CHAPTER VI

AUNT SABRINA DOESN’T ANSWER

It was nearly seven o’clock when they at last reached their destination. This was because, although they twice asked directions, they never did find Moorehouse Avenue. Since, in the course of their search, they kept on in a general northerly direction, they eventually came to Aunt Sabrina’s street, and there Pud turned them back toward the river and so led them to the house. During the journey the sight of a letter-box reminded Pud that his missive to his parents still reposed in his jacket pocket, and he posted it.

Aunt Sabrina Puddlestone’s residence occupied an entire block of land in a part of Livermore where, some thirty years before, it had been the custom for families to set their big houses in the middle of a block, and feel, even then, just a bit crowded. Now, since the town had grown in other directions, many of these old residences still stood unchallenged in the midst of their wide lawns, although frequently the houses themselves were down-at-the-heels. Aunt Sabrina’s house, though, showed no signs of disrepair. It was large and square, two stories in height, with a little square box set atop, as though the builder had wondered how a third story would look and had set it there to give him an idea. The little box was called ‘The Tower’ and was a mass of narrow windows on all sides. There was something extremely, almost depressingly, respectable about the Puddlestone mansion. It was so uncompromisingly angular and unadorned and white, and the big downstair windows were so immaculate in their heavy white curtains, and the front door, with its fan-light and side-lights, looked down across the front lawn with such a suspicious air that――well, Tim, viewing it for the first time, regretted having originated the idea of the visit.

A drive led from the street to the doorway and then curved back to the street again. Beside the carriage-way ran a narrow brick path for those afoot. Two stone urns, just a wee bit out of plumb, and a carriage-block adorned the grass before the house. Huge maples and oaks partly hid the old mansion, and at the back there was a veritable plantation of trees and shrubs, so overgrown and crowded that the late sunlight scarcely filtered through. Back there, too, near the house, was a long line of one-story structures; a stable, at one end, and then a carriage-house, and then an open woodshed, and then a poultry-house.

As the three boys started up the gently ascending, curving walk to the front door, the westing sun sent long shafts of orange light through the maples and oaks and flashed ruddily against a corner window. But the shadows were black and there was a somber stillness about the place that impressed at least one of the visitors unpleasantly. Pud appeared to be unaffected and chattered without pause all the way to the entrance, pointing out this feature and that and recalling past adventures. Coincident with their arrival at the door, there came a long roll of distant thunder. In the west the sun was descending into a bank of sullen purple clouds, while northward a sudden flare of lightning showed.

‘Guess we’re going to be lucky to have a roof over us to-night,’ said Pud. ‘There’s a peach of a storm coming up.’

He raised the old iron knocker and beat a startling _rat-a-tat_ in the silence. Presently, as nothing happened, he knocked again. Subsequently, while the thunder pealed once more, he pulled energetically at a crockery bell-knob. Far away, within the house, they heard a bell jangle. But nobody answered. Pud muttered disgustedly and almost yanked the bell-knob out by the roots, but still there were no results.

‘Reckon folks ain’ to home,’ observed Harmon.

‘_Somebody’s_ here,’ said Pud impatiently. ‘Gee, Aunt Sabrina _never_ goes anywhere. It’s funny, though. Let’s try the back.’

So they trooped around the corner and along the farther side, through a shadowed nave formed by two rows of lilacs and syringas, to the back door. It was even more still and eerie here, and when Harmon, slapping a mosquito on a bare leg, said ‘Ha!’ in sudden triumph, the others jumped nervously. There was a square porch at the back, latticed on three sides and screened inside the lattice with mosquito wire. The stout door was closed tightly and locked. There was no bell in sight and so Pud pounded lustily and shouted ‘Aunt Sabrina!’ several times. After waiting a few minutes, they returned to the front of the house, Pud nonplussed, but still insisting that somebody must be at home.

‘Maybe,’ suggested Tim, ‘your aunt’s kind of deaf.’

‘She isn’t,’ said Pud shortly. ‘Anyway, the girl ought to hear. _Some one_ ought to hear! Gee, you’d think they were all dead!’

‘Reckon they is,’ remarked Harmon cheerfully. ‘Reckon some one done been here and pirated ’em.’

‘Shut up,’ said Pud impatiently. ‘If you can’t talk sense, keep still. You fellows wait here and I’ll go over to the next house and ask the lady about it.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ answered Tim slowly. ‘Maybe we’d better not bother. If we started right away and got a car, I guess we’d get back to the boat before it rained very hard.’

‘Ain’ we goin’ eat?’ asked Harmon anxiously.

‘Yes,’ said Pud decidedly. ‘And we’re going to eat right here. Gee, I don’t want to spend the night in that launch if it’s going to rain. And it’s too late to find a place to put the tent up.’ A crash of thunder that shook the ground under them brought a gasp of alarm from Tim. ‘You wait!’ shouted Pud, and set off at top speed across the lawn.

The sunlight was gone now and a coppery light filled the world. Overhead dun-colored clouds raced fast, but in the north a great bank of grayish-purple piled higher and higher. A big drop fell on Tim’s hand. Then another splashed on the step. Tim wished very much that he was back home in Millville.

Harmon, viewing the impassive front of the big house solemnly, asked helpfully: ‘Mister Tim, you reckon this here house is hanted?’

‘Yes, I do,’ answered Tim emphatically. ‘I’ll bet it’s full of hants and ghosts and――and everything! And I wish to goodness we’d never come here! I don’t believe Pud’s got any aunt, and, if he has, I hope she chokes!’

‘Must be awful deaf ol’ lady,’ mused Harmon.

The rain, after those few drops, had decided to hold off awhile, it appeared. There was no stirring now. It was as if the world held its breath, expectant, waiting. Another terrific crash of thunder pealed across the heavens, nearer now, louder, more appalling. Tim grasped Harmon’s arm tightly.

‘Gosh!’ he muttered. ‘I――I ain’ goin’ to stay here! I’m――’

At that moment Pud came into sight again. He wasn’t running now. In fact, he wasn’t even walking briskly. His hands were in his pockets and his whole appearance indicated dejection.

‘Gone away,’ he called dismally when he was within hearing distance. ‘She left this morning for Mumford and won’t be back till to-morrow afternoon. She’s gone to a funeral. And the girl’s gone with her. I guess we’re out of luck!’

‘Sure is,’ assented Harmon.

‘Well, I guess we are!’ exclaimed Tim violently. ‘Why don’t your old aunt stay at home sometimes? Gosh, look at the fix we’re in! It’s going to rain like anything in a minute and we’re three or four miles from the boat and you don’t even know where the car line is and――’

‘I do, too! It’s just four or five blocks over there.’

‘Well, then why don’t you say so? Want to stay here and get struck by lightning? Or drowned? Come on, can’t you, for goodness’ sake! If I had an aunt――’

That is as far as Tim’s eloquence carried him, for at that instant the sky opened and the deluge descended. With one accord they raced up the steps, assisted in their flight by a roar of thunder and a blinding flash of lightning, and cowered, half-stunned, under the narrow hood above the doorway.

‘_Gee!_’ muttered Pud. Tim was beyond words. Harmon, his eyes showing very round, giggled.

‘Ol’ Mister Thun’er sure speak right out loud that time! Whoo――ee!’

In front of them was a hissing, drumming wall of water that shut off the world as completely as though a silver-gray curtain had been suddenly lowered. The shelf-like projection above provided but scant shelter from the downpour and they were all getting wet very fast. The thunder slam-banged again and the gray world blazed with light. As the echo of the thunder died away, there came a sharp, triumphant cry from Pud, and the next instant he was down on his knees in the torrent, poking about at the foot of the steps. Then he was back again, gasping, laughing, shaking the water from his face, with a big iron key in one hand!

‘Just remembered!’ he shouted above the seethe and hiss of the rain. ‘She always hides it there! Funny I didn’t think of it sooner!’ As he spoke, he fitted the key in the lock, there was a creaking sound, and the door fell open before them.

Pud stamped water from his clothes, tossed his reeking hat to a table, and closed the big door again. ‘There!’ he cried triumphantly. ‘How’s this?’ Then, partly from reaction, he fell to laughing loudly, awakening strange echoes in the big, dim hallway. ‘Gee, wouldn’t Aunt Sabrina be mad if she knew? I can see her face right now!’

Tim started nervously and looked behind him, but there was no Aunt Sabrina in sight; only the dark portals and the blacker well of the broad stairway. He wiped his drenched face and neck with an already damp handkerchief and gave vent to his feelings. ‘Of all the blamed idiots!’ he sputtered. ‘Keeping us standing out there in that rain when the door-key was right there all the time! I’m soaking wet right to the skin and I’ll probably catch cold, and it’s all your fault! If you had any sense――’

A salvo of thunder, and the hallway was ablaze with vivid white light! Tim stood rooted with terror, his mouth still open, but no words coming! As silence fell again, both he and Pud started and stared in alarm toward the doorway at the back. From beyond it came faint but unmistakable sounds; footsteps, a clatter of metal! Tim turned a glance along the dim hallway toward the front door and had already made one hurried step in its direction, when Pud laughed with nervous relief.

‘Harmon,’ he said.

Sure enough, Harmon was no longer with them! Together they made their way toward the sounds, through the darkened dining-room and the dimmer pantry to the kitchen. Harmon was in the act of setting fire to the paper and kindlings he had stuffed into the big stove. He looked up as they entered and grinned serenely.

‘Goin’ have us a fire in ’bout two shakes, Mister Pud, so’s we can get us dry.’

‘Great!’ approved Pud, and found the gas bracket and sent a flood of illumination over the big room.

Somehow, the light and the sound of the crackling flames seemed to make everything all right at once. Tim forgot his peevishness and wriggled out of his jacket, and Harmon, having moved a folding clothes-dryer to the end of the stove, spread the garment out on it. Pud was on the porch now, peering into the big refrigerator. Harmon added more wood to the fire and then carefully applied lumps of coal. A gentle warmth was already perceptible. Tim’s frowns smoothed out and he smiled contentedly as he rubbed damp hands together. Pud came back with the results of his foray and set them on the table; a carton of eggs, a shoulder of boiled ham, butter, a sauce-dish of stewed tomatoes, and a jar of milk not quite full. Tim cheered so loudly that a jarring peal of thunder made almost no impression on him!

In fact, after that they almost forgot the storm entirely. Here was warmth and light and food; slathers of food, for Pud had invaded the pantry and produced, as if by magic, bread and jelly and cup-cakes and a jar of preserved ginger. With the viands assembled, and Harmon fairly crooning over them, he armed himself with a lamp and made his way up the big staircase into the silent, mysterious regions above. To tell the truth, he didn’t like that excursion much, but he made it just the same――rather hurriedly――and returned with three blankets. Then they all disrobed and hung their wet clothes before the fire, which was now going at a great rate, and drew the blankets about them. After that it was up to Harmon. Pud and Tim drew chairs as near the stove as they might without interfering with the cook and sat back in blissful ease and pleasant anticipation.

The sight of Harmon trying to fry eggs and hold his blanket about him at one and the same time sent them into convulsions of laughter, and Harmon, joining in, danced around the kitchen with a tin spoon waving about his head. The acme of mirth was reached when Pud imagined Aunt Sabrina entering at the moment!

What a dinner that was! Or, rather, let us say what a banquet, for no mere ordinary dinner ever provided such a variety of dishes! They had two kinds of ham; fried ham until it gave out and then cold ham; eggs――two apiece; stewed tomatoes; bread and butter; coffee――that was Harmon’s brilliant thought; milk while it lasted; cup-cakes; sweet crackers; currant jelly; preserved ginger――which Harmon tried and disapproved of; and many of Aunt Sabrina’s early sugar-pears, these latter discovered by Pud on the dining-room sideboard. But even that array was none too great for three such appetites, and when they had finished the top of the kitchen table was almost as bare of crumbs as it had been an hour before!

They took counsel then. The storm had abated, but it was still raining busily and with no sign of cessation. The thought of returning through the rain to that drenched and comfortless launch held no allure. Here there was warmth and shelter; beds if they dared take possession of them. Tim’s courage failed at the idea of climbing into one of Aunt Sabrina’s immaculate four-posters, but Pud was for being hung for a sheep instead of a lamb. As for Harmon, busily washing up, his advice was not asked. Yet, in the end, it was Harmon who decided the question of going or staying.

‘These here clo’es ain’ goin’ be dry ’fore mornin’,’ he declared. ‘Reckon we jus’ have to sit aroun’ an’ wait till they is.’

Whereupon, remembering he was a pirate, Pud seized the lamp again and strode toward the hall. ‘Come on,’ he commanded. ‘Let’s find out where we sleep!’

Dutifully, but doubting his wisdom, Tim followed.