CHAPTER IX

A PITIFUL APPARITION

“Well, I must say this place doesn’t look like much!”

The observation was Gerry Thompson’s. Beside her, Charlie Seymour heartily, though languidly, agreed.

“You’re right, it doesn’t. I doubt if we can even find a wagon to carry our stuff.”

“Leave that to me,” said Gordon confidently. “In fact, if I am not very much mistaken, yonder rambling shack once called itself a livery stable. Come on, Charlie, let’s investigate.”

The shabby, deserted country station was not a cheerful sight. Dust lay thick on the road that ran behind the platform; the sun beat down upon it in a dazzling glare. A few straggling houses were dimly visible through the trees. From what they could see of it, the village of Clayton certainly presented no very alluring prospect to the weary travelers.

Mrs. Fenwick stood primly by herself, smiling her vague, sweet smile. Rosa Lee sat on an overturned suitcase in the midst of her piles of packages, wearing a look of extreme melancholy. Some one had carelessly sat upon a cake!

In vain Bab protested that there were enough goodies left anyway: that the cake, though badly squashed, was still edible. Poor Rosa Lee was inconsolable.

“No, sir, I’s nebber gwine make anudder cake like dat,” she sighed. “De time Ah spent on dat po’ cake----”

“Love’s labor lost!” Gerry murmured, and Bab laughed, to the accompaniment of a shocked, reproachful look from the bereaved cook.

While they waited for the return of Charlie and Gordon, Gerry cast an eye skyward.

“Rain clouds, Bab. Shouldn’t wonder if we were in for a pretty storm.”

“Oh, I hope not!” exclaimed Bab. “A haunted house must seem ever so much more dismal in the rain!”

Meanwhile, the boys had found that the livery stable, so-called, was really only a tumble-down shed, housing one poor old nag and a wagon with wabbly wheels.

This, they were informed by the owner, was at their disposal, as “far as it went.”

“Which won’t be far, judging from the look of it,” remarked Gerry disparagingly. “I don’t see how we are going to squeeze ourselves and all our belongings into that thing.”

The owner of the equipage scowled darkly at this reflection on his property.

“I’ve been servin’ the countryfolk for some thirty-odd years, Miss----”

“I can well believe it!” thought Gerry.

“And I’ve never failed to give satisfaction----”

“Oh, I’m quite sure it will be all right,” Bab broke in hastily. “And, if you please, I think we should hurry a little. Those clouds in the east really do look like rain.”

“Mr. Wiggley says he will come back and get the luggage after taking us to the house,” Gordon explained.

“What! Leave it all alone here on the platform for some one to steal?” cried Gerry.

“There’s a boy will watch it, Miss,” said Seth Wiggley. He was a thin, bony old man and he chewed his quid of tobacco with an air of great relish. “If anythin’ gits so much as teched I’ll hold myself pussonally responsible.”

A glance from Bab checked Gerry’s giggle and spared the old man’s feelings.

“It’s kind of you to take so much trouble for us,” she said gratefully. “Is this--is this--the boy?”

Seth Wiggley nodded a twinkling affirmative as the girls gazed upon a gangling youth with sandy hair, light eyes and a pimply skin.

“He’s six feet tall if he’s an inch,” whispered Gerry to Bab.

In fact, Seth Wiggley’s “boy” was one of those youngsters who, at the age of twelve or thirteen, attain the height of twenty. To speak of this long youth as a “boy” seemed absurd; yet a glance at his wide blue eyes and youthful mouth affirmed the statement of Mr. Wiggley that his son was “just turned thirteen.”

This person then, known to the irreverent youth of the village as “Wigs,” came into the foreground and was properly presented.

The newcomers then climbed into the decrepit vehicle, helping Mrs. Fenwick in first. When Rosa Lee followed it seemed as though the wagon would crack into fragments there in the road. However, it stood the strain, and though it creaked in every joint and axle, started off bravely enough when Seth Wiggley climbed to his seat and cracked the whip over his nag.

“We’ll be there soon now, Bab,” cried Gerry. “Aren’t you thrilled?”

“Who wouldn’t be!” retorted Bab, a little breathlessly.

She was looking forward steadily along the road ahead, a dusty ribbon of road winding through a woodland of tender greens and rugged browns. The sweet, pungent scent of pines wafted from the heart of the woods and filled her with a sudden longing to wander down grassy paths and linger beside the sun-warmed waters of the brook whose sweet, distant music came pleasantly to her ears.

“I feel like a savage,” she said whimsically when Gerry rallied her upon her silence. “I’d like nothing better than to be turned loose out there with a bow and arrow----”

“I always said there was something queer about you, Bab Winters. Now I know what it is. Hello! What have we here? What mystery is this?”

The exclamation was caused by a violent disturbance of the bushes at a point in the road just ahead of them. The next moment a small, ragged figure burst from the shelter of the underbrush and ran toward them, arms outstretched, rags fluttering.

“Help me!” burst from the lips of this pitiful apparition. “Help! Help!”

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