CHAPTER XIX IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT

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!"

“One work. Many languages. One reading experience.”