"Whistling backwards is a distinctly new way of expressing it,"

commented Frank.

"I dot it!" cried the tot, as the level of his gla.s.s began to fall under his efforts-- successful this time.

Then, having finished that, he fixed his big eyes on Mr. Lagg, and demanded:

"Oo dot any tandy?"

"Candy!" cried the eccentric store keeper. "Ha, I have a couplet about that.

"If you would feel both fine and dandy, Just buy a pound of Lagg's best candy!"

"That is irresistible!" exclaimed Will. "Trot out a pound of the most select."

"With pleasure," said Mr. Lagg.

Merrily the young people wandered about the store, the girls buying some notions and trinkets they thought they would need on the trip, for Mr. Lagg did a general business.

"What are all you folks doing around here?" asked the storekeeper, when he had waited on some other customers.

"Getting in practice for a cruise," answered Mollie. "Betty, here, is the proud possessor of a lovely motor boat, and we are going to Rainbow Lake soon."

"And camp on an island, too," added Amy. "I know I shall love that."

"Any particular island?" asked Mr. Lagg.

"Elm is a nice one," remarked Will "Why don't you girls try that? It isn't as far as Triangle, and it's nearly as large. It's wilder and prettier, too."

"Know anything about Elm Island, Mr. Lagg?" asked Frank, as he inspected some fishing tackle.

"Well, yes, I might say I do," and Mr. Lagg pursed up his lips.

"Is it a good place?"

"Oh, it's good all right, but----" and he hesitated.

"What is the matter?" demanded Betty quickly. She thought she detected something strange in Mr. Lagg's manner.

"Why, the only thing about it is that it's haunted-- there's a ghost there," and as he spoke the storekeeper slipped a generous slice of cheese on a cracker and munched it.

CHAPTER IX

OFF ON THE TRIP

The girls stared blankly at one another. The boys frankly winked at each other, clearly unbelieving.

"Haunted?" Betty finally gasped.

"A ghost?" echoed Amy, falteringly.

"What-- what kind?" Grace stammered.

"Why, the usual kind, of course," declared Will. "A ghosty ghost, to be sure. White, with long waving arms, and clanking chains, and all the accessories."

"Stop it!" commanded his sister. "You'll scare Paul," for the child was looking at Will strangely.

"Oh, it's white all right," put in Mr. Lagg, "and some of the fishermen around here did say they heard clanking chains, but I don't take much stock in them. Tell me," he demanded, helping himself to another slice of cheese, "tell me why would anything as light as a ghost-- for they're always supposed to float like an airship, you know-- tell me why should they want to burden themselves with a lot of clanking chains-- especially when a ghost is so thin that the chains would fall right through 'em, anyhow. I don't take no stock in that!"

"But what is this story?" asked Betty. "If we are thinking of camping on Elm Island, we do not want to be annoyed by some one playing pranks; do we, girls?"

"I should say not!" chorused the three.

"Well, of course I didn't see it myself," spoke Mr. Lagg, "but Hi Sneddecker, who stopped there to eat his supper one night when he went out to set his eel pots-- Hi told me he seen something tall and white rushing around, and making a terrible noise in the bushes."

"I thought ghosts never made a noise," remarked Grace, languidly. She was beginning to believe now that it was only a poor attempt at a joke.

"Hi said this one did," went on Mr. Lagg, being too interested to quote verses now. "It was him as told me about the clanking chains,"

he went on, "but, as I said, I don't take no stock in that part."

"I guess Hi was telling one of his fish stories," commented Frank.

"Oh, Josh Whiteby seen it, too," said Mr. Lagg. He was enjoying the sensation he had created.

"Is he reliable?" asked Will.

"Well, he don't owe me as much as some," was the judicious answer.

"Josh says he seen the white thing, but he didn't mention no chains.

It was more like a 'swishing' sound he heard.

"Dot any more tandy?" asked Paul, and the laugh that followed in a measure relieved the nerves of the girls, for in spite of their almost entire disbelief in what they had heard, the talk bothered them a little.

"There are no such things as ghosts!" declared Betty, with excellent sense. "We are silly to even talk about them. Oh, there is something I want for my boat," and she pointed to a little bra.s.s lantern. "It will be just fine for going up on deck with," she proceeded. "Of course the electric lights, run by the storage battery, are all right, but we need a lantern like that. How much is it, Mr. Lagg?."

"That lantern to you Will cost-- just two!"

"I'll take it," said Betty, promptly.

"Dollars-- not cents," said the storekeeper, quickly. "I couldn't make a dollar rhyme in there, somehow or other," he added.

"You might say," spoke Will, "''Twill cost you two dollar, but don't make a holler.'"

"That isn't my style. My poetry is always correct," said Mr. Lagg, somewhat stiffly.

The lantern was wrapped up and the young people got ready to go down to the boat.

"Say, Mr. Lagg," asked Will, lingering a bit behind the others, "just how much is there in this ghost story, anyhow?"

"Just what I told you," was the answer. "There is something queer on that island."