Chapter 1

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_ CHAPTER I

The road from Wellmouth Centre to East Wellmouth is not a good one; even in dry weather and daylight it is not that. For the first two miles it winds and twists its sandy way over bare hills, with cranberry swamps and marshy ponds in the hollows between. Then it enters upon a three-mile stretch bordered with scrubby pines and bayberry thickets, climbing at last a final hill to emerge upon the bluff with the ocean at its foot. And, fringing that bluff and clustering thickest in the lowlands just beyond, is the village of East Wellmouth, which must on no account be confused with South Wellmouth, or North Wellmouth, or West Wellmouth, or even Wellmouth Port.

On a bright sunny summer day the East Wellmouth road is a hard one to travel. At nine o'clock of an evening in March, with a howling gale blowing and rain pouring in torrents, traveling it is an experience. Winnie S., who drives the East Wellmouth depot-wagon, had undergone the experience several times in the course of his professional career, but each time he vowed vehemently that he would not repeat it; he would "heave up" his job first.

He was vowing it now. Perched on the edge of the depot wagon's front seat, the reins leading from his clenched fists through the slit in the "boot" to the rings on the collar of General Jackson, the aged horse, he expressed his opinion of the road, the night, and the job.

"By Judas priest!" declared Winnie S.--his name was Winfield Scott Hancock Holt, but no resident of East Wellmouth called him anything but Winnie S.--"by Judas priest! If this ain't enough to make a feller give up tryin' to earn a livin', then I don't know! Tell him he can't ship aboard a schooner 'cause goin' to sea's a dog's life, and then put him on a job like this! Dog's life! Judas priest! What kind of a life's THIS, I want to know?"

From the curtain depths of the depot-wagon behind him a voice answered, a woman's voice:

"Judgin' by the amount of dampness in it I should think you might call it a duck's life," it suggested.

Winnie S. accepted this pleasantry with a grunt. "I 'most wish I was a duck," he declared, savagely. "Then I could set in three inches of ice-water and like it, maybe. Now what's the matter with you?" This last a roar to the horse, whose splashy progress along the gullied road had suddenly ceased. "What's the matter with you now?" repeated Winnie. "What have you done; come to anchor? Git dap!"

But General Jackson refused to "git dap." Jerks at the reins only caused him to stamp and evince an inclination to turn around. Go ahead he would not.

"Judas priest!" exclaimed the driver. "I do believe the critter's drowndin'! Somethin's wrong. I've got to get out and see, I s'pose. Set right where you be, ladies. I'll be back in a minute," adding, as he took a lighted lantern from beneath the seat and pulled aside the heavy boot preparatory to alighting, "unless I get in over my head, which ain't so dummed unlikely as it sounds."

Lantern in hand he clambered clumsily from beneath the boot and disappeared. Inside the vehicle was blackness, dense, damp and profound.

"Auntie," said a second feminine voice, "Auntie, what DO you suppose has happened?"

"I don't know, Emily. I'm prepared for 'most anything by this time. Maybe we've landed on Mount Ararat. I feel as if I'd been afloat for forty days and nights. Land sakes alive!" as another gust shot and beat its accompanying cloudburst through and between the carriage curtains; "right in my face and eyes! I don't wonder that boy wished he was a duck. I'd like to be a fish--or a mermaid. I couldn't be much wetter if I was either one, and I'd have gills so I could breathe under water. I SUPPOSE mermaids have gills, I don't know."

Emily laughed. "Aunt Thankful," she declared, "I believe you would find something funny in a case of smallpox."

"Maybe I should; I never tried. 'Twouldn't be much harder than to be funny with--with rain-water on the brain. I'm so disgusted with myself I don't know what to do. The idea of me, daughter and granddaughter of seafarin' folks that studied the weather all their lives, not knowin' enough to stay to home when it looked as much like a storm as it did this mornin'. And draggin' you into it, too. We could have come tomorrow or next day just as well, but no, nothin' to do but I must start today 'cause I'd planned to. This comes of figgerin' to profit by what folks leave to you in wills. Talk about dead men's shoes! Live men's rubber boots would be worth more to you and me this minute. SUCH a cruise as this has been!"

It had been a hard trip, certainly, and the amount of water through which they had traveled the latter part of it almost justified its being called a "cruise." Old Captain Abner Barnes, skipper, for the twenty years before his death, of the coasting schooner T. I. Smalley, had, during his life-long seafaring, never made a much rougher voyage, all things considered, than that upon which his last will and testament had sent his niece and her young companion.

Captain Abner, a widower, had, when he died, left his house and land at East Wellmouth to his niece by marriage, Mrs. Thankful Barnes. Thankful, whose husband, Eben Barnes, was lost at sea the year after their marriage, had been living with and acting as housekeeper for an elderly woman named Pearson at South Middleboro. She, Thankful, had never visited her East Wellmouth inheritance. For four years after she inherited it she received the small rent paid her by the tenant, one Laban Eldredge. His name was all she knew concerning him. Then he died and for the next eight months the house stood empty. And then came one more death, that of old Mrs. Pearson, the lady for whom Thankful had "kept house."

Left alone and without present employment, the Widow Barnes considered what she should do next. And, thus considering, the desire to visit and inspect her East Wellmouth property grew and strengthened. She thought more and more concerning it. It was hers, she could do what she pleased with it, and she began to formulate vague ideas as to what she might like to do. She kept these ideas to herself, but she spoke to Emily Howes concerning the possibilities of a journey to East Wellmouth.

Emily was Mrs. Barnes' favorite cousin, although only a second cousin. Her mother, Sarah Cahoon, Thankful's own cousin, had married a man named Howes. Emily was the only child by this marriage. But later there was another marriage, this time to a person named Hobbs, and there were five little Hobbses. Papa Hobbs worked occasionally, but not often. His wife and Emily worked all the time. The latter had been teaching school in Middleboro, but now it was spring vacation. So when Aunt Thankful suggested the Cape Cod tour of inspection Emily gladly agreed to go. The Hobbs house was not a haven of joy, especially to Mr. Hobbs' stepdaughter, and almost any change was likely to be an agreeable one.

They had left South Middleboro that afternoon. The rain began when the train reached West Ostable. At Bayport it had become a storm. At Wellmouth Centre it was a gale and a miniature flood. And now, shut up in the back part of the depot-wagon, with the roaring wind and splashing, beating rain outside, Thankful's references to fish and ducks and mermaids, even to Mount Ararat, seemed to Emily quite appropriate. They had planned to spend the night at the East Wellmouth hotel and visit the Barnes' property in the morning. But it was five long miles to that hotel from the Wellmouth Centre station. Their progress so far had been slow enough. Now they had stopped altogether.

A flash of light showed above the top of the carriage boot.

"Mercy on us!" cried Aunt Thankful. "Is that lightnin'? All we need to make this complete is to be struck by lightnin'. No, 'tain't lightnin', it's just the lantern. Our pilot's comin' back, I guess likely. Well, he ain't been washed away, that's one comfort."

Winnie S., holding the lantern in his hand, reappeared beneath the boot. Raindrops sparkled on his eyebrows, his nose and the point of his chin.

"Judas priest!" he gasped. "If this ain't--"

"You needn't say it. We'll agree with you," interrupted Mrs. Barnes, hastily. "Is anything the matter?"

The driver's reply was in the form of elaborate sarcasm.

"Oh, no!" he drawled, "there wasn't nothin' the matter. Just a few million pines blowed across the road and the breechin' busted and the for'ard wheel about ready to come off, that's all. Maybe there's a few other things I didn't notice, but that's all I see."

"Humph! Well, they'll do for a spell. How's the weather, any worse?"

"Worse? No! they ain't no worse made. Looks as if 'twas breakin' a little over to west'ard, fur's that goes. But how in the nation we'll ever fetch East Wellmouth, I don't know. Git dap! GIT DAP! Have you growed fast?"

General Jackson pulled one foot after the other from the mud and the wagon rocked and floundered as its pilot steered it past the fallen trees. For the next twenty minutes no one spoke. Then Winnie S. breathed a sigh of thankfulness.

"Well, we're out of that stretch of woods, anyhow," he declared. "And it 'tain't rainin' so hard, nuther. Cal'late we can get to civilization if that breechin' holds and the pesky wheel don't come off. How are you, in aft there; tolerable snug?"

Emily said nothing. Aunt Thankful chuckled at the word.

"Snug!" she repeated. "My, yes! If this water was salt we'd be as snug as a couple of pickled mackerel. How far off is this civilization you're talkin' about?"

"Well, our hotel where you're bound is a good two mile, but there's--Judas priest! there goes that breechin' again!"

There was another halt while the breeching underwent temporary repairs. The wind blew as hard as ever, but the rain had almost stopped. A few minutes later it stopped altogether.

"There!" declared Winnie S. "The fust mile's gone. I don't know's I hadn't ought to stop--"

Aunt Thankful interrupted. "Stop!" she cried. "For mercy sakes, don't stop anywheres unless you have to. We've done nothin' but stop ever since we started. Go on as far as you can while this--this machine of yours is wound up."

But that was not destined to be far. From beneath the forward end of the depot-wagon sounded a most alarming creak, a long-drawn, threatening groan. Winnie S. uttered his favorite exclamation.

"Judas priest!" he shouted. "There goes that wheel! I've, been expectin' it."

He tugged at the right hand rein. General Jackson, who, having been brought up in a seafaring community, had learned to answer his helm, swerved sharply from the road. Emily screamed faintly.

"Where are you goin'?" demanded Mrs. Barnes.

The driver did not answer. The groan from beneath the carriage was more ominously threatening than ever. And suddenly the threat was fulfilled. The depot-wagon jerked on for a few feet and then, with a crack, settled down to port in a most alarming fashion. Winnie S. settled down with it, still holding tight to the reins and roaring commands to General Jackson at the top of his lungs.

"Whoa!" he hollered. "Whoa! Stand still! Stand still where you be! Whoa!"

General Jackson stood still. Generally speaking he needed but one hint to do that. His commander climbed out, or fell out, from beneath the boot. The ground upon which he fell was damp but firm.

"Whoa!" he roared again. Then scrambling to his feet he sprang toward the wagon, which, the forward wheel detached and flat beneath it, was resting on the remaining three in a fashion which promised total capsizing at any moment.

"Be you hurt? Be you hurt?" demanded Winnie S.

From inside, the tightly drawn curtains there came a variety of sounds, screams, exclamations, and grunts as of someone gasping for breath.

"Be you hurt?" yelled the frantic Mr. Holt.

It was the voice of the younger passenger which first made coherent reply.

"No," it panted. "No, I--I think I'm not hurt. But Aunt Thankful--Oh, Auntie, are you--"

Aunt Thankful herself interrupted. Her voice was vigorous enough, but it sounded as if smothered beneath a heavy weight.

"No, no," she gasped. "I--I'm all right. I'm all right. Or I guess I shall be when you get--off of me."

"Judas priest!" cried Winnie S., and sprang to the scene. It was the younger woman, Emily, whom he rescued first. She, being on the upper side of the tilted wagon, had slid pell-mell along the seat down upon the body of her companion. Mrs. Barnes was beneath and getting her out was a harder task. However, it was accomplished at last.

"Mercy on us!" exclaimed the lady, as her companions assisted her to rise. "Mercy on us! I feel like a pancake. I never knew you weighed so much, Emily Howes. Well, that's all right and no bones broke. Where are we now? Why--why, that's a house, I do believe! We're in somebody's yard."

They were, that was plain even on a night as dark as this. Behind them, bordering the stretch of mud and puddles which they had just left, was the silhouette of a dilapidated picket fence; and in front loomed the shadowy shapes of buildings.

"We're in somebody's yard," repeated Thankful. "And there's a house, as sure as I live! Well, I never thought I'd be so grateful just at the bare sight of one. I'd begun to think I never would see a house again. If we'd run afoul of a ship I shouldn't have been so surprised. Come on, Emily!"

She seized her companion by the hand and led the way toward the nearest and largest building. Winnie S., having retrieved and relighted the overturned lantern, was inspecting the wreck of the depot-wagon. It was some minutes before he noticed that his passengers had disappeared. Then he set up a shout.

"Hi! Where you be?" he shouted.

"Here," was the answer. "Here, by the front door."

"Hey? Oh, all right. Stay where you be. I'll be there pretty soon."

The "pretty soon" was not very soon. Mrs. Barnes began to lose patience.

"I ain't goin' to roost on this step till mornin'," she declared. "I'm goin' inside. Ain't that a bell handle on your side of the door, Emily? Give it a pull, for mercy sakes!"

"But, Auntie--"

"Give it a pull, I tell you! I don't know who lives here and I don't care. If 'twas the President of the United States he'd have to turn out and let us in this night. Here, let me do it!"

She gave the glass knob a sharp jerk. From within sounded the jingle of an old-fashioned spring bell.

"There!" she exclaimed, "I guess they'll hear that. Anyway, I'll give 'em one more for good measure."

She jerked the bell again. The peal died away in a series of lessening tinkles, but there was no other sound from within.

"They must be sound sleepers," whispered Emily, after a moment.

"They must be dead," declared Thankful. "There's been smashin' and crackin' and hollerin' enough to wake up anybody that wa'n't buried. How that wind does blow! I--Hello! here comes that man at last. About time, I should say!"

Winnie S. appeared, bearing the lantern.

"What you doin'?" he asked. "There ain't no use ringin' that bell. Nobody'll hear it."

Thankful, who had just given the bell a third pull, took her hand from the knob.

"Why not?" she demanded. "It makes noise enough. I should think a graven image would hear it. What is this, a home for deaf people?"

Winnie S. grinned. "'Tain't nobody's home, not now," he said. "This house is empty. Ain't nobody lived in it for 'most a year."

The two women looked at each other. Mrs. Barnes drew along breath.

"Well," she observed, "if this ain't the last straw. Such a cruise as we've had; and finally be shipwrecked right in front of a house and find it's an empty one! Don't talk to ME! Well," sharply, "what shall we do next?"

The driver shook his head.

"Dummed if I know!" he answered. "The old wagon can't go another yard. I--I cal'late you folks'll have to stay here for a spell."

"Stay? Where'll we stay; out here in the middle of this howlin' wilderness?"

"I guess so. Unless you want to walk the rest of the way, same's I'm cal'latin' to. I'm goin' to unharness the horse and put him under the shed here and then hoof it over to the village and get somebody to come and help. You can come along if you want to, but it'll be a tougher v'yage than the one we've come through."

"How far off is this--this village of yours?"

"Oh, about a mile and a half!"

"A mile and a half! And it's beginnin' to rain again! Emily, I don't know how you feel, but if the horse can wait under the shed until somebody comes I guess we can. I say let's do it."

Emily nodded. "Of course, Auntie," she said, emphatically. "We couldn't walk a mile and a half in a storm like this. Of course we must wait. Where is the shed?"

Winnie S. led the way to the shed. It was a ramshackle affair, open on one side. General Jackson, tethered to a rusty ring at the back, whinnied a welcome.

The driver, holding the lantern aloft, looked about him. His two passengers looked also.

"Well," observed Thankful, "this may have been a shed once, but it's more like a sieve now. There's more leaks to the roof than there is boards, enough sight. However, any port in a storm, and we've got the storm, sartin. All right, Mister What's-your-name, we'll wait."

Winnie S. turned away. Then he turned back again.

"Maybe I'd better leave you the lantern," he said, doubtfully. "I guess likely I could get along without it and--and 'twould make it more sociable for you."

He put the lantern down on the earth floor beside them and strode off into the dark. Mrs. Barnes called after him.

"Ain't there any way of gettin' into that house?" she asked. "It acts as if 'twas goin' to storm hard as ever and this shed ain't the most--what did you call it?--sociable place in creation, in spite of the lantern. If we could only get inside that house--"

Winnie S. interrupted. They could not see him, but there was a queer note in his voice.

"Get inside!" he repeated. "Get into THAT house this time of night! Well--well, maybe you could, but I wouldn't do it, not for nothin'. You better wait in the shed. I'll be back soon as ever I can."

They heard him splashing along the road. Then a gust of wind and a torrent of rain beating upon the leaky roof drowned all other sounds. Emily turned to her companion.

"Auntie," she said, "if you and I were superstitious we might think all this, all that we've been through, was what people call a sign, a warning. That is what ever so many South Middleboro people would say."

"Humph! if I believed in signs I'd have noticed the weather signs afore we started. Those are all the 'signs' I believe in and I ought to have known better than to risk comin' when it looked so threatenin'. I can't forgive myself for that. However, we did come, and here we are--wherever 'here' is. Now what in the world did that man mean by sayin' we better not try to get into that house? I don't care what he meant. Give me that lantern."

"Auntie, where are you going?"

"I'm goin' to take an observation of those windows. Nine chances to one they ain't all locked, and if there's one open you and I can crawl into it. I wish we could boost the horse in, too, poor thing, but self-preservation is the first law of nature and if he's liable to perish it's no reason we should. I'm goin' to get into that house if such a thing's possible."

"But, Auntie--"

"Don't say another word. I'm responsible for your bein' here this night, Emily Howes. You wouldn't have come if I hadn't coaxed you into it. And you shan't die of pneumonia or--or drownin' if I can help it. I'm goin' to have a look at those doors and windows. Don't be scared. I'll be back in a jiffy. Goodness me, what a puddle! Well, if you hear me holler you'll know I'm goin' under for the third time, so come quick. Here goes!"

Lantern in hand, she splashed out into the wet, windy darkness. _

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