Chapter XI: In the Garret

It would never do to burst into the house and scare the younger girls. This thought halted Ruth Kenway, with her hand upon the knob of the outer door.

She waited, getting her breath back slowly, and recovering from the shock that had set every nerve in her body trembling. Of course she did not believe in ghosts! Then, why should she have been so frightened by the fluttering figure seen—for only half a minute, or so—in the garret window of the old Corner House?

Like the old lady in the fable, she did not believe in ghosts, but she was very much afraid of them!

“It’s quite ridiculous, I know,” Ruth told herself, “for a great big thing like me to shake and shiver over what I positively _know_ is merely imagination. That was an old skirt—or a bag—or a cloak—or _something_, waving there at that window.

“Er—er, that’s just it!” breathed Ruth. “It was _something_. And until I find out just what it is, I shall not be satisfied. Now, I’m going to be brave, and walk in there to the girls and Mrs. McCall, and say nothing. But we’ll start cleaning that garret this very afternoon,” she concluded, nodding a determined head.

So she ran into the house to find her three sisters in the dining-room, with such a peculiar air upon them that Ruth could not fail to be shocked. “What under the canopy, as Mrs. McCall says, is the matter with you all!” she demanded.

“Well! I am glad you have come home, Ruth,” Agnes began, impulsively. “The most mysterious things happen around this house——”

“Hush!” commanded Ruth. “What is it now? You come up stairs to our room and tell me while I change my clothes. You little ones stay down here till sister comes back.”

Agnes had stopped at her warning, and meekly followed Ruth up stairs. In their room the older girl turned on her and demanded:

“What did you see, Aggie?”

“I didn’t—it was Tess saw him,” replied Agnes, quickly.

“_Him?_” gasped Ruth.

“Yes. Of course, it’s foolish. But so many strange things happen in this old house. First, you know, what Eva Larry told me about the ghost——”

“Sh! you haven’t seen it?”

“The ghost!” squealed Agnes. “I should hope not. If I had——”

She signified by her look and manner that such an apparition would have quite overcome her.

“It was Tess,” she said.

“She hasn’t been to the garret?”

“Of course not! You believe in that old ghost, after all, Ruth.”

“What nonsense!”

“Well, if it wasn’t a ghost Tess saw, it was something like it. The child is convinced. And coming on top of those vanishing kittens——”

“For mercy’s sake, Aggie Kenway!” screamed Ruth, grabbing her by the shoulders and giving Agnes a little shake. “_Do_ be more lucid.”

“Why—ee! I guess I haven’t told you much,” laughed Agnes. “It was Tess who looked out of the kitchen window a little while ago and saw Tommy Rooney going by the house—on Willow Street.”

“Tommy Rooney?”

“Yes. Tess declares it was. And she’s not imaginative like Dot, you know.”

“Not Tommy Rooney, from Bloomingsburg?”

“There isn’t any other Tommy Rooney that we know,” said Agnes, quite calm now. “And if _that_ doesn’t make a string of uncanny happenings, I don’t know what _would_. First the ghost in the garret——”

“But—but you haven’t seen that?” interrupted Ruth, faintly.

“No, thank goodness! But it’s _there_. And then the vanishing kittens——”

“Has Spotty gone?”

“No. But Sandy-face has, and has been gone ever since you went out, Ruth. I don’t think much of that mother cat. She doesn’t stay at home with her family hardly at all.

“Then this boy who looks like Tommy Rooney,” concluded Agnes. “For of course it can’t really _be_ Tommy any more than it can be his spirit.”

“I’m glad to see you have some sense, Ag,” said Ruth, with a sigh. “Now let’s go down to the other girls, or they will think we’re hiding something from them.”

Ruth carried down stairs in her hand the envelope Mr. Howbridge had given to her. The sisters gathered in the dining-room, and Agnes picked up Spotty to comfort him while his mother was absent. “Poor ’ittle s’ing!” she cooed over the funny little kitten. “He don’t know wedder him’s got any mudder, or not.”

“It seems to me,” said Dot, gravely, “that Sandy-face must be hunting for her lost children. She wouldn’t really neglect this poor little Spotty for any other reason—would she?”

“Of course not,” Ruth said, briskly. “Now, girls, look here. Mr. Howbridge says we may keep Uncle Rufus, and he will pay him.”

“Oh, goody!” cried Agnes, clapping her hands.

At once Spotty tumbled off her lap and scurried under the sofa. He was not used to such actions.

“Now you’ve scared Spotty, I’m afraid,” said Tess.

“He can get over his scare. What’s that in your hand, Ruth?” demanded Agnes.

“This is some money Mr. Howbridge gave me for us to spend. He calls it our monthly allowance. He says we are to use it just as we please—each of us.”

“Is some of it mine?” asked Dot.

“Yes, dearie. We’ll see how much he gives you to spend for your very owniest own, first of all.”

Ruth tore open the big envelope and shook out four sealed envelopes of smaller size. She sorted them and found the one addressed in Mr. Howbridge’s clerkly hand to “Miss Dorothy Kenway.”

“Now open it, Dot,” urged Tess.

The little girl did so, with sparkling eyes and the color flushing into her cheeks. From the envelope, when it was opened, she drew a crisp, folded dollar bill.

“My!” she murmured. “A whole—new—dollar bill! My! And can I spend it all, Ruthie?”

“Surely,” said the elder sister, smiling.

“Then I know just what I’m going to do,” said Dot, nodding her head.

“What’s that?” asked Agnes.

“I’m going to buy some candy on Saturday that’s not pep’mints. I just _am_. I’m tired of Aunt Sarah’s old pep’mint drops.”

The other girls laughed loudly at this decision of Dot’s. “You funny little thing!” said Ruth. “Of course you shall buy candy—if you want to. But I wouldn’t spend the whole dollar for it. Remember, you’ll get no more spending money until this time next month.”

“I should hope she’d have sense enough to kind of spread it out through the month,” said Agnes. “Hurry up, Ruth. Let’s see what he’s given the rest of us.”

Tess opened her envelope and found a dollar and a half. “Oh, I’m _rich_!” she declared. “I’m awfully obliged to Mr. Howbridge. I’ll tell him so when he comes again.” Then she turned swiftly to Dot and hugged her. “You don’t mind if I have half a dollar more than _you_ do, Dot?” she asked. “I’ll divide it with you.”

That was Tess’ way. She could not bear to think that anybody’s feelings were hurt because of her. Ruth intervened:

“Dot knows you are two whole years older than she, Tess. Both of you have more money to spend than you ever had before, and I am sure neither will be selfish with it.”

Agnes grabbed her envelope. “I’m just as anxious to see as I can be,” she confessed.

When she ripped open the envelope she drew forth two crisp dollar bills. But in Ruth’s there were five dollars.

“My! it’s a lot of money,” Agnes said. “And I guess you _ought_ to have more than us—a great deal more, Ruthie. I’m glad of my two dollars. I can treat Eva Larry and Myra Stetson. And I’ll get some new ribbons, and a book I saw in a window that I want to read. Then, there’s the prettiest pair of buckles for fifty cents in the shoeshop window right down Main Street. Did you see them, Ruth? I want them for my best slippers. They’ll look scrumptious! And I’d _love_ to have one of those embroidered handkerchiefs that they sell at the Lady’s Shop. Besides, it’s nice to have a little change to rattle in one’s purse——”

“Mercy!” exclaimed Ruth. “You’ve spent your allowance twice over, already. And you still hope to rattle it in your purse! You want to have your cake, and eat it, too—which is something that nobody ever managed to accomplish yet, my dear.”

It was really wonderful for them all to have money of their own that need not be accounted for. They came to the luncheon table with very bright faces, despite the stormy day. They did not say anything, before Aunt Sarah, about the allowance Mr. Howbridge had given them. Ruth was afraid that Aunt Sarah might feel hurt about it.

“She _is_ so touchy,” she said to the others, “about Uncle Peter’s money. And she ought to know that she is just as welcome to her share as she can be!”

“I expect,” the thoughtful Tess said, “that Aunt Sarah would have enjoyed giving to us just as much as we enjoy giving to her. Maybe _that’s_ what’s the matter with her.”

Perhaps that was partly Aunt Sarah’s trouble. However, there were other topics of conversation to keep their tongues busy, if the money was tabooed. Tess could not keep from talking about Tommy Rooney.

“I _know_ it was Tommy I saw,” she declared.

“But how could Tommy get here, clear from Bloomingsburg?” Ruth said. “You know how long it took us to get here by train.”

“I know, Sister,” Tess said. “But it _was_ Tommy. And he must have had an awfully hard time.”

“Do—do you s’pose he is looking for us?” queried Dot.

“Don’t you fret, Dot,” assured Agnes. “He sha’n’t jump out and say ‘Boo!’ at you any more.”

“It isn’t that. I guess the dark scared me more than Tommy did,” confessed Dot. “But say, Tess! Did he have his Indian suit on when he went by in the rain?”

“No. Just rags,” declared Tess.

After luncheon Ruth rummaged for brooms, brushes and dustcloths. Mrs. McCall asked:

“What under the canopy are you girls going to do now?”

“Garret. Going to clean it,” said Agnes.

“You’re never going up in that garret in a storm?” demanded the widow, with a strange look on her face.

“Why not?” asked Agnes, eagerly.

“What do you want to bother with it for?” the good lady asked Ruth without making Agnes any reply.

“So we can play there on just such days as this,” said Ruth, firmly. “It will make a splendid playroom.”

“Well! I wouldn’t do it for a farm,” declared Mrs. McCall, and at once went out of the room, so that the girls could not ask further questions. Agnes whispered to Ruth:

“She knows about the ghost, all right!”

“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. “Nobody 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 space about this window was cleared. There was nothing near enough the window that could have represented the garret ghost. But this cleared space 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’.”