The Corner House Girls Part 18

"Don't be so silly," the older girl said. But her own heart throbbed tumultuously as she led the procession up the garret stairs a little later. They could hear the wind whistling around the house up here. A shutter rattled, and then the wind gurgled deep in the throat of one of the unused chimneys.

"Goodness!" gasped Tess. "How many strange voices the storm has, hasn't it? Say, Dot! do you s'pose we'll find that goat of yours up here now?"

"I don't care," said the littler girl. "Aggie and Ruth were talking about something that sounded like 'goat' that night in bed. And they won't tell now what it was."

"You must never play eavesdropper," said Ruth, seriously. "It is very unlady-like."

"Then folks shouldn't whisper," declared Dot, quickly. "n.o.body would ever _try_ to listen, if folks spoke right out loud. You say, yourself, Ruth, that it's not polite to whisper."

They opened the garret door and peered in. Although it was so dull a day outside, there was plenty of light up here. The rain beat against some of the windows and the wind shook and rattled the sashes.

Ruth's gaze turned instantly upon the window at which she believed she had seen the moving figure from across Willow Street. There was nothing hanging near that window that could possibly have shown from without.

She forced herself to go directly to the place. It was at the right of one of the huge chimneys and she could make no mistake, she thought, for it was at the window to the right of this chimney that she had seen the specter appear not two hours before!

A large s.p.a.ce about this window was cleared. There was nothing near enough the window that could have represented the garret ghost. But this cleared s.p.a.ce before the window seemed to have been made especially for the ghostly capers of the "haunt."

Agnes came gingerly over to where Ruth stood. She whispered in the older girl's ear:

"S'pose that old ghost should appear, Ruth? What would you do? You know, Eva said it was seen only on stormy days."

"Don't be silly, child," said Ruth, quite angrily. She was angry as much at herself for "feeling so shaky inside," as she was at Agnes.

She bustled about then, and hurried her sisters, too. They made a good beginning within the next two hours. Of course, it was _only_ a beginning. Dust and cobwebs lay thick over all. They could brush up only the worst of the litter.

"Next clear day," Ruth declared, "we'll take all these old clothes down and hang what we want to keep on the lines in the yard. Uncle Rufus can have the rest. Why do you suppose Uncle Peter kept this old stuff?"

"They say he got so he wouldn't give away a pin, at the last," said Agnes. "And some of these old things must have belonged to people dead and gone when Uncle Peter himself was a boy."

"I expect so," agreed Ruth.

"What do you suppose is in all these chests and trunks, Ruthie?" asked Tess.

"Don't know, honey. But we'll find out some day."

Just then Uncle Rufus' tones reached them from the stairway. He called, in his quavering old voice:

"Missie! An' you oder chillen. I done got somet'ing ter tell yo'."

"What is it?" cried Agnes, running to open the door at the top of the stairs.

"I done foun' out what happen ter dem kittens, Missie," said Uncle Rufus. "You-all come ri' down an' I'll show yo'."

CHAPTER XII

MRS. KRANZ COMES TO CALL

The girls came down from the garret in a hurry, when they heard this news. Uncle Rufus hobbled on before to the kitchen. There was Sandy-face and Spotty in front of the range. They were both very wet and the old cat was licking the kitten dry.

"Where-where's the others?" cried Tess. "Did you find Almira?"

"I want my Bungle," declared Dot. "Didn't you find my Bungle kitten, Uncle Rufus?"

"Sho, chile! I didn't say I foun' dem kittens. I on'y say I knowed where dey went."

"Where?" was the chorused demand.

Uncle Rufus rolled his eyes and chuckled deeply. "Das ol' cat play a joke on we-uns," he declared. "She t'ink she an' de kittens on'y come yere for a visit. And so she lug 'em all back to Mars' Stetson's store-ya-as'm!"

"Carried them back to the store?" cried Ruth. "Oh! she couldn't."

"Ya-as'm. One at a time. In her teef," said Uncle Rufus, nodding confidently. "I jes' kotch her out on the sidewalk wid dis leetle brack kitten, marchin' straight fo' de store. Dat how she come go 'way an' stay so long. Nex' time you go to Mars' Stetson's, you find dem dere-sho'."

"But she couldn't have taken them out of the woodshed," cried Agnes.

"Ya-as'm, she did. She git out de winder. A cat kin squeeze through a moughty small s.p.a.ce-so she kin."

"Why, you foolish Sandy-face!" exclaimed Dot. "And we tried to make you feel at home-didn't we, Ruthie?"

"b.u.t.ter her feet," said Aunt Sarah, who chanced to be in the kitchen at the moment. "I told you that before," and she walked out.

"Goodness! we'll b.u.t.ter all their feet," cried Agnes, "if that will keep them here. Just as soon as it holds up a little, I'll run over to Mr. Stetson's and see if it is so. The poor old thing! to carry those kittens so far. But, me-oh-my! cats haven't much sense, after all, have they?"

Uncle Rufus was proved right-and that before supper time. The rain held up, and Agnes scurried over to the store, bringing back, huddled in a small covered basket, Popocatepetl, Almira, and Bungle, who all seemed very glad to rejoin Spotty. Sandy-face looked absurdly pleased to see them-just as though she had not carried them back, one by one, to a hiding place behind the flour barrels in Mr. Stetson's store-room!

Agnes insisted upon b.u.t.tering the mother-cat's paws. And to make sure of it, she b.u.t.tered the paws of the four kittens as well.

"There," she said, "when Sandy gets through lapping all that b.u.t.ter up, she ought to be _proud_ to stay here, for b.u.t.ter's forty cents a pound right now!"

"You extravagant thing," sighed Ruth, shaking her head.

"Yes!" cried Agnes. "And it's so nice to be extravagant. I declare, Ruth, I feel that I was just born to be a rich girl. It _tickles_ me to be extravagant."

Since returning from Mr. Howbridge's office, Ruth had evolved a question that she wished to put to Uncle Rufus. The mystery of the lost will was ever present in the mind of the oldest of the Corner House girls, and this query had to do with that mystery.

"Uncle Rufus," she asked the old man, after dinner that evening when he was carefully putting away the silver and they were alone together in the dining-room, "Uncle Rufus, do you know where Uncle Peter used to keep his private papers?"

"Sho', Missie, he kept dem in de safe in his study-ya-as'm. Yo' know dat safe; don't yo'?"

"But Mr. Howbridge has the key to that safe, and to the desk, and all.

And there are some things-quite important things-that he can't find.

Didn't Uncle Peter have some other hiding place?"

"Glo-ree, Missie! I 'spect he did," said Uncle Rufus, rolling his eyes. "But I nebber knowed whar dat is."