"Humph!" she sniffed. "Best front parlor. The whole shebang smells shut up and musty enough, but there's somethin' about a best parlor smell that would give it away any time. Phew! I can almost smell wax wreaths and hair-cloth, even though they have been took away. No, this is an empty house all right, but I'll make good and sure for your sake, Emily.

Ain't there any stairs to this old rattle-trap? Oh, yes, here's the front hall. h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo, up there! Hi-i!"

She was shouting up the old-fashioned staircase. Her voice echoed above with the unmistakable echo of empty rooms. Only that echo and the howl of the wind and roar of rain answered her.

She came back to the apartment where she had left her cousin.

"It's all right, Emily," she said. "We're the only pa.s.sengers aboard the derelict. Now let's see if we can't be more comf'table. You set down on that sofa and rest. I've got an idea in my head."

The idea evidently involved an examination of the stove, for she opened its rusty door and peered inside. Then, without waiting to answer her companion's questions, she hurried out into the kitchen, returning with an armful of shavings and a few sticks of split pine.

"I noticed that woodbox in the kitchen when I fust come in," she said.

"And 'twa'n't quite empty neither, though that's more or less of a miracle. Matches? Oh, yes, indeed! I never travel without 'em. I've been so used to lookin' out for myself and other folks that I'm a reg'lar man in some ways. There! now let's see if the draft is rusted up as much as the stove."

It was not, apparently, for, with the dampers wide open, the fire crackled and snapped. Also it smoked a little.

"'Twill get over that pretty soon," prophesied Mrs. Barnes. "I can stand 'most any amount of smoke so long's there's heat with it. Now, Emily, we'll haul that sofa up alongside and you lay down on it and get rested and warm. I'd say get dry, too, but 'twould take a reg'lar blast furnace to dry a couple of water rats like you and me this night. Perhaps we can dry the upper layer, though; that'll be some help. Now, mind me! Lay right down on that sofa."

Emily protested. She was no wetter and no more tired than her cousin, she said. Why should she lie down while Aunt Thankful sat up?

"'Cause I tell you to, for one thing," said the widow, with decision.

"And because I'm well and strong and you ain't. When I think of how I got you, a half invalid, as you might say, to come on this crazy trip I'm so provoked I feel like not speakin' to myself for a week. There!

now you LOOK more comf'table, anyhow. If I only had somethin' to put over you, I'd feel better. I wonder if there's an old bed quilt or anything upstairs. I've a good mind to go and see."

Emily's protest was determined this time.

"Indeed you shan't!" she cried. "You shan't stir. I wouldn't have you go prowling about this poky old place for anything. Do you suppose I could stay down here alone knowing that you might be--might be meeting or--or finding almost anything up there. Sit right down in that chair beside me. Don't you think it is almost time for that driver to be back?"

"Land sakes--no! He's hardly started yet. It's goin' to take a good long spell afore he can wade a mile and a half in such a storm as this and get another horse and wagon and come back again. He'll come by and by.

All we've got to do is to stay by this fire and be thankful we've got it."

Emily shivered. "I suppose so," she said. "And I know I am nervous and a trial instead of a help. If you had only been alone--"

"Alone! Heavens to Betey! Do you think I'd like this--this camp-meetin'

any better if I was the only one to it. My! Just hear that wind! Hope these old chimneys are solid."

"Auntie, what do you suppose that man meant by saying he wouldn't enter this house at night for anything?"

"Don't know. Perhaps he meant he'd be afraid of bein' arrested."

"But you don't think we'll be arrested?"

"No, no, of course not. I'd be almost willin' to be arrested if they'd do it quick. A nice, dry lock-up and somethin' to eat wouldn't be so bad, would it? But no constable but a web-footed one would be out this night. Now do as I say--you lay still and give your nerves a rest."

For a few moments the order was obeyed. Then Miss Rowes said, with another shiver: "I do believe this is the worst storm I have ever experienced."

"'Tis pretty bad, that's a fact. Do you know, Emily, if I was a believer in signs such as mentioned a little while ago, I might almost be tempted to believe this storm was one of 'em. About every big change in my life has had a storm mixed up with it, comin' at the time it happened or just afore or just after. I was born, so my mother used to tell me, on a stormy night about like this one. And it poured great guns the day I was married. And Eben, my husband, went down with his vessel in a hurricane off Hatteras. And when poor Jedediah run off to go gold-diggin' there was such a snowstorm the next day that I expected to see him plowin' his way home again. Poor old Jed! I wonder where he is tonight? Let's see; six years ago, that was. I wonder if he's been frozen to death or eat up by polar bears, or what. One thing's sartin, he ain't made his fortune or he'd have come home to tell me of it. Last words he said to me was, 'I'm a-goin', no matter what you say. And when I come back, loaded down with money, you'll be glad to see me.'"

Jedediah Cahoon was Mrs. Barnes' only near relative, a brother. Always a visionary, easy-going, impractical little man, he had never been willing to stick at steady employment, but was always chasing rainbows and depending upon his sister for a home and means of existence. When the Klondike gold fever struck the country he was one of the first to succ.u.mb to the disease. And, after an argument--violent on his part and determined on Thankful's--he had left South Middleboro and gone--somewhere. From that somewhere he had never returned.

"Yes," mused Mrs. Barnes, "those were the last words he said to me."

"What did you say to him?" asked Emily, drowsily. She had heard the story often enough, but she asked the question as an aid to keeping awake.

"Hey? What did I say? Oh, I said my part, I guess. 'When you come back,'

says I, 'it'll be when I send money to you to pay your fare home, and I shan't do it. I've sewed and washed and cooked for you ever since Eben died, to say nothin' of goin' out nursin' and housekeepin' to earn money to buy somethin' TO cook. Now I'm through. This is my house--or, at any rate, I pay the rent for it. If you leave it to go gold-diggin' you needn't come back to it. If you do you won't be let in.' Of course I never thought he'd go, but he did. Ah hum! I'm afraid I didn't do right. I ought to have realized that he wa'n't really accountable, poor, weak-headed critter!"

Emily's eyes were fast shutting, but she made one more remark.

"Your life has been a hard one, hasn't it, Auntie," she said.

Thankful protested. "Oh, no, no!" she declared. "No harder'n anybody else's, I guess likely. This world has more hards than softs for the average mortal and I never flattered myself on bein' above the average.

But there! How in the nation did I get onto this subject? You and me settin' here on other folks's furniture--or what was furniture once--soppin' wet through and half froze, and me talkin' about troubles that's all dead and done with! What DID get me started? Oh, yes, the storm. I was just thinkin' how most of the important things in my life had had bad weather mixed up with 'em. Come to think of it, it rained the day Mrs. Pearson was buried. And her dyin' was what set me to thinkin' of cruisin' down here to East Wellmouth and lookin' at the property Uncle Abner left me. I've never laid eyes on that property and I don't even know what the house looks like. I might have asked that depot-wagon driver, but I thought 'twas no use tellin' him my private affairs, so I said we was bound to the hotel, and let it go at that.

If I had asked he might at least have told me where. . . . Hey?

Why--why--my land! I never thought of it, but it might be! It might!

Emily!"

But Miss Howes' eyes were closed now. In spite of her wet garments and her nervousness concerning their burglarious entry of the empty house she had fallen asleep. Thankful did not attempt to wake her. Instead she tiptoed to the kitchen and the woodbox, took from the latter the last few slabs of pine wood and, returning, filled the stove to the top. Then she sat down in the chair once more.

For some time she sat there, her hands folded in her lap. Occasionally she glanced about the room and her lips moved as if she were talking to herself. Then she rose and peered out of the window. Rain and blackness and storm were without, but nothing else. She returned to the sofa and stood looking down at the sleeper. Emily stirred a little and shivered.

That shiver helped to strengthen the fears in Mrs. Barnes' mind. The girl was not strong. She had come home from her school duties almost worn out. A trip such as this had been was enough to upset even the most robust const.i.tution. She was wet and cold. Sleeping in wet clothes was almost sure to bring on the dreaded pneumonia. If only there might be something in that house, something dry and warm with which to cover her.

"Emily," said Thankful, in a low tone. "Emily."

The sleeper did not stir. Mrs. Barnes took up the lantern. Its flame was much less bright than it had been and the wick sputtered. She held the lantern to her ear and shook it gently. The feeble "swash" that answered the shake was not rea.s.suring. The oil was almost gone.

Plainly if exploring of those upper rooms was to be done it must be done at once. With one more glance at the occupant of the sofa Mrs. Barnes, lantern in hand, tiptoed from the room, through the barren front hall and up the stairs. The stairs creaked abominably. Each creak echoed like the crack of doom.

At the top of the stairs was another hall, long and narrow, extending apparently the whole length of the house. At intervals along this hall were doors. One after the other Thankful opened them. The first gave entrance to a closet, with a battered and ancient silk hat and a pasteboard box on the shelf. The next opened into a large room, evidently the spare bedroom. It was empty. So was the next and the next and the next. No furniture of any kind. Thankful's hope of finding a quilt or a wornout blanket, anything which would do to cover her sleeping and shivering relative, grew fainter with the opening of each door.

There were an astonishing number of rooms and closets. Evidently this had been a big, commodious and comfortable house in its day. But that day was long past its sunset. Now the bigness only emphasized the dreariness and desolation. Dampness and spider webs everywhere, cracks in the ceiling, paper peeling from the walls. And around the gables and against the dormer-windows of these upper rooms the gale shrieked and howled and wailed like a drove of banshees.

The room at the very end of the long hall was a large one. It was at the back of the house and there were windows on two sides of it. It was empty like the others, and Mrs. Barnes, reluctantly deciding that her exploration in quest of coverings had been a failure, was about to turn and retrace her steps to the stairs when she noticed another door.

It was in the corner of the room furthest from the windows and was shut tight. A closet, probably, and all the closets she had inspected so far had contained nothing but rubbish. However, Thankful was not in the habit of doing things by halves, so, the feebly sputtering lantern held in her left hand, she opened the door with the other and looked in. Then she uttered an exclamation of joy.

It was not a closet behind that door, but another room. A small room with but one little window, low down below the slope of the ceiling.

But this room was to some extent furnished. There was a bed in it, and a rocking chair, and one or two pictures hanging crookedly upon the wall.

Also, and this was the really important thing, upon that bed was a patchwork comforter.

Thankful made a dash for that comforter. She set the lantern down upon the floor and s.n.a.t.c.hed the gayly colored thing from the bed. And, as she did so, she heard a groan.

There are always noises in an empty house, especially an old house.

Creaks and cracks and rustlings mysterious and unexplainable. When the wind blows these noises are reenforced by a hundred others. In this particular house on this particular night there were noises enough, goodness knows. Howls and rattles and moans and shrieks. Every shutter and every shingle seemed to be loose and complaining of the fact. As for groans--old hinges groan when the wind blows and so do rickety gutters and water pipes. But this groan, or so it seemed to Mrs. Barnes, had a different and distinct quality of its own. It sounded--yes, it sounded human.

Thankful dropped the patchwork comforter.

"Who's that?" she asked, sharply.