The Girls of Hillcrest Farm Part 14

She groped her way into the room and closed the green door. There was a match upon her candlestick and she again lighted the taper. Quickly the first room in this east wing suite was revealed to her gaze.

This had been the anteroom, or waiting-room for the old doctor's patients.

There was a door opening on the side porch. A long, old-fas.h.i.+oned settee stood against one wall, and some splint-bottomed chairs were set stiffly about the room, while a shaky mahogany table, with one pedestal leg, occupied the center of the apartment.

'Phemie was more careful of the candle now and s.h.i.+elded the flame with her hollowed palm as she pushed open the door of the adjoining room.

Here was a big desk with a high top and drop lid, while there were rows upon rows of drawers underneath. A wide-armed chair stood before the desk, just as it must have been used by the old doctor. The room was lined to the ceiling with cases of books and cupboards. n.o.body had disturbed the doctor's possessions after his death. No younger physician had "taken over" his practice.

'Phemie went near enough to see that the desk, and the cupboards as well, were locked. There was a long case standing like an overgrown clock-case in one corner. The candle-light was reflected in the front of this case as though the door was a mirror.

But when 'Phemie approached it she saw that it was merely a gla.s.s door with a curtain of black cambric hung behind it. She was curious to know what was in the case. It had no lock and key and she stretched forth a tentative hand and turned the old-fas.h.i.+oned b.u.t.ton which held it closed.

The door seemed fairly to spring open, as though pushed from within, and, as it swung outward and the flickering candle-light penetrated its interior, 'Phemie heard a sudden surprising sound.

Somewhere--behind her, above, below, in the air, all about her--was a sigh! Nay, it was more than a sigh; it was a mighty and unmistakable yawn!

And on the heels of this yawn a voice exclaimed:

"I'm getting mighty tired of this!"

'Phemie flashed her gaze back to the open case. Fear held her by the throat and choked back the shriek she would have been glad to utter.

For, dangling there in the case, its eyeless skull on a level with her own face, hung an articulated skeleton; and to 'Phemie Bray's excited comprehension it seemed as though both the yawn and the apt speech which followed it, had proceeded from the grinning jaws of the skull!

CHAPTER IX

MORNING AT HILLCREST

The bang of the door, closed by the draught when 'Phemie had opened the way into the east wing, _had_ aroused Lyddy. She came to herself--to a consciousness of her strange surroundings--with a sharpness of apprehension that set every nerve in her body to tingling.

"'Phemie! what is it?" she whispered.

Then, rolling over on the rustling straw mattress, she reached for her sister's hand. But 'Phemie was not there.

"'Phemie!" Lyddy cried loudly, sitting straight up in bed. She knew she was alone in the room, and hopped out of bed, s.h.i.+vering. She groped for her robe and her slippers. Then she sped swiftly into the kitchen.

She knew where the lamp and the match-box were. Quickly she had the lamp a-light and then swept the big room with a startled glance.

'Phemie had disappeared. The outside door was still locked. It seemed to Lyddy as though the echoing slam of the door that had awakened her was still ringing in her ears.

She ran to the hall door and opened it. Dark--and not a sound!

Where could 'Phemie have gone?

The older sister had never known 'Phemie to walk in her sleep. She had no tricks of somnambulism that Lyddy knew anything about.

And yet the older Bray girl was quite sure her sister had come this way.

The lamplight, when the door was opened wide, illuminated the square hall quite well. Lyddy ran across it and pushed open the door of the long corridor.

There was no light in it, yet she could see outlined the huge pieces of furniture, and the ugly chairs. And at the very moment she opened this door, the door at the far end was flung wide and a white figure plunged toward her.

"'Phemie!" screamed the older sister.

"Lyddy!" wailed 'Phemie.

And in a moment they were in each other's arms and Lyddy was dragging 'Phemie across the entrance hall into the lighted kitchen.

"What is it? What _is_ it?" gasped Lyddy.

"Oh, oh, oh!" was all 'Phemie was able to say for the moment; then, as she realized how really terrified her sister was, she continued her series of "ohs" while she thought very quickly.

She knew very well what had scared her; but why add to Lyddy's fright? She could not explain away the voice she had heard. Of course, she knew very well it had _not_ proceeded from the skeleton. But why terrify Lyddy by saying anything about that awful thing?

"What scared you so?" repeated Lyddy, shaking her a bit.

"I--I don't know," stammered 'Phemie--and she didn't!

"But why did you get up?"

"I thought I heard something--voices--people talking--steps," gasped 'Phemie, and now her teeth began to chatter so that she could scarcely speak.

"Foolish girl!" exclaimed Lyddy, rapidly recovering her own self-control.

"You dreamed it. And now you've got a chill, wandering through this old house. Here! sit down there!"

She drove her into a low chair beside the hearth. She ran for an extra comforter to wrap around her. She raked the ashes off the coals of the fire, and set the tea-kettle right down upon the glowing bed.

In a minute it began to steam and gurgle, and Lyddy made her sister an old-fas.h.i.+oned brew of ginger tea. When the younger girl had swallowed half a bowlful of the scalding mixture she ceased shaking. And by that time, too, she had quite recovered her self-control.

"You're a very foolish little girl," declared Lyddy, warningly, "to get up alone and go wandering about this house. Why, _I_ wouldn't do it for--for the whole farm!"

"I--I dropped my candle. It went out," said 'Phemie, quietly. "I guess being in the dark scared me more than anything."

"Now, that's enough. Forget it! We'll go to bed again and see if we can't get some sleep. Why! it's past eleven."

So the sisters crept into bed again, and lay in each other's arms, whispering a bit and finally, before either of them knew it, they were asleep. And neither ghosts, nor whispering voices, nor any other midnight sounds disturbed their slumbers for the remainder of that first night at Hillcrest.

They were awake betimes--and without the help of the alarm clock. It was pretty cold in the two rooms; but they threw kindling on the coals and soon the flames were playing tag through the interlacing sticks that 'Phemie heaped upon the fire.

The kettle was soon bubbling again, while Lyddy mixed batter cakes. A little bed of live coals was raked together in front of the main fire and on this a well greased griddle was set, where the cakes baked to a tender brown and were skillfully lifted off by 'Phemie and b.u.t.tered and sugared.

What if a black coal or two _did_ snap over the cakes? And what if 'Phemie's hair _did_ get smoked and "smelly?" Both girls declared cooking before an open fire to be great fun. They had yet, however, to learn a lot about "how our foremothers cooked."

"I don't for the life of me see how they ever used that brick oven," said Lyddy, pointing to the door in the side of the chimney. "Surely, that hole in the bricks would never heat from _this_ fire."

"Ask Lucas," advised 'Phemie, and as though in answer to that word, Lucas himself appeared, bearing offerings of milk, eggs, and new bread.