerful," said Billie, shivering a little
+in spite of herself as she thought of the dark, rather dreary room just
+the other side of the door.
+
+"Besides, what we want we want in a hurry," said Laura, taking the dishes
+from Violet and setting them decidedly on the table. "To-morrow will be
+time enough to put on airs. Just now all I want to do is to eat!"
+
+While they were waiting for the supper to cook and after they had done as
+much as they could toward its preparation, the girls looked about the
+kitchen and the gloomy dining room a bit. The latter room was dark and
+cheerless, and they wondered that any one should have selected it for a
+dining room. The woodwork was all of black walnut, and there was much of
+it, the window frames and door frames being heavy and ornate and the room
+being wainscoted with the same dark wood. The room was large, too, and
+there were windows at one end only, and that toward the north.
+
+"Oh, come! let us get out of here," finally cried Laura, grabbing each of
+the other girls by an arm and running with them out into the more
+cheerful kitchen.
+
+"Oh, that steak!" cried Billie longingly, as she drifted over to the
+stove. "Isn't it nearly done, Mrs. Gilligan? This is cruelty to animals."
+
+Mrs. Gilligan chuckled and turned the steak on the other side.
+
+"Almost ready now," she said, adding another piece of butter to the
+golden browned potatoes. "Have you girls cut the cake? It's in one of the
+packages I brought in--on the end of the table. Don't cut it all now,"
+she warned, as there was a joyful rush for the cake. "We want some of it
+left for to-morrow."
+
+The girls did not cut it all--quite. But they did cut a good two-thirds
+of it--and ate it all, too!
+
+It was a strange sort of meal--the candle-lit kitchen, the hastily set
+table, the faces of the girls and Mrs. Gilligan brought out in bold
+relief by the flickering candle light.
+
+The meal was delicious, and the girls ate ravenously, but from time to
+time one of them would shift uneasily in her seat and look nervously over
+her shoulder into the dark corners of the room.
+
+Instead of the dinner making them more courageous, it seemed to be having
+the opposite effect, for when they had finished their cake and the
+steaming hot coffee, they found themselves talking in whispers as if they
+were afraid of the sound of their own voices.
+
+Billie, suddenly realizing this, spoke aloud, and Laura and Violet jumped
+nervously.
+
+"What's the matter with us?" Billie asked, her voice sounding strangely
+loud and unnatural even to herself in the hushed stillness all about.
+"We never used to be so awfully quiet. And I'm sure we don't have to
+whisper about it."
+
+"I--I suppose," shivered Violet, "that it's because everything else is
+so quiet. It sort of has its effect on us. I wish," she added, with a
+sudden little outburst unusual in Violet, "that that horrid old driver
+hadn't told us that horrid story. I catch myself listening for noises
+all the time."
+
+"But that's foolish," said Mrs. Gilligan, in that every-day,
+matter-of-fact tone that never failed to give the girls courage. "There
+isn't one of us who believes anything he said, so why let it worry us?
+Come on," she said, rising and beginning to gather together the dishes,
+"we'll get these things put away in a hurry, and then go up to bed. I
+think a good night's rest is what you need."
+
+"Oh, but I don't want to go up in the spooky upstairs part," whispered
+Violet to Billie, as she scraped some odds and ends off on a plate.
+"Oh, why didn't we travel by night, so that we could have reached here
+in the morning?"
+
+"Well, we didn't, so there's no use worrying about it," said Billie
+sharply, for the situation was beginning to get on her own nerves. She
+had caught herself dreading the moment when they must leave the more or
+less cheerful kitchen for the upper floor of the house.
+
+And then the minute came.
+
+"Take a couple of candles apiece and follow me," Mrs. Gilligan said. "I
+had your grips all put in the upper hall. Now then, let's find out what
+kind of beds we have to sleep in--if any!"
+
+So, with little creepy chills chasing themselves up and down their
+spines, the girls obeyed, keeping close together and looking fearfully
+into the dark shadows.
+
+They had just started up the stairs when Violet cried out, her voice
+sounding sharp in the stillness:
+
+"What's that?"
+
+Right over their heads there came a creepy, slithery sound, followed by a
+loud thump.
+
+The girls groaned and clutched each other.
+
+"The ghost!" said Violet, in a terrified whisper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+SHADOWS AND MYSTERY
+
+
+"Well, if it's a ghost," announced Mrs. Maria Gilligan in a loud
+voice, "I never did hear one that sounded so much like a suitcase
+sliding off a trunk."
+
+The girls giggled and followed Mrs. Gilligan as she strode up the stairs.
+The flickering candles made grotesque shadows on the walls; the house,
+after that noise, was as still as a tomb, and despite the comforting
+presence of their valiant chaperone, the girls kept close together for
+protection.
+
+"D-do you suppose it was only a s-suitcase?" stammered Violet.
+
+"Don't whisper in my ear--you tickle," hissed Billie, and again they
+laughed hysterically.
+
+"Look out, now, go slow," Mrs. Gilligan was cautioning them. "We don't
+want to stumble over this luggage and get a broken leg or two. Ouch!" she
+exclaimed, as she stubbed her toe against something hard. "I guess I'm
+the first casualty!"
+
+She bent down to find what she had stumbled against, while the girls
+glanced nervously into the corners of the hall which the flickering
+candle light only seemed to make more dark.
+
+"Goodness, if we feel like this now, I don't see how we're ever going to
+spend the night here," cried Laura, shivering a little. "I don't believe
+I'll be able to sleep a wink."
+
+"Oh, yes, you will," said Billie, trying hard to make her voice sound
+natural and unconcerned. "We're all so tired we couldn't help sleeping
+anywhere."
+
+"Just as I thought," said Mrs. Gilligan, referring to the object she had
+stubbed her toe against. "Your suitcase, Billie, and the creepy noise we
+heard was when it slid off the trunk. Come on now," she added, holding
+her candle high over her head again, "let's see what we can find in the
+way of bedrooms."
+
+"Let's go in the first door we reach," suggested Billie, and at the
+moment Mrs. Gilligan's candle showed a wide, high doorway leading into a
+black cavern of a room.
+
+"Well, here's the first one," she said. "If we have luck and find some
+bedding--"
+
+She was already feeling her way cautiously between several chairs and
+tables, with the girls following close behind.
+
+"There's the bed!" cried Laura. "Oh, isn't it funny? A regular old
+four-poster."
+
+"With a canopy over it!" marveled Violet.
+
+"And it's made up with clean things," added Billie, making another
+discovery. "Goodness, it makes you feel like the 'Little Princess' when
+she found all the good things in her room."
+
+"Sure enough, it has been made fresh," said Mrs. Gilligan, as she
+wonderingly turned down a somewhat dusty spread and disclosed snowy
+sheets beneath.
+
+"Somebody's been keeping house anyway," said Laura.
+
+"Here's room for two of you girls," said Mrs. Gilligan.
+
+"Oh, we all three want to sleep together," cried Violet, fearful that she
+might be picked to sleep alone. "There's safety in numbers."
+
+"All right, but I have to sleep somewhere," Mrs. Gilligan reminded her
+with a wry little smile. "Aren't you going to help me find some place?
+This may be the only bed that's in sleeping condition in the house."
+
+"Then we'd have to sleep four in a bed," said Billie, with a chuckle.
+"But come on, let's see if some kind fairy hasn't prepared for you too,
+Mrs. Gilligan."
+
+Laughing, the girls pushed out into the hall and looked for the next
+doorway. They no longer glanced fearfully in the corners for something
+they were afraid to see. The thought of the nice clean bed pushed all
+their weird fancies into the background. Ghosts and clean beds did not
+seem to go together!
+
+They found another room just as clean as the other one, and also with a
+canopied four-poster in one corner. With cries of delight the girls
+discovered that it also was ready for occupancy.
+
+"Goodness, I wonder who could have done it?" mused Violet, as she dropped
+down on the edge of the bed and regarded the girls wonderingly.
+
+"Maybe it was a ghost," said Laura, with a chuckle, and Violet glanced
+around uneasily.
+
+"Can't you forget about ghosts for five minutes?" she asked rather
+irritably, for she was tired after the long day's trip. "Just when I'm
+beginning to be happy--"
+
+"There, there," cried Billie soothingly. "Don't go and get mad, Vi,
+darling, or our last hope will be gone. I guess Aunt Beatrice left it
+this way. Gracious! what's that?"
+
+"Only me opening a door," said Mrs. Gilligan from the farther end of the
+room. "My, but you girls are jumpy! Better get to bed," she added,
+crossing over to them with a decided step. "You're tired, and everything
+will seem better in the morning. Off with you now. No, not that way," as
+they started toward the hall, the way they had come in. "I've found a
+door between our two rooms--it was opening that that made you jump. See?"
+
+"A connecting door!" cried Billy delightedly. "Oh, that's fine!"
+
+"Yes, you can lock your door, Mrs. Gilligan, and we'll lock ours, and
+we'll all be as snug--"
+
+"As bugs in a rug," finished Laura, putting an arm about Violet and
+pushing her into the other room.
+
+"Aren't you going to take your candles?" Mrs. Gilligan called after them.
+"I fancy you'll need them to undress by."
+
+"I fancy I'll need mine all night," said Laura in an undertone with a wry
+little grimace, as Violet went back for the candles. "I'm just scared to
+death to stay here in the dark."
+
+"But we won't be able to keep these burning all night," said Billie,
+pausing in the act of unlacing her shoe to gaze at her half-burned
+candle. "They will probably burn out in a couple of hours."
+
+Laura looked panicky.
+
+"Well, some one will have to go down and get some more," she said, and
+gazed at Billie thoughtfully.
+
+"Goodness, you needn't look at me when you say that," said the latter,
+going energetically to work on the other shoe. "I wouldn't go down into
+that gloomy place again for all the money there is in the world."
+
+"But we'll be left in the dark," said Laura, staring at Billie as if it
+were all her fault.
+
+"Who said anything about being left in the dark?" asked Violet,
+returning with a candle in each hand, the flickering light illumining her
+face and making her look like some saint.
+
+"I did, and we will if you don't go down and get more candles," said
+Laura, turning her fire against the newcomer.
+
+"Go down and get candles all by myself?" asked Violet. Then she walked
+over to the table and set the two candles down with a decided thump.
+"You're crazy," she said.
+
+"Well, the best thing I can see to do," said Billie, letting down her
+long hair and brushing it vigorously, "is to get to bed, go to sleep, and
+forget all about it."
+
+"Yes, if we _can_ sleep," said Laura doubtfully, as she took her
+nightgown out of the grip.
+
+The girls undressed as quickly as they could, said their prayers, and
+crawled under the sheets, pulling them up tight beneath their chins.
+
+"You know," whispered Billie, after they had been quiet for some time
+staring up at the ceiling, "I have an idea that I've got the worst of
+this bargain."
+
+"Now what are you raving about?" asked Laura, turning a pair of
+unnaturally bright eyes upon her.
+
+"Why, you chose the middle of the bed and Vi took the end nearest
+the wall. That leaves me on the outside to ward off the ghosts. It
+isn't fair."
+
+"Oh, but, Billie dear, you're ever so much braver than we are," said
+Violet cajolingly. "Don't you remember how you've said right along that
+you weren't afraid of ghosts?"
+
+"Well, I'm not," said Billie stoutly, while her eyes searched the far
+corners of the room which were beginning to get very indistinct and
+creepy in the flickering uncertain light of the fast shortening candles.
+"And, anyway," she added, the thought seeming to comfort her, "I locked
+the door."
+
+"Well, don't you know a ghost can walk right through a door?" asked
+Laura, and Violet bounced in the bed and came down with a thud.
+
+"Stop it," she commanded. "I'm trying my hardest to get to sleep before
+those candles burn out. When it gets pitch dark in here I never can."
+
+"And all this comes under the head of pleasure," murmured Laura with a
+little chuckle.
+
+"All right--we'll keep still," agreed Billie. "I think myself that the
+best thing we can do is get to sleep. Night, girls. We'll all feel better
+in the morning."
+
+"If we're here to feel anything," added Violet gloomily.
+
+For a long time the girls lay wide-eyed and quiet, but gradually the law
+of nature asserted itself. Their eyelids drooped, and the deep regular
+breathing showed that they were asleep.
+
+It was about three o'clock in the morning that it happened. Tortured by
+dreams in which she was being chased by a ghost in goggles and a green
+motor car, Violet finally awoke and lay staring out at the dark.
+
+Then suddenly she sat up. Her dream had followed her into the world of
+reality. There was the same strange, weird purring noise that sounded
+like, yet was strangely unlike, the chugging of a motor car.
+
+She sat absolutely still with every nerve tense, feeling chilly
+and scared.
+
+At last she could stand it no longer and, leaning over, touched Laura
+gently on the arm.
+
+"What's the matter?" cried the latter, starting up fearfully. At the same
+moment Billie opened her eyes.
+
+"That noise!" whispered Violet. "Listen!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+ONLY A BAT
+
+
+The three girls sat quiet, every nerve tense, that same chilly sensation
+creeping up their spines, and their hair beginning to stand on end.
+
+Out there in that wilderness, at three o'clock in the morning, a noise
+that sounded something like a motor car and yet was unlike anything they
+had ever heard before, might have frightened more experienced people than
+three fourteen-year-old girls.
+
+"H-here it comes!" whispered Violet, clutching at Laura's arm, while
+Laura in her turn clutched at Billie's. "It's coming closer! Oh,
+girls--is it in the house?"
+
+"Sh!" cried Billie. "It's a machine--it must be a machine--out on
+the road."
+
+"But in this forsaken place, in the middle of the night?" cried Laura,
+beginning to shiver as though she were cold. "It--it can't be, Billie!"
+
+"Sh-h," said Billie again. "Listen!"
+
+The purring sound was coming closer, seemed almost in the house, it was
+so near--Then came an awful thought to Billie. Could it really be in the
+house? Was it possible that those awful stories about ghosts were true?
+
+But no, the noise was passing on, getting softer, softer, dying off in
+the distance.
+
+"It--it must have been a machine," said Laura, beginning to laugh
+hysterically. "Vi, what did you go and wake me up in the middle of the
+night for just to hear an automobile? I was having such a lovely sleep."
+
+"But I'm not so sure it was a motor car," insisted Violet stubbornly, the
+spell of the dream still upon her. "It didn't sound like it."
+
+"But it couldn't have been anything else," said Billie, trembling a
+little with the reaction. "We heard it coming down the road, heard it
+pass the house, and go on. It simply must have been a machine."
+
+"Oh, all right," said Violet, adding with a little sigh: "Well, I guess
+none of us will sleep any more to-night. I'm not even going to try."
+
+"Well, I am," said Billie, leaning back and closing her eyes, yet knowing
+that she was as wide awake as she had ever been in her life. "I don't see
+any use in lying here and listening for things. Good night once more,
+girls--I'm off."
+
+"Meaning you're crazy?" asked Laura, to which Billie made no reply.
+
+As a matter of fact, even while they were saying they could sleep no more
+that night, the girls did go to sleep, and, what is more, slept soundly
+until they were awakened by Mrs. Gilligan's voice calling to them from
+the connecting doorway.
+
+"Do you expect to sleep all day?" she was asking them, her face rosy and
+herself very nice and trim in a light blue house dress. "This is the
+third time I've spoken to you, and I was beginning to get worried."
+
+"Wh-what time is it?" demanded Laura sleepily.
+
+"About eleven," Mrs. Gilligan answered calmly, and they gasped.
+
+"Eleven!" repeated Billie, sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes hard.
+"For goodness' sake, how did it get that way? I feel as if I hadn't had
+any sleep at all."
+
+"Well, I've had the most awful dreams," complained Violet, turning over
+as if she intended to go to sleep again. "I've done nothing but dream of
+ghosts and motor cars all night."
+
+At the mention of ghosts Mrs. Gilligan broke into hearty laughter.
+
+"Ghosts?" she said, her eyes sparkling. "I shouldn't think you'd be
+talking of ghosts any more. Here you've spent a whole night in the house
+and no spirits have bothered you yet. I should think you'd be satisfied."
+
+"Oh, but didn't you hear that noise in the night?" Violet asked her,
+turning over and forgetting the nap she had been about to take. "We
+girls were just about scared to death."
+
+"Speak for yourself," said Laura, who, whether she had really been
+frightened or not, never liked to have anybody tell her about it.
+
+"You were scared too, what's the use of denying it?" Violet demanded
+hotly, but Mrs. Gilligan interrupted them.
+
+"Never mind about that," she said, with a smile. "Just tell me about this
+noise you thought you heard."
+
+So the girls told her about their weird experience of the night before,
+all talking at once and making it as hard as possible for Mrs. Gilligan
+to understand what it was all about.
+
+"A noise that sounded like a motor car," she said, when they had finished
+and had paused for lack of breath. "Well, I don't see what's so very
+queer about that. May have been some joy-riders or something."
+
+"But who would be joy-riding in this part of the country?" Laura
+objected. "The country people hereabouts probably don't know what the
+word means."
+
+"That particular sport does seem to belong to the idle rich," Mrs.
+Gilligan agreed, with a chuckle. "Well," she added, getting up and
+starting for the door, "whatever it is, or was, we needn't go without
+our breakfast because of it. How would you like some bacon and eggs and
+biscuits?"
+
+The suggestion worked like a charm, and before Mrs. Gilligan had finished
+the girls were out of bed and feeling about for their clothes.
+
+"You know the room doesn't look half bad by daylight," remarked Violet,
+as she was arranging her hair before an elaborately framed old mirror.
+"And it surely is quite clean."
+
+"But it's horribly gloomy, just as mother said." Billie was regarding the
+dingy woodwork, now almost black with age, and the huge four-poster with
+its funereal canopied top, and the large pictures of dead and gone
+ancestors that adorned the walls. "The only really good things in the
+whole room are the tables and chairs. They look," she added hopefully,
+"as if they might bring in a little money. Perhaps I'll be able to pay
+for the statue after all."
+
+"Oh, and I'm just crazy to see the rest of the house by daylight," said
+Laura, clapping her hands. "Come on, you slow pokes, aren't you ever
+going to be ready?"
+
+"We're ready now," said Billie, putting an arm about Violet and hurrying
+her to the door. "Oh, is that bacon I smell--and coffee?" she asked as
+through the open door came a whiff of the good things below.
+
+"You said it!" cried Laura, making a rush for lower floor with Billie and
+Violet not very far behind her. "And it isn't going to be more than
+about two minutes before I taste that same bacon and eggs."
+
+When they reached the lower hall they were surprised to see that it
+looked almost as gloomy and forbidding as it had the night before, in
+spite of the fact that the front door was open and sunlight was
+streaming through.
+
+"Ugh!" said Laura, with a shudder, "I don't wonder that they had gloomy
+dispositions in the old days if they had to live in houses like these.
+It's enough to give one the creeps."
+
+"I'm glad you like my property so much," said Billie, with a demure
+little smile. "I haven't heard you say one nice thing about it yet."
+
+"We have treated our hostess rather rudely, haven't we?" laughed
+Violet, putting an arm about Billie and drawing her out into the
+sunshine. "But really, Billie, we're quite sure that you don't like it
+any better than we do."
+
+"And you are quite right," Billie assured her, then added, breaking away
+and running a little in front of them: "Girls, let's see if we can find
+any signs of that car we heard last night."
+
+Eagerly they scanned the rocky road, but could see no traces of any
+vehicle that would be big enough to make the noise they had heard the
+night before.
+
+"The plot thickens," said Laura, as they started back to the house
+to eat the bacon and eggs and biscuits. "We hear a car, but see no
+traces of it."
+
+"It must have been a spirit car," said Violet, adding, with a plaintive
+little sigh that made the girls laugh: "In spite of all my perfectly good
+training, I'm beginning to believe in ghosts."
+
+After breakfast the girls roamed around the big house, nosing into
+corners, calling each other's attention to this and that queer ornament
+or article of furniture--and there were plenty of them,--and otherwise
+thoroughly enjoying themselves. But as yet they did not venture into the
+gloomy cellar with its mysterious tunnels.
+
+In the drawing-room they found a queer old piano which Violet declared
+must date back farther than Revolutionary days and which Billie, amid
+gibes and laughter from her chums, tried to play.
+
+After she had tried and failed on half a dozen different compositions,
+she gave up the attempt, and they roamed upstairs, looking through one
+room after another until Billie accidentally opened the door that led to
+the attic.
+
+"Here's where we want to go, girls," she cried. "Mother said this was the
+spookiest place in the whole house--except the cellar."
+
+"Hadn't we better get Mrs. Gilligan to go with us?" asked Violet,
+holding back. "After last night I've had enough spooky experiences to
+last me a week."
+
+"Oh, come on," cried Laura, running ahead of them up the stairs. "I'll
+show you two 'fraid cats--"
+
+"Who's a 'fraid cat?" cried Billie, starting in hot pursuit. "I'll have
+you know that nobody dares call me such names and get away with it. Come
+on, Vi, let's murder her."
+
+"Just try it," Laura hissed at them dramatically from the head of the
+stairs. "I'd turn into another ghost and haunt you!"
+
+"Oh, for goodness' sake, leave her alone, Billie," Violet entreated.
+"We've got enough ghosts around here without Laura. What's that?"
+
+"If you're going to scare me again," began Laura, but it was Billie this
+time who commanded silence.
+
+"Hush, I did hear something queer," she said, and all three
+listened intently.
+
+It came again, a weird little noise like the brushing of wings against
+some hard object, and the girls scarcely dared to breathe. Then out into
+the hot open attic fluttered a tiny little object with webbed wings and
+the body of a mouse.
+
+"A bat!" cried Laura, sinking down weakly and shaking with hysterical
+laughter. "Oh, girls, if I have to stay here another week I'll just die
+of heart failure--I know I will!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A FISH STORY
+
+
+The days passed without further scares until the time finally came when
+the boys were to arrive.
+
+During those days the girls roamed around the farm attached to Cherry
+Corners. They found it for the most part a rocky place, with here and
+there dense patches of woods. There was a brook and in this they saw some
+small fish darting about.
+
+"Maybe the boys will want to go fishing when they come," suggested
+Billie.
+
+The cherry trees also interested the chums--there were so many of them.
+The late cherries were ripe, and they spent a day in picking them,
+donning overalls for that purpose. Mrs. Gilligan took the fruit and made
+several delicious pies and also a number of tarts.
+
+The place was certainly a lonesome one. Only once did they see two
+men tramp by. The men eyed the girls curiously, but tramped on
+without speaking.
+
+"Certainly not very sociable," was Violet's comment.
+
+At last came the time when the boys were to arrive.
+
+The girls were in a fever of excitement and anticipation, for they knew
+that they would have just about twice as much fun with the boys as
+without them.
+
+"We can go on picnics," said Laura, putting on her hat over one eye as
+she had a habit of doing when unusually excited, "and long tramps in the
+woods, and--oh, all sorts of things."
+
+"I wonder if that old wagon will ever come," said Violet, looking
+anxiously down the road. "If it doesn't hurry we'll be too late to meet
+the train."
+
+The boy who daily brought them provisions from the village had been
+commissioned to send the antiquated carriage after the girls so that they
+could get down to the village in time to meet the early train. But the
+girls, with no confidence in the country lad's memory, had been sure he
+would forget all about it.
+
+"If he doesn't come pretty soon, the boys will get off the train
+with no one to meet them," Violet went on worrying. "They won't know
+where to go."
+
+"Goodness, they'll know where to go just as well as we did," said Billie,
+regarding herself sideways in the mirror to be sure she had not forgotten
+anything. "They aren't infants, you know."
+
+"Here it comes! Here it comes!" sang out Laura from her place at the
+window. "Are you ready, girls?"
+
+The answer was a concerted rush for the stairs and in another minute the
+girls were out in the bright sunlight, running to meet the stage.
+
+The driver, who had been nodding in his seat, looked up as if surprised
+at so much energy so early in the morning.
+
+"Oh, please hurry," cried Billie, exasperated at the stupid look on the
+boy's face. "Don't you know that we're late already?"
+
+"No'm, you're not late," he assured her in a voice that matched his
+manner. "The ten-thirty train's always 'bout half an hour late, anyways."
+
+"Well, that's just the reason it will probably be on time this morning,"
+remarked Billie, scrambling in after the girls. "When I'm late the trains
+are always early. Please hurry," she added, and the driver clucked
+half-heartedly to his team.
+
+All the way down they worried for fear they would be late, but when they
+reached Roland at last they found that their rural driver knew the habits
+of trains in that part of the country better than they did, for they had
+a full thirty-five minutes to wait.
+
+However, they roused from their despondent attitudes when they heard a
+familiar whistle in the distance, and began automatically to straighten
+their hats.
+
+"Suppose they made up their minds not to come on this train?" Violet
+suggested, but Laura cut in hastily.
+
+"If you're going to start worrying all over again about something
+different," she said, "I'll put you on the track and let the train run
+over you."
+
+At this dire threat Violet stopped worrying, vocally at least, and they
+stood first on one foot, then on the other, eagerly watching the train as
+it rounded a curve and came pounding down toward them.
+
+It had hardly drawn up to the station with a screeching of brakes and
+come to a standstill before a cyclonic trio of boys leaped from one of
+the rear cars and came dashing toward the girls, waving hats and bags and
+various other personal articles high in the air as they came.
+
+"I say, but it was bully of you girls to come to meet us!" shouted Ferd
+Stowing, as they came within hailing distance. "It was more than we
+expected, eh, fellows?"
+
+"Sure! Didn't think you'd be up yet," answered Teddy, looking exceedingly
+handsome--at least to Billie.
+
+"Up yet!" cried Billie, trying to look angry, which she could not do
+because she was altogether too happy and excited. "I don't know where you
+boys get your ideas, anyway."
+
+"Out of our brilliant craniums," said Ferd modestly. "I say, girls, where
+do we go from here?"
+
+"There's an old carriage that looks as if it were on its last legs,"
+laughed Violet, leading the way back to where the antiquated vehicle and
+its sleepy driver awaited them. "We came up in it, but I don't know how
+we're all going to squeeze into it going back."
+
+"Say, fellows, we forgot to get our trunks," said Chet, interrupting
+himself in the midst of an earnest conversation with his sister. "Give me
+your checks and I'll go back and see about them."
+
+"But if there isn't room for us, how are we ever going to get our baggage
+to the house?" Teddy asked.
+
+"We'll get the wagon that took ours up," Laura answered. "We've got to
+get some provisions, anyway."
+
+So with a great deal of fun and laughter they looked up the ancient wagon
+and went to the general store to get a formidable supply of provisions.
+
+"Looks as if you were buying the store out," Teddy remarked, as Billie
+pulled out a long list of items. "What's the big idea?"
+
+"You boys," said Billie, dimpling at him. "We knew what kind of appetites
+you would bring along with you, so we decided on safety first."
+
+"Now we know you girls are bright," said Ferd admiringly, and Billie made
+a face at him.
+
+The ride to the house was one big lark. The boys sat on the trunks among
+the provisions, and the girls went off into gales of merriment at their
+comical efforts not to step on the eggs or fall among the fruit. They
+were having such an awfully good time that even the solemn old driver had
+to join in the fun.
+
+At last they reached Billie's house, and with much ceremony the boys
+jumped down from the wagon and ran to the carriage to help the girls out.
+And all they got for their pains was scorn and derision on the part of
+the girls.
+
+"Get out of the way before I step on you, little speck of dust," Laura
+cried haughtily to Ferd, who turned up his collar and slunk along toward
+the house as though his humiliation were more than he could bear, amid
+shouts of laughter from the merry crowd that followed him.
+
+"That's the way to treat 'em, Laura," Chet cried, but at that Ferd
+turned upon him.
+
+"Say, you'd better look out," he said belligerently. "I can't hit a
+lady--"
+
+"A which?" murmured Billie, with a wicked glance in Laura's direction.
+
+"For calling me names," continued Ferd, glaring at Chet, who began to
+tremble in mock fright; "but there's nothing to keep me from wiping the
+ground up--"
+
+"Yes there is! It's my ground, and I won't have it wiped up," said Billie
+decidedly, at which Ferd had to laugh and the mock war came to a close.
+
+"Say, this is some classy place, what?" said Chet, stopping in front of
+the rambling old house and regarding it admiringly. "Have you met with
+any ghosts yet, girls?"
+
+"Oh, half a dozen," said Laura indifferently, and he was just about to
+ask some more questions when Mrs. Gilligan met them at the door and began
+giving instructions.
+
+After that there was nothing to do but obey, and the boys and girls did
+not meet again until lunch time. Then they regarded each other across the
+table joyfully.
+
+"I say, let's go for a tramp in the woods this afternoon," Ferd
+suggested, after he and the other lads had taken a look around the house.
+"This is the prettiest, wildest country I've ever seen, and I'd like to
+nose about a little."
+
+"But we thought you'd like to see what the attic and cellar look like,"
+said Billie. "We had the afternoon all planned."
+
+"Let's do that to-morrow," Ferd begged boyishly. "This is too nice a day
+to spend indoors."
+
+So it was decided to go outside and as soon as the dinner dishes were
+cleared away--at which the boys assisted without so much as a
+grumble--the young folks started out on their tour of discovery.
+
+The girls had spent much of their time in the old house since their
+arrival, for they had found an almost inexhaustible supply of strange
+corners and unexpected rooms and peculiar ornaments that had
+fascinated them.
+
+But to-day, as they felt the warm sunshine on their heads, as the wind
+caressed their faces and the scents of the woodland bathed them in
+perfume, they were glad they had let the boys have their way and had
+decided to spend the glorious afternoon in the open.
+
+"Did you win the tennis singles?" Billie asked of Teddy, as she stopped
+to smell a bunch of strange flowers. "I was rooting for you."
+
+"Were you?" asked Teddy eagerly.
+
+"For you--and Chet," she added demurely, and laughed to see his
+face fall.
+
+"But did you?" she asked.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Win the tennis singles, silly? Can't you remember a thing two seconds?"
+
+"Why, yes, we did," he answered absently, his gray eyes on
+Billie's lovely mischievous face. "In fact, we just ran rings
+around them. I guess--"
+
+He stopped short as they came upon the other young people. A couple of
+bearded men had come out of the woods and confronted the crowd. Each man
+carried a heavy club. They were the fellows who had once passed the girls
+without speaking.
+
+"You can't go any further this way," one of them said in a rather gruff
+tone. "We're growing a new variety of corn and want to keep the seed to
+ourselves."
+
+"What's that?" demanded Chet in astonishment
+
+"You heard what I said. You can't stay here, and you can't go that way."
+
+"You want to get out of here," growled the second man. "Come, move on."
+
+"You can't steal any of our corn-growing secrets. Move on," and the first
+man shook his club suggestively.
+
+The strange men looked ugly, and the boys and girls, after a pause,
+turned off in another direction.
+
+"Humph!" grunted Ted, with a curious glance at the place where the men
+had been. "They made a mistake. That wasn't a corn story. It was a
+fish story!"
+
+"Maybe," returned Billie. "But what does it mean?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT
+
+
+There was so much of interest about the house, and outside of it, that a
+week passed almost before the young folks knew it.
+
+The boys were for exploring the cellar, and did so one fine day, taking
+the girls along.
+
+They had a flashlight, a lantern, and some candles, and all these
+combined gave them quite an illumination. But the girls kept close to the
+boys, for the cellar was certainly a creepy place, with its many nooks
+and corners and dark closets.
+
+They managed to find two tunnels, one about fifty feet long and the other
+close to a hundred.
+
+"Caved in!" cried Chet in disgust.
+
+He was right; dirt and rocks filled the openings, both of which were
+quite wet.
+
+"I'll bet they led to the brook," remarked Teddy. "When the Indians made
+a raid the settlers could crawl through one tunnel or the other and so
+hide in the brook."
+
+"I think Ted must be right," said Ferd.
+
+There was but little of value in the cellar. Old tools, rusted with age,
+and some empty bottles and jugs, and that was about all.
+
+"It's awfully musty," said Billie presently. "I'm going upstairs and out
+into the sunshine." And she went, and the others soon followed.
+
+Billie had received the address of Miss Beggs, the school-teacher. It had
+been sent to her address at home and forwarded by Mrs. Bradley.
+
+"Now, I guess I'll have to write that letter to the teacher and explain
+all about the broken statue," said Billie dismally. "Oh, dear, I wish I
+didn't have to do it."
+
+"It's too bad we haven't the money to pay for the old thing," came from
+Chet. "Can't we sell some of this stuff? It must be worth something."
+
+"But who will buy it?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+There was a long consultation among the girls, and at last Billie managed
+to write the letter.
+
+"There," she said, when she had given it to the store boy to post, "now I
+feel better. The confession part of it is off my mind, anyway. If I can
+only pay for the old statue--or buy another one like it--I'll be
+happy--or nearly happy."
+
+She added the "nearly happy" as the thought came to her that even with
+the broken statue paid for and off her mind she had still another ordeal
+before her. In a couple of weeks their vacation would be up at Cherry
+Corners, and soon after that she would have to see Violet and Laura and
+the boys, except poor Chet, go off to boarding school, while she and her
+brother would be left behind.
+
+Oh, well, she would not think of that just yet. They could at least enjoy
+the time they were to spend at Cherry Corners.
+
+And they did enjoy it! There was never a minute of the day for which
+something interesting was not planned.
+
+Then one night, when they had almost forgotten that the house was
+supposed to be haunted, they had an experience that brought back all
+their old fears of the place--"and then some," as Teddy said.
+
+Billie sat up in bed suddenly with the familiar chilly feeling up and
+down her spine and her hair showing a tendency to pull away from her
+prickly scalp.
+
+The piano was sounding--all the way from treble to bass! And it was the
+middle of the night with everybody in bed!
+
+She put out a hand and shook Laura and Violet to consciousness.
+
+"Oh, girls, it _is_ the ghost this time!" she said in a scared whisper
+that made them wide awake in an instant. "It--it's playing the piano!"
+
+"A--a musical ghost?" giggled Laura hysterically, but Billie pinched her
+into silence.
+
+"Keep still," she cried. "There it is again!"
+
+The girls listened to the eeriest, weirdest music they had ever
+heard, and Violet slipped shivering under the covers and hid her face
+with the sheet.
+
+"C-come out of that," cried Billie, pulling at the sheet. "What g-good do
+you suppose it's going to do to put the sheet over your head? Come on,
+I'm going to investigate."
+
+With sudden determination she slipped out of bed and stood up.
+
+"Billie," gasped Laura, "you're never going to go down there?"
+
+"I'm going to call the boys," said Billie, who, despite all her
+determination, could hardly stand up her knees trembled so. "We'll all go
+and rout that old ghost. He's got to," she added with a hysterical giggle
+that matched Laura's, "get off my piano!"
+
+Fearfully the girls watched her start into Mrs. Gilligan's room. Then
+Laura pushed down the covers and got to her feet.
+
+"If Billie isn't afraid," she said stoutly, "I don't see why I should be.
+Are you coming, Vi?"
+
+"I s-suppose so," said poor Violet, more afraid of being left alone than
+of facing the ghost in company with the others. "If you're going
+I--I've got to."
+
+So it was that Mrs. Gilligan was startled to find three ghostly, scared
+figures standing by her bed calling nervously to her to "please wake up."
+
+"For goodness' sake, what's the matter?" she said, rubbing her eyes and
+staring at them sleepily. "Have you heard your ghostly motor again?"
+
+"Oh, much worse!" cried Violet.
+
+"We heard a ghost playing a piano!" said Laura.
+
+"Listen," commanded Billie. "There it goes again. Oh, Mrs. Gilligan, I'm
+f-frightened."
+
+Mrs. Gilligan listened, and even she, matter-of-fact, humorous Irishwoman
+that she was, felt that same strange tendency on the part of her hair to
+stand up straight in the air.
+
+"Well, here's the time for my rolling pin," she said, jumping out of bed
+and wrapping a kimono hastily about her. "We'll call the boys and see
+what that piano thinks it's doing anyway."
+
+So they called the boys. The three lads were on tiptoe with excitement at
+the thought of an actual encounter with a ghost.
+
+"And a musical ghost, at that," crowed Ferd, as they started down the
+stairs with the girls following cautiously and holding their candles over
+their heads.
+
+"Say, don't make so much noise," cried Chet in a stage whisper. "You'll
+frighten his ghostship away. I wouldn't miss seeing a real ghost for
+anything you could offer me."
+
+"In here, fellows, here's the piano," Ferd directed, and, their hearts in
+their mouths, the girls watched them go into the dark room.
+
+"Ouch! hang that chair," they heard Ferd cry out. "Come on with those
+lights, girls. I'm ruining all the furniture."
+
+Nervously the girls followed them in, throwing the light of the candles
+on the old piano, but, as far as they could see, nothing had been
+disturbed.
+
+The ancient instrument stood as dignified and aloof as ever, and in the
+whole room not a chair was out of place.
+
+"Nothing here," said Chet, looking disappointed. "Say, the girls promised
+us a regular show, fellows, and they haven't come across."
+
+"What shall we do to 'em?" asked Teddy, looking almost equally
+disappointed.
+
+"But we heard it," said Billie, shivering with excitement.
+
+"It was just as if somebody had taken the back of his finger," Laura
+added, "and run it all the way down the keyboard from the top note of the
+treble to the last note of the bass."
+
+"Oh, you must have been dreaming," said Ferd, opening the piano to
+examine it inside.
+
+"No, they weren't dreaming," said Mrs. Gilligan seriously. "Because I was
+very much awake when I heard it."
+
+"You heard it, too?" asked Chet, beginning to be interested again.
+
+"I certainly did," said Mrs. Gilligan, with a grimness that left no room
+for doubt. "And I'm not given to imagining things, either."
+
+"Well, I move we look around a bit," suggested Ferd, who was always
+eager for action. "The ghost may have retreated to the dining-room or
+something--"
+
+"No, siree!" said Violet decidedly. "If the rest of you want to go
+roaming all over this gloomy old place at night you can do it, but you'll
+have to leave me out."
+
+"Vi's right," said Mrs. Gilligan, just as the boys were about to
+protest. "There isn't any use going into this thing any further to-night
+and getting the girls all upset. I'll stay down here awhile and see what
+I can see."
+
+"Let me stay with you," asked Chet eagerly.
+
+"And me."
+
+"And me."
+
+Ferd and Teddy spoke almost in the same breath.
+
+"No, I want you all to go up and get into bed," said Mrs. Gilligan
+decidedly. "If I see anything," she added, with a grim smile, "anything
+that looks like a ghost that is, I'll call you."
+
+"That's a promise," said Chet, looking back over his shoulder as he
+reluctantly followed the others upstairs. "Because if I should miss
+getting a look at that ghost, I'd be disappointed for life."
+
+"Well, I've had enough of spooks to last _me_ forever," said Laura, with
+a shivery glance over her shoulder as the boys left the girls at their
+door and started off down the hall. "If that piano begins to play itself
+again to-night, I'll just die, that's all there is to it."
+
+The girls crept into bed, careful to leave their candles burning.
+
+"You know, Billie," said Violet in an awed little voice, "this thing is
+really getting serious."
+
+"I should say so," agreed Laura, drawing the bed clothes a little tighter
+about her.
+
+"Well, it isn't my fault, is it?" asked Billie. "I didn't ask Aunt
+Beatrice to leave me a haunted house. And, anyway," she added very
+truthfully, "it was you, Laura, who first suggested coming here."
+
+"Yes," went on Violet accusingly, "and it was you who said you'd be
+disappointed if you didn't see a ghost or two."
+
+Laura groaned.
+
+"What's the use of holding things up against me that I said when I was
+young and foolish?" she asked. "Anyway, I didn't think we would really
+see anything."
+
+"Well, we haven't," said Billie. "All we've done is to hear things--"
+
+"But we've heard plenty," sighed Violet. "There! What's that?"
+
+The girls listened, feeling almost ready to scream, but could hear
+nothing but the sighing of the wind in the tree tops.
+
+"Only the wind, silly," said Laura, then added with an almost
+comfortable feeling at the thought: "Mrs. Gilligan's on guard anyway."
+
+"Yes," said Violet, adding with a sigh that seemed to come from her very
+toes: "I only hope the piano doesn't swallow her up before morning. I've
+come to expect almost anything!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE MOTOR AGAIN
+
+
+The piano did not swallow Mrs. Gilligan up, and, as a matter of fact, the
+good woman did not stand guard until morning. Half an hour of sitting
+alone in that gloomy room watching a piano that had played itself was
+enough to ruin even her seasoned nerves.
+
+Once back in her room she scolded herself for being such an idiot,
+laughed at her fears, and, being a normal, healthy woman, fell almost
+instantly to sleep.
+
+In the morning the girls themselves felt somewhat inclined to laugh at
+the fright they had had, and yet they knew that what had happened had
+been no figment of their imaginations. The sound, though weird and eerie,
+had been real--even Mrs. Gilligan would testify to that.
+
+"Well, I tell you what we ought to do," said Ferd, as he sat down to a
+huge plateful of breakfast. "We fellows ought to take turn and turn about
+keeping watch. There must be some reason for the noise the girls heard,
+and I won't be happy until we find out what it was."
+
+"I think you have the right idea," replied Chet, decidedly. "The only
+condition I make is that I be allowed to stand the first watch."
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind, any of you," broke in Mrs. Gilligan, with
+that slight tightening of her upper lip that the girls and boys had come
+to know--and respect. "That's a fine way to see all sorts of things that
+ain't and hear all sorts of things that never happened. Sit up in the
+dark, waiting for something to happen! I guess not!"
+
+"But we can't just sit back and let the piano perform like that every
+night, can we?" asked Ferd, in an argumentative tone. "I'd rather stay
+awake part of the night than all of it."
+
+"Don't you even want to solve the mystery?" asked Chet, in an
+aggrieved voice.
+
+"Mystery--humph," grunted Mrs. Gilligan, feeling very brave and
+disdainful in the bright sunshine. "I don't believe there's a bit of
+mystery in the whole thing."
+
+"Then what made the piano play?" Teddy insisted. "You said yourself that
+you heard it."
+
+"Oh, I heard it all right," said Mrs. Gilligan, helping herself to more
+jam. "There isn't any doubt about that. But I have an idea what caused
+it, all right."
+
+"Oh, tell us," they cried eagerly.
+
+But their chaperone shook her head determinedly while her lip became
+still tighter.
+
+"No, indeed I won't tell you," she said, adding with a little chuckle: "I
+want to try it out myself first. For I know that if I told you young ones
+about it you'd only laugh. And I don't like being laughed at."
+
+"But we wouldn't laugh," Billie assured her earnestly. "Really,
+Mrs. Gilligan, we'll promise on our word of honor not to so much as
+even smile."
+
+"Get out with your promises," said Mrs. Gilligan, relapsing into her
+brogue. "I do be knowing you better. I'll try it to-night," she
+added graciously, "and if it doesn't work I'll tell you about it in
+the morning."
+
+"I suppose here's where I spend another sleepless night," said Violet
+dolefully, helping herself to more biscuits. "Oh, well, I'm getting so I
+can do without sleep now."
+
+"Well, you don't look as if you'd ever lost a wink in your life," said
+Chet, glancing at her admiringly, for it was an open secret with the
+boys and girls of North Bend that Chet rather especially liked tall,
+dark, peace-loving Violet Farrington--perhaps because she was so much
+like himself.
+
+Violet blushed prettily at this complimentary remark, and the girls
+looked at her teasingly.
+
+"Who was it that said something or other was blind?" asked Laura
+wickedly, and Violet kicked her under the table.
+
+"Peace, my children," said Billie. "We're having enough trouble with
+ghosts and things without starting a war among ourselves. Who'll have
+some more jelly?"
+
+There was a simultaneous shout of approval, and the jelly dish began its
+fourth round of the table.
+
+However, they did at last get through eating and wandered out on the
+front porch, where Mrs. Gilligan could not scoff at their ideas, to
+discuss the doings of the night before.
+
+But it was only a little while later that Mrs. Gilligan put another
+damper on their fun by announcing that some one would have to go to town
+for more provisions. The boy had failed to come that morning, and their
+supply of canned goods was running dangerously low.
+
+"Let's all go," Chet suggested. "We could walk down and ride back."
+
+"But, oh, Chet, it's so frightfully hot," Billie objected. "I'm sure we'd
+get sunstroke or something."
+
+"Yes, it's a terribly long walk," added Violet.
+
+"Well, we could wait till toward evening," said Ferd. "It wouldn't be so
+scorching then. I admit," he added, taking a slanting squint at the sun,
+"that even I am not eager to take a long hike just now."
+
+"But toward evening we'll be preparing supper," objected Laura, and the
+boys threw up their hands in despair.
+
+"Well, then we'll just have to go without you," said Teddy. "But it would
+be lots more fun if you'd come." This last was said to Billie and for her
+ear alone.
+
+That afternoon the girls watched the boys down the road till they
+were out of sight, then turned back to the house with a strangely
+lonesome feeling.
+
+"You know," said Violet, pausing on the doorstep and looking back at the
+girls with a rather sober face, "I have a sort of feeling that
+something's going to happen."
+
+"Well, you'd better get rid of it right away," retorted Laura. "We don't
+want anything more to happen--especially when the boys are away."
+
+This time Violet proved to be right. Something did happen. It was after
+dark, the boys had not yet got back from the village, and the girls were
+setting the table in the kitchen--they had never found the courage to eat
+in the gloomy dining-room--when Violet set a dish down on the table with
+a bang that made the girls start and look at her in surprise.
+
+As for Violet, she was too scared to speak for a moment. Then she
+stammered out:
+
+"The strange motor car!" she said, while Billie and Laura stared at her.
+"I thought I heard it before--"
+
+"Sh-h," cried Billie, and they listened, hardly daring to breathe.
+
+There was the same strange humming sound that had so startled them on
+their first night in the house, only this time, instead of coming from a
+distance and passing by, the noise seemed to get louder, then softer,
+louder and softer, as if whatever it was were approaching and retreating
+at regular intervals.
+
+At that moment Mrs. Gilligan came into the room, and the girls called to
+her to listen also.
+
+"That?" she asked, with a little laugh. "Why that's an automobile of
+course," and started for the front door. "Only I must say it's behaving
+mighty queer."
+
+But when they opened the door and looked out into the rocky road there
+was no sign of an automobile, and yet the humming sound still kept on.
+
+As they listened, wide-eyed, the noise grew softer and softer and
+gradually died away in the distance.
+
+The girls looked at each other wonderingly. Then it was Billie who
+offered a solution.
+
+"Mightn't it be an aeroplane?"
+
+"An aeroplane in this part of the country?" Laura was inclined to scoff
+at the idea, but Mrs. Gilligan and Violet both stood up for Billie.
+
+They were about to enter into a heated argument when they saw the wagon
+that had by this time become familiar to them coming down the road with
+the boys seated in it or hanging to it in characteristic attitudes.
+
+The girls ran out to them and deluged the lads with questions before they
+had time to learn what it was all about.
+
+"A motor car?" asked Chet. "No, we didn't pass a soul on the way up
+here."
+
+When the girls had poured into their interested ears the story of the
+queer humming sound that had just repeated itself, they agreed to one man
+to Billie's suggestion that it was very probably an aeroplane.
+
+"I'll tell you what we'll do next time we hear it," said Teddy as the
+boys picked up the provisions they had brought and started toward the
+house. "We'll go up on the roof. Then we'll pretty soon see whether it's
+a ghost or the real thing."
+
+"And in the meantime," suggested Chet, sniffing the air hungrily, "how
+about some supper?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BOTH AT ONCE
+
+
+It was not long before there came a recurrence of the strange humming
+noise which had so disturbed the girls. It was only a few nights later
+that Chet sat up in bed with the joyful feeling that here at last was a
+chance to investigate at least one of the ghosts that haunted the
+homestead at Cherry Corners.
+
+"Ferd! Teddy! Wake up! What's the matter? Are you dead?" he called
+to the boys.
+
+The latter reluctantly opened their eyes and looked at him reproachfully.
+
+"Can't you let a fellow sleep?" Teddy asked. But Chet, with no ceremony
+whatever, hauled him bodily out of bed and set him on his feet.
+
+"Don't talk," he ordered. "Run as fast as you can to the roof before
+we miss it."
+
+"What are you raving about?" asked Ferd, although both he and Teddy
+started obediently toward the attic stairs.
+
+"If you wouldn't talk so much, you could hear it," Chet answered, pushing
+up a trap door that led to a small square platform on the roof. "It's
+the motor sound the girls heard and that scared them so."
+
+"It is, for a fact!" cried Teddy in a joyful whisper. "And it's coming
+right near, fellows, too."
+
+"It's an aeroplane all right," said Ferd, with conviction. "Nothing else
+ever made a noise like that."
+
+"Say, what are you doing up there?" a girl's voice hailed them from the
+bottom of the steps, and Chet thought he recognized it as Billie's. "Are
+you walking in your sleep or have you gone crazy? Come down here quick,
+we need you."
+
+"Keep still," Chet yelled back. "We're looking for your aeroplane ghost.
+Can't you hear it?"
+
+"Yes. But, oh, Chet," Billie's voice was tremulous, "the piano is playing
+itself again. Won't you come down? We're afraid to stay here all alone."
+
+"Great Scott! all the spirits are roaming at once," cried Teddy,
+straining his eyes to see through the darkness as the humming of the
+motor came nearer.
+
+"There, isn't that it?" cried Ferd, pointing eagerly through the trees
+toward a little patch of sky, palely illumined with stars.
+
+"I think I saw it," said Chet, rubbing his eyes impatiently. "It's so
+confoundedly dark--"
+
+"Oh, won't you please come down?" wailed Billie's voice from the
+spooky depths of the attic. "I'll die of fright if I have to stay here
+another minute."
+
+This appeal moved the boys, and they began reluctantly to descend the
+ladder, keeping their eyes all the time on the pale patch of sky.
+
+"Where are the others?" asked Teddy, as he reached Billie's side.
+
+"They're down looking for the ghost," answered Billie, as she ran down
+the stairs in front of them. "They sent me to get you boys, and I found
+you gone. Mrs. Gilligan," she added, with a hysterical giggle, "has the
+broom and Laura has the poker."
+
+"Maybe we'd better stop on the way and gather up a few bedposts,"
+suggested Ferd, as they took the last flight of stairs on a run and
+landed in the lower hall.
+
+"Hello, did you find anything?" sang out Chet, as the girls, looking
+scared but valiant, came out to meet them. "Where's Mrs. Gilligan?"
+
+"Inside," said Violet. "There isn't a thing to be seen any more than
+there was the other night. I'm absolutely positive now that it must
+be a ghost."
+
+"Well, if it is, he's got a sense of humor," said Mrs. Gilligan, rising
+from her knees where she had been peering into the corner behind the
+piano. "I've heard of all sorts of spirits, but I never heard of one who
+insisted upon playing the piano in the dead of night."
+
+"He must have been a musician in his life time," suggested Chet. "That's
+the reason he comes and haunts the piano."
+
+"Well, I don't see why he doesn't choose a regular piano to haunt,"
+said Billie, feeling irritable because she was very sleepy and had been
+very much frightened. "It's bad enough for a live person to play, let
+alone a ghost."
+
+"And where could it have gone?" wondered Laura, her eyes big and dark
+with excitement. "The minute we heard the noise--I guess we're sort of
+listening for it even in our sleep--we jumped up and came down here while
+Billie went to call you boys. It was playing almost up to the minute we
+came into the room."
+
+"And maybe we weren't afraid to go in!" said Violet, with a shudder. "I
+don't know how we ever got the courage."
+
+"Well, you only came because Mrs. Gilligan and I went ahead with the
+broom and the poker," sniffed Laura.
+
+"Was it playing when you came down the stairs?" asked Chet, interested.
+"And did it stop as soon as you entered the room?"
+
+"Yes," it was Mrs. Gilligan who answered this time. "And it was good for
+him he did. I've lost enough sleep through the miserable rascal and I was
+just ripe for a tussle."
+
+"I don't blame him for running," said Teddy, with a chuckle.
+
+"But where did he go?" asked Laura again. "We were sure that we'd see
+something--goodness knows what--when we turned the corner of the room."
+
+"And all we saw was a--a large amount of nothing at all," added Violet,
+wide-eyed.
+
+"Perhaps," suggested Ferd, with a chuckle, "the aeroplane we heard
+belonged to him--"
+
+"A ghost's aeroplane," murmured Billie, smothering another
+hysterical chuckle.
+
+"And when you girls came in he just soared skyward and went off in it."
+
+"It's funny we never thought of that," said Teddy scornfully.
+
+"Well, I wish we could find out what it is," sighed Billie, as they
+started upstairs again. "This staying awake all night isn't very
+much fun."
+
+"But isn't it strange," asked Laura, stopping on the landing and looking
+back at them, "that both the piano and the motor should start again on
+the same night?"
+
+"Yes, it is, rather," said Chet, adding seriously: "I wonder if there
+could really be any connection between the two."
+
+"There's no use wondering, that I can see," said Mrs. Gilligan, preparing
+to send them off to their respective bedrooms. "I think the best thing we
+can do is not to notice them any more. Perhaps the ghosts will get tired,
+if they find they don't worry us," this last with a chuckle.
+
+"Well, but they do worry us," said Violet plaintively. "Every time I hear
+that piano, I just about die of fright."
+
+"Listen," commanded Billie, and as they listened they heard it
+again! The ghost, or whatever it was, was surely making a joke of
+them that night!
+
+As soon as the boys could recover from their surprise they tumbled down
+the stairs, tripping over each other in their hurry, while the girls
+followed more slowly.
+
+But again the noise stopped abruptly, and when they entered the room
+there was nothing to be seen or heard.
+
+"Say, this thing is making me mad!" cried Ferd, glaring at the old piano
+as though it were the offender. "I don't mind meeting an
+honest-to-goodness ghost, but I'll be hanged if I'll let him laugh at
+me!"
+
+"I don't see how you're going to help it," said Teddy. "Come on, fellows,
+it's pretty nearly morning, and we can decide then what we'll do to catch
+Mr. Ghost. I'm so sleepy I'm apt to fall asleep on my feet."
+
+So they went upstairs again, feeling rather miserable and dragged out
+with excitement, and crawled into bed.
+
+"If this thing keeps up much longer, I'll just be a wreck, that's all,"
+groaned Laura, and almost immediately she fell asleep.
+
+After a little while of staring into the dark, Billie and Violet followed
+her example, and once more there was quiet in the old house.
+
+Nothing more disturbed them, but they woke the next morning, tired and
+cross and with a decidedly "morning after" feeling.
+
+"I don't want to get up," complained Violet, turning restlessly in bed
+and punching her pillow. "I can't get more than one eye open."
+
+"Shall we send for the doctor?" asked Billie, regarding her sleepily.
+"That sounds like a serious complaint."
+
+"Humph, I don't need a doctor," grumbled Violet. "I can prescribe for my
+case better than he could. What I need is a rest cure."
+
+"So say we all of us," echoed Laura sleepily. "I'm going to take
+another nap, girls, and if anybody dares to wake me up, I'll throw my
+hair brush at them."
+
+"I'm going to get up," decided Billie. "I'll only get a headache
+lying here."
+
+"Well, I hope you enjoy yourself," said Laura, and settled herself in a
+still more comfortable position.
+
+While Billie was dressing the two girls fell asleep again, and as
+she turned to look at them she almost wished that she had followed
+their example.
+
+"But I knew I couldn't sleep," she said, turning away, "and, besides, I'm
+getting very hungry."
+
+But when she started down the broad staircase she found that she was the
+only one stirring in the house, and a strange, lonesome feeling took
+possession of her.
+
+"Ugh," she cried, glancing about her distastefully, "it's the gloomiest
+place I ever did see. I'll be glad when we leave it. That is, I would
+be," she added wistfully, "if only Chet and I were going with the others
+to boarding school."
+
+She wandered into the room where the old piano stood and looked at it
+musingly for a few minutes. Then suddenly a thought struck her, and she
+clapped her hands gleefully.
+
+"I wonder--" she said, then, remembering an old rat trap that she had
+come across several days ago, ran into the pantry to get it. She baited
+it with a fresh piece of cheese and set it carefully on the piano.
+
+"Now," she said, standing back and regarding her work with satisfaction,
+"we shall see what we shall see!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A THRILLING DISCOVERY
+
+
+It was ten o'clock before the girls finally came down, and it was still
+later before the boys appeared. Mrs. Gilligan and Billie had had
+breakfast together, and Billie had confided to the older woman her
+suspicions in regard to the ghostly player of the old piano.
+
+"But we won't tell the boys and girls," Billie had said, with a
+delightful sense of conspiracy. "We'll wait and see if it works."
+
+As the young people came in, looking famished, Mrs. Gilligan rose and put
+some cold muffins in the oven to heat.
+
+"You won't get very much to eat," she warned them. "Billie and I had our
+breakfast at a respectable hour, and now you've got to take what's left."
+
+"I don't care what you give us, as long as it's food," said Ferd, looking
+about him anxiously. "I'm just about starved to death."
+
+"It seems to me I've heard that remark somewhere before," said Billie,
+laughing at him. "Hurry up and eat, you folks," she added, as she set a
+dish of fried hominy before them. "We girls haven't really made a
+thorough examination of the attic yet, and I'm just dying to poke into
+all the corners."
+
+"Yes, I always did like attics," said Laura, adding, as she swallowed a
+delicious morsel: "But, I like fried hominy more!"
+
+"Won't you come too?" Violet asked the boys, as, their breakfast over,
+the girls started up to the attic. "We'd love to have you and you might
+find it interesting."
+
+"No, thanks," said Teddy decidedly. "I can think of lots better things
+to do than go roaming about a hot old attic when the thermometer is
+ninety-six in the shade. I'm going for a walk in the woods. How about
+it, fellows?"
+
+"Yes, and see if we can come across those old fellows with the beards
+that told us the corn-fish story," chuckled Chet. "You know," he added, "I
+have wondered several times since then what the old fellows were up to.
+Somehow, I'm mighty sure they didn't tell the truth."
+
+"I tell you what!" cried Ferd eagerly. "Let's push on in the direction we
+were going the other day and see what's being pulled off in there."
+
+"Yes, and get shot most likely," sniffed Laura. "I don't think much of
+that idea."
+
+"Well, we didn't ask you to come, did we?" Ferd asked.
+
+"No, and I don't think it was very nice of you, after we invited you to
+our party," Violet put in, trying to look aggrieved.
+
+"Oh, please won't you come with us?" asked Ferd, bowing elaborately
+before her.
+
+Laura gave him a little push which precipitated him in a rather abrupt
+manner into a chair and completely spoiled his gallantry.
+
+"I'll get even with you," he threatened good-naturedly, during the laugh
+that followed at his expense. "But say, fellows, you haven't answered my
+question. Are you game?"
+
+"Sure we're game," they answered, and Chet added, as he picked up a stick
+he had found in the woods several days before and had modeled into an
+excellent club: "If they start any funny business they'll find me ready
+for them."
+
+"Oh, boys, do be careful!" Billie begged, really afraid that their love
+of adventure would get them into trouble. "I didn't like the looks of
+those men. And they had clubs."
+
+"Maybe--" said Violet in an awed voice. "Maybe they're--what do you call
+them--the fellows that make whiskey--"
+
+"Moonshiners?" Teddy helped her out, and the boys shouted with laughter.
+
+"All the more reason why we should find them out," said Ferd, as they
+started from the room. "It's our duty," he turned in the doorway to make
+them a bow, "to turn them over to justice."
+
+"It must be a disease," laughed Billie, as the girls ascended the old
+staircase together.
+
+"Well, I hope they live through it," added Laura, with a chuckle.
+
+"I found a funny old closet yesterday," said Billie, as they came out
+into the musty attic. "I was just going to open it and see what was
+inside when you girls called me for something. Here it is," indicating a
+small door, the top of which was only on a level with their shoulders.
+
+"I never saw so many queer things in one place in my life," said
+Laura, peering down as Billie opened the door. "I didn't know they
+grew that way."
+
+"We'll have to stoop down to get in here," said Billie, poking her head
+into the stuffy dark hole disclosed. "And look, girls!" she exclaimed
+excitedly, as her eyes became accustomed to the gloom. "The closet runs
+away back an awfully long way, and there seems to be something bulky at
+the other end of it."
+
+"Well, let's go in," said Laura, giving Billie an impatient little push.
+"We can't find anything by standing here. Billie, what's the matter?" for
+Billie had started back so suddenly that she had almost thrown Laura off
+her balance.
+
+"It's another of those horrid old bats," she gasped, bending down as an
+indistinct little shape fluttered past her. "I shouldn't think they could
+live in the closet without air or anything to eat."
+
+"It probably flew in when you opened the door the other day," Violet
+suggested.
+
+Once more Billie bent down and felt her way into the narrow closet.
+
+"Don't try to stand up, girls," she cautioned. "You're apt to get an
+awful bump on the head."
+
+"I've already had one," said Violet, rubbing the bumped spot tenderly.
+"Goodness, it smells musty in here."
+
+"Girls, it's a trunk!" cried Billie, leaning down to examine the bulky
+object she had seen at the other end. "A pretty big one, too, and oh," as
+she attempted to lift one end, "awfully heavy."
+
+"A trunk," Laura repeated excitedly. "That sounds interesting. Can't you
+pull it out, Billie?"
+
+"I'll try," replied Billie, adding with a chuckle: "But I
+shouldn't wonder if you girls would have to help by pulling me.
+My, but it's heavy!"
+
+However, after much hauling and pulling, Billie finally succeeded in
+backing out of the closet, pulling the trunk after her. Then standing up
+and brushing the hair out of her eyes, she regarded it gleefully.
+
+"Everything in the house is mine," she reminded them, as she stooped down
+again to examine the lock, "so I have a perfect right to look in
+anything I find."
+
+"Well, nobody's arguing about that," said Laura, sitting down on the
+floor, regardless of a fine coating of dust, and helping Billie in her
+examination.
+
+"Hasn't it any key?" asked Violet eagerly.
+
+"Of course not, silly," Laura answered. "What would be the use of a
+locked trunk if you kept the key around where everybody could see it?"
+
+"Well, I didn't even know it was locked," Violet said, rather
+heatedly for her.
+
+Billie jumped to her feet and gave the trunk a sudden jerk.
+
+"Girls!" she cried, "did you hear that?"
+
+"Hear what?" they chorused eagerly.
+
+"But, didn't you hear it rattle when we pulled it out of the closet? I
+thought so then. Now I'm sure. Oh, girls!"
+
+"What is the matter, Billie?"
+
+"I jerked the trunk," explained Billie, while the color tinged her face,
+"and it jingled! Yes it did, it actually jingled!"
+
+"Billie!" cried Laura looking wide-eyed and awed, "do you mean it sounded
+like _money_?"
+
+For answer Billie reached down and gave the trunk another jerk. Sure
+enough, there was the unmistakable jingle of metal against metal as
+though the trunk were filled with coins.
+
+Their hearts beating fast, hardly able to speak with excitement, the
+girls stood and stared down at this new discovery.
+
+"I--I feel like Captain Kidd!" gasped Billie, her cheeks crimson now.
+"Like Captain Kidd when he found the treasure. Girls, do you really think
+it _is_ money?"
+
+"It certainly sounds like it," said Violet in a voice tremulous with
+excitement, as she reached down and gave the trunk another jerk just for
+the fun of hearing its contents jingle.
+
+"Well, let's get it downstairs," suggested Laura, wildly impatient to see
+the treasure, if treasure it were. "We certainly can't open it ourselves
+without a key. Oh, if the boys were only at home!" she added with an
+impatient little stamp of her foot "It seems to me they're never around
+when you want them."
+
+"Maybe we can call them back. They haven't had time to go far," said
+Billie, stirred to instant action by the thought. "Come on Laura, you
+take one end, Vi can steady it at the side, and we'll at least get the
+trunk downstairs. That's the way! Now then!"
+
+After a good deal of pushing and lugging, and a spasm of fright when the
+trunk almost fell on Laura, they finally succeeded in getting their
+burden down to the second floor.
+
+There the girls left it and started hastily down the stairs in pursuit of
+the boys. They had gone only half the way, however, when they were
+startled by a tremendous crash and explosion outside and stood still,
+their hearts in their mouths.
+
+"Oh, now what has happened?" cried Violet as they rushed down the rest of
+the steps and started for the front door.
+
+Half way to the door Mrs. Gilligan met them, holding a rat trap in her
+hand from which hung, suspended, a dead rat.
+
+"Where did you get that?" the girls cried in chorus.
+
+"It's Mr. Rat, the piano player," said Mrs. Gilligan, adding as she
+pushed past them and ran to the door: "Did you hear that awful noise
+outside, girls?"
+
+"Did we hear it?" they cried, following her.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Gilligan, what do you suppose it was?" asked Violet, pressing
+close to her.
+
+"Somebody is probably hurt," answered the woman, adding as though to
+herself: "Terribly hurt! Hope it ain't the boys!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE WRECKED AEROPLANE
+
+
+The girls never remembered very clearly what happened after that. They
+had a vague and confused recollection of seeing the boys gathered around
+something in the bushes at the brook that groaned a little and made queer
+sputtering noises.
+
+Then the boys bent down and began extricating the groaning thing from the
+wreck of something.
+
+"Chet, what is it?" cried Billie, with an impression that she was living
+a dream. She tried to push past him, but her brother stopped her.
+
+"Stay away, Sis," he ordered. "The poor fellow's hurt--we don't know how
+badly--and I'd rather you would go back to the house."
+
+"But if he's hurt, there's all the more need for us," insisted Billie,
+sudden decision in her voice. "We know first aid. Let us past, boys."
+
+Not exactly knowing why they obeyed her, the boys drew aside and she ran
+to the side of the prostrate figure on the ground, the other girls
+following half reluctantly.
+
+The boys had succeeded in removing the man from the wreckage--one
+glance about them told the girls that the wreck had once been an
+aeroplane--and the man, who was elderly, lay quite still, looking up at
+them with sick eyes.
+
+"Oh, can't we get him up to the house?" cried Billie, clasping her hands
+in pity and looking appealingly at Mrs. Gilligan. "Then we can send for
+a doctor--"
+
+But it was the hurt man himself who interrupted.
+
+"I--I'm all in," he said, speaking with great effort. "It won't do any
+good to move me--"
+
+"But it might," cried Violet, coming down and leaning compassionately
+over him while her eyes filled with tears. "Do you think--it would
+hurt--too much--"
+
+"Come on. Let's try it, fellows," said Teddy, speaking with sudden
+decision. "We can't leave him here to die, perhaps," he added softly. "We
+can at least make an attempt to save his life."
+
+He bent down, and, putting a hand under each of the man's arms, lifted
+him slightly, eliciting a moan of pain.
+
+"You take his feet, Chet, and, Ferd, you support his back," he directed.
+"Now then--"
+
+The boys started to obey, but at the first touch the man cried out in
+such pain that they were forced to put him down again.
+
+"It's something in here," said the old fellow, while the girls and boys
+stood looking helplessly at him, not knowing what to do. He put a hand
+over his left side. "Something's broken. I--I was trying to--invent a new
+kind of aeroplane," he went on jerkily, and in spite of the tragic
+circumstances the young folks felt a thrill of excitement as they
+realized that here perhaps was the secret of that strange humming noise
+that had so badly frightened and bewildered them.
+
+"The second ghost," murmured Teddy softly, as though to himself, but
+Billie, standing close beside him, heard.
+
+"A new kind of aeroplane," Chet prompted, gently but with an unusual
+light in his eye.
+
+"Yes. And this was its--trial flight," the old man said with a world of
+bitterness in his voice. "The engine exploded. I guess it shows that I'm
+pretty much of a failure--in every way."
+
+"I don't see why," cried Billie, her warm heart eager to give him
+comfort. "There may have been just some little thing the matter that
+you--What's that?"
+
+"That" was the sound of running feet and a crackling of bushes, and the
+next minute two men burst out into the clearing. They were red of face
+and breathless, and when they saw the old man and the wrecked machine
+they stood stock still and stared in consternation.
+
+With a start the girls and boys recognized the men as those whom they
+had met in the woods that other day not so long ago--the men who had so
+curtly ordered them to "go the other way."
+
+So the corn story was a fish story after all, and the old inventor's
+vain attempt to make a new kind of flying machine was the key to all
+the mystery!
+
+"Are you very much hurt, Dad?" cried the younger of the two men, leaning
+anxiously over the old man. Again the young folks were startled. So one
+of the bearded men was the old man's son!
+
+"All in, Son, I guess," answered the old man. With a sigh he laid his
+hand over his left side and whispered: "I'm all smashed to pieces. The
+engine exploded."
+
+"Well, let's see about that," said the second of the two men, pushing the
+younger aside and beginning to rip open the old man's shirt.
+
+Up to that time neither of the men had thrown a glance in the direction
+of the wondering boys and girls--in fact they gave every impression of
+not having seen them at all.
+
+The older of the two men was working feverishly--he seemed to be a
+doctor, judging from the skill with which he tapped here and pressed
+there, evidently trying to find out what bones were broken, if any.
+
+And all the time the old inventor kept up a feeble moaning.
+
+"He must be very much hurt indeed, or very, very old," thought Billie
+as, with one hand clasped tightly in Laura's and the other gripping
+Violet's arm, she watched intently.
+
+"Why, this isn't so bad after all," announced the man at last, looking up
+from his patient with a light in his eyes that made him look very boyish
+in spite of the beard on his face. "Your father's terribly bruised and
+battered up, Stanton," he said, addressing the old man's son, who had
+been looking on with strained attention, "but as far as I can see the
+only bones broken are a rib or two. We'll soon fix you up as good as
+new," he went on, turning again to the old man.
+
+The latter looked surprised and left off moaning.
+
+"You mean I'm going to live?" he asked incredulously, adding with a faint
+little attempt at a smile: "Why--why, I was sure I was--done for!"
+
+"No indeed," said the "doctor-person"--as Billie had already dubbed him,
+rising briskly to his feet. "You'll live to fly many another aeroplane,
+Mr. Parsons. Now will you let your son and me take you home?"
+
+Such is the power of mind over matter, the inventor hardly made any
+outcry at all when his son and the "doctor-person" lifted him between
+them and started off through the woods.
+
+As he turned about, the doctor's eyes rested on the boys and girls and he
+stopped short, apparently really seeing them for the first time.
+
+"Hello," he said. "I beg your pardon, but I scarcely noticed you,"
+adding, more by way of explanation than excuse: "You see I was very much
+occupied."
+
+"Oh, we don't mind," said Billie truthfully, adding as the doctor turned
+toward her: "Is there anything we can do to help the--the inventor?"
+
+"Oh, so he told you then," said the doctor, with a vexed frown. "No,
+thanks, there's nothing you can do. We'll be back for the pieces of the
+aeroplane later."
+
+And without another glance the strange trio disappeared into the woods.
+
+For a long minute the boys and girls stood staring after the strange men
+dazedly, then they turned to each other with a sigh.
+
+"Well!" said Laura explosively, "if everything isn't happening to us at
+once, then my name isn't Laura Jordon. To think that our ghost turned out
+to be an inventor after all!"
+
+"You look as if you were disappointed," gibed Ferd, beginning to recover
+from his bewilderment. "We'll manufacture a brand new ghost if you say
+so, but it may take time--"
+
+"Goodness, you needn't bother," said Violet, going over to the wrecked
+machine and regarding it wonderingly. "We've had enough of ghosts to last
+us a lifetime. My, that poor old inventor must have had a terrible fall."
+
+"It's a miracle," said Teddy, who had joined her and was looking down at
+the wreck soberly, "that he ever came out alive. I agreed with him at
+first, that he was all in."
+
+"Well, let it be a lesson to you," said Chet with mock gravity, "never to
+let your ambitions soar to aeroplane inventing."
+
+"If that's meant to be a joke," said Laura bitingly, "I must say it's as
+much of a failure as our old inventor himself. Well, girls," she added,
+turning back to them, "I don't suppose there's any use staying around
+here any longer. Let's go back to the house."
+
+It was not till they were entering the grim old door of the grim old
+house that they thought again of Billie's new discovery--the trunk
+that jingled.
+
+"Goodness! how could we ever have forgotten it?" cried Billie as she,
+with Violet and Laura, fairly flew up the stairs, leaving the bewildered
+boys to follow them.
+
+"Now what's up?" asked Teddy, as he came into the room where the girls
+had left their treasure. "So many things are happening all at once that
+it's enough to make a fellow's brain reel."
+
+"It all depends on the brain," said Billie, looking up at him with a
+twinkle in her eye. And all Teddy did was to look sad and reproachful.
+
+"Say, what shall I be doin' with this?" asked Mrs. Gilligan, and they
+turned to see her great bulk looming in the doorway. In her hand she
+held the rat trap with the dangling rat.
+
+"Gee, where did you get it?" cried Chet, jumping to his feet from where
+he had been kneeling with Billie, examining the shabby trunk.
+
+Mrs. Gilligan paused a moment and a gleam of humor shot into her eyes.
+
+"You've been askin' to see ghosts, Mr. Chet," she said, with a chuckle,
+"and you sure have got your wish this day. That airman was the first.
+Here is the second one!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+COINS AND POSTAGE STAMPS
+
+
+Chet looked bewildered for a minute--then disgusted, an expression that
+was faithfully reflected on the faces of the other boys.
+
+"A ghost! That?" he said, pointing scornfully at the dead rat. "What do
+you mean?"
+
+"Oh, Chet!" cried Billie, springing to her feet in her turn. "That's
+another thing we forgot. This is Mr. Rat, the piano player."
+
+"Have you all gone crazy, or have I?" cried poor Chet, looking still more
+bewildered. But suddenly Teddy saw light.
+
+"You mean the musical ghost," he cried, laughter in his voice. "The one
+that has had us chasing down flights of stairs on dark nights?"
+
+"With the chills running up and down our spines and our hair standing on
+end?" added Ferd, following his lead.
+
+"The very same," responded Mrs. Gilligan, the gleam deepening in her
+eyes.
+
+"But how did you catch it?" asked Violet, for the girls, all
+except Billie, who had originated the idea, were as much in the
+dark as the boys.
+
+"With a trap," said Billie, her own eyes beginning to sparkle.
+
+"But who thought of it?" Violet insisted, ignoring the sarcasm.
+
+"You see before you the girl who invented it," said Billie with a
+chuckle.
+
+"Great pumpkins, another inventor!" groaned Ferd, and sent them off into
+a spasm of laughter.
+
+"Oh, tell us about it, Billie," Laura entreated. "You can be the most
+aggravating thing!"
+
+"Stop calling me names or I'll never tell you," threatened Billie, at
+which Laura looked as meek as Laura could ever look.
+
+Thereupon Billie recounted to an interested audience the events that had
+led to her idea that it might be a rat that was making a joke of them all
+and how she had decided to put her idea to the test.
+
+"Say, think of getting excited about a mouse!" cried Ferd incredulously,
+when she had finished.
+
+"It wasn't a mouse--it was a rat," corrected Billie.
+
+"But it might have been a mouse," Ferd protested, but Billie broke in
+again.
+
+"No it mightn't," she said decidedly. "A mouse could never have made
+noise enough for us to hear when we were upstairs in bed."
+
+"Right you are," said Ferd, taking off an imaginary cap to Billie. "I
+have to hand it to you, Billie--you're right there."
+
+"You said it that time, old man," murmured Teddy very softly, but Billie
+heard him and looked up at him with laughing eyes.
+
+"Come help us open our trunk," she said, turning away suddenly.
+
+"Whose trunk is it?"
+
+"Where did you get it?"
+
+"Looks as if it had come out of Noah's ark."
+
+These and many more comments piled one on top of the other as the boys
+looked at the old trunk, which did indeed appear old enough to have
+satisfied the most ardent collector of antiques.
+
+"Why, it's my trunk," said Billie, when she could make herself heard
+above the babble. "We found it in the attic. But I don't see what
+difference it makes where we got it," she added impatiently, getting down
+on her knees once more and shaking the trunk as if it were to blame.
+"Won't you please get busy and open it, boys? Aren't you a bit curious to
+see what's inside?"
+
+"Is there a key?" asked Ferd, and Billie looked up at him in despair.
+
+"Of course not, silly," she said. "Don't you suppose we'd have had it
+open ages ago if there had been a key? You'll have to break it open, or
+pick the lock, or something."
+
+"Say, she's insulting us! Thinks we're thugs," murmured Ferd, as he,
+with the other boys, got down on the floor and began to examine the
+trunk eagerly.
+
+"Yes, where do you suppose we got our experience in picking locks?" added
+Chet, looking aggrieved.
+
+"Goodness, I don't care whether you pick the lock or what you do as long
+as you get it open," cried Billie, half wild with impatience now that the
+fateful moment had arrived. "You can use dynamite for all I care."
+
+"Maybe that's what's in it," suggested Teddy, and the girls screamed.
+
+"Teddy! Of all the wet blankets!"
+
+"Well, you never can tell," said Teddy, adding wickedly, as Ferd started
+to set the trunk on end: "Be careful there, Ferd; she may explode, as the
+aeroplane did."
+
+"Somebody give me something to throw at him," cried Laura indignantly.
+"Anyway," she added triumphantly, "we know there isn't dynamite in it or
+we'd have been blown to bits long ago. We dragged it down stairs."
+
+"Yes, and we didn't do it very gently either," added Violet.
+
+"It has a pretty strong lock," said Chet, getting to his feet and
+rumpling up his hair thoughtfully. "I'll have to get a hammer and a wedge
+of some sort."
+
+"Oh, there are all sorts of tools down in the tool-house," Billie cried
+eagerly, and Chet looked at her as though she had said she had discovered
+a gold mine in the back yard.
+
+"Tools!" he repeated, his eyes shining. "Are they good ones?"
+
+"I don't know anything about tools," said Billie. "But it looked as if
+there were hundreds of them--"
+
+Chet waited to hear no more. Like a streak of lightning he was out of the
+room and racing down the stairs.
+
+"Tools!" he was saying gloatingly to himself, "hundreds of them!"
+
+Upstairs Billie turned and looked at Teddy in dismay.
+
+"Now what have I done?" she cried. "If he once gets among those tools we
+won't see him for hours. Teddy," and she looked appealing enough even to
+melt Teddy's hard heart, "won't you go after him? You will have to just
+tear him away--"
+
+However, the two boys were back sooner than the girls expected, for they
+were very curious about the contents of the small shabby trunk, which had
+so evidently been hidden away in the darkest corner of a dark closet in
+the attic.
+
+"Say, those are some tools, Billie," said Chet jubilantly, as he pried
+away at the lock. "You could do just about anything with them--anything
+from making a house, to breaking into one. I say," he added, stopping
+work to look at her entreatingly, "don't you remember mother saying that
+Aunt Beatrice left you the house and me--the tools?"
+
+The girls and boys laughed, and Billie patted his shoulder fondly.
+
+"No, I don't remember anything of the sort," she said, imitating his tone
+to perfection. "But if you're a good boy and open the trunk in a hurry,
+I'll deed them to you, Chet--every last tool in the tool-house."
+
+"Honest to goodness?" cried Chet, his eyes beaming.
+
+"Honest to goodness, brother mine."
+
+Then Chet fell to work with fresh enthusiasm on the lock.
+
+It was a stubborn old lock, and required a good deal of patience--which
+the girls had not--and tinkering to make it give way.
+
+But it gave at last, and girls and boys leaned forward with sighs of pure
+excitement.
+
+"Open it," cried Laura impatiently, but Billie put her hand on the lid
+and faced them with shining eyes.
+
+"We'll each have just one guess," she said, "and see who comes nearest to
+guessing right."
+
+"I bet it's money," cried Chet.
+
+"That isn't fair, I was going to bet that too."
+
+"So was I--"
+
+"And I--"
+
+Billie threw up her hands in despair.
+
+"Of course, if you're all going to guess the same thing it's all ruined,"
+she said, then added, as she bent forward and started to lift the cover:
+"I don't know that I blame you, though, for I was going to guess the very
+same thing!"
+
+"Oh, Billie, hurry! You're so slow!" cried Laura, jumping up and down
+with excitement. "Do get at it!"
+
+"Shall I do it?" asked Violet, feeling an almost irresistible desire to
+push Billie away and fling back the lid. Why was she so slow?
+
+"One--two--three!" cried Billie, and then the lid was off and they were
+staring down into the contents of the trunk.
+
+For a minute they stood motionless. Then, as though moved by one impulse,
+they dropped to their knees and buried their hands in something that
+jingled at their touch!
+
+The trunk was full to the brim with old coins, many quite rare, while
+scattered here and there were postage stamps on sheets and loose,
+queer, foreign looking things that made Billie's eyes glisten as she
+looked at them.
+
+"It must have all belonged to Uncle Henry," she said, in an awed voice.
+"Aunt Beatrice once said he had a hobby for collecting postage stamps and
+old coins--"
+
+"But it _is_ money," cried Laura, finding her voice at last, her blue
+eyes dark with excitement. "Why, Billie, these old coins must be worth a
+big lot of money!"
+
+"You bet! It's a treasure," said Teddy soberly. Then with a little smile
+he turned to Billie--Billie who was vivid and breathless with the great
+discovery. "Allow me to present to you, ladies and gentlemen, our old
+friend, Captain Kidd!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+"LARGE FORTUNES"
+
+
+"Billie, it's worth a small fortune!"
+
+"I'll bet the stuff is worth several thousand dollars."
+
+"Yes, every bit of it."
+
+"Oh, boys, as much as that?" questioned Billie, half hysterically.
+
+"Of course," came from Teddy. He was on his knees in front of the
+treasure box. "See these coins? Gold, every one of 'em--and as big as ten
+dollar pieces, too."
+
+"Count 'em," cried Chet.
+
+Then began a hasty move on the part of both girls and boys to count the
+gold and silver. Poor Billie's hands trembled so she could scarcely help.
+
+"I make it the gold and silver alone are worth at least three thousand
+dollars," declared Teddy.
+
+"And don't forget the copper coins," added Ferd.
+
+"And remember too they are old coins and worth something extra from a
+collector's point of view," said Chet.
+
+From the coins the young folks turned to the postage stamps. Chet and
+Teddy had done a little stamp collecting once and knew that some of the
+stamps were rare.
+
+"I think they are worth at least fifteen hundred dollars more," said
+Teddy, "and maybe they are worth twice that. Some stamps are worth a
+hundred dollars apiece."
+
+It was not until they were called below by Mrs. Gilligan that they gave
+up speculating about the value of the trunk. The boys went off, leaving
+the girls to themselves.
+
+"It's too good to be true," murmured Billie, over and over again.
+
+Both of the other girls put their arms about her.
+
+"You deserve it," said Laura.
+
+"I'm awfully glad, Billie, really I am," beamed Violet.
+
+"Why, I'll be able to go to Three Towers Hall!" cried Billie, a little
+later, when thinking it all over. "And I can send Chet to Boxton Military
+Academy. Won't that be fine?"
+
+"And you can have enough left to pay for that old statue," added Laura,
+with a smile. "I knew something good would come out of this queer old
+house at Cherry Corners."
+
+"Well, you needn't take all the credit to yourself," said Billie, the
+lilt of happiness and excitement in her voice. "Just remember, young
+lady, that it was little Billie Bradley who discovered the trunk."
+
+"You stuck up thing," cried Violet, putting a fond arm again about her.
+"Billie, dear," she went on in the serious voice that was Violet's very
+own, "I'm just exactly as glad for myself that you found the money as I
+am for you. Because if Laura and I had had to go to Three Towers without
+you we wouldn't have enjoyed a single thing."
+
+"Yes, we've been worrying terribly about that," sighed Laura, and
+affectionately Billie patted a hand of each.
+
+"There never was a girl had such wonderful friends," she said, and
+something in her throat tightened a little. "And it makes the trunk three
+times as valuable," she added, in a lighter tone, "because it makes three
+people happy instead of one. Which reminds me--" she stopped short and
+put her hand over her mouth in consternation.
+
+"Now what's the matter?" Violet surveyed her anxiously. "Is there a pin
+sticking you, or something?"
+
+"Of course not," denied Billie absently, adding as she rose hastily to
+her feet: "It just struck me that I've known this wonderful thing for
+hours and I haven't written home about it yet."
+
+"Well, you'd better read these first," sang out a cheery voice from the
+door, and they turned to find Teddy coming toward them with some letters
+in his hand.
+
+"Letters!" was the joyful cry. "Give them to us, Teddy, before we take
+them from you."
+
+"Oh, do you really think you could?" he asked, holding them behind his
+back by way of challenge. "Just come on and try. I'll guarantee to hold
+off the three of you with one hand."
+
+But it was Billie's pleading face that made him change his mind.
+
+"Please, Teddy," she begged, "I've just been dying for some letters from
+home. Don't keep me waiting."
+
+"All right, your word is law," said Teddy gallantly, remembering that he
+had read the phrase somewhere and it had sounded very good. "Here you
+are, and here's one for Vi and two for Laura."
+
+"Goodness, what have I done to get only one?" cried Violet, feeling very
+much abused.
+
+"Well, your one looks fat enough to make up for our two," Billie assured
+her diplomatically, then settled back to enjoy her own letters, while
+Teddy ran out to join the boys downstairs.
+
+One of her letters was from her mother, and with a loving smile she laid
+it aside to be read last--she always saved the best till the last. The
+writing on the other envelope puzzled her.
+
+"Now, who is writing to me from Mayport, Long Island?" she demanded, and
+the girls looked up inquiringly from their letters.
+
+"Another mystery?" asked Laura, for there were not enough mysteries in
+the world to satisfy Laura.
+
+"It doesn't look very mysterious," answered Billie, turning the envelope
+around and around in her hand and finally holding it up to the light to
+see if she could get any clew to its contents that way. "But I surely
+never did see that handwriting before. I wonder--"
+
+"Well, why don't you open it?" Violet inquired impatiently. "It seems to
+me that's the best way to find out."
+
+"Isn't she the bright child?" sniffed Laura, as Billie tore open the
+envelope and pulled out the letter inside. Hastily she looked for the
+signature at the end, then gave a little excited exclamation.
+
+"Girls," she said, "it's from Miss Beggs!" And she looked at them with
+wide eyes, forgetting for the moment that she had no more reason to fear
+a letter from the teacher. Then she remembered, and a joyful smile dawned
+on her face.
+
+"Girls, I've been sort of dreading this letter all summer," she said,
+her eyes sparkling, "and now when it's come I don't mind a bit. Isn't it
+just wonderful? I have money enough of my own to replace that horrid
+'Girl Reading a Book' and two or three more like it. Now," she said,
+settling down with a satisfied little sigh, "if you'll allow me, I'll
+read my letter."
+
+The girls watched her as she read and were amazed to see her expression
+change from satisfaction to surprise and from surprise to something
+like chagrin.
+
+"Well, if that isn't the limit!" she cried, laying down the letter and
+regarding the girls disgustedly. "Here I've been worrying myself--and
+Chet--sick all summer about that horrid old statue and now when I've got
+the money to pay for it, I find out that I probably wouldn't have had to
+replace the old thing anyway."
+
+"What do you mean?" the others asked, more puzzled than ever by this
+flow of words.
+
+"Why," Billie went on to explain, glancing at the letter again, "Miss
+Beggs says that the statue had been broken before and she had attempted
+to mend it. She says that I'm not to worry over it, for it would have
+been only a matter of time before it had fallen to pieces itself anyway.
+Now what do you think of that?"
+
+"I think," said Violet, with a sigh, "that we have wasted a good deal of
+time and worry over nothing at all."
+
+"Well, I don't see any use of looking doleful about it," said Laura
+briskly. "I should think you'd be glad, Billie, that you won't have to
+buy a statue. It will give you that much more money to have for
+yourself."
+
+"Oh, but I'll buy a little statue, anyway," said Billie decidedly. "It's
+awfully nice of Miss Beggs to tell me not to bother about it, but the
+fact is that I _re_broke the statue, whether it was broken before or
+not. And, anyway, I'll be glad to do it now," she added, with a little
+gleam in her eye, "just to show Amanda Peabody that I can!"
+
+"I say, up there, aren't you ever coming down?" called Chet's voice from
+the bottom of the stairs, and Laura went out into the hall to see what
+he wanted.
+
+"We're making plans for the fall," Chet added, and in his voice was a
+little joyous thrill that made Billie's heart sing. Dear old Chet--if
+ever a boy deserved to get what he wanted, he did. "And if you don't come
+down and help us, we're going to leave you out," he added challengingly.
+
+"Better come up here," suggested Laura, adding decidedly. "We can't come
+down, you know."
+
+"I'd like to know why not!"
+
+"We can't leave the trunk," Laura explained patiently, as if she were
+addressing a particularly stupid child. "It's too precious."
+
+So in the end the girls had their way, and the boys joined them in the
+upstairs room which came the nearest to being cheerful of any room in the
+house, except the kitchen.
+
+At first the boys talked and the girls listened. But gradually the bits
+of fancy work were laid aside, the girls joined in the conversation,
+while eyes shone bright and faces glowed with anticipation of what the
+autumn held in store for them.
+
+And while Laura and Violet and the two boys were talking happily and all
+at once, Teddy took the opportunity to whisper in Billie's ear:
+
+"I suppose, being a young lady with a large fortune," he said teasingly,
+delighting in the color that rose to her face, "you won't find time to
+recognize your old friends any more."
+
+And with a dimpling smile and mischief in her eyes Billie answered him.
+
+"Of course not," she said, adding a trifle more seriously: "Except only
+the friends who stood by me so loyally and offered to help when I had no
+'large fortune,'"
+
+"And are you going to tell me," asked Teddy eagerly, "the names of
+those favored friends? I know I didn't do anything, Billie, but am I
+one of them?"
+
+"Your name," said Billie, half laughing and half serious, "is at the very
+head of the list."
+
+"Do you really mean--" Teddy was beginning eagerly, when Laura called to
+them laughingly.
+
+"Whispering in corners not allowed," she cried. "Come over here and help
+us decide what we'll eat for our first midnight feast at Three Towers
+Hall. We must have midnight feasts, you know."
+
+"Of course we must," cried Billie joyfully. "Doesn't it sound delicious?
+Oh, we're going to have a wonderful time!"
+
+And just how wonderful a time they had and just how merry and fun-loving
+they found the girls at the boarding school will be told in the next
+volume of the series entitled, "Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall; or,
+Leading a Needed Rebellion." In that volume may be met the girls and the
+boys again in adventures as queer and exciting as those already
+experienced.
+
+"Well, Billie, you can't complain of your inheritance after all," said
+Chet some time later.
+
+"Indeed not!" she answered. "Wasn't it the best ever?"
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance
+by Janet D. Wheeler
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10048 ***
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..413b667
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #10048 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10048)
diff --git a/old/10048.txt b/old/10048.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ee5191f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10048.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6225 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance, by Janet D. Wheeler
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance
+       The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners
+
+Author: Janet D. Wheeler
+
+Release Date: November 11, 2003 [EBook #10048]
+[Date last updated: January 8, 2005]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BILLIE BRADLEY AND HER INHERITANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+                    BILLIE BRADLEY AND HER INHERITANCE
+
+                                    OR
+
+                   THE QUEER HOMESTEAD AT CHERRY CORNERS
+
+                             BY JANET D. WHEELER
+
+                                   1920
+
+
+
+
+BILLIE BRADLEY AND HER INHERITANCE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+     I. AN ACCIDENT.
+
+    II. THAT HUNDRED DOLLARS.
+
+   III. CHET HELPS.
+
+    IV. THE LAST HOPE.
+
+     V. WORSE AND WORSE.
+
+    VI. DEBBIE DESERTS.
+
+   VII. A STRANGE BURGLAR.
+
+  VIII. STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS.
+
+    IX. GHOSTS AND THINGS.
+
+     X. OLD FURNITURE.
+
+    XI. BILLIE WINS OUT.
+
+   XII. GREAT PLANS.
+
+  XIII. CHERRY CORNERS.
+
+   XIV. WEIRD TALES.
+
+    XV. A NOISE IN THE DARK.
+
+   XVI. SHADOWS AND MYSTERY.
+
+  XVII. ONLY A BAT.
+
+ XVIII. A FISH STORY.
+
+   XIX. IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT.
+
+    XX. THE MOTOR AGAIN.
+
+   XXI. BOTH AT ONCE.
+
+  XXII. A THRILLING DISCOVERY.
+
+ XXIII. THE WRECKED AEROPLANE.
+
+  XXIV. COINS AND POSTAGE STAMPS.
+
+   XXV. "LARGE FORTUNES."
+
+
+
+
+BILLIE BRADLEY AND HER INHERITANCE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+AN ACCIDENT
+
+
+"Aren't you glad that we are only going back to school for a little
+while?" cried Billie Bradley, as she gave a little exultant skip.
+"Suppose it were fall and we were beginning high--"
+
+"Billie, stop it," commanded Laura Jordon, turning a pair of very blue
+and very indignant eyes upon her chum. "I thought we were going to forget
+school for a little while."
+
+"Well, we're not going back for anything I forgot," Billie was asserting
+when Violet Farrington, the third of the trio, interposed:
+
+"If you two are going to quarrel on a day like this, I'm going home."
+
+"Who said we were quarreling?" cried Billie, adding with a chuckle:
+"We're just having what Miss Beggs" (Miss Beggs being their English
+teacher) "would call an 'amiable discussion.'"
+
+"Listen to the bright child!" cried Laura mockingly. "I don't see how
+you ever get that way, Billie."
+
+"Neither do I," replied Billie, adding with a chuckle as they turned to
+stare at her: "Just natural talent, I guess."
+
+The three chums--and three brighter, prettier girls it would be hard to
+find--were on their way to the grammar school which had just closed the
+week before. Laura had forgotten a book which she prized highly and was
+in hope that the janitor, a good-natured old fellow, would let her in
+long enough to get it. At the last minute she had asked the other girls
+to go with her.
+
+The three chums had lived in North Bend, a town of less than twenty
+thousand people, practically all their lives. The girls loved it, for it
+was a pretty place. Still, being only forty miles by rail from New York
+City, they had been taken to the roaring metropolis once in a while as a
+treat, and it was only with great difficulty that their parents had
+succeeded in luring them home again.
+
+Among other things North Bend boasted a jewelry factory, of which Raymond
+Jordon, Laura's father, was the owner.
+
+Billie's father was the prominent Martin Bradley, well known among real
+estate and insurance men, and it was from him that Billie, whose real
+name was Beatrice, had taken her brown eyes and brown hair and even that
+merry, irrepressible imp of mischief that made Billie Bradley the most
+popular, best-loved girl in all North Bend.
+
+Her mother, Agnes Bradley, quiet, sincere and beautiful to look upon,
+kept just the check on her gay young daughter that the young girl needed.
+
+Billie had a brother, Chetwood Bradley, commonly known as "Chet"--a boy
+as different from his sister as night is from day, yet, in his own more
+quiet way, extremely attractive.
+
+Laura's brother, Theodore, known to his intimates as Teddy, was a
+handsome boy, as full of wild spirits as Billie herself. Teddy had
+entertained a lively admiration for Billie Bradley since he was seven and
+she was six. Teddy was tall for his fifteen years, and had already made a
+name for himself in the field of athletics.
+
+The third of the chums was Violet Farrington, a daughter of Richard
+Farrington, a well-known lawyer of North Bend, and Grace Farrington, a
+sweet, motherly woman.
+
+Nearly everybody loved Violet, who was tall and dark and sweet-tempered.
+She also acted as a sort of perpetual peace-maker between brown-eyed
+Billie and blue-eyed Laura.
+
+So now she was acting again on this glorious day in July when the roses
+were out and the birds were singing and the sun was shining its
+brightest.
+
+"What shall we do if we can't get in?" suggested Billie, waving her hand
+to Nellie Bane, another girl in her class, who passed on the opposite
+side of the street.
+
+"I suppose we'd have to go home again," answered Laura, adding with a
+little worried frown: "Oh, I do hope I can get the book. I wouldn't lose
+it for anything."
+
+"There goes Amanda Peabody," cried Violet suddenly, clutching
+Billie's arm.
+
+"That makes no difference in my young life," Billie slangily assured her.
+
+"As long as she _goes_, it's all right," added Laura, glancing after the
+lanky figure of Amanda Peabody as the girl swung off in the other
+direction.
+
+Amanda Peabody was not popular with the girls. Nor was she with anybody,
+for that matter. As far as the girls knew, she had not one friend in the
+whole school.
+
+Amanda was red-haired and freckled; and while these attributes alone
+could not have accounted for her unpopularity, she added to them a
+tendency to spy upon the other girls and then run and tell what she had
+seen or heard.
+
+It was this last characteristic that no fair-minded girl would tolerate
+and so Amanda had lived in practical ostracism ever since she had come to
+North Bend two years before.
+
+"I don't think we ought to be too hard on her," said Violet, as they
+turned the corner that brought the school into view. "She can't help her
+mean disposition, I suppose. And anyway, Miss Beggs says there's always
+some good to be found in everybody."
+
+"Maybe," said Billie skeptically, "but hers is so small you would need a
+microscope to see it. There's the janitor now, just going out. If we run
+we can catch him."
+
+And run they did, presenting themselves a minute later, rather red in the
+face and out of breath, before a very much amused janitor.
+
+"Hello," he cried, his twinkling eyes under their shaggy brows lighting
+with pleasure as he looked at the girls. "Are you young ladies tryin' to
+catch a train, or what?"
+
+"Oh, no, no," cried Violet eagerly. "We were just trying to catch you,
+Mr. Heegan."
+
+"Oh-ho! An' it's mighty flattered I am," said Mr. Heegan, his Irish
+brogue coming to the fore. "An' what, if I might be askin' you--"
+
+"It's a book we left here," Billie broke in quickly. "Laura wants to know
+if you will let us in long enough to get it."
+
+"Sure, an' I will that," Mr. Heegan assured them, leading the way into
+the school yard and pulling out his bunch of keys. "It must be a verra
+important book," he added, smiling at them as he fitted the key in the
+lock, "to be bringing you back to school after school's out."
+
+"It was a gift from Father," Laura explained. "And I wouldn't lose it
+for anything."
+
+"All right, there you go," said the good-natured janitor, swinging the
+door wide for them. "I'm goin' home, but I'll be comin' back in a few
+minutes to lock up. You'd best not be stayin' here then," he added, with
+a twinkling backward glance at them, "or it will be locked up for the
+night you'll be."
+
+"We won't be more than a minute," Violet assured him, and jubilantly the
+girls ran through the empty, echoing hall and stopped before a door at
+the farther end.
+
+"It seems so horribly quiet," said Violet, looking around at them with
+her hands on the door knob. "It makes you feel like a thief."
+
+"Must be your guilty conscience," said Laura wickedly. "Come on, Vi;
+we've got to hurry if we don't want to be 'locked in for the night.'"
+
+"Are you sure you left the book here, Laura?" asked Billie, as
+Violet opened the door and they crowded in. "It would be too bad if
+it were gone--"
+
+But a cry from Laura interrupted her.
+
+"There it is," she said, running to a desk at the farther end of the room
+and picking up from an inner corner a prettily bound book. "Just the very
+place I left it, too. My, but I'm glad to get it back again."
+
+"What do you think you're doing, Billie Bradley?" inquired Laura a
+minute later, for Billie had seated herself at the teacher's desk and was
+looking as severe as she knew how.
+
+"Take your seats," she now commanded, rapping vigorously on the desk and
+fixing them with her best school-teacher stare. "Violet Farrington, go to
+the board--"
+
+But she got no further, for with an indignant cry the girls had rushed on
+her. Dropping both her air of command and her dignity, Billie scurried
+wildly around the room, keeping the desks between her and her pursuers.
+
+"You can't catch me! You can't catch me!" she taunted them, as she
+dodged nimbly in and out among the desks. "I could keep this up all day,
+I could--"
+
+"Oh, you could, could you?" cried Laura, and, making a desperate lunge,
+she almost had her hand on Billie's dress. "We'll see about that. Billie!
+what are you doing?"
+
+For Billie had suddenly doubled on her tracks, rushed to the back of the
+room, put her foot upon a steam radiator pipe and was trying to clamber
+to the top of a bookcase.
+
+It was a tall bookcase, and on the top of it stood a marble statue.
+
+"Billie, look out!" screamed Violet as the bookcase shook and the statue
+seemed about to topple over by reason of Billie's wild scrambling.
+
+"You won't catch me this time," Billie was defying them, when--the awful
+thing happened!
+
+The marble statue toppled once more, trembled as though it were not quite
+sure whether to fall or stay where it was, then came tumbling to the
+floor with a crash.
+
+The girls cried out, and then stood dumbly looking at the pieces.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THAT HUNDRED DOLLARS
+
+
+Billie Bradley clambered down from her perch in awed silence.
+
+"Girls," she said, her voice very low and solemn, "that 'Girl Reading a
+Book' statue was worth a hundred dollars."
+
+The girls started, and Laura cried out:
+
+"How do you know it cost that much?"
+
+"I heard Miss Beggs say so," Billie replied dully. "Now I certainly have
+done it. Girls, what shall I do?"
+
+"It--it couldn't be put together again, could it?" suggested Violet
+weakly, leaning down to examine the pieces.
+
+"Of course it couldn't," sniffed Laura, adding suddenly: "I suppose we
+could run away and nobody would know the dif--"
+
+"Look," cried Billie, excitedly pointing to one of the windows.
+
+Following the direction of her glance the girls were just in time to see
+the freckled face and mean little eyes of Amanda Peabody disappear from
+the window.
+
+"Oh, that sneak!" cried Laura in a rage, rushing across to the window
+while the other girls followed close at her heels. "I wish I were a boy
+and she were another one. I'd just show her!"
+
+"Well, now she will tell and we couldn't run away even if we wanted to,"
+said Billie, sinking down on a bench and looking at them wistfully. "Of
+course we wouldn't really have wanted to," she added, after a minute of
+uncomfortable silence. "Only it makes me mad to _have_ to do the right
+thing. Oh, I don't see why somebody doesn't run that Amanda person out
+of town," she went on, doubling up her fists and looking as if it might
+have been just as well for that "Amanda person" that she was not there
+at the minute.
+
+"Teddy says he calls her 'Nanny,'" said Violet, with a flash of humor,
+"because it 'gets her goat.'"
+
+"Sounds just like Ted," said Billie, with a smile. Then her face sobered
+again as she realized the gravity of the situation.
+
+"Of course I'll have to make it good," she said, going over to the pieces
+again and regarding them mournfully. "But how in the world am I ever
+going to get together a hundred dollars? It might just as well be a
+thousand as far as I'm concerned." The last was a wail.
+
+"Won't your father give you the money?" asked Laura, for to Laura's
+father a hundred dollars was only a drop in the bucket.
+
+But Billie only shook her head while her face became still more grave.
+
+"He would if he could," she said, "but I heard him say only the other day
+that times are hard and everything is terribly expensive, and I know he
+is worried. Oh, girls, I'm in a terrible fix!"
+
+"I know you are, honey," said Violet, coming over and putting a
+comforting arm about her. "But there must be some way that we can fix
+things all right."
+
+"I'd like to know how," grumbled Laura, who had chosen to take the gloomy
+view. "We might," she added generously, after a moment's thought, "say
+that I broke it--"
+
+"Laura--dear!" cried Billie, not quite sure whether to be offended or
+grateful for the generous suggestion. "It's wonderful of you, of course,
+but you know I couldn't do that."
+
+"And there's Amanda Peabody," added Violet. "She wouldn't let us get away
+with anything like that."
+
+At which Laura nodded again, still more gloomily.
+
+"Well," cried Billie, straightening up suddenly and trying to look
+hopeful, "I suppose it won't do any good to stand here and look at the
+pieces. Besides," she added with a start, "we've been here a terribly
+long time, and we don't want the janitor to lock us in."
+
+They started for the door on the run, but Billie suddenly turned, ran
+back and began gathering up the pieces of the broken statue.
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Violet, regarding her curiously.
+
+"What does it look as if I were doing?" asked Billie, reaching for an old
+newspaper that lay in the forgotten paper basket. "I might as well have
+the evidence of my crime. Anyway, I want to take them to Miss Beggs."
+
+"Do you know where she lives?" asked Laura, stooping and helping Billie
+at her task.
+
+"She sent me there one time to get some papers," Billie explained, as she
+rose to her feet, clutching the newspaper package. "It's a boarding house
+on Main Street, only a few blocks from here."
+
+"Shall we go there now?" asked Violet as they closed the door softly
+behind them and started down the hall.
+
+"We might as well," answered Billie, with a sigh. "The sooner I get it
+over with, the better I'll feel. But oh, that hundred dollars!"
+
+"Never mind, we'll get it if we have to steal it," said Laura firmly, as
+they came out into the flower-sweet air.
+
+"That would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire," remarked
+Violet, at which the girls had to laugh.
+
+As they swung out through the gate they met Mr. Heegan coming in, and he
+smiled at them from under his bushy brows.
+
+"Did you get what you were after comin' for?" he asked them.
+
+"Yes. And something we didn't come for," answered Billie, while the color
+flooded her face and she felt like a criminal. She smiled a wry little
+smile and displayed the newspaper package.
+
+"Meanin'--" Mr. Heegan began, puzzled.
+
+"I--I broke a statue that was on the bookcase," explained Billie. "We
+were skylarking--"
+
+"And many's the time I've done the same in my day," said Mr. Heegan, with
+a nod, looking not nearly as shocked as the girls thought he would. "And
+sure, what are you made young for, if it wasn't that you was meant to be
+skylarkin' all the time?"
+
+The girls looked at each other. This strange sentiment had never occurred
+to them before, but they found it very comforting, nevertheless.
+
+"But--but," stammered Billie, "this statue cost a hundred dollars. And it
+was given to Miss Beggs by a rich uncle."
+
+"Well, all I have to say is, that any one who would spend a
+hundred dollars on a statue," said Mr. Heegan, "deserves to have
+it broken on him."
+
+And having delivered himself of this surprising comment, the janitor
+saluted and ambled off into the school yard, leaving the girls to look
+after him with laughing eyes.
+
+"You know I just love Irishmen," remarked Billie with emphasis, as they
+started on their way once more.
+
+In thoughtful silence, they walked the remaining three blocks to the
+boarding house where Miss Beggs lived.
+
+"This is it," said Billie, as she came to a stop before a three-story
+brick building that had all the respectable and uncomfortable appearance
+of a typical boarding house.
+
+"Just like Miss Beggs," Billie was conscious of thinking.
+
+"Well, let's go up," urged Laura, as Billie showed no inclination to
+move. "We might as well get the agony over with."
+
+"All right, come on," cried Billie, running ahead of them and taking two
+steps at a time. "As Dad says: 'A coward dies a thousand deaths, the
+brave man only one.'"
+
+The end of this quotation brought them to the porch, and Billie looked
+for the bell.
+
+"Now then," she said, and braced herself for the ordeal.
+
+A stout, middle-aged person, without any of the outward characteristics
+that are so often bestowed upon landladies in general, opened the door
+and looked at them inquiringly.
+
+"Is there some one you wish to see?" she asked them.
+
+"Yes," replied Billie in a weak little voice. "I would like to see
+Miss--Miss Beggs if she is at home."
+
+"She isn't," said the middle-aged person. "She went away for the summer
+two days ago."
+
+"Did she leave any address?" Billie managed to ask.
+
+"No, she didn't; but I guess I could find out from one of the other
+ladies who is a friend of hers," the woman volunteered obligingly. "That
+is, if it's very particular," she added.
+
+"Oh, yes it is," said Billie earnestly. "I would be very much obliged if
+you could get me her address."
+
+"Well, I can't just now, because the lady that knows it isn't at home.
+But if you'll leave me your address I'll send it to you as soon's I find
+it out. Have you paper and pencil?"
+
+The girls had not.
+
+"Wait then, and I'll get something on which to write your address."
+
+The landlady went inside, closing the door after her, and in spite of
+herself Billie uttered a little sigh of relief. She felt very much like a
+reprieved criminal.
+
+A moment later the woman reappeared with a pencil and paper and
+painstakingly wrote down the address Billie gave her.
+
+"Thank you so much," said the latter, as she turned away. "You won't
+forget to send it just the first minute you can, will you?"
+
+The woman nodded and closed the door with a little bang.
+
+"I wonder why she didn't ask us in," said Laura, as they ran down the
+steps. "It was queer to keep us waiting outside."
+
+"Yes, it makes you feel like a book agent," chuckled Billie. "But oh,
+girls," she added, "I didn't know how much I dreaded facing Miss
+Beggs till I found out I didn't have to. I don't mind writing to her
+nearly so much."
+
+With somewhat lighter steps and lighter hearts they turned toward home.
+But Billie could not get the hundred-dollar statue which she had broken
+out of her mind.
+
+"I feel," said Laura, as they were turning the corner into her own
+street, "as if I ought to pay for that horrid old statue, Billie."
+
+"What do you mean?" queried Billie, while Violet regarded her with wide
+open eyes.
+
+"Well, if it hadn't been for me and my old book," she explained,
+"we wouldn't have gone back to school, and then you wouldn't have
+gotten yourself into all that trouble. I really do feel guilty,"
+she added earnestly. "I wish you would at least let me help you
+pay for it, Billie."
+
+Billie put an arm about the girl and squeezed her lovingly.
+
+"And I suppose you're to blame for my climbing the bookcase, too," she
+chided her fondly. "No, Laura dear, it's all my fault and you can't make
+me put the blame on any one else. But, oh!" she wailed, "how in the world
+am I ever going to raise that hundred dollars?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHET HELPS
+
+
+The sun was flooding Billie Bradley's room when she awoke the next
+morning, and she sat up in bed with the feeling that it must be very
+late. She glanced at the little clock on the dresser and saw that its
+hands pointed to half past eight.
+
+"Oh, I'll be late to school," was her first thought. Then she checked
+herself and laughed.
+
+"School!" she said, stretching her arms above her head with a delicious
+sense of freedom. "As the old man said: 'They ain't no sech animile.' I
+guess I might just as well get up, though, for I feel as if I were
+starving to death."
+
+She was just putting her feet into very pretty bedroom slippers when she
+remembered the tragedy--or so it seemed to her--of the day before.
+
+The long night's rest had driven from her mind all thoughts of the
+statue. Was it really only yesterday that she had broken it? The thing
+seemed to have been on her conscience forever!
+
+"'Girl Reading a Book,'" she said disdainfully, as she began to brush her
+hair vigorously. "Horrid old thing! I suppose she was a grind anyway,
+like Amanda Peabody."
+
+The thought of Amanda did not serve to lift her spirits any, and it
+was in a rather gloomy mood that she finally descended to the
+breakfast table.
+
+To make things worse, she found that all the rest of her family,
+including Chet, had breakfasted bright and early, which meant that she
+would have to eat her breakfast in lonely state.
+
+The room was cheerful with sunlight, for Mrs. Bradley had often said that
+a bright dining-room had more to do with making a happy home than any
+other one thing. But this morning Billie did not even notice it.
+
+She opened the swinging door to the kitchen and peeped in cautiously to
+see whether Debbie, their black and much pampered cook, was in a good
+enough mood to cook her some breakfast.
+
+A cheerful aroma greeted her, and she sniffed at it longingly. Bacon and
+eggs and--was it corn bread that Debbie was just taking out of the oven?
+
+"Oh, Debbie, give me something to eat, quick," she cried. "I'm starving."
+
+Debbie turned and favored her with a large black stare.
+
+"Dem dat gets up at nine o'clock in de mo'nin'," she declared, "done
+deserves to go hungry, Miss Billie, beggin' your pardon." Her tone
+matched the severity of her gaze.
+
+"Oh, but, Debbie," said Billie, using the coaxing tone that even black
+Deborah, tyrant of the household, could never quite resist, "remember how
+many mornings I have had to get up at seven and go out in the drizzling
+rain and--"
+
+"All right, honey, all right," said Deborah, her heart touched by this
+reference to the hardships her young mistress had suffered. "You go in
+'tother room an' don't bother Debbie an' she'll bring you in the
+prettiest breakfast you ever did see."
+
+Somewhat cheered by this promise, Billie retreated into the sun-flooded
+dining-room, and, going over to a window under which flowers bloomed
+gayly in boxes, looked out at the pretty view.
+
+From where she stood she commanded a full view of the tennis court, on
+which she could see that a warm set of singles was in progress. One of
+the players was Chet, and as she watched she saw him fling his racket
+high in the air.
+
+"My set, Tom!" he cried. "That puts us even. Play you the rubber this
+afternoon. So long!" and with his tennis balls in his hand and his racket
+under his arm he sauntered over toward home.
+
+"Dear old Chet!" murmured Billie fondly.
+
+Then came the thought of that hundred dollars she must get some way or
+other, and suddenly there flashed into her mind a little ray of hope.
+
+"Maybe Chet could help," she thought, and then laughed at herself for
+thinking it. Chet had just about as much chance of getting that hundred
+dollars as she had herself.
+
+At that moment Debbie came in with her fruit and cereal, and she turned
+from the window with a sigh.
+
+"I might as well eat," she thought resignedly, "for if I starve myself to
+death or die of worry, there won't be anybody left to pay for that old
+book worm."
+
+Then her irrepressible imp of mischief reasserted itself and she laughed.
+
+"Hello, look at the grand lady," a fresh young voice called to her from
+the doorway. She turned with a spoon half way to her mouth to see her
+brother laughing at her.
+
+"What was that you called me?" she asked. As a matter of fact, her
+thoughts had been so far away that she actually had not heard what he
+said.
+
+"Say, what's the matter?" asked Chet, flinging his tennis racket into one
+chair and seating himself on the arm of another. "Are you sick?"
+
+"Yes. Or if I'm not, I ought to be," replied Billie ruefully, at which
+peculiar remark Chet looked still more amazed.
+
+"Now what particular thing is worrying you?" he asked in an argumentative
+tone, leaning toward her. "Come, 'fess up, Billie. What have you been
+doing when my back was turned? Robbing a bank?"
+
+"Oh, much worse than that!" cried Billie unexpectedly, and her brother's
+good-looking face began to take on an expression of alarm.
+
+"Worse?" he queried. "There's only about one thing worse--and
+that's murder."
+
+"Oh, Chet, that's just what I did," she cried, her imp of mischief
+uppermost. "I murdered a 'Girl Reading a Book.'"
+
+"Well," said Chet, taking this startling bit of information more calmly
+than would have been thought possible, "you don't seem very much worried
+about it."
+
+"Oh, but, Chet, I am!" once more the cloud banished the merry gleam in
+Billie's eyes. "Wait till I show you."
+
+She left her breakfast, ran upstairs, and was back in a minute with the
+newspaper parcel.
+
+"Here she is," she cried, displaying the contents tragically.
+
+Chet fingered one or two of the broken bits. Then he looked at her
+curiously.
+
+"Go on, 'fess up," he commanded. "Tell yours truly all about it."
+
+This Billie did in the fewest words possible and then sat down to the
+bacon and eggs that Debbie had placed temptingly on the table. And
+cornbread! Debbie's cornbread was a masterpiece.
+
+When Billie had finished Chet looked grave.
+
+"Well," he said, fingering the pieces thoughtfully, "it does seem as if
+the only square thing to do would be to replace it."
+
+"Oh, I must, Chet--I must!" she interrupted earnestly.
+
+"But how?" he asked. "A hundred dollars is a lot of money."
+
+"I know," agreed Billie miserably.
+
+"I don't think Dad will be able to make it good just now," went on Chet,
+in that sober tone that made people in North Bend feel confidence in
+Chetwood Bradley, young as he yet was. "I heard him say the other day
+that all his capital was tied up. And then it costs so much to live--"
+
+"Oh, I know all that!" broke in Billie desperately, then added, looking
+up at her brother appealingly: "Chet dear, I've got to find the money to
+replace that statue some way! Won't you help me?"
+
+"You bet your life I will," cried Chet, with a hearty boyishness that
+made Billie's eyes glow. "I'll do everything I can, Sis. I tell you--" he
+paused as a thought struck him.
+
+"Oh, what?" she cried, grasping his arm as he started from the room. "Oh,
+Chet, tell me."
+
+"I'll show you in a minute," he promised, and was off, up the stairs,
+taking them three at a time, judging from the noise he made.
+
+In what seemed to Billie no time at all he was back again, holding
+something in his hand that jingled.
+
+"Here's a dollar and fifteen cents," he said, holding out to her all
+his available wealth. "I almost forgot I had it. You can use it to start
+the fund."
+
+"Oh, Chet!" Billie's eyes were wet and she hugged him fondly. "You're the
+very darlingest brother I ever had!"
+
+"And the _only_ one--" Chet was beginning, when Billie interrupted him
+by breaking away and putting a finger to her forehead.
+
+"Let me think--"
+
+"Impossible," he cried in a deep voice.
+
+"Chet," she said, speaking quickly, "I have seventy-five cents myself,
+and that with your dollar--"
+
+"Dollar fifteen," Chet corrected gravely.
+
+"Will make quite a respectable start to our fund." And she was off up the
+stairs in her turn, making almost as much noise as Chet had done.
+
+In a moment she was back again with the precious seventy-five cents and a
+small tin box.
+
+"Here's the bank," she cried gayly. "It will be real fun filling it up."
+
+"Yes, but where are we going to get the money to fill it up with?" Chet
+reminded her and her bright face fell again.
+
+"Oh, we'll find a way," she said with a confidence she was far from
+feeling. "Maybe Dad will help a little."
+
+"Have you told him about it?" asked Chet.
+
+"No. But I will to-night," she said, with a little sinking feeling. "I
+hate to tell him, awfully, but I suppose I'll have to."
+
+"Well, don't worry anyway," said Chet, patting her shoulder reassuringly.
+"You know Dad says worry is a waste of time, because everything will all
+be the same a hundred years from now."
+
+But Billie's shake of the head was very doubtful.
+
+"I don't see how that helps me any--_now_," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE LAST HOPE
+
+
+That afternoon Billie took herself and a book out on the porch and tried
+hard, but unsuccessfully, to forget her troubles. The more she tried to
+fix her attention on the printed page before her, the more the broken
+statue rose before her eyes until at last she closed the book with a slam
+and bounced impatiently in her seat.
+
+"That horrid old 'Girl Reading a Book' has spoiled my whole summer for
+me," she said, her lips pouting rebelliously. "I wish I hadn't gone back
+to the old school anyway. I might have known it would bring me bad luck.
+Oh, here comes Laura," and her face brightened as she saw the familiar
+figure of her chum swinging up the street. "I wonder what she wants.
+Whatever it is, she seems to be in a terrible hurry about it."
+
+"Hello, what's the rush?" she sang out, as Laura Jordon ran up the steps
+of the porch.
+
+"It's--it's that--that Nanny goat Amanda Peabody!" cried Laura, panting a
+little, for she had indeed been in a hurry. "What do you think the old
+sneak has been up to now?"
+
+"What?" queried Billie, as she moved over to make room for her chum in
+the seat beside her. "Telling tales again?"
+
+"How did you guess it?" cried Laura, her face flushing with indignation.
+"And about you, Billie! Oh, I could have killed her!"
+
+"Well, we expected it, didn't we?" Billie asked, in a matter-of-fact
+tone. "We knew when we saw her looking in at the window that that was
+exactly what she would do."
+
+"Well, I know. But she went to the janitor about it." And Laura looked as
+if that in some way magnified the offense.
+
+"Well, there wasn't any one else to go to," remarked Billie reasonably.
+
+"Goodness! aren't you even mad about it?" asked Laura, her blue
+eyes snapping.
+
+"Not particularly," replied Billie, for she was beginning to be terribly
+tired of the whole subject. How she hated that imbecile "Girl Reading a
+Book" and Amanda Peabody and--and--everybody!
+
+"I got all over being angry with Amanda Peabody long ago," she said in
+answer to Laura's incredulous look. "If I should get that way every time
+she did anything, I'd never live to grow up!"
+
+In spite of her indignation, Laura chuckled.
+
+"I never did think of it in that way," she admitted, adding, after a
+minute's thought: "Billie, dear, haven't you thought of some way you
+might pay for the statue? I didn't sleep a wink last night for
+thinking of it."
+
+"Neither did I," said Billie gloomily, forgetting that she had in reality
+slept very soundly. "Chet and I have started a fund with a dollar fifteen
+of his and seventy-five cents of mine. That's as far as we have got so
+far. I did think of Uncle Bill," she added slowly, mentioning a great
+uncle who occasionally visited them.
+
+"Great! Uncle Bill!" repeated Laura, pricking up her ears. "The uncle who
+used to trot you on his knee and call you 'Bill's Billie'?"
+
+"Yes," Billie nodded. "Uncle Bill and I were always good chums, and I
+think if I told him what a fix I'm in, he might be able to help. He has
+loads of money too."
+
+"Billie," cried her chum rapturously, "why didn't you think of that
+before? Why, it's the very thing!"
+
+"But I hate to ask him," sighed Billie, not sharing Laura's enthusiasm in
+the least. "I never had to ask anything of anybody before."
+
+"Well, everything has to have a beginning," said Laura, lightly adding,
+as unconcernedly as she could: "I told Teddy about it last night."
+
+"You did!" cried Billie, turning upon her while the color flooded her
+face. "Laura, what did you do that for?"
+
+"You don't mind, do you?" queried Laura, wide-eyed. "I'm sure I never
+thought of your not wanting Teddy to know."
+
+"Oh, I suppose it doesn't make any difference," sighed Billie, adding
+plaintively: "Only I don't like everybody to know how crazy I am."
+
+"Teddy doesn't think you're crazy," said Laura, with a chuckle, regarding
+Billie out of the corner of her eye. "In fact, if I should tell you what
+he does think of you--"
+
+"Oh, don't be foolish," almost snapped Billie, and again Laura
+chuckled inwardly.
+
+"Well, you needn't be so cross," she said. "I can't help what Teddy does
+or thinks. Here he comes now," she added, glancing up the street.
+
+"Oh, and I'm a perfect fright!" cried Billie, her hands flying to her
+hair--hair, by the way, which was arranged in the very best manner to set
+off Billie's sparkling prettiness. "Laura," she turned accusing eyes upon
+her chum, "tell the truth. Did you know he was coming?"
+
+"No," said Laura honestly, adding with a little chuckle: "But I sort of
+had an idea that he might happen along."
+
+If ever a boy looked handsome, it was Teddy Jordon as he swung up the
+street to Billie's house. He was very tall, looking more like a lad of
+eighteen than the fifteen years he was. His fair hair waved back from a
+broad forehead, and his merry gray eyes sparkled with the joy of living.
+
+"Hello!" he greeted the girls, as he took the porch steps two at a time
+and seated himself on the railing. "Laura has been telling me of your
+escapade, Billie Bradley, and I've come to find out what you mean by
+going about busting busts--that isn't good English, is it?"
+
+"It doesn't sound just right," agreed Billie, dimpling adorably. "You
+speak as if I were bust--pardon me, _breaking_ busts for a living. And
+it wasn't a bust, but a whole statue. No part way things for me!"
+
+"There's Nellie Bane, I must speak to her," cried Laura, and before
+either of the others realized what she was up to, she was gone, leaving
+them alone.
+
+Quite naturally Teddy came over and took the seat his sister had vacated.
+
+"I say, Billie," he said, his handsome eyes regarding her frankly, "you
+know, I'm really awfully sorry about that business. It makes me mad that
+you should be troubled with it. You and I have always been pretty good
+friends, haven't we?" he finished unexpectedly.
+
+Surprised, Billie answered warmly: "The very best of friends, Teddy. We
+ought to be," she added with a little laugh. "We've known each other
+pretty nearly forever."
+
+"Then let me help," begged Teddy earnestly. "You know my allowance is
+away more than I need--"
+
+But Billie stopped him, shaking her head decidedly.
+
+"You're a perfect angel, Teddy, to want to do it," she said. "But I
+really couldn't let you. Don't you know I couldn't?"
+
+"I don't see why," grumbled Teddy, for after all he was only a boy,
+and just now a disappointed one. "Laura says you're set on replacing
+the thing--"
+
+"Of course I'll have to," Billie said.
+
+"And if you are going around getting yourself sick with worry, what sort
+of good time do you think the rest of us are going to have?" he burst out
+indignantly, and for the life of her Billie could not help smiling.
+
+For a moment Teddy seemed undecided whether to laugh or be angry, but
+ended, as he nearly always did, by laughing.
+
+"But it really isn't very funny," he reminded her when they had finished.
+
+"Goodness! you don't have to tell me that," said Billie ruefully. "This
+is the first good laugh I've had since I broke the old thing."
+
+Teddy looked penitent.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said, adding, with a sudden smile: "I'm glad to know I'm
+good for something, anyway. I can still make you laugh."
+
+"You very foolish boy," said Billie, patting his hand affectionately.
+"As if that were all you were good for!"
+
+"Well, if you feel that way, I don't see why you won't let me replace
+the statue," said Teddy, still nursing his disappointment. "Girls are
+funny, anyway."
+
+"We know it," said Billie lightly. "But we can't help it. Listen, Teddy,"
+and she leaned toward him confidentially. "I still have one hope left."
+
+Then she told him about Uncle Bill and his fondness for her, and during
+the recital the boy brightened noticeably.
+
+"Well, I hope the old boy comes up to the scratch," he commented
+disrespectfully, adding hurriedly as Laura said good-bye to Nellie Bane
+and started toward them: "And, Billie, if you change your mind about what
+I asked you let me know. Promise?"
+
+Billie promised, and a few minutes later said good-bye to the brother and
+sister and watched them down the street with a very warm feeling
+somewhere in the region of her heart.
+
+"Isn't it great to have friends?" she asked a robin that had perched
+itself on the edge of the porch and was looking at her knowingly. "And
+isn't Teddy the handsomest boy you ever saw?" to which the robin, knowing
+little rascal that he was, nodded not once but twice.
+
+Chet came up on the porch a few minutes later and enticed Billie out for
+a game of tennis with him, hoping to get her mind off the broken statue.
+But while she was too full of life and health not to enjoy the swift,
+swinging game that Chet gave her, the thought of "The Girl Reading a
+Book" stayed constantly in the back of her mind.
+
+That night after dinner Billie broke the news to her father, and her
+heart sank as she saw the harassed look that came into his eyes.
+
+"You say it cost a hundred dollars?" he queried, breaking a silence
+during which Billie had felt like a criminal awaiting sentence. Now she
+nodded unhappily.
+
+"A hundred dollars," her father repeated. "Well, that's a lot to pay,
+Beatrice, for just a few minutes' reckless fun. Of course I can pay it,
+but that will mean putting off some affairs of more pressing
+importance--"
+
+But Billie could stand it no longer, and with a little cry she flew to
+him and pressed her soft cheek against his.
+
+"Daddy, I'm a brute to worry you like this!" she cried, penitently.
+"Please don't worry any more, dear. I'll find some way to replace the old
+thing myself."
+
+Her father patted her cheek, but the worried frown still remained on
+his face. Billie started to leave the room but turned before she had
+reached the door.
+
+"Dad," she said hesitatingly, and he turned to her with a smile. "About
+Uncle Bill," she said. "He has always given me anything I wanted. Do you
+suppose he would help?"
+
+"He is out of the country--gone on a business trip that has taken him on
+an ocean voyage," said her father. "He will be gone for an indefinite
+period. I thought you knew, Billie. Though, as he just left, I suppose it
+is not strange you had not heard us speak of it." And with that Mr.
+Bradley relapsed immediately into his brown study.
+
+Billie opened the door and closed it softly behind her.
+
+"My last hope!" she sighed plaintively. "Now what shall I do?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WORSE AND WORSE
+
+
+Two weeks passed, and still Billie Bradley had found no solution to
+her problem. The broken statue seemed as far from being paid for as
+ever, and, as far as she was concerned, the summer vacation was
+completely spoiled.
+
+In this frame of mind she crushed a soft straw hat down over her brown
+hair one day and set out to find her chums, feeling the need of their
+sympathy. And how was she to know, poor Billie, that the news the girls
+would have to tell her would serve only to make her mood the blacker?
+
+As she neared the Farrington home, Violet herself came rushing out to
+meet her, looking unusually and feverishly excited.
+
+"Oh, Billie, what do you think?" she cried, encircling Billie with her
+arm and fairly dragging her up on the porch. "I have the most wonderful
+news to tell you!"
+
+"What?" gasped Billie, for the unexpected onslaught had literally
+taken her breath away. "Goodness! you might as well kill me as scare
+me to death."
+
+"Oh, but, Billie, you won't mind when I tell you," cried Violet,
+regarding her friend with dancing eyes. "The folks have decided to send
+me to Three Towers Hall!" Three Towers was a boarding school some
+distance from North Bend. "Laura is going too," Violet continued
+breathlessly. "And of course you will--" But something in Billie's face
+stopped her and she drew in her breath sharply.
+
+"Oh, Billie," she cried, her face falling, "you're never going to tell me
+you can't go!"
+
+"I guess that's just what I am going to tell you," said Billie, her fists
+clasped so tightly that the knuckles showed white. "I might have stood
+some chance if it hadn't been for that old statue. Now I can't get enough
+money to pay for that--much less go to Three Towers."
+
+"Oh, that old statue!" cried Violet desperately, adding, while her face
+grew longer and longer: "What fun will there be, I'd like to know, in
+going to Three Towers if you can't go with us? And oh, Billie, I was
+making such wonderful plans!"
+
+Billie had to turn away to hide the tears that sprang to her eyes. For to
+go to Three Towers Hall had long been the ambition of the chums, and now
+it was doubly hard to see her chance snatched away by an accident that
+could have been so easily avoided. If only she had not been so foolish!
+
+Violet came over and put a loving arm about her friend.
+
+"Never mind, honey," she said consolingly, forgetting her own
+disappointment in Billie's. "We'll find some way to get to Three Towers."
+
+Billie smiled a wry little smile and made an effort to look as if there
+were still something to live for in the world.
+
+"Laura told me that you thought your uncle might help you," said Violet,
+after an interval of unhappily trying to think of some way out of their
+trouble. "Neither Laura nor I will stir a step without you, that's a
+sure thing."
+
+"Why, of course you will," said Billie, stopping the swing short and
+looking at her chum in amazement. "I'm sure your folks aren't going to
+let you stay at home from the school they've decided on just because I
+can't go with you. Although," and her voice broke a little, "it's just
+wonderful of you, Vi, to feel that way. You will go, of course, and you
+can write me beautiful letters about the wonderful times you are having."
+
+"I won't do it!" cried Violet, springing to her feet. "I'm not going to
+Three Towers without you, and that settles it. I don't care if I had a
+thousand parents. Who's that turning the corner?" she interrupted herself
+to ask. "There's something familiar about that walk."
+
+"Why, it's Ferd Stowing," said Billie, getting to her feet for a better
+view. "My, but he looks happy about something. I wonder what's up."
+
+The next moment Ferd Stowing, one of the best-liked boys in the town,
+came rushing up the steps like a whirlwind, and it did not take the girls
+long to find out "what was up."
+
+"Hooray!" he cried, flinging his hat high in the air. "Wuxtry! All about
+Ferd Stowing and Ted Jordon!"
+
+"For goodness' sake, stop bellowing and behave," Billie commanded. "What
+have you and Teddy been doing now?"
+
+"Plenty. But that's nothing to what we're going to do," crowed Ferd
+exultantly. "He and I have at last persuaded our reluctant parents to
+send us to the military school. You know--the one that is only a little
+over a mile from Three Towers where you girls are going."
+
+Again Billie felt as if she had been treated to a shower of ice water.
+Teddy and Ferd were going to Boxton Military Academy, and Chet--her
+darling, loyal Chet--would not be able to go with them. Her own
+disappointment seemed nothing at all beside this new tragedy.
+
+"I was just on my way over to your house," Billie was conscious that Ferd
+was addressing her. "We haven't had a chance to get in touch with Chet
+yet. But the old boy will of course go with us, won't he? It wouldn't be
+any fun without Chet."
+
+Almost the very words Violet had said to her, thought Billie, as she
+tried to swallow a sob and only succeeded in turning it into a funny
+little cough.
+
+"He will, won't he?" Ferd was insisting, while Violet watched them with
+troubled eyes.
+
+"Why--why--I don't know, Ferd," Billie stammered, trying to make her
+voice sound natural. "I do know one thing, and that is that Chet is crazy
+to go and will if he gets half a chance."
+
+"Then I guess it's all right," said Ferd, leaning back with a sigh of
+relief. "Gee, I was afraid you were going to say he couldn't go, and so
+spoil everything. Say, can't you see the good times we're going to have
+with you girls at Three Towers Hall and we fellows such a little way off
+that we can see each other every once in a while? I can't make up my
+mind that it's real yet--" And so on and on, rapturously, while
+Billie's heart sank lower and lower and Violet's own warm one ached for
+her friend.
+
+Then just as Ferd started to go he spied Chet coming up the street and
+hailed him joyfully.
+
+"Just the fellow I wanted to see," he declared fervently. "Come on up
+here, old man, and hear the glad news."
+
+Billie groaned inwardly and seemed about to speak, but Violet stopped her
+with a hand on her arm.
+
+"Might as well get it over with," she whispered. "Chet is sure to hear
+of it later if he doesn't now."
+
+So Billie waited, but her heart ached as she watched Chet march up
+smilingly to hear "the glad news."
+
+"We're going to Boxton Military Academy." Ferd fairly shouted it at him.
+"How about it, old timer, are you going with us, or are you going to
+leave us in the lurch?"
+
+The glad tidings staggered Chet for a minute, but he came on quietly and
+perched himself upon the railing, one foot swinging idly.
+
+"You said you were going to the military academy?" he asked, his voice as
+quiet as his manner, but Billie noticed that the smile was gone. "By that
+I suppose you mean you and Teddy."
+
+"And you," added Ferd, beaming upon him. "Billie said you were
+crazy to go."
+
+Chet looked at Billie's unhappy face and tried to smile.
+
+"Crazy to go!" he repeated. "I'll say I am. But--"
+
+"But me no buts, Chet, my lad," broke in the impetuous Ferd. "I didn't
+ask you anything. I merely stated a fact."
+
+"I--I'd give almost anything I own to make it a fact," said Chet, his
+eyes on the ground. "But I'm very much afraid you'll have to guess
+again, old man."
+
+"Guess again? Well, I should say not!" cried Ferd, getting to his feet
+indignantly. "Why, the thing can't be done without you, Chet. Didn't
+Billie say--"
+
+"Billie only said," interrupted Violet, coming to Billie's rescue, "that
+Chet was crazy to go and would if he had half a chance."
+
+Ferd sank back in his chair, too dismayed to speak.
+
+"Well, of all--Say, old man, you've got to go," and he turned to Chet
+pleadingly. "What sort of a party do you think this is going to be
+anyway, with Billie at Three Towers Hall and you back here in North Bend?
+It's not fair."
+
+"Not fair," flared Billie. "You don't suppose I'd go to Three Towers and
+leave Chet here, do you?"
+
+"Then you're not going either?" cried Ferd, seeing all his castles in the
+air coming down about his ears with a crash.
+
+Billie shook her head unhappily.
+
+"No, I'm not going either," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DEBBIE DESERTS
+
+
+Billy Bradley really tried to be cheerful in the days that followed, but
+try as she would she could not altogether keep out the vision of Three
+Towers Hall, the boarding school to which she had wanted to go ever
+since--well, almost since she had wanted anything.
+
+Laura and Violet would go without her. They would have to go, even in
+spite of their loyal determination not to. Their parents would have
+something to say about that.
+
+And Chet was in just as bad a fix, for Boxton Military Academy had been
+his dream even as Three Towers Hall had been Billie's. Oh, if only they
+could all go what a wonderful time they could have! Oh, well--
+
+And Mr. and Mrs. Bradley, sensing something of all this, were very
+unhappy and cast about desperately for some way to give their boy and
+girl the advantages that the others would have. But money was very tight.
+Mr. Bradley had all his cash tied up in several real estate transactions.
+
+So for a little while the Bradleys were not a happy family--although
+they tried bravely not to show it, even to each other.
+
+Then one morning came a long, businesslike envelope, with a typewritten
+address, that caused a stir in the family circle.
+
+Mrs. Bradley opened it with a puzzled frown between her brows, then
+uttered a startled exclamation.
+
+"What is it, dear?" asked Mr. Bradley, while Billie and Chet crowded
+closer to her chair.
+
+"Aunt Beatrice Powerson is dead," Mrs. Bradley announced with a look more
+of shocked surprise than of grief. "She died in Canada quite suddenly,
+and this is from her attorney asking us," she looked across at her
+husband, "to be present at the reading of the will."
+
+"Well, well," said Mr. Bradley slowly, "poor Beatrice Powerson dead at
+last. I suppose she got as much out of life as any of us, though, in her
+eccentric way."
+
+"It was strange," remarked Billie slowly, "that I should have been
+speaking of Aunt Beatrice only the other day. Violet wanted to know if
+she was wealthy."
+
+"Was she, Dad?" asked Chet, with interest.
+
+"I imagine nobody knew," his father answered. "As you know, she was
+queer, and as tight as a clam when it came to talking about her personal
+affairs. The only thing we're sure of is that she had plenty of money to
+travel anywhere she wanted to, and that's saying something these days."
+
+"I say, Billie," cried Chet, his eyes shining with the thought--dear,
+unselfish Chet, his first hope even then was more for Billie than
+himself, "you are Aunt Beatrice's namesake, you know. Maybe she left you
+something in her will."
+
+"Chet," his mother chided gently, "don't you think it is rather heartless
+to be counting on what Aunt Beatrice has left when we have just heard of
+her death?"
+
+"I suppose so," said Chet, rather abashed. "But then you know we only saw
+her about once in every three years, and then she wasn't very friendly."
+
+"Are you really going, Mother, you and Dad?" asked Billie, for it seemed
+impossible to her that her father and mother should go off on such a long
+journey and leave her and Chet behind. "Are you?" she asked again
+anxiously.
+
+"Yes, I suppose we must," said Mrs. Bradley, looking across at her
+husband, who answered her with a smile.
+
+"I don't see what else we can do," he replied, as he looked at his young
+daughter. "You can keep house while we're gone, Billie, just to see how
+you like it."
+
+"Me keep house!" cried Billie, dismayed. "Why, I don't know the first
+thing about it!"
+
+"That's the best way to learn," returned her father, while Mrs. Bradley
+began to smile. "Experience is the very best teacher, you know."
+
+"That's all right, but you don't seem to realize that she will be
+learning at my expense," groaned Chet, adding as a horrible thought
+struck him: "Billie won't have to cook anything, will she?"
+
+"Of course not," laughed Mrs. Bradley, and Chet sighed with relief.
+"Debbie will be here as usual to do the cooking. And, of course," she
+added to Billie, putting an arm about her and drawing her close, "Debbie
+will help you with anything you want to know. We probably won't be gone
+more than a week, anyway."
+
+So it was arranged, and a couple of days later, with a wildly beating
+heart and a rueful smile upon her lips, Billie stood with Chet upon the
+station platform and waved good-bye to her father and mother.
+
+When the train had rounded the curve and disappeared with one last
+challenging blast of the whistle, Billie and Chet turned to each other,
+feeling as lost and forlorn as the babes in the wood.
+
+"Now, what do we do next?" breathed Billie, breaking the silence at last.
+"I feel helpless, Chet."
+
+"Well, I don't think you have anything on me," admitted Chet slangily. "I
+suppose the most sensible thing to do would be to go home and see how
+Debbie is getting on with the lunch."
+
+"Goodness, that's the first time I ever had to be reminded that I was
+hungry," said Billie, and with that they laughed and felt more natural.
+
+The rest of that day went off beautifully, and Billie was beginning to
+feel very confident when suddenly Debbie threw a suggestion bomb-like in
+the midst of her contentment.
+
+"I hate to bother you, miss," said the black cook, approaching her
+mistress the next morning--Billie, by the way, was busily dusting the
+living-room with a very becoming dust cap perched on top of her pretty
+hair, "but this is mah day out."
+
+"Your--day--out!" gasped Billie, sitting down hard on the chair she had
+been dusting and regarding Debbie's black face with dismay. "You never
+can mean that you are going to desert me, Debbie? Leave me to do all the
+cooking and--and--everything--" The awful vision was too much for her
+and her voice died down to a whisper.
+
+"I'm tur'ble sorry, Miss Billie," said Debbie, gently but very, very
+firmly, "but mah young man and me we has a mos' awful impo'tant
+in-gagement fo' dis aft'noon, an' I couldn't break it--no'm, much as I
+want to." She added that last in the evident hope of appeasing her young
+mistress, who was still regarding her with horrified eyes.
+
+"But, Debbie," gasped Billie when she could find her voice, "I don't know
+a thing in the world about cooking. Have you--have you--ordered
+anything?"
+
+"Yas, indeed," Debbie assured her, going on to explain that the meal was
+virtually prepared anyway. "I done made a salad for you and Chet, an' the
+butter beans am in de pan. Dere is some stew too, which all you has to do
+is to warm up, Miss Billie. An' I done make a big peach pie, an' dere's
+some whipped cream in de 'frig'rater. So I reckons you-all won't starve
+to death," she added, with a broad smile that showed all her strong white
+teeth back to the last molar.
+
+As for Billie, she could have hugged the mountainous black figure in the
+relief she felt. Why, with the dinner all prepared like this it would be
+just a lark to put it on the table--for just her and Chet alone.
+
+"Debbie, you're a darling and I love you!" she cried, joyfully. "But you
+know you really shouldn't have scared me so--it wasn't fair."
+
+For answer Debbie grinned again and began to get her bulky figure up
+the stairs, preparatory to dressing for the "in-gagement" with her
+"young man."
+
+Billie watched her go, and then with a little chuckle resumed her
+dusting.
+
+"I'd like to see Debbie's young man," she mused, a smile twisting the
+corners of her mouth. "He ought to be a giant. Anyway, I feel sorry for
+him if he isn't. Dear funny old Debbie--won't Chet and I have a picnic
+to-night?"
+
+And as she had predicted, they did have the time of their lives. Chet
+refused to sit in the dining-room in lonely state, and in masterly
+fashion invaded the kitchen.
+
+"Say, that smells good, Billie, old girl," and he sniffed hungrily at the
+stew. "Give me an apron and I'll help."
+
+"Oh, look who wants to help," cried Billie, finding an apron nevertheless
+and tying it around his waist so that he looked like a butcher's
+assistant. "You will probably only get under my feet and bother me to
+death, but I suppose I'll have to humor you. There, if you must do
+something, set the table."
+
+Now Chet did not want to set the table--it took him too far from the
+appetizing aromas in the kitchen. However, he obeyed grumblingly and was
+finally rewarded by being given a steaming dish of stew to carry in.
+
+"Chet," screamed Billie, following him in and checking him just as he
+was in the act of putting the hot dish on the tablecloth, "put a
+protector under it. Don't you know," as Chet started and looked
+reproachfully at her, "that you are apt to ruin the table? And it's
+almost a brand new one at that."
+
+"Well, you needn't scare a fellow to death," grumbled Chet. "I thought
+I'd stepped on the cat." But he obeyed instructions.
+
+"My! but doesn't everything look good?" cried Billie, sniffing hungrily.
+"Hurry up, Chet, take off your apron and dish up the stew while I pour
+the coffee. What do you know about that? _I_ made the coffee. And doesn't
+it smell good?"
+
+It was the jolliest of meals and finished up in royal fashion with the
+peach pie and whipped cream.
+
+In a very gale of merriment Chet and Billie cleared away the dinner
+dishes, and then, being tired by the unusual exertion, decided to go
+early to bed.
+
+For the first part of the night Billie slept soundly, but just as the
+clock downstairs was striking two, she awakened suddenly and lay still in
+bed listening. She was frightened, though she could not have told why.
+
+Rigidly she lay there hardly daring to breathe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A STRANGE BURGLAR
+
+
+What was it that had awakened Billie Bradley?
+
+Hardly had the girl asked herself that question when she heard it--a
+padding, stealthy, creeping noise that made her clutch the bed clothes
+and draw them tighter about her.
+
+Then in a panic she realized that whatever it was had started upstairs.
+
+Nearer, nearer came the stealthy padding, till Billie realized it had
+reached the landing. Her scalp crept and her hair began to stand on end.
+Her door was the nearest to the stairs, and she was all alone in the
+house with Chet!
+
+Swiftly, she threw off the covers, jumped out of bed, and with her
+limbs trembling under her, ran to the door and softly turned the key
+in the lock.
+
+Then she leaned weakly against the door and listened for the noise, but
+it had stopped. Evidently the burglar, if burglar it was, had paused to
+get his bearings.
+
+Then another horrible thought struck her. Chet was sleeping in the next
+room, and Chet's door was unlocked!
+
+On feet that seemed too weak to hold her she crept into Chet's
+room--luckily there was a connecting door between--and softly turned the
+key in his door also.
+
+Evidently she was just in time, for as she listened the stealthy noise
+began again and it was coming toward the very door she had just locked.
+
+She uttered a little involuntary sound, and Chet sat up in bed
+with a start.
+
+"Wh-what's up?" he demanded sleepily.
+
+"Oh, hush," cried Billie. Scurrying to his bed and leaning over, she
+whispered the awful words: "There's a burglar in the house, Chet."
+
+"A burglar?" repeated Chet, wide awake by this time. "Who says so?"
+
+"Don't be foolish! Didn't I hear him myself?" cried Billie in a desperate
+whisper. "Oh, Chet, he's on the stairs outside."
+
+"Well, why doesn't he come in? Is he bashful?" queried Chet, seeming not
+in the least alarmed. Billie shook him impatiently.
+
+"He probably would have come in if I hadn't locked the doors," she told
+him impatiently. "For goodness' sake, Chet, wake up and tell me what to
+do. He may have stolen everything we own by this time."
+
+"Hush," cried Chet, grasping her arm, and in a tense silence they
+listened.
+
+Yes, they could not be mistaken--something was surely brushing
+against the door.
+
+Thank heaven, she had locked it, thought Billie, as she began to feel her
+hair stand on end again.
+
+Once more came that brushing sound. And then, very distinctly, a sniff!
+
+"Oh, Chet," cried Billie, clutching her brother's arm spasmodically.
+
+"Nervy beggar," muttered Chet. "If I had a gun I'd know what to do. But
+say," he added, as a happy thought struck him, "there's Dad's!" He was
+out of bed and across the room before Billie could do more than gasp.
+Fearfully she followed after.
+
+Luckily Chet had elected to sleep in his parents' room during their
+absence so as to be nearer Billie, and he had happened to remember the
+secret hiding place that his father had shown him not long before where
+he kept his revolver always loaded and ready for action.
+
+"Oh, Chet, do be careful!" whispered Billie, as Chet drew the
+ugly-looking thing out of the hidden drawer and examined it. "I--I think
+I'm more afraid of that than I am of the b-burglar."
+
+Chet's only answer was a grim "Come on," from between set young lips.
+Fearfully they made their way over to the door.
+
+Their burglar seemed to have gone on to some other room, for they could
+hear the stealthy padding at the other end of the hall. But now he had
+turned in their direction.
+
+Very carefully Chet turned the key in the lock, and then, while Billie
+pressed both hands over her heart to quiet its pounding, Chet flung open
+the door and stepped into the hall. Billie was right at his heels.
+
+And then the impossible thing happened. A dark shape coming slowly toward
+them stopped at sight of them and uttered a low bark.
+
+Yes, the sound that issued from their supposed burglar was a very
+distinct and friendly canine bark.
+
+For a minute Chet and Billie just stared speechlessly. Then slowly the
+revolver in Chet's hand dropped to his side and he began to laugh. It was
+a weak laugh at first, but it gradually swelled into a roar as he took in
+the full humor of the situation.
+
+And Billie, after a moment during which she seemed undecided whether to
+laugh or cry, presently joined him.
+
+"A dog!" gasped Chet, when he could get his breath. "Come here, old man,
+and let's have a look at you."
+
+The dog that had caused all the disturbance came forward at Chet's
+command and stood looking up at them, his handsome brush waving genially.
+
+As the light of a street lamp shining through the window fell upon him,
+Billie uttered an exclamation.
+
+"Why, it's Bruce--Nellie Bane's collie," she cried. "How in the world did
+he ever get in? Come here, Bruce, old boy, and explain yourself."
+
+Obediently Bruce went over to her and laid a cold muzzle in her hand, his
+soft eyes looking lovingly into her face. For Billie had made much of
+Bruce on her frequent visits to Nellie Bane, and the dog, with the
+instinct of his kind, had developed a great liking for her--though the
+first in his loyal dog's heart was Nellie Bane, his mistress.
+
+"You're a great one!" Chet scoffed. "You get a fellow all worked up
+to catch a burglar, and then you produce a dog. I think you did it
+on purpose."
+
+"Yes, and I suppose I scared myself half to death on purpose too," said
+Billie sarcastically, as she patted the dog's great head. "Where are you
+going?" she asked, as Chet started back into his room.
+
+"To put this thing where I got it," he explained, holding up the pistol
+from which Billie shrank back. "Don't imagine we'll have any further need
+of it to-night."
+
+"Wait a minute," ordered Billie, and Chet turned back surprised. "We
+haven't found out yet how Bruce got in," she explained, looking fearfully
+over her shoulder, for the effects of her fright had not quite left her
+yet. "Don't you think we'd better take that along while we look through
+the house? We must have left a door or a window open somewhere. Bruce
+couldn't have come through the wall, you know."
+
+"Something--I don't know what it can be--makes me agree with you,"
+returned Chet sarcastically, but he turned to the stairs nevertheless,
+"Come on," he said. "If we have left a window open it is high time that
+that window was shut. Go ahead, Bruce, and show us where you got
+in--that's a good old boy."
+
+At the best it was rather an eerie business--searching through the empty
+house at that time of night--and it was especially nerve-trying for
+Billie after the fright she had had.
+
+And then they found it. The French window that opened from the
+dining-room upon the porch was swinging wide open--a wonderful invitation
+to enter for any sneak thief who might happen to pass that way.
+
+Billie shivered again as Chet, with a final pat, put Bruce outside and
+closed and locked the window.
+
+"There, I guess we won't have any more visitors to-night," he said, as
+they started through the dark living-room to the stairs.
+
+"Let's hope not," returned Billie fervently.
+
+When they reached their rooms upstairs they felt too excited for sleep,
+and sat for a long time talking over the incident.
+
+They could laugh now at their surprise in meeting friendly Bruce instead
+of a very unfriendly house-breaker, but more than once both of them
+caught themselves listening for sounds in the silent house below.
+
+"It was just luck," said Billie, as she rose at last to go to bed, "that
+it was Bruce that happened to find that open window instead of--of some
+one else!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS
+
+
+Chet and Billie were very careful to leave neither doors nor windows
+unlocked, and the rest of the week passed without further mishap.
+
+Then one morning came a telegram from their parents saying that they
+would be home the next day.
+
+"Goodness, now I have to get busy!" cried Billie, jumping up from the
+table in such a hurry that she very nearly upset Chet's coffee cup,
+thereby considerably surprising that boy.
+
+"Say, do you think it's catching?" he asked, with a smile. "What's the
+matter with you, Billie?"
+
+"Oh, of course you wouldn't understand--you're a boy," remarked his
+sister condescendingly, as she put on the becoming dust cap and pulled
+some gloves on her hands.
+
+"Don't you see," she added, as Chet continued to stare at her, "that this
+house has to be immaculate before mother gets back? I've simply got to
+live up to my reputation."
+
+"Never knew you had one," remarked Chet cruelly, as he turned back to
+his bacon and eggs with a relieved sigh. "If you need any help," he
+offered graciously, as Billie swept out of the room, "just call on me."
+
+"Thank you, I don't," called back Billie, making a face at him over
+her shoulder.
+
+And then followed such a whirlwind of sweeping and dusting and throwing
+about of furniture that poor Chet was dismayed and was forced to take
+refuge on the porch.
+
+However, when Billie, flushed and breathless and very, very pretty, took
+him by the arm and led him about to admire her handiwork, he told her
+that she was "some wonder."
+
+"Now how about lunch?" he asked, and Billie, appetite sharpened by work,
+enthusiastically agreed.
+
+It seemed an eternity to wait until the next morning, but somehow the
+time came at last, finding brother and sister on tip-toe with excitement.
+
+Long before it was time to go to meet the train, they were ready and
+waiting. Billie was swinging back and forth in the porch swing, grasping
+a cushion in each hand to keep her from jumping out, while Chet walked
+restlessly up and down.
+
+"If you don't sit down," said Billie so suddenly that her brother jumped,
+"I'll just scream."
+
+"Well go ahead, if it will make you feel any better," invited Chet
+amiably. However, for the sake of peace he seated himself in one of the
+broad armed chairs.
+
+"Isn't it train time yet?" asked Billie, as she had asked many times
+during the last fifteen minutes.
+
+"Here," said Chet, handing over his watch, "take this and keep looking at
+it. My voice is getting hoarse saying 'no.'"
+
+"But I don't see why we can't go down to the station anyway,"
+argued Billie.
+
+"Only that it's about a hundred times more comfortable to wait here."
+
+"But we might miss the train," wailed Billie, and Chet jumped to his feet
+with a chuckle.
+
+"Oh, come on," he cried. "We've missed the train several times according
+to you. In a minute you will almost have me worried."
+
+"You're a dear old bear," said Billie, snuggling her arm into his as
+they set off.
+
+"You certainly do have a way with you, Billie, that gets you what you
+want," he admitted, adding meaningly: "Besides, I'm thinking I'd better
+keep on the right side of you just now."
+
+"Why?" asked Billie, puzzled.
+
+"In case Aunt Beatrice left you something. You were her namesake,
+remember."
+
+Billie glanced up at him, an eager look in her eyes. But her glance fell
+again and she shook his arm severely.
+
+"What's the use of raising hopes?" she said dolefully, as a vision of
+the broken "Girl Reading a Book" rose reproachfully before her and she
+thought longingly of how happy she could be if it were only possible to
+replace it.
+
+And there was Three Towers Hall--but she shook off the thought and had
+opened her mouth to speak when the sharp blast of an engine whistle made
+them jump.
+
+"Chet," she gasped, "it's the train! We mustn't miss it."
+
+"We can make it if we run," said Chet, as he took hold of her arm. "Come
+on! No, not that way--the short cut. That's the idea."
+
+Warm and panting they came out upon the station platform just as the
+train drew in. They watched the passengers eagerly, but not at first
+seeing those they sought, had almost decided that they were coming on a
+later train when away down at the end of the platform, Billie espied a
+familiar hat.
+
+"There they are! Mother!" she cried, as they came within hailing
+distance. "We thought you weren't on the train. Oh, what a fright we
+had!"
+
+After the greetings were over Chet and Billie both noticed that their
+parents seemed to be in a state of suppressed excitement, and both of
+them wondered.
+
+However, they had too much to talk about just then to do much wondering
+about anything, and they walked slowly toward home, asking and answering
+a very flood of questions.
+
+Mrs. Bradley wanted to know how Billie had got along without her, at
+which both Chet and Billie tried to tell the story of Nellie Bane's
+collie at the same time and in the same breath.
+
+When they had finished Mr. Bradley chuckled, but Mrs. Bradley
+looked grave.
+
+"It happened to be funny," she said. "But it might have been very
+serious. I hope you were careful after that."
+
+"Were we!" they cried, and Billie added with a laugh: "We locked and
+double locked all the windows and doors, and if it hadn't been for Chet I
+would have piled furniture against the doors. But we want to know what
+you've been doing," she cried, turning to her mother eagerly. "Tell us,
+please, quick. We've been waiting so long."
+
+Again Mr. Bradley laughed and pinched his impatient young
+daughter's cheek.
+
+"I think our news can wait till we get to the house," he said.
+
+"But _I_ can't," protested Billie.
+
+"Anybody would think you really expected to hear something," chuckled Mr.
+Bradley, who seemed to be enjoying himself immensely over something.
+
+"Oh, please," begged Billie, almost beside herself with impatience by
+this time--and Chet, in his quiet way, was just as bad. There was
+something about their mother's and father's manner that told them
+something was in the wind.
+
+"I'm just dying by inches," went on Billie.
+
+But this time it was Mrs. Bradley who interrupted.
+
+"Here we are at home, dear," she said. "Can't you give Dad and me a
+chance to rest, and give us perhaps a cup of tea--"
+
+"Oh, I'm a selfish old beast!" said Billie penitently. "I might have
+known you would be terribly tired after that long train ride!"
+
+And still scolding herself she hurried them before her into the house and
+flew to find Debbie. She had not far to go, however, for Debbie was just
+lumbering, like a good-natured elephant, through the hall to greet her
+master and mistress. As soon as the greetings were over she lumbered back
+again to make the necessary tea.
+
+Billie and Chet controlled their impatience, answering the questions
+their mother had to ask them about all that had happened while they had
+been away, for Mrs. Bradley had been anxious.
+
+When they finally left the table and Mrs. Bradley led the way back into
+the library, Billie uttered a long sigh of relief.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Bradley, and they leaned forward eagerly, "we found
+that what we always supposed about the amount of money Aunt Beatrice had
+was right. She left only a few thousand, and that--queer soul that she
+was--she left to a missionary society."
+
+"Oh!" cried Billie, and it must be admitted that she both felt and
+looked horribly disappointed. She had not known just how much she had
+hoped, both for herself and for Chet, until this moment. And Chet, poor
+fellow, felt just as bad, although he showed it less.
+
+"Then she didn't leave anything either to you or Dad?" Chet asked.
+
+"No. But she did leave something to you and Billie," was Mrs. Bradley's
+startling announcement.
+
+Billie and Chet looked at one another as if to be sure that they had
+heard aright.
+
+"You say she left us something?" cried Billie breathlessly.
+
+"Yes. But don't let your hopes run away with you," Mr. Bradley warned
+them, "for it wasn't very much."
+
+"Oh, tell us," the two commanded eagerly and in unison.
+
+"She left a gold watch to Chet," Mrs. Bradley told them. "It is really a
+very beautiful watch, Chet, and worth a good deal of money. And to
+Billie--" She paused for emphasis and Billie wriggled impatiently. "And
+to Billie she left her rambling old homestead at Cherry Corners."
+
+"A homestead at Cherry Corners!" gasped Billie, unable to believe her
+ears while Chet looked interested. "What sort of a house is it, Mother?"
+
+"I haven't been there for a number of years," replied her mother,
+knitting her brows in an effort to recall the details of Billie's queer
+inheritance. "As I remember it, it is an old-fashioned rambling affair.
+It must have been considered rather handsome in its palmy years, and it
+has been in the Powerson family for generations. In fact, I believe it
+dates back to revolutionary days. It has great large rooms, and rather
+spooky, dark hallways. I'm afraid I wasn't very much impressed with it
+the first time I saw it," she finished, with a smile.
+
+"Wh-what a funny thing to leave me," said Billie, her eyes big and round
+with wonder. Then she added, without thinking--as Billie always did: "Oh,
+don't I wish she had left me a hundred dollars instead! It would have
+been much more useful!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+GHOSTS AND THINGS
+
+
+Billie was instantly sorry for her speech, as she saw the old troubled
+expression cross her father's face.
+
+"Forgive me, please!" she pleaded. "I think I must be the most ungrateful
+girl alive."
+
+"Well, I should say so!" cried Chet, to whom the description of the queer
+old house, while dismaying his sister, had appealed immensely. "Say, I'd
+like nothing better than to go out right now and look your property over,
+Billie. Big rooms and spooky halls and--say, Mother, it must have a
+cellar and an attic. What are they like?"
+
+"I suppose," said his mother, smiling at his enthusiasm, "that since you
+seem to like the ghostly part, you would be more than ever pleased with
+the attic and cellar."
+
+"As I remember it, the cellar was the most peculiar part of the whole
+queer place. Aunt Beatrice took me through it, and seemed immensely proud
+of the funny old tunnels and store-rooms that were tucked away in all
+sort of odd corners. The only thing I liked about it," she finished,
+with a reminiscent smile, "was the shelf-lined, icy room where she kept
+her fruit preserves."
+
+"This gets better and better!" fairly crowed Chet. "A damp, gloomy old
+cellar with tunnels and storerooms in queer corners and--But you were
+going to tell us about the attic."
+
+"Yes, the attic!" cried Billie, for by this time Chet had made her as
+much interested in her strange inheritance as he was. "Did it have trunks
+in it, Mother--and cobwebs?"
+
+"Trunks, yes, but not cobwebs," smiled her mother, "for Aunt Beatrice was
+an excellent housekeeper--when she was at home."
+
+"Then the attic wasn't spooky?" queried Chet, disappointed.
+
+"I should say it was!" returned his mother, with an emphasis that set all
+his fears at rest. "It was the creepiest place I have ever been in, and I
+was never gladder in my life than when we left it for the more cheerful
+lower floor--though goodness knows that was dreary enough."
+
+"Say, when are we going?" cried Chet, jumping to his feet, his face
+flushed with eagerness.
+
+"Where?" asked Mrs. Bradley.
+
+"To Cherry Corners, of course," answered Chet in a tone which very
+plainly meant, "why ask such a foolish question?" "To the ghosts that
+inhabit the garret and cellar of Billie's new house."
+
+"Hold on, hold on there!" cried Mr. Bradley, who had been listening to
+the proceedings in amused silence. "Do you happen to know how far Cherry
+Corners is from here?"
+
+"Very far?" asked Billie.
+
+"A whole day's ride, that's all," their father answered.
+
+"Say, Dad," cried Chet suddenly. "What do you suppose the old place
+is worth?"
+
+"I can't say, Chet," answered Mr. Bradley. "Being so far from good roads
+and the railroad, I am afraid the land is not worth much."
+
+"But it must be worth something," persisted the boy.
+
+Mr. Bradley smiled faintly.
+
+"For Billie's sake let us hope so. But you must remember, in this state
+there are thousands of abandoned farms. Folks simply can't make a living
+on them, and so they move away."
+
+"But the buildings must be worth something."
+
+"To live in, yes, but that is all. You can't move an old stone house to
+some other spot."
+
+"Why do they call it 'Cherry Corners?'" asked Billie, for she had
+been following a little train of thought all her own. "It's a very
+queer name."
+
+"Oh, they come by it naturally enough," her mother answered. "It is
+surrounded by a grove of cherry trees and is near a crossing of two rocky
+roads. So you see the reason for 'Cherry Corners.'"
+
+"Goodness, that sounds as if it were away off in the wilderness!" cried
+Billie, adding: "But wouldn't it be awful to have to live in that spooky
+old house all alone? Are there any houses near it, Mother?"
+
+"Not one for more than a mile," said Mrs. Bradley. "They are almost as
+isolated now as they used to be in the old Indian days."
+
+"Indians!" cried Chet, pricking up his ears again. "Did you say something
+about Indians, Mother?"
+
+"Why, I've heard Aunt Beatrice say," answered Mrs. Bradley, beginning
+to share in her children's enthusiasm, "that the Powersons who
+originally built the house built it especially for the purpose of
+resisting Indian attacks. Now that I come to think of it," she added,
+her eyes beginning to shine with excitement, "that was the reason for
+the winding tunnels and secret rooms. As the last resort, the family
+could take refuge in them."
+
+"Oh, boy!" cried Chet, springing to his feet for the second time. "Did
+you hear that, did you? Indian raids and--oh, gosh!" Words failed him and
+he sank back in his chair with a sigh of joy.
+
+"Isn't it wonderful!" breathed Billie. "At first I was disappointed but
+now--Is that all she left, Mother?"
+
+"Isn't that enough?" her father interjected, with a laugh.
+
+"I suppose so, but I thought--"
+
+"Why, yes, that was all," said her mother, adding the next moment,
+surprised that she should have forgotten the most important part of all:
+"Oh, I forgot to tell you--Aunt Beatrice left you the house with all its
+contents."
+
+"Oh!" breathed Billie again. "Now I know we're going to have a
+wonderful time!"
+
+"What does the old house contain?" questioned Chet. His mind was on
+getting some money out of the inheritance for Billie.
+
+"I am sure I do not know," answered his mother, "It may be completely
+furnished or it may be quite bare. I imagine, though, that Aunt Beatrice
+left it furnished. But everything is very old, and maybe the rats and
+moths have played sad havoc there."
+
+They talked for a little while more about this strange thing that had
+happened. Then Mr. Bradley went off to pick up the loose ends of his
+business and Mrs. Bradley adjourned to the kitchen to discuss supper
+preparations with the mountainous Debbie.
+
+Left alone, Billie and Chet looked at each other wonderingly.
+
+"Well," said Billie in a slightly, awed tone, "we expected something to
+happen, and it certainly did."
+
+"But we didn't expect her to leave you an old stone mansion," crowed
+Chet. "Say, Billie," he added, stopping before her in his excited
+pacing of the room to gaze at her eagerly, "aren't you crazy to go out
+and see it?"
+
+"I'd like," said Billie fervently, "to start for Cherry Corners on the
+very next train. But I'm not so sure I'd like to stay in that place after
+nightfall," she added on second thought.
+
+"Why, you're not afraid of the ghosts, are you?" he asked, with intense
+scorn. "Don't you know that ghosts are all in the imagination?"
+
+"Of course I do. Who said I was afraid of ghosts?" retorted Billie with
+spirit. "You know that I don't believe in them any more than you do."
+
+"Well, then what are you afraid of?" insisted Chet.
+
+"Oh, thieves and things. Tramps maybe," said Billie thoughtfully; then
+she added with spirit, as Chet smiled a superior sort of smile: "I just
+guess you wouldn't be able to spend a night in that sort of a gloomy old
+house away off from everybody without feeling nervous. Goodness! I'd be
+expecting every minute to have the ghosts of dead and gone Indians rise
+up and scalp me."
+
+"Thought you didn't believe in ghosts," gibed Chet.
+
+"I don't," flared Billie, adding rather weakly: "But I'm not going to
+take any chances, anyway."
+
+"But oh," she added after a few minutes of thoughtful silence, "I can't
+help it if it is ungrateful, but I do wish Aunt Beatrice had left me a
+few hundred dollars instead. We've still got that old statue to worry
+about, and Three Towers Hall and the military academy."
+
+Chet was silent for a minute, then he said with sudden inspiration:
+"There's the watch Aunt Beatrice left me, you know. Mother said it was
+very valuable."
+
+Billie's face lighted for a moment, then fell again.
+
+"But you know Uncle Bill always said that you never could get anything
+like the value for old gold. And anyway," she rose and put a loving arm
+about him, "I couldn't let you do that for me, Chet, dear. I think you're
+the dearest brother in the world."
+
+A few hours later Laura Jordon and Violet Farrington came over, trying
+their best not to look curious. They had waited as long as they could,
+but knowing about the death of Billie's queer old aunt and knowing also
+that Billie, as her namesake, might expect some share of the fortune--if
+there was one--they had been filled with excitement, and now as they ran
+up the steps to Billie's porch it was all they could do to keep from
+blurting out the question.
+
+For both Laura and Violet had been perfectly certain that Billie's Aunt
+Beatrice had been some sort of miser who had piled up an immense fortune
+simply for their chum's benefit.
+
+"Just think," Violet had said in one of their excited conferences on the
+subject, "what a wonderful thing it will be for Billie just now when she
+is so worried about that miserable old statue. And for Chet too!"
+
+"Yes, it would mean they could both go to school and we'd all have such a
+good time," Laura had chimed in. "Goodness!" she had added with a
+chuckle, "I feel almost as much obliged to Aunt Beatrice as Billie will."
+
+But now that the great moment had come, they sat decorously in Billie's
+porch swing and tried to appear not at all curious as to whether Billie
+had gathered in a fortune since they last had seen her or not.
+
+And Billie, her little imp of mischief at work again, guessed the object
+of their visit and decided with an inward chuckle to keep them guessing.
+
+She managed to accomplish her purpose for just about five minutes. Then
+Laura, unable to stand the suspense a moment more, took the bit in her
+teeth and bolted.
+
+"For goodness' sake, Billie," she cried desperately, "why don't
+you tell us?"
+
+"Tell you what?" asked Billie, trying to look innocent. "Haven't I been
+telling you--"
+
+"Yes, about the way Debbie makes potato salad," cried Laura disgustedly.
+"You know well enough why we came."
+
+"Why you came?" Billie repeated, looking still more surprised. "Why,
+naturally, I thought you came to see me."
+
+"Billie Bradley, if you don't tell us what we want to know this instant,"
+cried Laura, jumping to her feet and making a threatening movement toward
+Billie's mischievous head, "I'll--I'll--oh, I don't know what I'll do.
+Are you going to be good? Are you?"
+
+"Yes, yes," cried Billie, pretending immense fright, while her eyes
+danced with mischief. "Tell me what it is you want to know and I'll do
+my best, Your Highness," this last in such a very humble tone that
+Laura chuckled.
+
+"All right, go ahead then," she said while Violet leaned forward eagerly.
+"What did your aunt leave you?"
+
+"Straight from the shoulder," Billie murmured. Then as Laura made another
+threatening gesture toward her, added hurriedly: "All right. Don't shoot
+and I'll tell you everything. Only it will take time."
+
+Billie paused, to allow the proper amount of emphasis, then said, in a
+deep whisper:
+
+"She left me a--haunted house!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+OLD FURNITURE
+
+
+Laura screamed and Violet jumped clear out of her seat.
+
+They stared at Billie, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
+
+"Wh-what did you say?" asked Laura when she could get her breath.
+
+"I said," said Billie, speaking very distinctly and enjoying the
+sensation she had caused, "that Aunt Beatrice left me a haunted house."
+
+"Th-then I wasn't dreaming," stammered Violet, while Laura just continued
+to stare. "Is th-that all, Billie?"
+
+"Isn't that enough?" asked Billie, just as her father had done a few
+hours before.
+
+"It's either not enough or it is too much," replied Violet. "If I had to
+have the ghosts, I should want some very substantial compensations to
+make up for such housemates as those airy and playful ladies and
+gentlemen are said to make."
+
+"But it is a house," persisted Billie. "And you know it isn't everybody
+who can own a haunted house."
+
+"A haunted house!" said Laura, speaking in a hushed tone. "Is it a real
+haunted house, Billie, or are you fooling?"
+
+"Well, I don't know that it is a regular honest-to-goodness one,"
+admitted Billie reluctantly. "You see, it is the house Aunt Beatrice
+used to live in when she was at home, and she left it to me, with
+everything in it."
+
+"How perfectly glorious!" cried Laura, clapping her hands with delight.
+"Tell us about it, Billie. What made you say it was haunted?"
+
+Then did Billie tell them all that her mother had told her about
+her inheritance and, if the truth be told, even added a few details
+of her own.
+
+However that may have been, the fact remains that when she had finished
+the girls were as perfectly wild as Chet had been to visit the queer old
+place and, if need be, even confront its "ghosts!"
+
+"Think!" cried Laura, clasping her hands rapturously. "Just think of
+being able to roam all over that romantic old place and pry into
+corners--"
+
+"And get your hands dirty," interrupted Billie drily.
+
+"Why, Billie," Laura stopped in her transports to regard her friend with
+wide eyes, "aren't you simply wild about the place too?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose so," said Billie, adding as a shadow crossed her face:
+"The folks think I'm awful, all 'cept Chet, and I suppose I am--but I'd
+give the whole place, tunnels, spooky hallways, ghostly attic, and
+everything for just a few little hundred dollar bills."
+
+The girls were silent for a few minutes, realizing that Billie's strange
+inheritance did not do a thing toward solving the old problems of the
+broken statue and of going to boarding school.
+
+Then Violet, who was always thinking up some happy way out of a
+difficulty, gave a little bounce in the swing.
+
+"How do we know," she cried, as the girls looked at her half hopefully,
+"but what you could sell some of the furniture in the old house and get
+enough to pay for the statue?"
+
+"We might, at that," said Billie, her face lighting up again. "But mother
+said it must all be awfully old," she added doubtfully.
+
+"All the better," cried Violet, growing more and more enthusiastic. "You
+say that the old house dates back to revolutionary times, Billie. How do
+we know but what some of the old furniture would be very valuable as
+antiques?"
+
+"Violet, you're a wonder!" cried Billie, hugging her so hard that she
+gasped for breath. "I'd never have thought of that in a thousand years.
+Now you speak of it," she added thoughtfully, "I remember some antique
+furniture that Uncle Bill has in his library. He says it's worth all
+sorts of money, but I wouldn't give two cents for it."
+
+"Well, as long as somebody will, what should we care!" cried Laura
+flippantly. "Maybe you'll make a fortune for yourself after all, Billie."
+
+"Oh, and think what it would mean!" cried Violet, her eyes shining. "It
+would mean that you could pay for that beastly old statue, Billie. And it
+would mean that you could go to Three Towers with us."
+
+"And Chet could go to the military academy with Teddy and Ferd,"
+Laura added.
+
+"For goodness' sake!" cried poor Billie wildly. "You make me feel dizzy.
+What is the use of getting my hopes all raised? Probably Aunt Beatrice's
+furniture will be old, fallen-to-pieces stuff that nobody would give two
+cents for."
+
+"Goodness, what a wet blanket!" cried Laura reproachfully.
+
+"Well, I'd rather be a wet blanket," retorted Billie desperately, "than
+to plan for a lot of fun and then be disappointed. I--I've been
+disappointed enough, goodness knows."
+
+There was a quiver in Billie's brave little mouth and instinctively
+Violet and Laura put an arm about her.
+
+"We know what you mean," said Violet, soothingly. "And if you don't want
+us to, we'll try not to hope too hard."
+
+"Or if we do, we'll keep it to ourselves," added Laura, and Billie
+hugged them fondly.
+
+"I don't want you to stop hoping," she cried plaintively. "And I don't
+want to be a wet blanket, either. I'm just afraid, that's all."
+
+The girls swung back and forth in silence for a few minutes. Then it was
+Laura who spoke.
+
+"When are you going out to look over your property, Billie?"
+
+"Why, I don't know," answered Billie thoughtfully. "As soon as we can
+arrange it, I suppose. Dad says it's a full day's trip to get there, so
+we would have to make some arrangement to stay over night."
+
+"Couldn't you spend the night in the house?" suggested Violet.
+
+"We might," Billie answered doubtfully. "Although I must say I wouldn't
+like to--not the first night anyway. I'd want time to become acquainted
+with the place first."
+
+"If you will promise on your word of honor not to laugh at me," said
+Violet after another short silence, "I'll tell you that I have
+another idea."
+
+"We won't laugh," they promised, and Billie added eagerly: "Tell us about
+it, Violet. Even if we do laugh at your ideas at first, we generally end
+by following them."
+
+"But you said you wouldn't laugh this time," Violet reminded her, adding,
+as the worst threat she could think of: "If you do I won't let you
+follow out my idea."
+
+"All right," said Billie. "As Chet would say--'shoot.'"
+
+"Why, I was just thinking," said Violet, looking at them intently, "that
+we haven't a plan in the world for spending our vacation--"
+
+"Vi!" cried Laura joyfully, not waiting for her to finish, "you _have_
+a good idea this time. You were going to say, why not spend our
+vacation there?"
+
+"At Cherry Corners?" asked Billie surprised, adding with a demure
+glance: "Nobody seems to think of asking me about it. And it's my
+property, you know."
+
+"Gracious, isn't she stuck up?" cried Laura flippantly. "I'll have you
+know you're not the only property holder in the community, Billie
+Bradley. Dad gave me the deed to three lots in some outlandish place, I
+don't even know where it is."
+
+"Probably didn't have anything else to do with them, so wished them on
+you," said Billie cruelly.
+
+"Shouldn't wonder," said Laura, adding with a rueful little smile:
+"I've never been able to find out whether it was an April Fool's
+present or not."
+
+"Well, I don't see what all that has to do with my proposition," put in
+Violet patiently. "Now own up--don't you think it's a great idea?"
+
+"Wonderful," said Billie unenthusiastically. "I don't know when I've
+ever heard of anything so brilliant."
+
+"There's something wrong with Billie," said Violet, beginning to look
+anxious. "Don't you think we'd better send for a doctor, Laura?"
+
+"I think you are the one who needs a doctor," retorted Billie. "Who ever
+thought of spending a vacation out in the wilderness a million miles or
+so from nowhere in an old tumbled-down house that makes your flesh creep
+and the hair rise on your head just to look at it?"
+
+"My, but that must feel funny," said Laura, the irrepressible. "That's
+one experience I never did have."
+
+"What?" asked Billie.
+
+"Have my hair rise on my head. Please excuse me, Billie," as Billie in
+her turn looked threatening. "What was it you were about to say?"
+
+"Goose," commented Billie and then turned to Violet. "Did you really mean
+that about spending our vacation there?" she asked.
+
+"Of course I did," said Violet. "And I don't see what's so very funny
+about it anyway. We could take a chaperone, and maybe the boys could come
+along too."
+
+"Oh, that would be fun," cried Billie, then flushed as she met
+Laura's laughing eyes. "I meant," she added, angry because of the
+blush, "that the place wouldn't be quite so lonesome and horrid with
+the boys around."
+
+"Oh, yes, we know," said Laura, with an aggravating twinkle that made
+Billie long to shake her. "We know all about it, honey."
+
+Why, thought Billie, as she ignored the remark, pretending not to hear
+it, would Laura always be such a goose as to make a joke of the very
+real friendship between her and Teddy Jordon? She liked Teddy immensely
+and she was not going to stop liking him even if Laura would persist in
+being foolish.
+
+"Then you will admit it is a good idea?" Violet asked eagerly.
+
+"I liked it all, but Billie only likes the last part--about the boys,"
+said Laura, and again Billie had a wild desire to shake her.
+
+"It will be lots of fun," she said, beginning to see the possibilities in
+a vacation spent at Cherry Corners. "Mother says the rooms are large and
+there are plenty of them so we could have as big a party as we wanted.
+But I don't know how comfortable you would be," she warned them.
+
+"Who cares about being comfortable on a lark like that?" cried Laura
+airily. "The more uncomfortable we are the more fun we'll have. I say,
+Billie, don't you think we'd better take Gyp along?" Gyp was a
+thoroughbred bull terrier of which Laura was the proud owner. "He might
+come in handy if any ghosts showed up."
+
+The girls laughed at her.
+
+"As if Gyp would be any good against ghosts!" scoffed Violet. "Why, they
+would walk right through him."
+
+"Well," said Laura, with a little chuckle, "he could at least bark and
+let us know when they were coming!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BILLIE WINS OUT
+
+
+"But whom shall we get for a chaperone?" asked Laura Jordon, after they
+had thoroughly discussed these new and startling plans for a vacation.
+"We don't want to get any one who is too old and grouchy, and yet the
+folks probably wouldn't let us go unless we did."
+
+Billie and Violet laughed, for they realized the truth of what she said.
+
+"We do seem to be 'up against it,' as Ted says." Laura was always using
+her brother for an excuse for her own slang. "I can't think of a single
+person jolly enough to please us and dull enough to please the folks."
+
+"How about one of our mothers?" Violet suggested.
+
+"I know my mother wouldn't do it," said Billie. "The last time I
+asked her to chaperone us girls she said she would as soon chaperone
+a trio of eels."
+
+"And when I asked mother," Laura added, "she said she would have nervous
+prostration in a week."
+
+"My, we must have a terrible reputation," sighed Violet. "I never knew
+we were as bad as all that."
+
+"Oh, I have an idea!" cried Laura suddenly, clapping her hands.
+
+"Well, don't let it bite you," murmured Billie.
+
+"Wait till you hear and you won't be so sarcastic," retorted Laura. "I'm
+sure I have just the very person that we want."
+
+"Oh, who?" cried Violet.
+
+"Maria Gilligan, our housekeeper," Laura announced, and then sat back
+with an air that said just as plainly as words: "There! how's that for an
+inspiration?"
+
+"Maria Gilligan, your housekeeper?" Billie repeated.
+
+"I think it's a rather good idea, Laura," said Violet. "Isn't Mrs.
+Gilligan the one who is always playing jokes on her husband?"
+
+"Yes, she's the funniest thing you ever saw," Laura answered, her eyes
+beginning to twinkle at the memory of some of Mrs. Gilligan's
+escapades. "Why, one April Fool's Day she set the clock back an hour
+and Mr. Gilligan got up grumbling that it was awfully dark for six
+o'clock. Then when he was all ready and was starting out to work she
+told him about it."
+
+"What did he do?" asked Violet, interested.
+
+"I know what I'd have done if I'd been in his place," sniffed Billie.
+"I'd have tied her in a chair and gagged her and left her there all day."
+
+"Billie! how barbaric!" cried Violet. "What would you have done
+that for?"
+
+"Just so she could have thought over her sins," said Billie with a
+chuckle. "I never did believe in practical jokes."
+
+"And then another time," said Laura, her eyes twinkling, "she was
+upstairs straightening up the store-room when she pretended to have a
+tumble. You know she weighs about two hundred pounds--"
+
+"At a rough guess, I should say three hundred," murmured Billie, for
+Billie was in a very contrary mood that day.
+
+"And she came down with a thump that shook the chandeliers," Laura went
+on, ignoring the interruption, "and when Mr. Gilligan--you know he weighs
+only a hundred and fifty and is about half her size--"
+
+"Now I _know_ she weighs three hundred," interposed Billie again. "It's
+just a matter of arithmetic."
+
+"There she was with her head in her hands," went on Laura, too much
+amused by her story to notice the interruption, "sobbing as if her heart
+would break. And when he got down on his knees to comfort her, she just
+looked at him with a grin and said: 'April Fool.'"
+
+"Well, I should say he was," said Billie, with another sniff. "And not
+only an April Fool, either. She would try a trick like that just about
+once with me."
+
+"Well, anyway," Laura concluded, "I think she would be just the one
+to take on our trip with us. She's jolly and full of fun and yet
+she's old enough and fat enough to please our fathers and mothers.
+What do you say?"
+
+"Do you suppose she's fat enough to scare away the ghosts?" asked Billie,
+with a chuckle.
+
+"My, but I'd be sorry for any mistaken ghost that tried to have a set-to
+with her," laughed Laura. "She'd just laugh at them and say: 'Shoo,
+ghost, don't bodder me.'"
+
+"All right, let's ask her," decided Billie. "Now that we have made up
+our minds to change Cherry Corners into a summer resort, I can't wait to
+get started."
+
+"If only the folks will be willing," said Violet, looking worried.
+"Mother is funny about letting me go anywhere away from home
+without her."
+
+"I guess all our parents are," said Billie, then added, with a sudden
+inspiration: "I tell you what! Let's all go together and ask them. Three
+are always stronger than one."
+
+"You do have a good idea once in awhile, Billie!" exclaimed Laura,
+jumping out of the swing and holding out a hand to each of them. "Come
+on, we can't afford to waste any time."
+
+"Where shall we go first?" asked Violet.
+
+"To Laura's," Billie decided. "If we can get her mother and father to
+consent and then can get Mrs. Gilligan to go with us as chaperone, we'll
+have a pretty good argument to give our folks. Eh, what?"
+
+Gaily the girls set off to win Laura's parents over to their side, and
+they were lucky enough to find Mrs. Jordon at home. Also Teddy was there,
+sitting beside her on the veranda. At sight of Billie the boy jumped to
+his feet and came running down to her.
+
+"Hello," he cried. "I was just coming over your way, to see if Chet
+didn't want to fight out our singles tournament. He's two sets ahead of
+me now, and I'm thirsting for r-revenge."
+
+"I think he'll give it to you all right," laughed Billie, as Violet and
+Laura ran up the steps in front of them. "I've never seen the time yet
+when Chet refused a tennis game."
+
+"All right, I'm off then," he cried, and was starting away when she
+called him back.
+
+"Don't you want to know about my--inheritance?" she asked him, with a
+demure little glance.
+
+"Your what?" he cried, then suddenly he grasped her two hands and swung
+them joyfully back and forth. "Do you mean to say," he cried, "that your
+aunt really left you something? What is it, Billie? Go on, tell me."
+
+"If you want to hear all about it just stay around for a little while,"
+she laughed, leading him toward the group at the other end of the porch,
+two members of which were already in animated conversation.
+
+"May we get in on this?" she called, interrupting an eloquent appeal on
+Laura's part.
+
+"Oh, yes, come here, do," cried Laura, clutching at her dress and
+dragging her into the circle. "Mother's beginning to shake her head, and
+you mustn't let her, Billie. She'll do anything for you."
+
+Mrs. Jordon laughed and made room for Billie on the divan beside her.
+
+"Now perhaps you'll tell me," she said, "what this crazy daughter of mine
+is talking about. So far I've got a sort of confused jumble of a haunted
+house and vacations and Mrs. Gilligan. I must confess I don't see how the
+three can possibly be connected."
+
+Then Billie told all over again the story of her strange inheritance,
+while Mrs. Jordon and Teddy listened with interest and Violet and Laura
+now and then put in a word to plead their cause.
+
+As for Teddy, he was so busy watching Billie's flushed, excited and
+altogether charming face that he more than once lost the trend of the
+conversation.
+
+"I don't wonder Laura said mother couldn't refuse her anything," he
+thought. "I don't see how any one could refuse her when she talks and
+looks that way. Billie's a wonder, that's all."
+
+And in this case Billie did indeed prove herself to be a wonder. Within
+half an hour she had not only won Mrs. Jordon over to their side, but
+had persuaded her to let the girls borrow Mrs. Gilligan for the time of
+their vacation.
+
+"Of course," Mrs. Jordon warned them, as the girls were hugging each
+other triumphantly, "we aren't at all sure that Mrs. Gilligan will want
+to undertake such an expedition. I couldn't blame her very much if she
+didn't," she added, with a rueful little smile, "knowing you girls as
+she does."
+
+"I'll get her!" cried Laura, and promptly put her words into action.
+
+She appeared the next minute, dragging a very much astonished housekeeper
+after her, and proudly presented her prize to her mother.
+
+"She said she was busy, Mother, and couldn't stop," Laura said, adding,
+with a bright smile: "But I told her it was something awfully important
+you wanted to say to her."
+
+"Sure and I suppose the young girl is up to some of her tricks," said
+Mrs. Gilligan, beaming fondly upon her captor, "but I came with her,
+thinking it possible you might really have something to say to me,
+Mrs. Jordon."
+
+"Yes, I have, Mrs. Gilligan. Sit down, won't you please? It may take
+some time to persuade you--"
+
+And then and there began another campaign. However, with Mrs. Jordon as a
+powerful ally the girls had little trouble in overcoming Mrs. Gilligan's
+objections, and in the end came off with colors flying.
+
+"Now to see Billie's mother!" cried Laura.
+
+The girls hugged Mrs. Jordon, waved to their new chaperone, and ran
+gayly down the steps. Teddy, with a whispered word to his mother,
+followed them.
+
+"Say, wait for a fellow, can't you?" he cried, and they turned to
+wait for him.
+
+"Come on, Vi," cried Laura, catching hold of Violet's arm and
+hurrying forward. "Ted and Billie will get there some time. We can't
+wait for them."
+
+"How do you like our new plans?" asked Billie, looking up at him with
+sparkling eyes.
+
+"I think you ought to have all sorts of fun," he told her, adding
+with a funny little smile: "But I can't quite make out yet where we
+fellows come in."
+
+"Oh, didn't I tell you?" she asked, surprised. "Why, you are going with
+us!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+GREAT PLANS
+
+
+After permission for the outing was gained from all the parents concerned
+everything was bustle and excitement. For a week the girls spent the
+whole of every day at each other's houses, planning their vacation,
+talking about the clothes they would need to take with them, and
+generally enjoying themselves.
+
+As the time drew near they could hardly contain their excitement, and the
+boys, who had decided they would follow the girls some days later, were
+almost as bad.
+
+"I don't see why you don't come with us," Billie pouted one night, when
+the entire crowd of young folks had assembled at her home. "It would be
+lots more fun on the train if you boys were with us."
+
+"But there is the tennis match we promised to play with the fellows of
+the south end," Chet pointed out for perhaps the hundredth time. "We
+couldn't back out of it at the last minute, you know; they'd think we
+were afraid."
+
+"Now how do you know," Violet pointed out, "but what we will all have
+been eaten up by the ghosts by the time you get there?"
+
+"Ghosts!" scoffed Ferdinand Stowing, who was to go with Chet and Teddy.
+"I don't see where you girls get this ghost stuff. Just because a house
+happens to be old doesn't say it's haunted."
+
+"Gosh! listen to him," cried Chet indignantly. "Some one is always taking
+the joy out of life."
+
+"Say, you don't think it's haunted, do you?" asked Ferd, in surprise.
+
+"Of course not," answered Chet, adding, with a chuckle: "But I have
+my hopes."
+
+"Well, so have I," spoke up Laura promptly. "If there isn't a family
+ghost or two about the place, we just won't have any fun. What's the use
+of going off into the wilderness to a spooky house if we're not going to
+meet a ghost?"
+
+"Well, you know I didn't promise any ghosts," said Billie, looking up
+from a piece of fancy work she was embroidering. "If you are
+disappointed, you needn't blame it on me, Laura, or you either, Chet."
+
+"Well, I don't see why we shouldn't have a good time without ghosts," put
+in Violet. "In fact, I don't think I'd particularly enjoy meeting
+somebody's great-great-ancestor in the dark."
+
+"Oh, Vi, you give me the creeps," said Laura with a little shiver.
+"Billie, do you think half a dozen middies' would do? We won't want to
+dress up very much."
+
+"No, the ghosts probably wouldn't know the difference," said Teddy
+wickedly. "By the way, boys," he went on, imitating Laura's tone to
+perfection, "that's one important thing we haven't decided, yet. What are
+we going to wear?"
+
+"You poor fish!" cried Ferd, throwing a cushion at him. "Who let you in?"
+
+"Stop wrecking the furniture," exclaimed Billie, from her corner. "And do
+stop talking all at once. You make my ears ache. And besides, I want to
+say something."
+
+"Silence," cried Chet, in a dramatically deep voice. "The queen is about
+to speak."
+
+"He said something that time," whispered Teddy in her ear, and a little
+pink flush mounted to Billie's face, making her look prettier than ever.
+It was so nice to have one's friends like you!
+
+"Why, I was just thinking about the cooking," she said. "Do any of you
+boys know how to cook?"
+
+"Heavens, listen at her!" cried Ferd in alarm. "Is she going to set us to
+work already--before we get there? What's the idea, Billie?"
+
+"Well," replied Billie, biting off her thread calmly, "we have to eat
+while we're there, you know."
+
+"No!" cried Chet sarcastically. "You may, sweet sister, but not us. We
+are too ethereal."
+
+"Say, is he insulting us?" cried Ferd indignantly. "Say that again, I
+dare you--"
+
+"Oh, for goodness' sake keep still!" cried Laura, clapping her hands to
+her ears. "You make me deaf, dumb and blind. Now, Billie, what were you
+going to say?"
+
+"Simply, that since we do have to eat, Chet or anybody else to the
+contrary," she looked at her brother and dimpled adorably, "we will have
+to decide who is going to do the cooking."
+
+"Why, I suppose we'll take our turns at it, as we've done before when we
+have been camping," said Laura, in surprise.
+
+"I know. But what I want to find out is, are the boys going to do any of
+the work?"
+
+"Good land, is she asking us to cook?" asked Ferd. "Why, Billie, we don't
+know a thing about it!"
+
+"And don't want to learn," added Chet fervently.
+
+"Oh, you big fibbers!" Billie's eyes danced as she looked at them.
+"I remember--oh, I have a very good memory," and she glanced
+sideways at Teddy, who was beginning to look uncomfortable. "I
+remember a certain person telling me how beautifully you boys cooked
+while you were at camp."
+
+"Say, Billie, that's not fair," cried Teddy, with a guilty note in his
+voice that made his two comrades look at him accusingly.
+
+"Aha, we see the villain!" cried Ferd threateningly. "What'll we do with
+him, Chet?"
+
+"Nothing's bad enough for such a crime," said Chet ruefully. "What did
+you make such a break for, Ted? I thought I'd brought you up better."
+
+"Gee, Billie, do you see what you've let me in for?" said Ted miserably,
+but Billie only regarded him with laughing eyes while Laura and Violet
+seemed to be enjoying the situation immensely.
+
+"I don't see what I did," Billie replied innocently. "I thought I was
+paying you boys a compliment by saying that you could cook well."
+
+"But we can't," cried Ferd, seizing the opportunity eagerly. "Gee,
+Billie, you couldn't eat the awful messes we make. Why, you're a
+good cook--"
+
+Billie raised a cushion threateningly in the air.
+
+"None of that! None of that!" she warned him. "We see through you,
+villain!"
+
+"Say, she must think you're one of the Cherry Corners ghosts," broke in
+Teddy whimsically. "It's pretty hard on a fellow when you can see through
+him, Billie."
+
+"But honest you couldn't," Ferd insisted, not to be defeated in this one
+last hope. "Really, I don't know enough about an egg to take the shell
+off when I fry it."
+
+"Idiot," cried Billie, throwing the pillow at him in earnest. "Who ever
+heard of fried egg in the shell?"
+
+"I did," cried Ferd, unabashed by the laughter and the scornful glances
+turned his way. "Ladies and gentlemen, you see before you to-night the
+man that invented it."
+
+"Well, but nobody has answered my question," said Billie demurely,
+after the laughter had subsided. "Are the boys going to help cook or
+are they not?"
+
+"I tell you what," said Chet desperately. "We'll cook if you will promise
+to eat it."
+
+"Billie," cried Laura in alarm, "don't make any rash promises. They would
+probably put some awful thing into the food on purpose."
+
+"Laura, that's some idea," cried Ferd, looking at her admiringly while
+Teddy and Chet chuckled. "Thanks. We never would have thought of that
+ourselves."
+
+"Well," said Billie with a little chuckle, "I imagine we would rather eat
+our own cooking anyway, so you needn't worry. Only," she added warningly,
+as they sighed with relief, "there is one thing you _will_ have to do."
+
+"And what's that?" they cried fearfully.
+
+"Help wash the dishes," she said; and in her tone was no relenting.
+
+And so, even to the impatient girls the time passed quickly until at last
+the great day arrived.
+
+It was a wonderful day, sunshiny and warm without being too hot, and all
+three of them were up with the birds. They were to catch the eight
+o'clock morning train, and so they had no time to waste in bed.
+
+Billie was in a joyful mood as she got herself into the pretty new dress
+she was to wear on the trip. She ran around the room, humming to herself
+and every once in a while doing a little dance step as she realized that
+they were at last to embark upon their adventure.
+
+And an adventure she somehow felt sure it was to be. For even though,
+contrary to Chet's hopes, and she smiled as she thought of him, they did
+not meet with ghosts at Cherry Corners, there would be the fun of seeing
+for the first time her inheritance.
+
+It might be a queer old house and the contents and the grounds about it
+might be of small value, but there was a wonderful thrill nevertheless in
+being the owner of it.
+
+And there was the fact that it dated back to revolutionary times, it was
+really historic and--it all belonged to her!
+
+No wonder she sang as she gave a last fond pat to the pretty dress and
+tucked a wandering little strand of hair into place. Her eyes danced and
+her face was flushed, but Billie never noticed how pretty she was.
+
+She was the first in the dining-room that morning, but her mother soon
+came in, scattering advice as she came and all through the meal Billie
+tried hard to listen dutifully to all the "must nots" and "don't dos."
+But all the time her eyes were on the clock and her mind was saying over
+and over again:
+
+"In just half an hour we'll be on the train. In just half an hour we'll
+be on the train."
+
+Then Chet came in and her father, and, finding that it was almost train
+time, postponed their breakfast to see her off. A few minutes later they
+started off to pick up the girls on the way to the station.
+
+They found them waiting impatiently, and wildly eager to be off. About a
+block from the station they heard the whistle of the train, and the girls
+would run for it, though they really had plenty of time.
+
+At last they were in the train with the boys and their parents waving to
+them. Then suddenly they realized that they were moving. They were
+actually on their way!
+
+"Give my regards to the ghosts!" cried Chet as the train moved off, "and
+don't scare them all off before I get there!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHERRY CORNERS
+
+
+As the train drew out of the station Billie leaned back with a sigh of
+pure happiness.
+
+"You know," she said, looking at the girls with sparkling eyes, "this is
+the very first time that I have ever been away from North Bend without
+the folks."
+
+"But don't forget you've got me to look after you," put in Mrs. Gilligan,
+with a twinkle in her eyes. "I'm goin' to see that you don't get into
+mischief."
+
+"I don't know but what we shall have to look out that you don't get into
+mischief," said Laura with a chuckle. "Mr. Gilligan told me once that you
+weren't to be trusted out alone."
+
+"Huh," retorted Mrs. Gilligan good-naturedly, "it's him that I
+wouldn't be trusting. But what," she asked, looking curiously at
+Billie, "did your brother mean by saying not to scare away the ghosts
+before he gets there?"
+
+"Oh," laughed Billie, "he has a sort of idea that the house at Cherry
+Corners is inhabited by spirits--just because mother said that the
+halls and rooms were spooky. He will be terribly disappointed if he
+doesn't see half a dozen ghosts."
+
+"Well, I wouldn't," said Violet with a shudder, for now that they were on
+the way to their adventure, her courage was beginning to fail.
+
+"Ghosts!" repeated Mrs. Gilligan, with a fun-loving light in her eyes.
+"Better not any ghosts come around me or I'll give 'em a taste of the
+rolling pin."
+
+The girls laughed. The picture of Mrs. Maria Gilligan assaulting a ghost
+with a rolling pin was indeed a funny one.
+
+"Well," said Billie a little later, as she started to unpin her hat, "I
+don't know about you girls, but I'm going to be comfortable. We have a
+long ride before us."
+
+"I suppose we might as well take off our hats and stay awhile," agreed
+Laura, following suit. "Say, girls," she added, as she stuck her hat up
+in the rack above her head, "I just thought of something last night."
+
+"Was it anything important?" asked Billie, with a wicked little look.
+
+"I don't know whether you would think so," Laura retorted calmly. "I was
+wondering why we didn't take the night train that reaches Roland, the
+nearest station to Cherry Corners, in the morning."
+
+"That would have been a good idea, wouldn't it?" said Billie. "Now we
+will reach the house after dark."
+
+"When all the spooks are roaming," added Laura, in a ghostly voice.
+
+"Goodness!" cried Violet, turning uncomfortably in her seat, "if you
+girls don't stop talking about ghosts I'll just get out and go home."
+
+"Got your car fare?" asked Laura.
+
+"No. But I could always walk," returned Violet. "And I'd almost rather do
+it than spend the night in the company of ghosts."
+
+"Well, you'd better decide in a hurry," said Billie, with a chuckle,
+"because the longer you take to make up your mind, the farther you will
+have to walk back."
+
+"All right," said Violet, suddenly goaded into an unusual firmness. "You
+promise me this minute that you won't say another word about ghosts until
+we get there, or I'll get off at the very next station and walk back."
+
+"It's ten miles," Laura warned her.
+
+"I don't care if it's twenty," she returned stoutly, and laughingly the
+girls promised.
+
+"It would be a crime to wear out those perfectly good shoes," said
+Laura, looking at Violet's trim suede footgear. "Especially with prices
+going up."
+
+Billie groaned.
+
+"I think I'll have to try Violet's trick," she said. "If anybody mentions
+the high cost of living to me while we're away on this vacation, I'll
+get out and walk home. I don't care if it's a hundred miles."
+
+"Going up?" laughed Laura, but they promised just the same. For
+underneath Billie's lightness they knew that she was still puzzling her
+wits for some way to pay for that broken statue.
+
+"Here comes a man with magazines," said Laura. "We'd better get a couple
+to pass the time away. An all-day trip is pretty tiresome. At least I've
+heard mother say so."
+
+They bought the magazines, but they might just as well not have done so,
+for when they reached Roland late that afternoon they had hardly peeped
+inside the covers.
+
+The scenery was so beautiful and wild, the whole trip was so wonderfully
+novel that the time flew, and before they realized it they had reached
+the station next to Roland.
+
+"Goodness, I didn't think we were anywhere near there, yet!" cried
+Violet, as she began to gather up her things. "I never knew a day to go
+so quickly in my life. Billie, are these your candies? You'd better not
+leave them on the seat."
+
+"Who said I was going to?" cried Billie, rescuing her sweets just as
+Laura was in the act of sitting on them. "Here, there's just room
+for them in the corner of my grip. Mrs. Gilligan, have you got the
+trunk checks?"
+
+"I hope so," said the woman, opening her hand bag.
+
+The girls watched her breathlessly and sighed with relief when she drew
+out the checks.
+
+"All safe and sound," she said. "Now get on your hats and coats, girls.
+We're apt to have a wild scramble at the last if you aren't ready
+beforehand."
+
+So, laughing and excited, the girls obeyed her, putting on their wraps
+hurriedly and laughing at Laura when she got her hat over one eye.
+
+"Here, put it on straight," cried Billie, performing that service for
+her friend. "We don't want to have our reputations ruined the minute we
+step on the platform. Who ever heard of a perfect lady with her hat
+over one eye?"
+
+"Well, if you don't like my company--" Laura began good-naturedly, as she
+squinted at her distorted reflection in the little two-by-four mirror set
+in the tiny space of wall between the windows. "Gracious, Billie, you
+took it off of one eye to put it over the other. Do I look more like a
+perfect lady with my hat over my right eye?"
+
+Billie chuckled and pushed the hat over Laura's nose, at which Laura
+would have protested vigorously and, if must be, forcefully, if there had
+not been other passengers in the train besides themselves. As it was, she
+had to be content with an indignant stare, which Billie, with twinkling
+eyes, calmly turned her back upon.
+
+"Roland! Roland!" called the conductor in stentorian tones, and with
+little squeals of excitement the girls found their hand baggage, gave one
+last little pat to their hats, and started toward the door.
+
+"You go first, Mrs. Gilligan," cried Violet, pushing that woman
+before her.
+
+"I wonder if Vi expects the ghosts to meet us at the station?" chuckled
+Laura in Billie's ear. "She reminds me of a relative of ours who always
+pushes her escort in front of her when she meets a strange dog."
+
+Billie giggled, caught her grip on the arm of one of the seats, rescued
+it again, and finally made her way with the others to the platform.
+
+It was a rather old and broken-down platform, just as Roland proved to be
+a rather old and broken-down place, and the girls stood on it ruefully as
+they watched the train rumble off in the distance.
+
+"Now we're in for it," said Billie, her eyes taking in a
+disconsolate-looking store or two and a drooping post-office. "I wonder
+if this is what they call the village?"
+
+"Well, we're not going to live here," said Mrs. Gilligan briskly. "And
+you can't expect to find a thriving town away off a hundred miles from
+nowhere. Come on, let's see if we can find some sort of a wagon to take
+us and our belongings to Cherry Corners. I don't suppose," she added, as
+they crossed the street toward a building a little more dilapidated than
+the rest that had the words Livery Stable painted on a blurred sign over
+the door, "that there is any sort of hotel or boarding house where we
+might put up for the night."
+
+"Mother didn't remember about that. You see she had been here only once,"
+said Billie. "But I don't imagine there is--any place that we would want
+to stay at," she added, making a wry little face.
+
+The place, in truth, was not attractive, nor did it promise much,
+outwardly at least, as a refuge for the night. Besides the street on
+which were the forlorn looking stores and the post-office and a few
+other nondescript looking buildings that might have been used for
+almost any possible purpose, there seemed to be but two streets on
+which were built the dwelling houses. These, for the most part, were
+simple and plain enough, each with its yard, well or ill kept, in front
+and a garden and chicken yard behind. Only one was a little more
+pretentious in appearance, but that, too, had attached to it its garden
+and chicken yard.
+
+However, they found that there was no necessity for their finding a
+place, if place there was to be found to stay for the night. They found
+the owner of the livery stable with two old but well-preserved vehicles
+which he was eager to place at their disposal.
+
+They spent some time in getting enough provisions to last for a time and
+to supplement what had been sent from North Bend; then, in half an hour
+more, with their luggage coming on behind, they were lumbering off over a
+very rocky road toward the house at Cherry Corners.
+
+Mrs. Gilligan was sitting in front with the driver while the three girls
+were wedged uncomfortably in the back seat.
+
+"It--it's lucky we're not fat!" gasped Laura, as a particularly rough
+place in the road fairly shook the breath out of her. "I don't know where
+we would have put ourselves."
+
+"One of us would have had to sit on the trunks on the cart," chuckled
+Billie. "Ouch!" she cried, as they bounced over another "thank you
+ma'am," "I'm glad we haven't any more than five miles to go. There
+wouldn't be any of us left alive."
+
+"Five miles!" grumbled Violet. "And my foot's asleep already."
+
+"Here, have some candy," offered Billie soothingly, fishing one out of
+her pocket. "It may make you feel better."
+
+"Well, it couldn't make me feel worse," said Violet, accepting the
+offering. "Although," she added, with a laugh, "I don't see how it is
+going to help my sleepy foot."
+
+"Well, get up and stretch," advised Laura. "Seventh inning."
+
+Violet started to follow her advice but was flung back full force into
+Billie's lap, thereby squeezing out a startled "Umph!" from the sufferer.
+
+"Say, you needn't take it out on me," cried Billie indignantly. "I didn't
+put your foot to sleep."
+
+"She's no nurse girl," murmured Laura.
+
+The girls laughed and forgot their discomfort.
+
+After a long time of jostling and squeezing they rounded a turn of the
+road and Billie cried out.
+
+"There it is!" she said, standing up in the jolting vehicle. "Over there
+through the trees! Oh, girls! doesn't it look gloomy?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+WEIRD TALES
+
+
+"Aye, and it is gloomy."
+
+Startled, the girls looked around for the voice, then realized that it
+was their driver who had spoken. He had been silent all the way from the
+station, and they had all but forgotten him.
+
+"What made you say that?" asked Billie, rather wonderingly. For although
+the man had only repeated her own words, the tone in which he said them
+made them appear twice as ominous.
+
+"It's a gloomy place," he said once more, with a shake of his head. "Aye,
+and there be some folks around here as says it is haunted."
+
+"Do--do they really think so?" stammered Violet Farrington, beginning to
+wish herself back in North Bend.
+
+"Aye, they think so," he answered, in the same monotonous voice. "And
+there be some times that I don't blame 'em for what they thinks."
+
+"Do you think it's haunted?" asked Billie, with the hint of a laugh in
+her voice. Even here, in this forsaken place, with dusk coming on and the
+prospect of spending a night in a house people called haunted, Billie's
+sense of humor did not altogether leave her. "Do you?" she repeated, the
+laughter still more marked in her voice.
+
+The driver twisted around in his seat to see her before he answered.
+
+"It's all very well for you to laugh now," he answered. "But maybe you
+won't feel so much like laughin' in the morning."
+
+In spite of herself, Billie shivered a little, and the other girls looked
+frightened.
+
+"If I was you," the driver went on with his unasked advice, "I'd turn
+right back an' spend the night in Roland. There's a boardin' house--"
+
+"Nonsense, we're not going to turn back," spoke up Mrs. Gilligan, a
+trifle sharply, for she could see that the driver's evil prophecies were
+getting on the girls' nerves. "If there are any ghosts in that
+house--which of course there ain't--they'd just better show their faces
+around me, that's all. I'll give 'em such a taste of my rolling pin that
+they'll get discouraged for good and all."
+
+She nodded her head vigorously, and the girls laughed.
+
+"All right, all right," grumbled the driver, disgruntled at having his
+ideas treated in this highhanded manner. "You can laugh all you're
+wanting to. But I tell you, if it was me--"
+
+"Which it isn't," Mrs. Gilligan interrupted shortly.
+
+"I wouldn't stay in that there haunted place for a farm, I wouldn't."
+
+"What makes you think it's haunted?" Laura persisted, for, of the three
+girls, Laura was by far the most curious. "Do people see lights and hear
+funny noises and such things?"
+
+"Laura--" began Violet in protest.
+
+"Why no, Miss," said the driver reluctantly. "I don't know as they
+actually seen things, but they has heard queer noises. There was some
+boys once," he went on, warming to his task of story teller, "as
+thought they'd have some fun. You know the old lady what owned the
+place was nearly allus away and just left it to a caretaker that didn't
+take over much care of it--" He stopped to chuckle, and the girls
+leaned forward eagerly.
+
+"What about them?" asked Billie impatiently.
+
+"Well, they thought as they'd play burglar an' break into the place an'
+make a regular lark of it."
+
+"Weren't they afraid they'd get caught?" asked Laura.
+
+"Not with Sheriff Higgins on the job," chuckled the driver, in high good
+humor now that he was getting off his favorite yarn. They were nearing
+the house and the girls hurried him on impatiently.
+
+"Well, they heard such funny humming noises and jingling like the
+rattling of chains an' things," said the driver, "that they got most
+scared to death and ran back home like the old Nick was after them. Ever
+since then folks has said the place was haunted."
+
+"Stuff and rubbish!" said Mrs. Gilligan, as the team came to a stop
+before the house. "A nice lot o' talk I call that to fill the girls up
+with. Rattlin' of chains and hummin' noises! Huh!" And with her nose
+in the air to show her contempt of all such notions she swept out of
+the carriage.
+
+The girls followed, and ran back to the wagon that contained their
+luggage and some provisions. The boy who had been driving this wagon was
+already unloading it, and the old fellow who had told them such gloomy
+tales came hobbling back to lend a hand.
+
+Billie fished in her pocketbook for the key to the house which was
+supposed to be haunted, and, finding it, held it up with a hand that was
+not quite steady.
+
+"Come on," she said. "We've got to do it, I suppose."
+
+"Wh-who's going first?" asked Violet, regarding the gloomy bulk of the
+rambling old house, now half hidden in the dusk, with troubled eyes.
+
+"I am, of course," said Billie stoutly, adding with a gay little laugh:
+"I guess it's my right, isn't it? Why, this is my house--the first I've
+ever owned!"
+
+"And welcome you be to it," murmured the old man, to be promptly cowed
+by a withering look from Mrs. Gilligan.
+
+"Come on," cried Billie again. "I'll go first, but you'll have to promise
+to follow me in."
+
+"Why, of course we'll follow you in," said Violet, loyal through all
+her fear. "You don't suppose we'd let you go into that awful place
+alone, do you?"
+
+"Well, I like that!" cried Billie, leading the way up the stone-paved
+walk. "Calling my beautiful old homestead an awful place."
+
+"Yes, I'm surprised at you, Vi," added Laura, as she followed close at
+Billie's heels. "Don't you know you should have some tact? Even if it is
+awful, you shouldn't talk about it--"
+
+Billie stopped and stared indignantly.
+
+"If you say another word," she threatened, "I'll make you go first."
+
+The threat had the desired effect, and both Violet and Laura protested
+that it was the most beautiful place on the face of the earth, or words
+to that effect.
+
+"You'd better be giving the key to me," said Mrs. Gilligan. "We
+can't stand out here talkin' all night. Besides, the door probably
+has an old-fashioned lock on it, and they ain't a lock anywhere that
+can fool me."
+
+Billie meekly handed over the key, and Mrs. Gilligan marched majestically
+before them up to the front door. She bent down to examine the lock,
+then fitted the key into it.
+
+With a groaning and squeaking of rusty hinges, the heavy door swung
+inward, and the girls found themselves staring into a black well of
+hallway that seemed to have no windows anywhere.
+
+"Gracious! did anybody think to bring matches?" asked Laura in an
+awed whisper.
+
+"Sure and I did," Mrs. Gilligan's matter-of-fact voice reassured her.
+"Five whole boxes I brought. But I've got something even better than that
+for the present occasion."
+
+She drew from the pocket of her coat a small electric torch and flashed
+it into the interior of the house. The bright light showed them glimpses
+of queer chairs standing about in odd corners and finally lighted up a
+broad stairway.
+
+"It's the hall," announced Mrs. Gilligan. "Now forward march, and we'll
+soon find out where the lights are."
+
+"There must be a push button somewhere," suggested Violet, and even in
+their present nervous state the other girls laughed at her.
+
+"A push button!" cried Laura. "Do you expect to find electric lights out
+in this wilderness?"
+
+"We're lucky if we find a chandelier somewhere," added Billie. "I hope we
+don't have to burn candles or lamps. They aren't just exactly what you
+might call cheerful."
+
+"And something cheerful is what we need," added Laura ruefully.
+
+"Well, if you're after acetylene gas I guess you'll be disappointed,"
+said Mrs. Gilligan as her torch lighted up a wonderful old-fashioned
+richly carved candelabrum containing a dozen candles, half burned and
+looking rather wilted. "It's candles we'll be burning while we're here."
+
+The girls groaned.
+
+"But they give such a ghostly, flickering light," protested Violet, as if
+it were in some way Mrs. Gilligan's fault. "I know I'll never be able to
+stand it," and she glanced nervously over her shoulder.
+
+"Well, could you stand the dark any better?" asked Mrs. Gilligan
+practically, as she began to light the candles one after another. "There
+will probably be other candelabra in the house, and if you get enough of
+them burning there's nothing in this world that is prettier. For myself I
+just love candle light."
+
+"Yes, when you're in civilization," put in Laura. "But not out here."
+
+"I've found another one!" cried Billie, who had been prospecting on her
+own account. "And here's another! Why we'll have a big illumination
+before we're through."
+
+"That's the way to talk," said Mrs. Gilligan approvingly, as she crossed
+over to Billie's side of the large hall and began to light the other
+candles. "If we just make the best of everything and make up our minds
+to have a good time, we'll have a good time. And if we don't we might
+just as well take the driver's advice and go home again."
+
+"Go home? Well I should just say not!" cried Laura. "The very idea of
+such a thing! The boys would tease the life out of us. We'd never hear
+the end of it."
+
+"Well then, we're going to have a good time," Mrs. Gilligan decided,
+adding, as she turned toward the door: "Where have those men gone? I told
+them to bring in the things."
+
+She went out to see about it with the girls at her heels and found the
+old man and the boy in a heated argument over something.
+
+"Well, if you want to go into that there haunted house, it's your
+concern," the old man was saying in a querulous voice. "As for me,
+I wouldn't step a foot inside of it, no sir, not if you was to give
+me a farm!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A NOISE IN THE DARK
+
+
+"Maybe you wouldn't do it for a farm," said Mrs. Gilligan, striding
+resolutely toward the man and the boy, while the two drew apart and
+stared at her in surprise, "but you're goin' to do it for me. If you
+think I'm going to lug those trunks and provisions and things into the
+house all by myself, you never was so much mistaken in your life. What do
+you suppose I'm paying you my good money for? Now, get a move on and
+hurry those things inside, or I'll have to take a hand in the matter
+myself. Trunks first!"
+
+And too much surprised by this deluge of words to refuse, the old
+man turned to the trunks, and, assisted by the boy, carried them
+into the hall.
+
+"This is far enough," he said, but Mrs. Maria Gilligan, accustomed to
+having her own way, would have none of it.
+
+"Upstairs," she ordered. "You don't suppose we are going to sleep on
+the ground floor, do you? And we're not going to carry them
+ourselves, either."
+
+And once more the old man obeyed her, while the boy, wicked youngster,
+laughed at him behind his back.
+
+"If you meet a ghost coming downstairs, Gramper," he taunted, "just tell
+him to be careful and not stumble over you. There now, be careful, will
+you? You almost dropped the thing on my foot."
+
+The girls watched the two go upstairs with Mrs. Gilligan bringing up the
+rear to make sure they did not stop half way, and then turned to each
+other with a queer expression, half of amusement, half of uneasiness, on
+their faces.
+
+"Well, we always wanted an adventure," said Laura, as they turned back to
+the open door, feeling an instinctive need of getting out of the house,
+"and now we're having one."
+
+"A regular one," agreed Billie, adding decidedly: "And I'm going to enjoy
+myself. Why, Laura," with a touch of excitement, "did you notice those
+funny old chairs and things? They're really very pretty, and they are
+surely very old. I shouldn't wonder--"
+
+"Oh, Billie," cried Violet rapturously, "do you suppose you could get
+real money for them? If you could," she added with the air of a
+martyr that made the girls laugh, "it would be worth even braving the
+ghosts for."
+
+"You don't really believe that silly thing, do you?" asked Billie,
+turning back into the hall. "It's all in a foolish old man's
+imagination."
+
+"All right. And now you can bring in the provisions," they heard Mrs.
+Gilligan directing. "I don't know where the kitchen is, but I suppose
+there is one somewhere. I'll find it while you start to bring the
+things in."
+
+"We'll each take a candle," cried Billie, her eyes shining in the
+flickering candle light, "and look for the kitchen. Come on, girls,
+follow the leader."
+
+So, with Mrs. Gilligan at the head, they marched through what seemed to
+be a library, seen dimly by the light thrown by their four candles, into
+a room whose table and chairs showed it to be the dining-room.
+
+"The kitchen must be just beyond, then," said Laura, beginning to enjoy
+herself immensely. "There's a door, Mrs. Gilligan. Look out--don't bump
+your head."
+
+But Mrs. Gilligan had no intention of bumping her head. She swung open
+the door in question, and they found themselves in a butler's pantry that
+seemed almost as large as Billie's bedroom at home.
+
+"Goodness! the Powerson that first built the house must have expected
+to entertain lots of company," exclaimed Violet, looking with wonder
+at the rows of curtained cupboards. "I wonder if there are dishes in
+all of them?"
+
+"We haven't time to look now," said Mrs. Gilligan, stopping her as she
+was about to peep inside a closet. "We can do all that to-morrow when we
+have daylight. Ah, here's the kitchen," she added, as she stepped into a
+huge room--the regular type of a very old kitchen that could be used as
+sitting-room as well.
+
+"Gracious, it's a house!" cried Billie, moving her candle about in an
+effort to light up the corners of the place. "There isn't any end to it."
+
+"I'm glad I don't have to keep it clean as a steady job," said Mrs.
+Gilligan grimly. "Now, girls, let's go back and find our two friends with
+the provisions. I don't know how you feel about it, but as for me, a
+little something to eat wouldn't go at all bad."
+
+"We're just starved," they cried, and began a concerted rush back to the
+front of the house where their "friends with the provisions" were.
+
+However, when they arrived there, they found the provisions spread upon
+the driveway but the man and boy had disappeared.
+
+"Humph!" grunted Mrs. Gilligan, her mouth straightening to a grim line,
+"I had more than a notion that that old fellow would clear out, and of
+course the young one wouldn't stay alone. I shouldn't have trusted them
+out of my sight!"
+
+She began picking up bags and packages, and the girls followed suit.
+Before very long they had gathered up all the provisions and were
+staggering back, arms laden, toward the house.
+
+They found their way back to the kitchen again and dropped the things
+thankfully on the table.
+
+"Now for something to eat!" cried Laura. "What shall we have, Mrs.
+Gilligan? I suppose it will have to be a cold supper," she added,
+looking about for some means of cooking and discovering only an immense
+coal stove.
+
+"I suppose it would take forever to make a fire in that," said Billie,
+indicating the stove and thinking longingly of hot steak and potatoes,
+"even if they have any coal."
+
+"Here's plenty of coal," said Mrs. Gilligan, who had been finding things
+out in her own practical and efficient way, "and here is plenty of wood
+and old newspapers to start it going. Indeed and we're not going to have
+any cold supper," she added, while in imagination the girls already were
+sniffing the aroma of broiling steak. "Not after that long ride an'
+cheerful conversation!"
+
+With the prospect of supper, and a hot supper, so close at hand, the
+girls could laugh at the gloomy stories of the old driver.
+
+"We'll help," cried Laura. "Come on, girls, let's see if we can find
+enough dishes to set the table."
+
+So they went gayly to work, setting the table and peeling potatoes, which
+Mrs. Gilligan proceeded to fry, and enjoyed themselves immensely.
+
+"Shall we eat in the kitchen?" asked Violet, pausing with a pile of
+plates in her hand. "Or shall we be very proper and eat in the
+dining-room?"
+
+"Oh, the kitchen's a lot more cheerful," said Billie, shivering a little
+in spite of herself as she thought of the dark, rather dreary room just
+the other side of the door.
+
+"Besides, what we want we want in a hurry," said Laura, taking the dishes
+from Violet and setting them decidedly on the table. "To-morrow will be
+time enough to put on airs. Just now all I want to do is to eat!"
+
+While they were waiting for the supper to cook and after they had done as
+much as they could toward its preparation, the girls looked about the
+kitchen and the gloomy dining room a bit. The latter room was dark and
+cheerless, and they wondered that any one should have selected it for a
+dining room. The woodwork was all of black walnut, and there was much of
+it, the window frames and door frames being heavy and ornate and the room
+being wainscoted with the same dark wood. The room was large, too, and
+there were windows at one end only, and that toward the north.
+
+"Oh, come! let us get out of here," finally cried Laura, grabbing each of
+the other girls by an arm and running with them out into the more
+cheerful kitchen.
+
+"Oh, that steak!" cried Billie longingly, as she drifted over to the
+stove. "Isn't it nearly done, Mrs. Gilligan? This is cruelty to animals."
+
+Mrs. Gilligan chuckled and turned the steak on the other side.
+
+"Almost ready now," she said, adding another piece of butter to the
+golden browned potatoes. "Have you girls cut the cake? It's in one of the
+packages I brought in--on the end of the table. Don't cut it all now,"
+she warned, as there was a joyful rush for the cake. "We want some of it
+left for to-morrow."
+
+The girls did not cut it all--quite. But they did cut a good two-thirds
+of it--and ate it all, too!
+
+It was a strange sort of meal--the candle-lit kitchen, the hastily set
+table, the faces of the girls and Mrs. Gilligan brought out in bold
+relief by the flickering candle light.
+
+The meal was delicious, and the girls ate ravenously, but from time to
+time one of them would shift uneasily in her seat and look nervously over
+her shoulder into the dark corners of the room.
+
+Instead of the dinner making them more courageous, it seemed to be having
+the opposite effect, for when they had finished their cake and the
+steaming hot coffee, they found themselves talking in whispers as if they
+were afraid of the sound of their own voices.
+
+Billie, suddenly realizing this, spoke aloud, and Laura and Violet jumped
+nervously.
+
+"What's the matter with us?" Billie asked, her voice sounding strangely
+loud and unnatural even to herself in the hushed stillness all about.
+"We never used to be so awfully quiet. And I'm sure we don't have to
+whisper about it."
+
+"I--I suppose," shivered Violet, "that it's because everything else is
+so quiet. It sort of has its effect on us. I wish," she added, with a
+sudden little outburst unusual in Violet, "that that horrid old driver
+hadn't told us that horrid story. I catch myself listening for noises
+all the time."
+
+"But that's foolish," said Mrs. Gilligan, in that every-day,
+matter-of-fact tone that never failed to give the girls courage. "There
+isn't one of us who believes anything he said, so why let it worry us?
+Come on," she said, rising and beginning to gather together the dishes,
+"we'll get these things put away in a hurry, and then go up to bed. I
+think a good night's rest is what you need."
+
+"Oh, but I don't want to go up in the spooky upstairs part," whispered
+Violet to Billie, as she scraped some odds and ends off on a plate.
+"Oh, why didn't we travel by night, so that we could have reached here
+in the morning?"
+
+"Well, we didn't, so there's no use worrying about it," said Billie
+sharply, for the situation was beginning to get on her own nerves. She
+had caught herself dreading the moment when they must leave the more or
+less cheerful kitchen for the upper floor of the house.
+
+And then the minute came.
+
+"Take a couple of candles apiece and follow me," Mrs. Gilligan said. "I
+had your grips all put in the upper hall. Now then, let's find out what
+kind of beds we have to sleep in--if any!"
+
+So, with little creepy chills chasing themselves up and down their
+spines, the girls obeyed, keeping close together and looking fearfully
+into the dark shadows.
+
+They had just started up the stairs when Violet cried out, her voice
+sounding sharp in the stillness:
+
+"What's that?"
+
+Right over their heads there came a creepy, slithery sound, followed by a
+loud thump.
+
+The girls groaned and clutched each other.
+
+"The ghost!" said Violet, in a terrified whisper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+SHADOWS AND MYSTERY
+
+
+"Well, if it's a ghost," announced Mrs. Maria Gilligan in a loud
+voice, "I never did hear one that sounded so much like a suitcase
+sliding off a trunk."
+
+The girls giggled and followed Mrs. Gilligan as she strode up the stairs.
+The flickering candles made grotesque shadows on the walls; the house,
+after that noise, was as still as a tomb, and despite the comforting
+presence of their valiant chaperone, the girls kept close together for
+protection.
+
+"D-do you suppose it was only a s-suitcase?" stammered Violet.
+
+"Don't whisper in my ear--you tickle," hissed Billie, and again they
+laughed hysterically.
+
+"Look out, now, go slow," Mrs. Gilligan was cautioning them. "We don't
+want to stumble over this luggage and get a broken leg or two. Ouch!" she
+exclaimed, as she stubbed her toe against something hard. "I guess I'm
+the first casualty!"
+
+She bent down to find what she had stumbled against, while the girls
+glanced nervously into the corners of the hall which the flickering
+candle light only seemed to make more dark.
+
+"Goodness, if we feel like this now, I don't see how we're ever going to
+spend the night here," cried Laura, shivering a little. "I don't believe
+I'll be able to sleep a wink."
+
+"Oh, yes, you will," said Billie, trying hard to make her voice sound
+natural and unconcerned. "We're all so tired we couldn't help sleeping
+anywhere."
+
+"Just as I thought," said Mrs. Gilligan, referring to the object she had
+stubbed her toe against. "Your suitcase, Billie, and the creepy noise we
+heard was when it slid off the trunk. Come on now," she added, holding
+her candle high over her head again, "let's see what we can find in the
+way of bedrooms."
+
+"Let's go in the first door we reach," suggested Billie, and at the
+moment Mrs. Gilligan's candle showed a wide, high doorway leading into a
+black cavern of a room.
+
+"Well, here's the first one," she said. "If we have luck and find some
+bedding--"
+
+She was already feeling her way cautiously between several chairs and
+tables, with the girls following close behind.
+
+"There's the bed!" cried Laura. "Oh, isn't it funny? A regular old
+four-poster."
+
+"With a canopy over it!" marveled Violet.
+
+"And it's made up with clean things," added Billie, making another
+discovery. "Goodness, it makes you feel like the 'Little Princess' when
+she found all the good things in her room."
+
+"Sure enough, it has been made fresh," said Mrs. Gilligan, as she
+wonderingly turned down a somewhat dusty spread and disclosed snowy
+sheets beneath.
+
+"Somebody's been keeping house anyway," said Laura.
+
+"Here's room for two of you girls," said Mrs. Gilligan.
+
+"Oh, we all three want to sleep together," cried Violet, fearful that she
+might be picked to sleep alone. "There's safety in numbers."
+
+"All right, but I have to sleep somewhere," Mrs. Gilligan reminded her
+with a wry little smile. "Aren't you going to help me find some place?
+This may be the only bed that's in sleeping condition in the house."
+
+"Then we'd have to sleep four in a bed," said Billie, with a chuckle.
+"But come on, let's see if some kind fairy hasn't prepared for you too,
+Mrs. Gilligan."
+
+Laughing, the girls pushed out into the hall and looked for the next
+doorway. They no longer glanced fearfully in the corners for something
+they were afraid to see. The thought of the nice clean bed pushed all
+their weird fancies into the background. Ghosts and clean beds did not
+seem to go together!
+
+They found another room just as clean as the other one, and also with a
+canopied four-poster in one corner. With cries of delight the girls
+discovered that it also was ready for occupancy.
+
+"Goodness, I wonder who could have done it?" mused Violet, as she dropped
+down on the edge of the bed and regarded the girls wonderingly.
+
+"Maybe it was a ghost," said Laura, with a chuckle, and Violet glanced
+around uneasily.
+
+"Can't you forget about ghosts for five minutes?" she asked rather
+irritably, for she was tired after the long day's trip. "Just when I'm
+beginning to be happy--"
+
+"There, there," cried Billie soothingly. "Don't go and get mad, Vi,
+darling, or our last hope will be gone. I guess Aunt Beatrice left it
+this way. Gracious! what's that?"
+
+"Only me opening a door," said Mrs. Gilligan from the farther end of the
+room. "My, but you girls are jumpy! Better get to bed," she added,
+crossing over to them with a decided step. "You're tired, and everything
+will seem better in the morning. Off with you now. No, not that way," as
+they started toward the hall, the way they had come in. "I've found a
+door between our two rooms--it was opening that that made you jump. See?"
+
+"A connecting door!" cried Billy delightedly. "Oh, that's fine!"
+
+"Yes, you can lock your door, Mrs. Gilligan, and we'll lock ours, and
+we'll all be as snug--"
+
+"As bugs in a rug," finished Laura, putting an arm about Violet and
+pushing her into the other room.
+
+"Aren't you going to take your candles?" Mrs. Gilligan called after them.
+"I fancy you'll need them to undress by."
+
+"I fancy I'll need mine all night," said Laura in an undertone with a wry
+little grimace, as Violet went back for the candles. "I'm just scared to
+death to stay here in the dark."
+
+"But we won't be able to keep these burning all night," said Billie,
+pausing in the act of unlacing her shoe to gaze at her half-burned
+candle. "They will probably burn out in a couple of hours."
+
+Laura looked panicky.
+
+"Well, some one will have to go down and get some more," she said, and
+gazed at Billie thoughtfully.
+
+"Goodness, you needn't look at me when you say that," said the latter,
+going energetically to work on the other shoe. "I wouldn't go down into
+that gloomy place again for all the money there is in the world."
+
+"But we'll be left in the dark," said Laura, staring at Billie as if it
+were all her fault.
+
+"Who said anything about being left in the dark?" asked Violet,
+returning with a candle in each hand, the flickering light illumining her
+face and making her look like some saint.
+
+"I did, and we will if you don't go down and get more candles," said
+Laura, turning her fire against the newcomer.
+
+"Go down and get candles all by myself?" asked Violet. Then she walked
+over to the table and set the two candles down with a decided thump.
+"You're crazy," she said.
+
+"Well, the best thing I can see to do," said Billie, letting down her
+long hair and brushing it vigorously, "is to get to bed, go to sleep, and
+forget all about it."
+
+"Yes, if we _can_ sleep," said Laura doubtfully, as she took her
+nightgown out of the grip.
+
+The girls undressed as quickly as they could, said their prayers, and
+crawled under the sheets, pulling them up tight beneath their chins.
+
+"You know," whispered Billie, after they had been quiet for some time
+staring up at the ceiling, "I have an idea that I've got the worst of
+this bargain."
+
+"Now what are you raving about?" asked Laura, turning a pair of
+unnaturally bright eyes upon her.
+
+"Why, you chose the middle of the bed and Vi took the end nearest
+the wall. That leaves me on the outside to ward off the ghosts. It
+isn't fair."
+
+"Oh, but, Billie dear, you're ever so much braver than we are," said
+Violet cajolingly. "Don't you remember how you've said right along that
+you weren't afraid of ghosts?"
+
+"Well, I'm not," said Billie stoutly, while her eyes searched the far
+corners of the room which were beginning to get very indistinct and
+creepy in the flickering uncertain light of the fast shortening candles.
+"And, anyway," she added, the thought seeming to comfort her, "I locked
+the door."
+
+"Well, don't you know a ghost can walk right through a door?" asked
+Laura, and Violet bounced in the bed and came down with a thud.
+
+"Stop it," she commanded. "I'm trying my hardest to get to sleep before
+those candles burn out. When it gets pitch dark in here I never can."
+
+"And all this comes under the head of pleasure," murmured Laura with a
+little chuckle.
+
+"All right--we'll keep still," agreed Billie. "I think myself that the
+best thing we can do is get to sleep. Night, girls. We'll all feel better
+in the morning."
+
+"If we're here to feel anything," added Violet gloomily.
+
+For a long time the girls lay wide-eyed and quiet, but gradually the law
+of nature asserted itself. Their eyelids drooped, and the deep regular
+breathing showed that they were asleep.
+
+It was about three o'clock in the morning that it happened. Tortured by
+dreams in which she was being chased by a ghost in goggles and a green
+motor car, Violet finally awoke and lay staring out at the dark.
+
+Then suddenly she sat up. Her dream had followed her into the world of
+reality. There was the same strange, weird purring noise that sounded
+like, yet was strangely unlike, the chugging of a motor car.
+
+She sat absolutely still with every nerve tense, feeling chilly
+and scared.
+
+At last she could stand it no longer and, leaning over, touched Laura
+gently on the arm.
+
+"What's the matter?" cried the latter, starting up fearfully. At the same
+moment Billie opened her eyes.
+
+"That noise!" whispered Violet. "Listen!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+ONLY A BAT
+
+
+The three girls sat quiet, every nerve tense, that same chilly sensation
+creeping up their spines, and their hair beginning to stand on end.
+
+Out there in that wilderness, at three o'clock in the morning, a noise
+that sounded something like a motor car and yet was unlike anything they
+had ever heard before, might have frightened more experienced people than
+three fourteen-year-old girls.
+
+"H-here it comes!" whispered Violet, clutching at Laura's arm, while
+Laura in her turn clutched at Billie's. "It's coming closer! Oh,
+girls--is it in the house?"
+
+"Sh!" cried Billie. "It's a machine--it must be a machine--out on
+the road."
+
+"But in this forsaken place, in the middle of the night?" cried Laura,
+beginning to shiver as though she were cold. "It--it can't be, Billie!"
+
+"Sh-h," said Billie again. "Listen!"
+
+The purring sound was coming closer, seemed almost in the house, it was
+so near--Then came an awful thought to Billie. Could it really be in the
+house? Was it possible that those awful stories about ghosts were true?
+
+But no, the noise was passing on, getting softer, softer, dying off in
+the distance.
+
+"It--it must have been a machine," said Laura, beginning to laugh
+hysterically. "Vi, what did you go and wake me up in the middle of the
+night for just to hear an automobile? I was having such a lovely sleep."
+
+"But I'm not so sure it was a motor car," insisted Violet stubbornly, the
+spell of the dream still upon her. "It didn't sound like it."
+
+"But it couldn't have been anything else," said Billie, trembling a
+little with the reaction. "We heard it coming down the road, heard it
+pass the house, and go on. It simply must have been a machine."
+
+"Oh, all right," said Violet, adding with a little sigh: "Well, I guess
+none of us will sleep any more to-night. I'm not even going to try."
+
+"Well, I am," said Billie, leaning back and closing her eyes, yet knowing
+that she was as wide awake as she had ever been in her life. "I don't see
+any use in lying here and listening for things. Good night once more,
+girls--I'm off."
+
+"Meaning you're crazy?" asked Laura, to which Billie made no reply.
+
+As a matter of fact, even while they were saying they could sleep no more
+that night, the girls did go to sleep, and, what is more, slept soundly
+until they were awakened by Mrs. Gilligan's voice calling to them from
+the connecting doorway.
+
+"Do you expect to sleep all day?" she was asking them, her face rosy and
+herself very nice and trim in a light blue house dress. "This is the
+third time I've spoken to you, and I was beginning to get worried."
+
+"Wh-what time is it?" demanded Laura sleepily.
+
+"About eleven," Mrs. Gilligan answered calmly, and they gasped.
+
+"Eleven!" repeated Billie, sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes hard.
+"For goodness' sake, how did it get that way? I feel as if I hadn't had
+any sleep at all."
+
+"Well, I've had the most awful dreams," complained Violet, turning over
+as if she intended to go to sleep again. "I've done nothing but dream of
+ghosts and motor cars all night."
+
+At the mention of ghosts Mrs. Gilligan broke into hearty laughter.
+
+"Ghosts?" she said, her eyes sparkling. "I shouldn't think you'd be
+talking of ghosts any more. Here you've spent a whole night in the house
+and no spirits have bothered you yet. I should think you'd be satisfied."
+
+"Oh, but didn't you hear that noise in the night?" Violet asked her,
+turning over and forgetting the nap she had been about to take. "We
+girls were just about scared to death."
+
+"Speak for yourself," said Laura, who, whether she had really been
+frightened or not, never liked to have anybody tell her about it.
+
+"You were scared too, what's the use of denying it?" Violet demanded
+hotly, but Mrs. Gilligan interrupted them.
+
+"Never mind about that," she said, with a smile. "Just tell me about this
+noise you thought you heard."
+
+So the girls told her about their weird experience of the night before,
+all talking at once and making it as hard as possible for Mrs. Gilligan
+to understand what it was all about.
+
+"A noise that sounded like a motor car," she said, when they had finished
+and had paused for lack of breath. "Well, I don't see what's so very
+queer about that. May have been some joy-riders or something."
+
+"But who would be joy-riding in this part of the country?" Laura
+objected. "The country people hereabouts probably don't know what the
+word means."
+
+"That particular sport does seem to belong to the idle rich," Mrs.
+Gilligan agreed, with a chuckle. "Well," she added, getting up and
+starting for the door, "whatever it is, or was, we needn't go without
+our breakfast because of it. How would you like some bacon and eggs and
+biscuits?"
+
+The suggestion worked like a charm, and before Mrs. Gilligan had finished
+the girls were out of bed and feeling about for their clothes.
+
+"You know the room doesn't look half bad by daylight," remarked Violet,
+as she was arranging her hair before an elaborately framed old mirror.
+"And it surely is quite clean."
+
+"But it's horribly gloomy, just as mother said." Billie was regarding the
+dingy woodwork, now almost black with age, and the huge four-poster with
+its funereal canopied top, and the large pictures of dead and gone
+ancestors that adorned the walls. "The only really good things in the
+whole room are the tables and chairs. They look," she added hopefully,
+"as if they might bring in a little money. Perhaps I'll be able to pay
+for the statue after all."
+
+"Oh, and I'm just crazy to see the rest of the house by daylight," said
+Laura, clapping her hands. "Come on, you slow pokes, aren't you ever
+going to be ready?"
+
+"We're ready now," said Billie, putting an arm about Violet and hurrying
+her to the door. "Oh, is that bacon I smell--and coffee?" she asked as
+through the open door came a whiff of the good things below.
+
+"You said it!" cried Laura, making a rush for lower floor with Billie and
+Violet not very far behind her. "And it isn't going to be more than
+about two minutes before I taste that same bacon and eggs."
+
+When they reached the lower hall they were surprised to see that it
+looked almost as gloomy and forbidding as it had the night before, in
+spite of the fact that the front door was open and sunlight was
+streaming through.
+
+"Ugh!" said Laura, with a shudder, "I don't wonder that they had gloomy
+dispositions in the old days if they had to live in houses like these.
+It's enough to give one the creeps."
+
+"I'm glad you like my property so much," said Billie, with a demure
+little smile. "I haven't heard you say one nice thing about it yet."
+
+"We have treated our hostess rather rudely, haven't we?" laughed
+Violet, putting an arm about Billie and drawing her out into the
+sunshine. "But really, Billie, we're quite sure that you don't like it
+any better than we do."
+
+"And you are quite right," Billie assured her, then added, breaking away
+and running a little in front of them: "Girls, let's see if we can find
+any signs of that car we heard last night."
+
+Eagerly they scanned the rocky road, but could see no traces of any
+vehicle that would be big enough to make the noise they had heard the
+night before.
+
+"The plot thickens," said Laura, as they started back to the house
+to eat the bacon and eggs and biscuits. "We hear a car, but see no
+traces of it."
+
+"It must have been a spirit car," said Violet, adding, with a plaintive
+little sigh that made the girls laugh: "In spite of all my perfectly good
+training, I'm beginning to believe in ghosts."
+
+After breakfast the girls roamed around the big house, nosing into
+corners, calling each other's attention to this and that queer ornament
+or article of furniture--and there were plenty of them,--and otherwise
+thoroughly enjoying themselves. But as yet they did not venture into the
+gloomy cellar with its mysterious tunnels.
+
+In the drawing-room they found a queer old piano which Violet declared
+must date back farther than Revolutionary days and which Billie, amid
+gibes and laughter from her chums, tried to play.
+
+After she had tried and failed on half a dozen different compositions,
+she gave up the attempt, and they roamed upstairs, looking through one
+room after another until Billie accidentally opened the door that led to
+the attic.
+
+"Here's where we want to go, girls," she cried. "Mother said this was the
+spookiest place in the whole house--except the cellar."
+
+"Hadn't we better get Mrs. Gilligan to go with us?" asked Violet,
+holding back. "After last night I've had enough spooky experiences to
+last me a week."
+
+"Oh, come on," cried Laura, running ahead of them up the stairs. "I'll
+show you two 'fraid cats--"
+
+"Who's a 'fraid cat?" cried Billie, starting in hot pursuit. "I'll have
+you know that nobody dares call me such names and get away with it. Come
+on, Vi, let's murder her."
+
+"Just try it," Laura hissed at them dramatically from the head of the
+stairs. "I'd turn into another ghost and haunt you!"
+
+"Oh, for goodness' sake, leave her alone, Billie," Violet entreated.
+"We've got enough ghosts around here without Laura. What's that?"
+
+"If you're going to scare me again," began Laura, but it was Billie this
+time who commanded silence.
+
+"Hush, I did hear something queer," she said, and all three
+listened intently.
+
+It came again, a weird little noise like the brushing of wings against
+some hard object, and the girls scarcely dared to breathe. Then out into
+the hot open attic fluttered a tiny little object with webbed wings and
+the body of a mouse.
+
+"A bat!" cried Laura, sinking down weakly and shaking with hysterical
+laughter. "Oh, girls, if I have to stay here another week I'll just die
+of heart failure--I know I will!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A FISH STORY
+
+
+The days passed without further scares until the time finally came when
+the boys were to arrive.
+
+During those days the girls roamed around the farm attached to Cherry
+Corners. They found it for the most part a rocky place, with here and
+there dense patches of woods. There was a brook and in this they saw some
+small fish darting about.
+
+"Maybe the boys will want to go fishing when they come," suggested
+Billie.
+
+The cherry trees also interested the chums--there were so many of them.
+The late cherries were ripe, and they spent a day in picking them,
+donning overalls for that purpose. Mrs. Gilligan took the fruit and made
+several delicious pies and also a number of tarts.
+
+The place was certainly a lonesome one. Only once did they see two
+men tramp by. The men eyed the girls curiously, but tramped on
+without speaking.
+
+"Certainly not very sociable," was Violet's comment.
+
+At last came the time when the boys were to arrive.
+
+The girls were in a fever of excitement and anticipation, for they knew
+that they would have just about twice as much fun with the boys as
+without them.
+
+"We can go on picnics," said Laura, putting on her hat over one eye as
+she had a habit of doing when unusually excited, "and long tramps in the
+woods, and--oh, all sorts of things."
+
+"I wonder if that old wagon will ever come," said Violet, looking
+anxiously down the road. "If it doesn't hurry we'll be too late to meet
+the train."
+
+The boy who daily brought them provisions from the village had been
+commissioned to send the antiquated carriage after the girls so that they
+could get down to the village in time to meet the early train. But the
+girls, with no confidence in the country lad's memory, had been sure he
+would forget all about it.
+
+"If he doesn't come pretty soon, the boys will get off the train
+with no one to meet them," Violet went on worrying. "They won't know
+where to go."
+
+"Goodness, they'll know where to go just as well as we did," said Billie,
+regarding herself sideways in the mirror to be sure she had not forgotten
+anything. "They aren't infants, you know."
+
+"Here it comes! Here it comes!" sang out Laura from her place at the
+window. "Are you ready, girls?"
+
+The answer was a concerted rush for the stairs and in another minute the
+girls were out in the bright sunlight, running to meet the stage.
+
+The driver, who had been nodding in his seat, looked up as if surprised
+at so much energy so early in the morning.
+
+"Oh, please hurry," cried Billie, exasperated at the stupid look on the
+boy's face. "Don't you know that we're late already?"
+
+"No'm, you're not late," he assured her in a voice that matched his
+manner. "The ten-thirty train's always 'bout half an hour late, anyways."
+
+"Well, that's just the reason it will probably be on time this morning,"
+remarked Billie, scrambling in after the girls. "When I'm late the trains
+are always early. Please hurry," she added, and the driver clucked
+half-heartedly to his team.
+
+All the way down they worried for fear they would be late, but when they
+reached Roland at last they found that their rural driver knew the habits
+of trains in that part of the country better than they did, for they had
+a full thirty-five minutes to wait.
+
+However, they roused from their despondent attitudes when they heard a
+familiar whistle in the distance, and began automatically to straighten
+their hats.
+
+"Suppose they made up their minds not to come on this train?" Violet
+suggested, but Laura cut in hastily.
+
+"If you're going to start worrying all over again about something
+different," she said, "I'll put you on the track and let the train run
+over you."
+
+At this dire threat Violet stopped worrying, vocally at least, and they
+stood first on one foot, then on the other, eagerly watching the train as
+it rounded a curve and came pounding down toward them.
+
+It had hardly drawn up to the station with a screeching of brakes and
+come to a standstill before a cyclonic trio of boys leaped from one of
+the rear cars and came dashing toward the girls, waving hats and bags and
+various other personal articles high in the air as they came.
+
+"I say, but it was bully of you girls to come to meet us!" shouted Ferd
+Stowing, as they came within hailing distance. "It was more than we
+expected, eh, fellows?"
+
+"Sure! Didn't think you'd be up yet," answered Teddy, looking exceedingly
+handsome--at least to Billie.
+
+"Up yet!" cried Billie, trying to look angry, which she could not do
+because she was altogether too happy and excited. "I don't know where you
+boys get your ideas, anyway."
+
+"Out of our brilliant craniums," said Ferd modestly. "I say, girls, where
+do we go from here?"
+
+"There's an old carriage that looks as if it were on its last legs,"
+laughed Violet, leading the way back to where the antiquated vehicle and
+its sleepy driver awaited them. "We came up in it, but I don't know how
+we're all going to squeeze into it going back."
+
+"Say, fellows, we forgot to get our trunks," said Chet, interrupting
+himself in the midst of an earnest conversation with his sister. "Give me
+your checks and I'll go back and see about them."
+
+"But if there isn't room for us, how are we ever going to get our baggage
+to the house?" Teddy asked.
+
+"We'll get the wagon that took ours up," Laura answered. "We've got to
+get some provisions, anyway."
+
+So with a great deal of fun and laughter they looked up the ancient wagon
+and went to the general store to get a formidable supply of provisions.
+
+"Looks as if you were buying the store out," Teddy remarked, as Billie
+pulled out a long list of items. "What's the big idea?"
+
+"You boys," said Billie, dimpling at him. "We knew what kind of appetites
+you would bring along with you, so we decided on safety first."
+
+"Now we know you girls are bright," said Ferd admiringly, and Billie made
+a face at him.
+
+The ride to the house was one big lark. The boys sat on the trunks among
+the provisions, and the girls went off into gales of merriment at their
+comical efforts not to step on the eggs or fall among the fruit. They
+were having such an awfully good time that even the solemn old driver had
+to join in the fun.
+
+At last they reached Billie's house, and with much ceremony the boys
+jumped down from the wagon and ran to the carriage to help the girls out.
+And all they got for their pains was scorn and derision on the part of
+the girls.
+
+"Get out of the way before I step on you, little speck of dust," Laura
+cried haughtily to Ferd, who turned up his collar and slunk along toward
+the house as though his humiliation were more than he could bear, amid
+shouts of laughter from the merry crowd that followed him.
+
+"That's the way to treat 'em, Laura," Chet cried, but at that Ferd
+turned upon him.
+
+"Say, you'd better look out," he said belligerently. "I can't hit a
+lady--"
+
+"A which?" murmured Billie, with a wicked glance in Laura's direction.
+
+"For calling me names," continued Ferd, glaring at Chet, who began to
+tremble in mock fright; "but there's nothing to keep me from wiping the
+ground up--"
+
+"Yes there is! It's my ground, and I won't have it wiped up," said Billie
+decidedly, at which Ferd had to laugh and the mock war came to a close.
+
+"Say, this is some classy place, what?" said Chet, stopping in front of
+the rambling old house and regarding it admiringly. "Have you met with
+any ghosts yet, girls?"
+
+"Oh, half a dozen," said Laura indifferently, and he was just about to
+ask some more questions when Mrs. Gilligan met them at the door and began
+giving instructions.
+
+After that there was nothing to do but obey, and the boys and girls did
+not meet again until lunch time. Then they regarded each other across the
+table joyfully.
+
+"I say, let's go for a tramp in the woods this afternoon," Ferd
+suggested, after he and the other lads had taken a look around the house.
+"This is the prettiest, wildest country I've ever seen, and I'd like to
+nose about a little."
+
+"But we thought you'd like to see what the attic and cellar look like,"
+said Billie. "We had the afternoon all planned."
+
+"Let's do that to-morrow," Ferd begged boyishly. "This is too nice a day
+to spend indoors."
+
+So it was decided to go outside and as soon as the dinner dishes were
+cleared away--at which the boys assisted without so much as a
+grumble--the young folks started out on their tour of discovery.
+
+The girls had spent much of their time in the old house since their
+arrival, for they had found an almost inexhaustible supply of strange
+corners and unexpected rooms and peculiar ornaments that had
+fascinated them.
+
+But to-day, as they felt the warm sunshine on their heads, as the wind
+caressed their faces and the scents of the woodland bathed them in
+perfume, they were glad they had let the boys have their way and had
+decided to spend the glorious afternoon in the open.
+
+"Did you win the tennis singles?" Billie asked of Teddy, as she stopped
+to smell a bunch of strange flowers. "I was rooting for you."
+
+"Were you?" asked Teddy eagerly.
+
+"For you--and Chet," she added demurely, and laughed to see his
+face fall.
+
+"But did you?" she asked.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Win the tennis singles, silly? Can't you remember a thing two seconds?"
+
+"Why, yes, we did," he answered absently, his gray eyes on
+Billie's lovely mischievous face. "In fact, we just ran rings
+around them. I guess--"
+
+He stopped short as they came upon the other young people. A couple of
+bearded men had come out of the woods and confronted the crowd. Each man
+carried a heavy club. They were the fellows who had once passed the girls
+without speaking.
+
+"You can't go any further this way," one of them said in a rather gruff
+tone. "We're growing a new variety of corn and want to keep the seed to
+ourselves."
+
+"What's that?" demanded Chet in astonishment
+
+"You heard what I said. You can't stay here, and you can't go that way."
+
+"You want to get out of here," growled the second man. "Come, move on."
+
+"You can't steal any of our corn-growing secrets. Move on," and the first
+man shook his club suggestively.
+
+The strange men looked ugly, and the boys and girls, after a pause,
+turned off in another direction.
+
+"Humph!" grunted Ted, with a curious glance at the place where the men
+had been. "They made a mistake. That wasn't a corn story. It was a
+fish story!"
+
+"Maybe," returned Billie. "But what does it mean?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT
+
+
+There was so much of interest about the house, and outside of it, that a
+week passed almost before the young folks knew it.
+
+The boys were for exploring the cellar, and did so one fine day, taking
+the girls along.
+
+They had a flashlight, a lantern, and some candles, and all these
+combined gave them quite an illumination. But the girls kept close to the
+boys, for the cellar was certainly a creepy place, with its many nooks
+and corners and dark closets.
+
+They managed to find two tunnels, one about fifty feet long and the other
+close to a hundred.
+
+"Caved in!" cried Chet in disgust.
+
+He was right; dirt and rocks filled the openings, both of which were
+quite wet.
+
+"I'll bet they led to the brook," remarked Teddy. "When the Indians made
+a raid the settlers could crawl through one tunnel or the other and so
+hide in the brook."
+
+"I think Ted must be right," said Ferd.
+
+There was but little of value in the cellar. Old tools, rusted with age,
+and some empty bottles and jugs, and that was about all.
+
+"It's awfully musty," said Billie presently. "I'm going upstairs and out
+into the sunshine." And she went, and the others soon followed.
+
+Billie had received the address of Miss Beggs, the school-teacher. It had
+been sent to her address at home and forwarded by Mrs. Bradley.
+
+"Now, I guess I'll have to write that letter to the teacher and explain
+all about the broken statue," said Billie dismally. "Oh, dear, I wish I
+didn't have to do it."
+
+"It's too bad we haven't the money to pay for the old thing," came from
+Chet. "Can't we sell some of this stuff? It must be worth something."
+
+"But who will buy it?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+There was a long consultation among the girls, and at last Billie managed
+to write the letter.
+
+"There," she said, when she had given it to the store boy to post, "now I
+feel better. The confession part of it is off my mind, anyway. If I can
+only pay for the old statue--or buy another one like it--I'll be
+happy--or nearly happy."
+
+She added the "nearly happy" as the thought came to her that even with
+the broken statue paid for and off her mind she had still another ordeal
+before her. In a couple of weeks their vacation would be up at Cherry
+Corners, and soon after that she would have to see Violet and Laura and
+the boys, except poor Chet, go off to boarding school, while she and her
+brother would be left behind.
+
+Oh, well, she would not think of that just yet. They could at least enjoy
+the time they were to spend at Cherry Corners.
+
+And they did enjoy it! There was never a minute of the day for which
+something interesting was not planned.
+
+Then one night, when they had almost forgotten that the house was
+supposed to be haunted, they had an experience that brought back all
+their old fears of the place--"and then some," as Teddy said.
+
+Billie sat up in bed suddenly with the familiar chilly feeling up and
+down her spine and her hair showing a tendency to pull away from her
+prickly scalp.
+
+The piano was sounding--all the way from treble to bass! And it was the
+middle of the night with everybody in bed!
+
+She put out a hand and shook Laura and Violet to consciousness.
+
+"Oh, girls, it _is_ the ghost this time!" she said in a scared whisper
+that made them wide awake in an instant. "It--it's playing the piano!"
+
+"A--a musical ghost?" giggled Laura hysterically, but Billie pinched her
+into silence.
+
+"Keep still," she cried. "There it is again!"
+
+The girls listened to the eeriest, weirdest music they had ever
+heard, and Violet slipped shivering under the covers and hid her face
+with the sheet.
+
+"C-come out of that," cried Billie, pulling at the sheet. "What g-good do
+you suppose it's going to do to put the sheet over your head? Come on,
+I'm going to investigate."
+
+With sudden determination she slipped out of bed and stood up.
+
+"Billie," gasped Laura, "you're never going to go down there?"
+
+"I'm going to call the boys," said Billie, who, despite all her
+determination, could hardly stand up her knees trembled so. "We'll all go
+and rout that old ghost. He's got to," she added with a hysterical giggle
+that matched Laura's, "get off my piano!"
+
+Fearfully the girls watched her start into Mrs. Gilligan's room. Then
+Laura pushed down the covers and got to her feet.
+
+"If Billie isn't afraid," she said stoutly, "I don't see why I should be.
+Are you coming, Vi?"
+
+"I s-suppose so," said poor Violet, more afraid of being left alone than
+of facing the ghost in company with the others. "If you're going
+I--I've got to."
+
+So it was that Mrs. Gilligan was startled to find three ghostly, scared
+figures standing by her bed calling nervously to her to "please wake up."
+
+"For goodness' sake, what's the matter?" she said, rubbing her eyes and
+staring at them sleepily. "Have you heard your ghostly motor again?"
+
+"Oh, much worse!" cried Violet.
+
+"We heard a ghost playing a piano!" said Laura.
+
+"Listen," commanded Billie. "There it goes again. Oh, Mrs. Gilligan, I'm
+f-frightened."
+
+Mrs. Gilligan listened, and even she, matter-of-fact, humorous Irishwoman
+that she was, felt that same strange tendency on the part of her hair to
+stand up straight in the air.
+
+"Well, here's the time for my rolling pin," she said, jumping out of bed
+and wrapping a kimono hastily about her. "We'll call the boys and see
+what that piano thinks it's doing anyway."
+
+So they called the boys. The three lads were on tiptoe with excitement at
+the thought of an actual encounter with a ghost.
+
+"And a musical ghost, at that," crowed Ferd, as they started down the
+stairs with the girls following cautiously and holding their candles over
+their heads.
+
+"Say, don't make so much noise," cried Chet in a stage whisper. "You'll
+frighten his ghostship away. I wouldn't miss seeing a real ghost for
+anything you could offer me."
+
+"In here, fellows, here's the piano," Ferd directed, and, their hearts in
+their mouths, the girls watched them go into the dark room.
+
+"Ouch! hang that chair," they heard Ferd cry out. "Come on with those
+lights, girls. I'm ruining all the furniture."
+
+Nervously the girls followed them in, throwing the light of the candles
+on the old piano, but, as far as they could see, nothing had been
+disturbed.
+
+The ancient instrument stood as dignified and aloof as ever, and in the
+whole room not a chair was out of place.
+
+"Nothing here," said Chet, looking disappointed. "Say, the girls promised
+us a regular show, fellows, and they haven't come across."
+
+"What shall we do to 'em?" asked Teddy, looking almost equally
+disappointed.
+
+"But we heard it," said Billie, shivering with excitement.
+
+"It was just as if somebody had taken the back of his finger," Laura
+added, "and run it all the way down the keyboard from the top note of the
+treble to the last note of the bass."
+
+"Oh, you must have been dreaming," said Ferd, opening the piano to
+examine it inside.
+
+"No, they weren't dreaming," said Mrs. Gilligan seriously. "Because I was
+very much awake when I heard it."
+
+"You heard it, too?" asked Chet, beginning to be interested again.
+
+"I certainly did," said Mrs. Gilligan, with a grimness that left no room
+for doubt. "And I'm not given to imagining things, either."
+
+"Well, I move we look around a bit," suggested Ferd, who was always
+eager for action. "The ghost may have retreated to the dining-room or
+something--"
+
+"No, siree!" said Violet decidedly. "If the rest of you want to go
+roaming all over this gloomy old place at night you can do it, but you'll
+have to leave me out."
+
+"Vi's right," said Mrs. Gilligan, just as the boys were about to
+protest. "There isn't any use going into this thing any further to-night
+and getting the girls all upset. I'll stay down here awhile and see what
+I can see."
+
+"Let me stay with you," asked Chet eagerly.
+
+"And me."
+
+"And me."
+
+Ferd and Teddy spoke almost in the same breath.
+
+"No, I want you all to go up and get into bed," said Mrs. Gilligan
+decidedly. "If I see anything," she added, with a grim smile, "anything
+that looks like a ghost that is, I'll call you."
+
+"That's a promise," said Chet, looking back over his shoulder as he
+reluctantly followed the others upstairs. "Because if I should miss
+getting a look at that ghost, I'd be disappointed for life."
+
+"Well, I've had enough of spooks to last _me_ forever," said Laura, with
+a shivery glance over her shoulder as the boys left the girls at their
+door and started off down the hall. "If that piano begins to play itself
+again to-night, I'll just die, that's all there is to it."
+
+The girls crept into bed, careful to leave their candles burning.
+
+"You know, Billie," said Violet in an awed little voice, "this thing is
+really getting serious."
+
+"I should say so," agreed Laura, drawing the bed clothes a little tighter
+about her.
+
+"Well, it isn't my fault, is it?" asked Billie. "I didn't ask Aunt
+Beatrice to leave me a haunted house. And, anyway," she added very
+truthfully, "it was you, Laura, who first suggested coming here."
+
+"Yes," went on Violet accusingly, "and it was you who said you'd be
+disappointed if you didn't see a ghost or two."
+
+Laura groaned.
+
+"What's the use of holding things up against me that I said when I was
+young and foolish?" she asked. "Anyway, I didn't think we would really
+see anything."
+
+"Well, we haven't," said Billie. "All we've done is to hear things--"
+
+"But we've heard plenty," sighed Violet. "There! What's that?"
+
+The girls listened, feeling almost ready to scream, but could hear
+nothing but the sighing of the wind in the tree tops.
+
+"Only the wind, silly," said Laura, then added with an almost
+comfortable feeling at the thought: "Mrs. Gilligan's on guard anyway."
+
+"Yes," said Violet, adding with a sigh that seemed to come from her very
+toes: "I only hope the piano doesn't swallow her up before morning. I've
+come to expect almost anything!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE MOTOR AGAIN
+
+
+The piano did not swallow Mrs. Gilligan up, and, as a matter of fact, the
+good woman did not stand guard until morning. Half an hour of sitting
+alone in that gloomy room watching a piano that had played itself was
+enough to ruin even her seasoned nerves.
+
+Once back in her room she scolded herself for being such an idiot,
+laughed at her fears, and, being a normal, healthy woman, fell almost
+instantly to sleep.
+
+In the morning the girls themselves felt somewhat inclined to laugh at
+the fright they had had, and yet they knew that what had happened had
+been no figment of their imaginations. The sound, though weird and eerie,
+had been real--even Mrs. Gilligan would testify to that.
+
+"Well, I tell you what we ought to do," said Ferd, as he sat down to a
+huge plateful of breakfast. "We fellows ought to take turn and turn about
+keeping watch. There must be some reason for the noise the girls heard,
+and I won't be happy until we find out what it was."
+
+"I think you have the right idea," replied Chet, decidedly. "The only
+condition I make is that I be allowed to stand the first watch."
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind, any of you," broke in Mrs. Gilligan, with
+that slight tightening of her upper lip that the girls and boys had come
+to know--and respect. "That's a fine way to see all sorts of things that
+ain't and hear all sorts of things that never happened. Sit up in the
+dark, waiting for something to happen! I guess not!"
+
+"But we can't just sit back and let the piano perform like that every
+night, can we?" asked Ferd, in an argumentative tone. "I'd rather stay
+awake part of the night than all of it."
+
+"Don't you even want to solve the mystery?" asked Chet, in an
+aggrieved voice.
+
+"Mystery--humph," grunted Mrs. Gilligan, feeling very brave and
+disdainful in the bright sunshine. "I don't believe there's a bit of
+mystery in the whole thing."
+
+"Then what made the piano play?" Teddy insisted. "You said yourself that
+you heard it."
+
+"Oh, I heard it all right," said Mrs. Gilligan, helping herself to more
+jam. "There isn't any doubt about that. But I have an idea what caused
+it, all right."
+
+"Oh, tell us," they cried eagerly.
+
+But their chaperone shook her head determinedly while her lip became
+still tighter.
+
+"No, indeed I won't tell you," she said, adding with a little chuckle: "I
+want to try it out myself first. For I know that if I told you young ones
+about it you'd only laugh. And I don't like being laughed at."
+
+"But we wouldn't laugh," Billie assured her earnestly. "Really,
+Mrs. Gilligan, we'll promise on our word of honor not to so much as
+even smile."
+
+"Get out with your promises," said Mrs. Gilligan, relapsing into her
+brogue. "I do be knowing you better. I'll try it to-night," she
+added graciously, "and if it doesn't work I'll tell you about it in
+the morning."
+
+"I suppose here's where I spend another sleepless night," said Violet
+dolefully, helping herself to more biscuits. "Oh, well, I'm getting so I
+can do without sleep now."
+
+"Well, you don't look as if you'd ever lost a wink in your life," said
+Chet, glancing at her admiringly, for it was an open secret with the
+boys and girls of North Bend that Chet rather especially liked tall,
+dark, peace-loving Violet Farrington--perhaps because she was so much
+like himself.
+
+Violet blushed prettily at this complimentary remark, and the girls
+looked at her teasingly.
+
+"Who was it that said something or other was blind?" asked Laura
+wickedly, and Violet kicked her under the table.
+
+"Peace, my children," said Billie. "We're having enough trouble with
+ghosts and things without starting a war among ourselves. Who'll have
+some more jelly?"
+
+There was a simultaneous shout of approval, and the jelly dish began its
+fourth round of the table.
+
+However, they did at last get through eating and wandered out on the
+front porch, where Mrs. Gilligan could not scoff at their ideas, to
+discuss the doings of the night before.
+
+But it was only a little while later that Mrs. Gilligan put another
+damper on their fun by announcing that some one would have to go to town
+for more provisions. The boy had failed to come that morning, and their
+supply of canned goods was running dangerously low.
+
+"Let's all go," Chet suggested. "We could walk down and ride back."
+
+"But, oh, Chet, it's so frightfully hot," Billie objected. "I'm sure we'd
+get sunstroke or something."
+
+"Yes, it's a terribly long walk," added Violet.
+
+"Well, we could wait till toward evening," said Ferd. "It wouldn't be so
+scorching then. I admit," he added, taking a slanting squint at the sun,
+"that even I am not eager to take a long hike just now."
+
+"But toward evening we'll be preparing supper," objected Laura, and the
+boys threw up their hands in despair.
+
+"Well, then we'll just have to go without you," said Teddy. "But it would
+be lots more fun if you'd come." This last was said to Billie and for her
+ear alone.
+
+That afternoon the girls watched the boys down the road till they
+were out of sight, then turned back to the house with a strangely
+lonesome feeling.
+
+"You know," said Violet, pausing on the doorstep and looking back at the
+girls with a rather sober face, "I have a sort of feeling that
+something's going to happen."
+
+"Well, you'd better get rid of it right away," retorted Laura. "We don't
+want anything more to happen--especially when the boys are away."
+
+This time Violet proved to be right. Something did happen. It was after
+dark, the boys had not yet got back from the village, and the girls were
+setting the table in the kitchen--they had never found the courage to eat
+in the gloomy dining-room--when Violet set a dish down on the table with
+a bang that made the girls start and look at her in surprise.
+
+As for Violet, she was too scared to speak for a moment. Then she
+stammered out:
+
+"The strange motor car!" she said, while Billie and Laura stared at her.
+"I thought I heard it before--"
+
+"Sh-h," cried Billie, and they listened, hardly daring to breathe.
+
+There was the same strange humming sound that had so startled them on
+their first night in the house, only this time, instead of coming from a
+distance and passing by, the noise seemed to get louder, then softer,
+louder and softer, as if whatever it was were approaching and retreating
+at regular intervals.
+
+At that moment Mrs. Gilligan came into the room, and the girls called to
+her to listen also.
+
+"That?" she asked, with a little laugh. "Why that's an automobile of
+course," and started for the front door. "Only I must say it's behaving
+mighty queer."
+
+But when they opened the door and looked out into the rocky road there
+was no sign of an automobile, and yet the humming sound still kept on.
+
+As they listened, wide-eyed, the noise grew softer and softer and
+gradually died away in the distance.
+
+The girls looked at each other wonderingly. Then it was Billie who
+offered a solution.
+
+"Mightn't it be an aeroplane?"
+
+"An aeroplane in this part of the country?" Laura was inclined to scoff
+at the idea, but Mrs. Gilligan and Violet both stood up for Billie.
+
+They were about to enter into a heated argument when they saw the wagon
+that had by this time become familiar to them coming down the road with
+the boys seated in it or hanging to it in characteristic attitudes.
+
+The girls ran out to them and deluged the lads with questions before they
+had time to learn what it was all about.
+
+"A motor car?" asked Chet. "No, we didn't pass a soul on the way up
+here."
+
+When the girls had poured into their interested ears the story of the
+queer humming sound that had just repeated itself, they agreed to one man
+to Billie's suggestion that it was very probably an aeroplane.
+
+"I'll tell you what we'll do next time we hear it," said Teddy as the
+boys picked up the provisions they had brought and started toward the
+house. "We'll go up on the roof. Then we'll pretty soon see whether it's
+a ghost or the real thing."
+
+"And in the meantime," suggested Chet, sniffing the air hungrily, "how
+about some supper?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BOTH AT ONCE
+
+
+It was not long before there came a recurrence of the strange humming
+noise which had so disturbed the girls. It was only a few nights later
+that Chet sat up in bed with the joyful feeling that here at last was a
+chance to investigate at least one of the ghosts that haunted the
+homestead at Cherry Corners.
+
+"Ferd! Teddy! Wake up! What's the matter? Are you dead?" he called
+to the boys.
+
+The latter reluctantly opened their eyes and looked at him reproachfully.
+
+"Can't you let a fellow sleep?" Teddy asked. But Chet, with no ceremony
+whatever, hauled him bodily out of bed and set him on his feet.
+
+"Don't talk," he ordered. "Run as fast as you can to the roof before
+we miss it."
+
+"What are you raving about?" asked Ferd, although both he and Teddy
+started obediently toward the attic stairs.
+
+"If you wouldn't talk so much, you could hear it," Chet answered, pushing
+up a trap door that led to a small square platform on the roof. "It's
+the motor sound the girls heard and that scared them so."
+
+"It is, for a fact!" cried Teddy in a joyful whisper. "And it's coming
+right near, fellows, too."
+
+"It's an aeroplane all right," said Ferd, with conviction. "Nothing else
+ever made a noise like that."
+
+"Say, what are you doing up there?" a girl's voice hailed them from the
+bottom of the steps, and Chet thought he recognized it as Billie's. "Are
+you walking in your sleep or have you gone crazy? Come down here quick,
+we need you."
+
+"Keep still," Chet yelled back. "We're looking for your aeroplane ghost.
+Can't you hear it?"
+
+"Yes. But, oh, Chet," Billie's voice was tremulous, "the piano is playing
+itself again. Won't you come down? We're afraid to stay here all alone."
+
+"Great Scott! all the spirits are roaming at once," cried Teddy,
+straining his eyes to see through the darkness as the humming of the
+motor came nearer.
+
+"There, isn't that it?" cried Ferd, pointing eagerly through the trees
+toward a little patch of sky, palely illumined with stars.
+
+"I think I saw it," said Chet, rubbing his eyes impatiently. "It's so
+confoundedly dark--"
+
+"Oh, won't you please come down?" wailed Billie's voice from the
+spooky depths of the attic. "I'll die of fright if I have to stay here
+another minute."
+
+This appeal moved the boys, and they began reluctantly to descend the
+ladder, keeping their eyes all the time on the pale patch of sky.
+
+"Where are the others?" asked Teddy, as he reached Billie's side.
+
+"They're down looking for the ghost," answered Billie, as she ran down
+the stairs in front of them. "They sent me to get you boys, and I found
+you gone. Mrs. Gilligan," she added, with a hysterical giggle, "has the
+broom and Laura has the poker."
+
+"Maybe we'd better stop on the way and gather up a few bedposts,"
+suggested Ferd, as they took the last flight of stairs on a run and
+landed in the lower hall.
+
+"Hello, did you find anything?" sang out Chet, as the girls, looking
+scared but valiant, came out to meet them. "Where's Mrs. Gilligan?"
+
+"Inside," said Violet. "There isn't a thing to be seen any more than
+there was the other night. I'm absolutely positive now that it must
+be a ghost."
+
+"Well, if it is, he's got a sense of humor," said Mrs. Gilligan, rising
+from her knees where she had been peering into the corner behind the
+piano. "I've heard of all sorts of spirits, but I never heard of one who
+insisted upon playing the piano in the dead of night."
+
+"He must have been a musician in his life time," suggested Chet. "That's
+the reason he comes and haunts the piano."
+
+"Well, I don't see why he doesn't choose a regular piano to haunt,"
+said Billie, feeling irritable because she was very sleepy and had been
+very much frightened. "It's bad enough for a live person to play, let
+alone a ghost."
+
+"And where could it have gone?" wondered Laura, her eyes big and dark
+with excitement. "The minute we heard the noise--I guess we're sort of
+listening for it even in our sleep--we jumped up and came down here while
+Billie went to call you boys. It was playing almost up to the minute we
+came into the room."
+
+"And maybe we weren't afraid to go in!" said Violet, with a shudder. "I
+don't know how we ever got the courage."
+
+"Well, you only came because Mrs. Gilligan and I went ahead with the
+broom and the poker," sniffed Laura.
+
+"Was it playing when you came down the stairs?" asked Chet, interested.
+"And did it stop as soon as you entered the room?"
+
+"Yes," it was Mrs. Gilligan who answered this time. "And it was good for
+him he did. I've lost enough sleep through the miserable rascal and I was
+just ripe for a tussle."
+
+"I don't blame him for running," said Teddy, with a chuckle.
+
+"But where did he go?" asked Laura again. "We were sure that we'd see
+something--goodness knows what--when we turned the corner of the room."
+
+"And all we saw was a--a large amount of nothing at all," added Violet,
+wide-eyed.
+
+"Perhaps," suggested Ferd, with a chuckle, "the aeroplane we heard
+belonged to him--"
+
+"A ghost's aeroplane," murmured Billie, smothering another
+hysterical chuckle.
+
+"And when you girls came in he just soared skyward and went off in it."
+
+"It's funny we never thought of that," said Teddy scornfully.
+
+"Well, I wish we could find out what it is," sighed Billie, as they
+started upstairs again. "This staying awake all night isn't very
+much fun."
+
+"But isn't it strange," asked Laura, stopping on the landing and looking
+back at them, "that both the piano and the motor should start again on
+the same night?"
+
+"Yes, it is, rather," said Chet, adding seriously: "I wonder if there
+could really be any connection between the two."
+
+"There's no use wondering, that I can see," said Mrs. Gilligan, preparing
+to send them off to their respective bedrooms. "I think the best thing we
+can do is not to notice them any more. Perhaps the ghosts will get tired,
+if they find they don't worry us," this last with a chuckle.
+
+"Well, but they do worry us," said Violet plaintively. "Every time I hear
+that piano, I just about die of fright."
+
+"Listen," commanded Billie, and as they listened they heard it
+again! The ghost, or whatever it was, was surely making a joke of
+them that night!
+
+As soon as the boys could recover from their surprise they tumbled down
+the stairs, tripping over each other in their hurry, while the girls
+followed more slowly.
+
+But again the noise stopped abruptly, and when they entered the room
+there was nothing to be seen or heard.
+
+"Say, this thing is making me mad!" cried Ferd, glaring at the old piano
+as though it were the offender. "I don't mind meeting an
+honest-to-goodness ghost, but I'll be hanged if I'll let him laugh at
+me!"
+
+"I don't see how you're going to help it," said Teddy. "Come on, fellows,
+it's pretty nearly morning, and we can decide then what we'll do to catch
+Mr. Ghost. I'm so sleepy I'm apt to fall asleep on my feet."
+
+So they went upstairs again, feeling rather miserable and dragged out
+with excitement, and crawled into bed.
+
+"If this thing keeps up much longer, I'll just be a wreck, that's all,"
+groaned Laura, and almost immediately she fell asleep.
+
+After a little while of staring into the dark, Billie and Violet followed
+her example, and once more there was quiet in the old house.
+
+Nothing more disturbed them, but they woke the next morning, tired and
+cross and with a decidedly "morning after" feeling.
+
+"I don't want to get up," complained Violet, turning restlessly in bed
+and punching her pillow. "I can't get more than one eye open."
+
+"Shall we send for the doctor?" asked Billie, regarding her sleepily.
+"That sounds like a serious complaint."
+
+"Humph, I don't need a doctor," grumbled Violet. "I can prescribe for my
+case better than he could. What I need is a rest cure."
+
+"So say we all of us," echoed Laura sleepily. "I'm going to take
+another nap, girls, and if anybody dares to wake me up, I'll throw my
+hair brush at them."
+
+"I'm going to get up," decided Billie. "I'll only get a headache
+lying here."
+
+"Well, I hope you enjoy yourself," said Laura, and settled herself in a
+still more comfortable position.
+
+While Billie was dressing the two girls fell asleep again, and as
+she turned to look at them she almost wished that she had followed
+their example.
+
+"But I knew I couldn't sleep," she said, turning away, "and, besides, I'm
+getting very hungry."
+
+But when she started down the broad staircase she found that she was the
+only one stirring in the house, and a strange, lonesome feeling took
+possession of her.
+
+"Ugh," she cried, glancing about her distastefully, "it's the gloomiest
+place I ever did see. I'll be glad when we leave it. That is, I would
+be," she added wistfully, "if only Chet and I were going with the others
+to boarding school."
+
+She wandered into the room where the old piano stood and looked at it
+musingly for a few minutes. Then suddenly a thought struck her, and she
+clapped her hands gleefully.
+
+"I wonder--" she said, then, remembering an old rat trap that she had
+come across several days ago, ran into the pantry to get it. She baited
+it with a fresh piece of cheese and set it carefully on the piano.
+
+"Now," she said, standing back and regarding her work with satisfaction,
+"we shall see what we shall see!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A THRILLING DISCOVERY
+
+
+It was ten o'clock before the girls finally came down, and it was still
+later before the boys appeared. Mrs. Gilligan and Billie had had
+breakfast together, and Billie had confided to the older woman her
+suspicions in regard to the ghostly player of the old piano.
+
+"But we won't tell the boys and girls," Billie had said, with a
+delightful sense of conspiracy. "We'll wait and see if it works."
+
+As the young people came in, looking famished, Mrs. Gilligan rose and put
+some cold muffins in the oven to heat.
+
+"You won't get very much to eat," she warned them. "Billie and I had our
+breakfast at a respectable hour, and now you've got to take what's left."
+
+"I don't care what you give us, as long as it's food," said Ferd, looking
+about him anxiously. "I'm just about starved to death."
+
+"It seems to me I've heard that remark somewhere before," said Billie,
+laughing at him. "Hurry up and eat, you folks," she added, as she set a
+dish of fried hominy before them. "We girls haven't really made a
+thorough examination of the attic yet, and I'm just dying to poke into
+all the corners."
+
+"Yes, I always did like attics," said Laura, adding, as she swallowed a
+delicious morsel: "But, I like fried hominy more!"
+
+"Won't you come too?" Violet asked the boys, as, their breakfast over,
+the girls started up to the attic. "We'd love to have you and you might
+find it interesting."
+
+"No, thanks," said Teddy decidedly. "I can think of lots better things
+to do than go roaming about a hot old attic when the thermometer is
+ninety-six in the shade. I'm going for a walk in the woods. How about
+it, fellows?"
+
+"Yes, and see if we can come across those old fellows with the beards
+that told us the corn-fish story," chuckled Chet. "You know," he added, "I
+have wondered several times since then what the old fellows were up to.
+Somehow, I'm mighty sure they didn't tell the truth."
+
+"I tell you what!" cried Ferd eagerly. "Let's push on in the direction we
+were going the other day and see what's being pulled off in there."
+
+"Yes, and get shot most likely," sniffed Laura. "I don't think much of
+that idea."
+
+"Well, we didn't ask you to come, did we?" Ferd asked.
+
+"No, and I don't think it was very nice of you, after we invited you to
+our party," Violet put in, trying to look aggrieved.
+
+"Oh, please won't you come with us?" asked Ferd, bowing elaborately
+before her.
+
+Laura gave him a little push which precipitated him in a rather abrupt
+manner into a chair and completely spoiled his gallantry.
+
+"I'll get even with you," he threatened good-naturedly, during the laugh
+that followed at his expense. "But say, fellows, you haven't answered my
+question. Are you game?"
+
+"Sure we're game," they answered, and Chet added, as he picked up a stick
+he had found in the woods several days before and had modeled into an
+excellent club: "If they start any funny business they'll find me ready
+for them."
+
+"Oh, boys, do be careful!" Billie begged, really afraid that their love
+of adventure would get them into trouble. "I didn't like the looks of
+those men. And they had clubs."
+
+"Maybe--" said Violet in an awed voice. "Maybe they're--what do you call
+them--the fellows that make whiskey--"
+
+"Moonshiners?" Teddy helped her out, and the boys shouted with laughter.
+
+"All the more reason why we should find them out," said Ferd, as they
+started from the room. "It's our duty," he turned in the doorway to make
+them a bow, "to turn them over to justice."
+
+"It must be a disease," laughed Billie, as the girls ascended the old
+staircase together.
+
+"Well, I hope they live through it," added Laura, with a chuckle.
+
+"I found a funny old closet yesterday," said Billie, as they came out
+into the musty attic. "I was just going to open it and see what was
+inside when you girls called me for something. Here it is," indicating a
+small door, the top of which was only on a level with their shoulders.
+
+"I never saw so many queer things in one place in my life," said
+Laura, peering down as Billie opened the door. "I didn't know they
+grew that way."
+
+"We'll have to stoop down to get in here," said Billie, poking her head
+into the stuffy dark hole disclosed. "And look, girls!" she exclaimed
+excitedly, as her eyes became accustomed to the gloom. "The closet runs
+away back an awfully long way, and there seems to be something bulky at
+the other end of it."
+
+"Well, let's go in," said Laura, giving Billie an impatient little push.
+"We can't find anything by standing here. Billie, what's the matter?" for
+Billie had started back so suddenly that she had almost thrown Laura off
+her balance.
+
+"It's another of those horrid old bats," she gasped, bending down as an
+indistinct little shape fluttered past her. "I shouldn't think they could
+live in the closet without air or anything to eat."
+
+"It probably flew in when you opened the door the other day," Violet
+suggested.
+
+Once more Billie bent down and felt her way into the narrow closet.
+
+"Don't try to stand up, girls," she cautioned. "You're apt to get an
+awful bump on the head."
+
+"I've already had one," said Violet, rubbing the bumped spot tenderly.
+"Goodness, it smells musty in here."
+
+"Girls, it's a trunk!" cried Billie, leaning down to examine the bulky
+object she had seen at the other end. "A pretty big one, too, and oh," as
+she attempted to lift one end, "awfully heavy."
+
+"A trunk," Laura repeated excitedly. "That sounds interesting. Can't you
+pull it out, Billie?"
+
+"I'll try," replied Billie, adding with a chuckle: "But I
+shouldn't wonder if you girls would have to help by pulling me.
+My, but it's heavy!"
+
+However, after much hauling and pulling, Billie finally succeeded in
+backing out of the closet, pulling the trunk after her. Then standing up
+and brushing the hair out of her eyes, she regarded it gleefully.
+
+"Everything in the house is mine," she reminded them, as she stooped down
+again to examine the lock, "so I have a perfect right to look in
+anything I find."
+
+"Well, nobody's arguing about that," said Laura, sitting down on the
+floor, regardless of a fine coating of dust, and helping Billie in her
+examination.
+
+"Hasn't it any key?" asked Violet eagerly.
+
+"Of course not, silly," Laura answered. "What would be the use of a
+locked trunk if you kept the key around where everybody could see it?"
+
+"Well, I didn't even know it was locked," Violet said, rather
+heatedly for her.
+
+Billie jumped to her feet and gave the trunk a sudden jerk.
+
+"Girls!" she cried, "did you hear that?"
+
+"Hear what?" they chorused eagerly.
+
+"But, didn't you hear it rattle when we pulled it out of the closet? I
+thought so then. Now I'm sure. Oh, girls!"
+
+"What is the matter, Billie?"
+
+"I jerked the trunk," explained Billie, while the color tinged her face,
+"and it jingled! Yes it did, it actually jingled!"
+
+"Billie!" cried Laura looking wide-eyed and awed, "do you mean it sounded
+like _money_?"
+
+For answer Billie reached down and gave the trunk another jerk. Sure
+enough, there was the unmistakable jingle of metal against metal as
+though the trunk were filled with coins.
+
+Their hearts beating fast, hardly able to speak with excitement, the
+girls stood and stared down at this new discovery.
+
+"I--I feel like Captain Kidd!" gasped Billie, her cheeks crimson now.
+"Like Captain Kidd when he found the treasure. Girls, do you really think
+it _is_ money?"
+
+"It certainly sounds like it," said Violet in a voice tremulous with
+excitement, as she reached down and gave the trunk another jerk just for
+the fun of hearing its contents jingle.
+
+"Well, let's get it downstairs," suggested Laura, wildly impatient to see
+the treasure, if treasure it were. "We certainly can't open it ourselves
+without a key. Oh, if the boys were only at home!" she added with an
+impatient little stamp of her foot "It seems to me they're never around
+when you want them."
+
+"Maybe we can call them back. They haven't had time to go far," said
+Billie, stirred to instant action by the thought. "Come on Laura, you
+take one end, Vi can steady it at the side, and we'll at least get the
+trunk downstairs. That's the way! Now then!"
+
+After a good deal of pushing and lugging, and a spasm of fright when the
+trunk almost fell on Laura, they finally succeeded in getting their
+burden down to the second floor.
+
+There the girls left it and started hastily down the stairs in pursuit of
+the boys. They had gone only half the way, however, when they were
+startled by a tremendous crash and explosion outside and stood still,
+their hearts in their mouths.
+
+"Oh, now what has happened?" cried Violet as they rushed down the rest of
+the steps and started for the front door.
+
+Half way to the door Mrs. Gilligan met them, holding a rat trap in her
+hand from which hung, suspended, a dead rat.
+
+"Where did you get that?" the girls cried in chorus.
+
+"It's Mr. Rat, the piano player," said Mrs. Gilligan, adding as she
+pushed past them and ran to the door: "Did you hear that awful noise
+outside, girls?"
+
+"Did we hear it?" they cried, following her.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Gilligan, what do you suppose it was?" asked Violet, pressing
+close to her.
+
+"Somebody is probably hurt," answered the woman, adding as though to
+herself: "Terribly hurt! Hope it ain't the boys!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE WRECKED AEROPLANE
+
+
+The girls never remembered very clearly what happened after that. They
+had a vague and confused recollection of seeing the boys gathered around
+something in the bushes at the brook that groaned a little and made queer
+sputtering noises.
+
+Then the boys bent down and began extricating the groaning thing from the
+wreck of something.
+
+"Chet, what is it?" cried Billie, with an impression that she was living
+a dream. She tried to push past him, but her brother stopped her.
+
+"Stay away, Sis," he ordered. "The poor fellow's hurt--we don't know how
+badly--and I'd rather you would go back to the house."
+
+"But if he's hurt, there's all the more need for us," insisted Billie,
+sudden decision in her voice. "We know first aid. Let us past, boys."
+
+Not exactly knowing why they obeyed her, the boys drew aside and she ran
+to the side of the prostrate figure on the ground, the other girls
+following half reluctantly.
+
+The boys had succeeded in removing the man from the wreckage--one
+glance about them told the girls that the wreck had once been an
+aeroplane--and the man, who was elderly, lay quite still, looking up at
+them with sick eyes.
+
+"Oh, can't we get him up to the house?" cried Billie, clasping her hands
+in pity and looking appealingly at Mrs. Gilligan. "Then we can send for
+a doctor--"
+
+But it was the hurt man himself who interrupted.
+
+"I--I'm all in," he said, speaking with great effort. "It won't do any
+good to move me--"
+
+"But it might," cried Violet, coming down and leaning compassionately
+over him while her eyes filled with tears. "Do you think--it would
+hurt--too much--"
+
+"Come on. Let's try it, fellows," said Teddy, speaking with sudden
+decision. "We can't leave him here to die, perhaps," he added softly. "We
+can at least make an attempt to save his life."
+
+He bent down, and, putting a hand under each of the man's arms, lifted
+him slightly, eliciting a moan of pain.
+
+"You take his feet, Chet, and, Ferd, you support his back," he directed.
+"Now then--"
+
+The boys started to obey, but at the first touch the man cried out in
+such pain that they were forced to put him down again.
+
+"It's something in here," said the old fellow, while the girls and boys
+stood looking helplessly at him, not knowing what to do. He put a hand
+over his left side. "Something's broken. I--I was trying to--invent a new
+kind of aeroplane," he went on jerkily, and in spite of the tragic
+circumstances the young folks felt a thrill of excitement as they
+realized that here perhaps was the secret of that strange humming noise
+that had so badly frightened and bewildered them.
+
+"The second ghost," murmured Teddy softly, as though to himself, but
+Billie, standing close beside him, heard.
+
+"A new kind of aeroplane," Chet prompted, gently but with an unusual
+light in his eye.
+
+"Yes. And this was its--trial flight," the old man said with a world of
+bitterness in his voice. "The engine exploded. I guess it shows that I'm
+pretty much of a failure--in every way."
+
+"I don't see why," cried Billie, her warm heart eager to give him
+comfort. "There may have been just some little thing the matter that
+you--What's that?"
+
+"That" was the sound of running feet and a crackling of bushes, and the
+next minute two men burst out into the clearing. They were red of face
+and breathless, and when they saw the old man and the wrecked machine
+they stood stock still and stared in consternation.
+
+With a start the girls and boys recognized the men as those whom they
+had met in the woods that other day not so long ago--the men who had so
+curtly ordered them to "go the other way."
+
+So the corn story was a fish story after all, and the old inventor's
+vain attempt to make a new kind of flying machine was the key to all
+the mystery!
+
+"Are you very much hurt, Dad?" cried the younger of the two men, leaning
+anxiously over the old man. Again the young folks were startled. So one
+of the bearded men was the old man's son!
+
+"All in, Son, I guess," answered the old man. With a sigh he laid his
+hand over his left side and whispered: "I'm all smashed to pieces. The
+engine exploded."
+
+"Well, let's see about that," said the second of the two men, pushing the
+younger aside and beginning to rip open the old man's shirt.
+
+Up to that time neither of the men had thrown a glance in the direction
+of the wondering boys and girls--in fact they gave every impression of
+not having seen them at all.
+
+The older of the two men was working feverishly--he seemed to be a
+doctor, judging from the skill with which he tapped here and pressed
+there, evidently trying to find out what bones were broken, if any.
+
+And all the time the old inventor kept up a feeble moaning.
+
+"He must be very much hurt indeed, or very, very old," thought Billie
+as, with one hand clasped tightly in Laura's and the other gripping
+Violet's arm, she watched intently.
+
+"Why, this isn't so bad after all," announced the man at last, looking up
+from his patient with a light in his eyes that made him look very boyish
+in spite of the beard on his face. "Your father's terribly bruised and
+battered up, Stanton," he said, addressing the old man's son, who had
+been looking on with strained attention, "but as far as I can see the
+only bones broken are a rib or two. We'll soon fix you up as good as
+new," he went on, turning again to the old man.
+
+The latter looked surprised and left off moaning.
+
+"You mean I'm going to live?" he asked incredulously, adding with a faint
+little attempt at a smile: "Why--why, I was sure I was--done for!"
+
+"No indeed," said the "doctor-person"--as Billie had already dubbed him,
+rising briskly to his feet. "You'll live to fly many another aeroplane,
+Mr. Parsons. Now will you let your son and me take you home?"
+
+Such is the power of mind over matter, the inventor hardly made any
+outcry at all when his son and the "doctor-person" lifted him between
+them and started off through the woods.
+
+As he turned about, the doctor's eyes rested on the boys and girls and he
+stopped short, apparently really seeing them for the first time.
+
+"Hello," he said. "I beg your pardon, but I scarcely noticed you,"
+adding, more by way of explanation than excuse: "You see I was very much
+occupied."
+
+"Oh, we don't mind," said Billie truthfully, adding as the doctor turned
+toward her: "Is there anything we can do to help the--the inventor?"
+
+"Oh, so he told you then," said the doctor, with a vexed frown. "No,
+thanks, there's nothing you can do. We'll be back for the pieces of the
+aeroplane later."
+
+And without another glance the strange trio disappeared into the woods.
+
+For a long minute the boys and girls stood staring after the strange men
+dazedly, then they turned to each other with a sigh.
+
+"Well!" said Laura explosively, "if everything isn't happening to us at
+once, then my name isn't Laura Jordon. To think that our ghost turned out
+to be an inventor after all!"
+
+"You look as if you were disappointed," gibed Ferd, beginning to recover
+from his bewilderment. "We'll manufacture a brand new ghost if you say
+so, but it may take time--"
+
+"Goodness, you needn't bother," said Violet, going over to the wrecked
+machine and regarding it wonderingly. "We've had enough of ghosts to last
+us a lifetime. My, that poor old inventor must have had a terrible fall."
+
+"It's a miracle," said Teddy, who had joined her and was looking down at
+the wreck soberly, "that he ever came out alive. I agreed with him at
+first, that he was all in."
+
+"Well, let it be a lesson to you," said Chet with mock gravity, "never to
+let your ambitions soar to aeroplane inventing."
+
+"If that's meant to be a joke," said Laura bitingly, "I must say it's as
+much of a failure as our old inventor himself. Well, girls," she added,
+turning back to them, "I don't suppose there's any use staying around
+here any longer. Let's go back to the house."
+
+It was not till they were entering the grim old door of the grim old
+house that they thought again of Billie's new discovery--the trunk
+that jingled.
+
+"Goodness! how could we ever have forgotten it?" cried Billie as she,
+with Violet and Laura, fairly flew up the stairs, leaving the bewildered
+boys to follow them.
+
+"Now what's up?" asked Teddy, as he came into the room where the girls
+had left their treasure. "So many things are happening all at once that
+it's enough to make a fellow's brain reel."
+
+"It all depends on the brain," said Billie, looking up at him with a
+twinkle in her eye. And all Teddy did was to look sad and reproachful.
+
+"Say, what shall I be doin' with this?" asked Mrs. Gilligan, and they
+turned to see her great bulk looming in the doorway. In her hand she
+held the rat trap with the dangling rat.
+
+"Gee, where did you get it?" cried Chet, jumping to his feet from where
+he had been kneeling with Billie, examining the shabby trunk.
+
+Mrs. Gilligan paused a moment and a gleam of humor shot into her eyes.
+
+"You've been askin' to see ghosts, Mr. Chet," she said, with a chuckle,
+"and you sure have got your wish this day. That airman was the first.
+Here is the second one!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+COINS AND POSTAGE STAMPS
+
+
+Chet looked bewildered for a minute--then disgusted, an expression that
+was faithfully reflected on the faces of the other boys.
+
+"A ghost! That?" he said, pointing scornfully at the dead rat. "What do
+you mean?"
+
+"Oh, Chet!" cried Billie, springing to her feet in her turn. "That's
+another thing we forgot. This is Mr. Rat, the piano player."
+
+"Have you all gone crazy, or have I?" cried poor Chet, looking still more
+bewildered. But suddenly Teddy saw light.
+
+"You mean the musical ghost," he cried, laughter in his voice. "The one
+that has had us chasing down flights of stairs on dark nights?"
+
+"With the chills running up and down our spines and our hair standing on
+end?" added Ferd, following his lead.
+
+"The very same," responded Mrs. Gilligan, the gleam deepening in her
+eyes.
+
+"But how did you catch it?" asked Violet, for the girls, all
+except Billie, who had originated the idea, were as much in the
+dark as the boys.
+
+"With a trap," said Billie, her own eyes beginning to sparkle.
+
+"But who thought of it?" Violet insisted, ignoring the sarcasm.
+
+"You see before you the girl who invented it," said Billie with a
+chuckle.
+
+"Great pumpkins, another inventor!" groaned Ferd, and sent them off into
+a spasm of laughter.
+
+"Oh, tell us about it, Billie," Laura entreated. "You can be the most
+aggravating thing!"
+
+"Stop calling me names or I'll never tell you," threatened Billie, at
+which Laura looked as meek as Laura could ever look.
+
+Thereupon Billie recounted to an interested audience the events that had
+led to her idea that it might be a rat that was making a joke of them all
+and how she had decided to put her idea to the test.
+
+"Say, think of getting excited about a mouse!" cried Ferd incredulously,
+when she had finished.
+
+"It wasn't a mouse--it was a rat," corrected Billie.
+
+"But it might have been a mouse," Ferd protested, but Billie broke in
+again.
+
+"No it mightn't," she said decidedly. "A mouse could never have made
+noise enough for us to hear when we were upstairs in bed."
+
+"Right you are," said Ferd, taking off an imaginary cap to Billie. "I
+have to hand it to you, Billie--you're right there."
+
+"You said it that time, old man," murmured Teddy very softly, but Billie
+heard him and looked up at him with laughing eyes.
+
+"Come help us open our trunk," she said, turning away suddenly.
+
+"Whose trunk is it?"
+
+"Where did you get it?"
+
+"Looks as if it had come out of Noah's ark."
+
+These and many more comments piled one on top of the other as the boys
+looked at the old trunk, which did indeed appear old enough to have
+satisfied the most ardent collector of antiques.
+
+"Why, it's my trunk," said Billie, when she could make herself heard
+above the babble. "We found it in the attic. But I don't see what
+difference it makes where we got it," she added impatiently, getting down
+on her knees once more and shaking the trunk as if it were to blame.
+"Won't you please get busy and open it, boys? Aren't you a bit curious to
+see what's inside?"
+
+"Is there a key?" asked Ferd, and Billie looked up at him in despair.
+
+"Of course not, silly," she said. "Don't you suppose we'd have had it
+open ages ago if there had been a key? You'll have to break it open, or
+pick the lock, or something."
+
+"Say, she's insulting us! Thinks we're thugs," murmured Ferd, as he,
+with the other boys, got down on the floor and began to examine the
+trunk eagerly.
+
+"Yes, where do you suppose we got our experience in picking locks?" added
+Chet, looking aggrieved.
+
+"Goodness, I don't care whether you pick the lock or what you do as long
+as you get it open," cried Billie, half wild with impatience now that the
+fateful moment had arrived. "You can use dynamite for all I care."
+
+"Maybe that's what's in it," suggested Teddy, and the girls screamed.
+
+"Teddy! Of all the wet blankets!"
+
+"Well, you never can tell," said Teddy, adding wickedly, as Ferd started
+to set the trunk on end: "Be careful there, Ferd; she may explode, as the
+aeroplane did."
+
+"Somebody give me something to throw at him," cried Laura indignantly.
+"Anyway," she added triumphantly, "we know there isn't dynamite in it or
+we'd have been blown to bits long ago. We dragged it down stairs."
+
+"Yes, and we didn't do it very gently either," added Violet.
+
+"It has a pretty strong lock," said Chet, getting to his feet and
+rumpling up his hair thoughtfully. "I'll have to get a hammer and a wedge
+of some sort."
+
+"Oh, there are all sorts of tools down in the tool-house," Billie cried
+eagerly, and Chet looked at her as though she had said she had discovered
+a gold mine in the back yard.
+
+"Tools!" he repeated, his eyes shining. "Are they good ones?"
+
+"I don't know anything about tools," said Billie. "But it looked as if
+there were hundreds of them--"
+
+Chet waited to hear no more. Like a streak of lightning he was out of the
+room and racing down the stairs.
+
+"Tools!" he was saying gloatingly to himself, "hundreds of them!"
+
+Upstairs Billie turned and looked at Teddy in dismay.
+
+"Now what have I done?" she cried. "If he once gets among those tools we
+won't see him for hours. Teddy," and she looked appealing enough even to
+melt Teddy's hard heart, "won't you go after him? You will have to just
+tear him away--"
+
+However, the two boys were back sooner than the girls expected, for they
+were very curious about the contents of the small shabby trunk, which had
+so evidently been hidden away in the darkest corner of a dark closet in
+the attic.
+
+"Say, those are some tools, Billie," said Chet jubilantly, as he pried
+away at the lock. "You could do just about anything with them--anything
+from making a house, to breaking into one. I say," he added, stopping
+work to look at her entreatingly, "don't you remember mother saying that
+Aunt Beatrice left you the house and me--the tools?"
+
+The girls and boys laughed, and Billie patted his shoulder fondly.
+
+"No, I don't remember anything of the sort," she said, imitating his tone
+to perfection. "But if you're a good boy and open the trunk in a hurry,
+I'll deed them to you, Chet--every last tool in the tool-house."
+
+"Honest to goodness?" cried Chet, his eyes beaming.
+
+"Honest to goodness, brother mine."
+
+Then Chet fell to work with fresh enthusiasm on the lock.
+
+It was a stubborn old lock, and required a good deal of patience--which
+the girls had not--and tinkering to make it give way.
+
+But it gave at last, and girls and boys leaned forward with sighs of pure
+excitement.
+
+"Open it," cried Laura impatiently, but Billie put her hand on the lid
+and faced them with shining eyes.
+
+"We'll each have just one guess," she said, "and see who comes nearest to
+guessing right."
+
+"I bet it's money," cried Chet.
+
+"That isn't fair, I was going to bet that too."
+
+"So was I--"
+
+"And I--"
+
+Billie threw up her hands in despair.
+
+"Of course, if you're all going to guess the same thing it's all ruined,"
+she said, then added, as she bent forward and started to lift the cover:
+"I don't know that I blame you, though, for I was going to guess the very
+same thing!"
+
+"Oh, Billie, hurry! You're so slow!" cried Laura, jumping up and down
+with excitement. "Do get at it!"
+
+"Shall I do it?" asked Violet, feeling an almost irresistible desire to
+push Billie away and fling back the lid. Why was she so slow?
+
+"One--two--three!" cried Billie, and then the lid was off and they were
+staring down into the contents of the trunk.
+
+For a minute they stood motionless. Then, as though moved by one impulse,
+they dropped to their knees and buried their hands in something that
+jingled at their touch!
+
+The trunk was full to the brim with old coins, many quite rare, while
+scattered here and there were postage stamps on sheets and loose,
+queer, foreign looking things that made Billie's eyes glisten as she
+looked at them.
+
+"It must have all belonged to Uncle Henry," she said, in an awed voice.
+"Aunt Beatrice once said he had a hobby for collecting postage stamps and
+old coins--"
+
+"But it _is_ money," cried Laura, finding her voice at last, her blue
+eyes dark with excitement. "Why, Billie, these old coins must be worth a
+big lot of money!"
+
+"You bet! It's a treasure," said Teddy soberly. Then with a little smile
+he turned to Billie--Billie who was vivid and breathless with the great
+discovery. "Allow me to present to you, ladies and gentlemen, our old
+friend, Captain Kidd!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+"LARGE FORTUNES"
+
+
+"Billie, it's worth a small fortune!"
+
+"I'll bet the stuff is worth several thousand dollars."
+
+"Yes, every bit of it."
+
+"Oh, boys, as much as that?" questioned Billie, half hysterically.
+
+"Of course," came from Teddy. He was on his knees in front of the
+treasure box. "See these coins? Gold, every one of 'em--and as big as ten
+dollar pieces, too."
+
+"Count 'em," cried Chet.
+
+Then began a hasty move on the part of both girls and boys to count the
+gold and silver. Poor Billie's hands trembled so she could scarcely help.
+
+"I make it the gold and silver alone are worth at least three thousand
+dollars," declared Teddy.
+
+"And don't forget the copper coins," added Ferd.
+
+"And remember too they are old coins and worth something extra from a
+collector's point of view," said Chet.
+
+From the coins the young folks turned to the postage stamps. Chet and
+Teddy had done a little stamp collecting once and knew that some of the
+stamps were rare.
+
+"I think they are worth at least fifteen hundred dollars more," said
+Teddy, "and maybe they are worth twice that. Some stamps are worth a
+hundred dollars apiece."
+
+It was not until they were called below by Mrs. Gilligan that they gave
+up speculating about the value of the trunk. The boys went off, leaving
+the girls to themselves.
+
+"It's too good to be true," murmured Billie, over and over again.
+
+Both of the other girls put their arms about her.
+
+"You deserve it," said Laura.
+
+"I'm awfully glad, Billie, really I am," beamed Violet.
+
+"Why, I'll be able to go to Three Towers Hall!" cried Billie, a little
+later, when thinking it all over. "And I can send Chet to Boxton Military
+Academy. Won't that be fine?"
+
+"And you can have enough left to pay for that old statue," added Laura,
+with a smile. "I knew something good would come out of this queer old
+house at Cherry Corners."
+
+"Well, you needn't take all the credit to yourself," said Billie, the
+lilt of happiness and excitement in her voice. "Just remember, young
+lady, that it was little Billie Bradley who discovered the trunk."
+
+"You stuck up thing," cried Violet, putting a fond arm again about her.
+"Billie, dear," she went on in the serious voice that was Violet's very
+own, "I'm just exactly as glad for myself that you found the money as I
+am for you. Because if Laura and I had had to go to Three Towers without
+you we wouldn't have enjoyed a single thing."
+
+"Yes, we've been worrying terribly about that," sighed Laura, and
+affectionately Billie patted a hand of each.
+
+"There never was a girl had such wonderful friends," she said, and
+something in her throat tightened a little. "And it makes the trunk three
+times as valuable," she added, in a lighter tone, "because it makes three
+people happy instead of one. Which reminds me--" she stopped short and
+put her hand over her mouth in consternation.
+
+"Now what's the matter?" Violet surveyed her anxiously. "Is there a pin
+sticking you, or something?"
+
+"Of course not," denied Billie absently, adding as she rose hastily to
+her feet: "It just struck me that I've known this wonderful thing for
+hours and I haven't written home about it yet."
+
+"Well, you'd better read these first," sang out a cheery voice from the
+door, and they turned to find Teddy coming toward them with some letters
+in his hand.
+
+"Letters!" was the joyful cry. "Give them to us, Teddy, before we take
+them from you."
+
+"Oh, do you really think you could?" he asked, holding them behind his
+back by way of challenge. "Just come on and try. I'll guarantee to hold
+off the three of you with one hand."
+
+But it was Billie's pleading face that made him change his mind.
+
+"Please, Teddy," she begged, "I've just been dying for some letters from
+home. Don't keep me waiting."
+
+"All right, your word is law," said Teddy gallantly, remembering that he
+had read the phrase somewhere and it had sounded very good. "Here you
+are, and here's one for Vi and two for Laura."
+
+"Goodness, what have I done to get only one?" cried Violet, feeling very
+much abused.
+
+"Well, your one looks fat enough to make up for our two," Billie assured
+her diplomatically, then settled back to enjoy her own letters, while
+Teddy ran out to join the boys downstairs.
+
+One of her letters was from her mother, and with a loving smile she laid
+it aside to be read last--she always saved the best till the last. The
+writing on the other envelope puzzled her.
+
+"Now, who is writing to me from Mayport, Long Island?" she demanded, and
+the girls looked up inquiringly from their letters.
+
+"Another mystery?" asked Laura, for there were not enough mysteries in
+the world to satisfy Laura.
+
+"It doesn't look very mysterious," answered Billie, turning the envelope
+around and around in her hand and finally holding it up to the light to
+see if she could get any clew to its contents that way. "But I surely
+never did see that handwriting before. I wonder--"
+
+"Well, why don't you open it?" Violet inquired impatiently. "It seems to
+me that's the best way to find out."
+
+"Isn't she the bright child?" sniffed Laura, as Billie tore open the
+envelope and pulled out the letter inside. Hastily she looked for the
+signature at the end, then gave a little excited exclamation.
+
+"Girls," she said, "it's from Miss Beggs!" And she looked at them with
+wide eyes, forgetting for the moment that she had no more reason to fear
+a letter from the teacher. Then she remembered, and a joyful smile dawned
+on her face.
+
+"Girls, I've been sort of dreading this letter all summer," she said,
+her eyes sparkling, "and now when it's come I don't mind a bit. Isn't it
+just wonderful? I have money enough of my own to replace that horrid
+'Girl Reading a Book' and two or three more like it. Now," she said,
+settling down with a satisfied little sigh, "if you'll allow me, I'll
+read my letter."
+
+The girls watched her as she read and were amazed to see her expression
+change from satisfaction to surprise and from surprise to something
+like chagrin.
+
+"Well, if that isn't the limit!" she cried, laying down the letter and
+regarding the girls disgustedly. "Here I've been worrying myself--and
+Chet--sick all summer about that horrid old statue and now when I've got
+the money to pay for it, I find out that I probably wouldn't have had to
+replace the old thing anyway."
+
+"What do you mean?" the others asked, more puzzled than ever by this
+flow of words.
+
+"Why," Billie went on to explain, glancing at the letter again, "Miss
+Beggs says that the statue had been broken before and she had attempted
+to mend it. She says that I'm not to worry over it, for it would have
+been only a matter of time before it had fallen to pieces itself anyway.
+Now what do you think of that?"
+
+"I think," said Violet, with a sigh, "that we have wasted a good deal of
+time and worry over nothing at all."
+
+"Well, I don't see any use of looking doleful about it," said Laura
+briskly. "I should think you'd be glad, Billie, that you won't have to
+buy a statue. It will give you that much more money to have for
+yourself."
+
+"Oh, but I'll buy a little statue, anyway," said Billie decidedly. "It's
+awfully nice of Miss Beggs to tell me not to bother about it, but the
+fact is that I _re_broke the statue, whether it was broken before or
+not. And, anyway, I'll be glad to do it now," she added, with a little
+gleam in her eye, "just to show Amanda Peabody that I can!"
+
+"I say, up there, aren't you ever coming down?" called Chet's voice from
+the bottom of the stairs, and Laura went out into the hall to see what
+he wanted.
+
+"We're making plans for the fall," Chet added, and in his voice was a
+little joyous thrill that made Billie's heart sing. Dear old Chet--if
+ever a boy deserved to get what he wanted, he did. "And if you don't come
+down and help us, we're going to leave you out," he added challengingly.
+
+"Better come up here," suggested Laura, adding decidedly. "We can't come
+down, you know."
+
+"I'd like to know why not!"
+
+"We can't leave the trunk," Laura explained patiently, as if she were
+addressing a particularly stupid child. "It's too precious."
+
+So in the end the girls had their way, and the boys joined them in the
+upstairs room which came the nearest to being cheerful of any room in the
+house, except the kitchen.
+
+At first the boys talked and the girls listened. But gradually the bits
+of fancy work were laid aside, the girls joined in the conversation,
+while eyes shone bright and faces glowed with anticipation of what the
+autumn held in store for them.
+
+And while Laura and Violet and the two boys were talking happily and all
+at once, Teddy took the opportunity to whisper in Billie's ear:
+
+"I suppose, being a young lady with a large fortune," he said teasingly,
+delighting in the color that rose to her face, "you won't find time to
+recognize your old friends any more."
+
+And with a dimpling smile and mischief in her eyes Billie answered him.
+
+"Of course not," she said, adding a trifle more seriously: "Except only
+the friends who stood by me so loyally and offered to help when I had no
+'large fortune,'"
+
+"And are you going to tell me," asked Teddy eagerly, "the names of
+those favored friends? I know I didn't do anything, Billie, but am I
+one of them?"
+
+"Your name," said Billie, half laughing and half serious, "is at the very
+head of the list."
+
+"Do you really mean--" Teddy was beginning eagerly, when Laura called to
+them laughingly.
+
+"Whispering in corners not allowed," she cried. "Come over here and help
+us decide what we'll eat for our first midnight feast at Three Towers
+Hall. We must have midnight feasts, you know."
+
+"Of course we must," cried Billie joyfully. "Doesn't it sound delicious?
+Oh, we're going to have a wonderful time!"
+
+And just how wonderful a time they had and just how merry and fun-loving
+they found the girls at the boarding school will be told in the next
+volume of the series entitled, "Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall; or,
+Leading a Needed Rebellion." In that volume may be met the girls and the
+boys again in adventures as queer and exciting as those already
+experienced.
+
+"Well, Billie, you can't complain of your inheritance after all," said
+Chet some time later.
+
+"Indeed not!" she answered. "Wasn't it the best ever?"
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance
+by Janet D. Wheeler
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BILLIE BRADLEY AND HER INHERITANCE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 10048.txt or 10048.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/0/4/10048/
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+     http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
diff --git a/old/10048.zip b/old/10048.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3a29598
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10048.zip