CHAPTER XIII THE HAUNTED HOUSE

Dr. Dryer and his trustees did not care to remain for any great length of time after the opening of what, in their eyes, were little better than scientific toys and curiosities, so that before the close of the day George Brayton and the boys were left in sole possession.

“You’re not going to leave all these things out here on the tables over night?” said Zeb Fuller, inquiringly.

“We won’t have time to put them away in proper order,” said Brayton. “We must have some new cupboards made expressly for them.”

“But they might get injured,” said Zeb.

“Is there any danger of that?” asked Brayton. “Who’d want to hurt them?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” replied Zeb, “only it seems a risk.”

“Are any of the smaller boys mischievous?” asked Brayton. “If they are, I’ll tell you how[Pg 161] to fix it. Just let it be understood that this lot of apparatus is the special property of the older boys of Ogleport, and that you mean to take care of it. None of it’ll run away. It can’t even fly as well as Dr. Dryer’s cows.”

Zeb blushed to his ears, but Hy Allen responded:

“Tell you what, Mr. Brayton, that’s just the thing. We’ll whale the skin off any boy that meddles with our appyrattus. Boys, let’s take a good look at the windows before we go.”

“There ain’t a boy in Ogleport that’d touch one of them things,” exclaimed Bill Jones. “Zeb and Hy and me can answer for that, but——”

Bill hesitated, and Brayton said:

“Are there any hard cases among the boarders, then? We can have our cupboards finished by the time they get here, but they might break ’em open. Then where’d all our experiments go to?”

“Don’t know about that,” said Zeb. “We can’t tell who’s coming and who ain’t, just yet, but we’ll keep an eye on ’em when they come.”

“That’s right,” replied Brayton. “If you fellows’ll go in with me we can have a grand time[Pg 162] of it, this fall and winter. You see, I’m a good deal of a stranger yet, and I shall have to ask your advice about a good many things.”

“We’ll be on hand!” exclaimed Hy Allen. “If you want to know anything about Ogleport, you just ask Zeb Fuller. It’s just the same as if you’d asked the whole crowd.”

“You see,” explained Zeb, “we village boys all pull together, and sometimes the rest don’t know enough to agree with us. That’s where they get into trouble, you know, and old Sol—the Rev. Dr. Dryer, I mean—he used to side with them generally.”

“And then he got into trouble, eh?” laughed Brayton. “Well, now I think our goods are safe enough for to-night. We’ll get better acquainted with them and with each other one of these days.”

Brayton was preparing to close and lock the door behind them all, as he spoke, and in a moment more he was striding away across the green towards the house of Dr. Dryer.

Zeb Fuller stood at the foot of the steps, looking after Brayton till he was out of hearing, and then he turned to his friends with:

[Pg 163]“Boys, that’s the kind of teacher I like. Not the slightest sign of insubordination.”

“He’s a trump!” exclaimed Hy.

To this declaration, which expressed more clearly than Zeb had done the popular verdict, there was an audible hum of assent, and Bill Jones added:

“Safe! Why, Zeb Fuller, them gimcracks in there are as safe as if they were in a church. Nobody will dream of touching them unless ’twas us.”

“I’ve my doubts,” said Zeb, profoundly. “No village is safe where there’s such a raft of ministers and deacons and doctors and trustees and such. We must do our duty, boys. Oh, but wouldn’t I like to try a chemical experiment on old Sol!”

The conclave broke up amid a storm of suggestions, but Zeb was probably thinking of something which could be done with a retort.

As for Mr. George Brayton, that vigorous young gentleman had remarked to himself, as he walked away:

“They’re rather above the average, take the whole lot, through, and that Zeb Fuller is no ordinary[Pg 164] boy. Now that I have him the rest will follow like a flock of sheep. I must do what I can to make a man of Zeb, but I hope I’m not such a fool as to try to cork him up. He’d burst the whole Academy. No wonder Dr. Dryer’s afraid of him.”

Brayton did not look as if he were likely to be very much afraid of anything in particular, and he had just won the only complete victory that had ever been gained over the boys of Ogleport.

Even then, however, he would not have been astonished if he had overheard Zeb’s last remarks to Hy and Bill.

“You see, boys, that’s Brayton’s end of the Academy. Now, we must go to work on old Sol and the main building. There’s plenty of room for improvement there.”

Very likely, but scarcely of the kind contemplated by Zebedee Fuller.

Thenceforward, for several days, the tide of human events rolled onward peacefully enough for the people of Ogleport.

George Brayton learned, without a tremor of dissatisfaction, the adverse decision of Mrs. Dr.[Pg 165] Dryer. She had never smiled so sweetly or exhibited her false teeth to such entire perfection as when she recommended him to Mrs. Wood’s.

If Effie herself would have been better pleased with the idea of such excellent company in the house, she at least said nothing about it. Her only remark on the subject was:

“But, Mr. Brayton, somebody ought to warn you. Are you afraid of ghosts?”

“Not much. Why?”

“Why, the Wood’s mansion is said to be haunted. The ghosts never come in pleasant weather, but the first frost brings them back again.”

“Spend their summers at the watering-places, do they?” said Brayton. “Very fashionable ghosts, I should say, these!”

“Very, only they have sometimes scared away boarders for Mrs. Wood.”

“Tell you what I’ll do if they trouble me,” said Brayton.

“What is it?” asked Effie.

“I’ll set Zeb Fuller and his boys after them.”

“That would do,” laughed Effie, merrily. “I[Pg 166] do believe if Zeb Fuller met a ghost he’d insist on shaking hands.”

“He’s very much that kind of a boy,” said Brayton. “I’ve engaged him and Hy Allen and half-a-dozen more of the same class to assist me in keeping the Academy in order this fall and winter.”

Effie opened her eyes, but she comprehended the strategy of the new teacher, and that was more than Mrs. Dryer or her husband could have done.

The afternoon that Brayton moved his goods and chattels to the widow’s house, Mrs. Dryer remarked to the doctor:

“You’ll have double responsibility this winter. I see clearly how it’ll be. Mr. Brayton lacks dignity. He’ll have no control, whatever. Those boys’ll ride right over him. I heard him speak to that Fuller boy to-day, and he actually touched his hat to him, just as if he’d been a trustee.”

Dr. Dryer groaned, but he searched his mind in vain for a recollection of the occasion when George Brayton had exhibited that amount of reverence for the principal of the Academy.

“I shall undoubtedly be compelled to exercise[Pg 167] especial vigilance,” he calmly replied, “but I consider myself competent to confront the emergency.”

Splendid words they were, and the longest that occurred to him at the moment, but his better-half, that is, his “third,” was hardly comforted, even while she admired.

There were other houses in Ogleport which would gladly have opened their doors to such a boarder as George Brayton, but he was wise for so young a man, and most of them contained only too many of the things classed as “comforts of a home”—even sons and grown-up daughters.

So he took Mrs. Dryer’s advice and decided to sojourn with the Widow Wood.

Fat and active and fussy was the widow, bearing her three-score years lightly enough, though with a dim idea that she was the oldest inhabitant of Ogleport, and, by good rights, the most important person in the village.

Old Judge Wood had been a great man in his day, at least in his own estimation.

He had meant to found a fortune and a family, but had somehow failed to do either.

He had, however, built the biggest and costliest[Pg 168] house in all that region of country, and then had died before he had put the second coat of paint on it.

He left his widow so nearly just enough to squeeze along on, that she had never seen her way clearly to that second coat of paint, or indeed, to any other sort of finishing up, and the great roomy mansion had held up its bare, square nakedness of weather-beaten pine, on the gentle slope towards the little river, for a quarter of a century.

Even the trees refused to keep very close company with such a curious embodiment of ancient respectability, and all the winds of heaven, as well as all the hot summer suns, had the fairest kind of a chance at it.

Still, the Wood mansion was by all odds the best boarding house in Ogleport, for its lady-owner was a notable housekeeper, and had a special pride in the character of her guests.

“Haunted!” said George Brayton to himself, when he had finished unpacking his books in the big, second-floor front room, of which the widow made him temporary lord. “Haunted! It looks very much like it. But I don’t wonder the ghosts[Pg 169] keep out of it in summer. There’s a perfect glare of light in it, from one end to the other. She doesn’t seem to suspect what the blinds were made for.”

Zeb Fuller had struck a new idea that day. He had happened along in front of the Widow Wood’s, as Zeb was very apt to happen along, just when Brayton was making his transfer, and he had promptly offered his services.

“Yes, Zeb, thank you,” replied Brayton. “Just carry up those dumb-bells to my room.”

The pointing finger left no doubt as to what was meant, but Zeb incautiously remarked:

“I never saw that kind of a hammer before. What’s it for?”

The explanation that followed, with incidental references to Indian clubs, boxing-gloves, lifting machines and baseball, was a sort of a new revelation to the Ogleport champion, and Brayton had unconsciously completed the conquest he had so well begun at the lecture-room.

“Who ever heard before,” thought Zeb, “of a teacher who knew more than any of the boys?”

It was the first time any such phenomena had been seen in Ogleport.

[Pg 170]“Fact,” he said to himself; “I’m beginning to be afraid we ain’t able to teach him anything. Seems so very ready and willing to learn, too. Very different from old Sol.”

He was walking down the street, half an hour later, when he was hailed by Hy Allen.

“Zeb, did y’hear ’bout Puff Evans’s boat?”

“No, what of it?”

“Sold on execution, to-morrow, down in front of Runner’s tavern. Don’t I wish I could buy it!”

“Awful hard on Puff,” said Zeb. “He made it himself, and it’s the best boat on the lake.”

“Won’t fetch much,” said Hy. “Sorry for Puff. It’s just a game of some of them lawyers.”

“Anyhow, we’d better be there,” said Zeb. “Maybe we can bid it up a little for Puff. How’ll he ever go a-fishing without it? Then, if Puff can’t fish, he’ll die.”

“Reckon that’s so,” said Hy. “P’r’aps they’d ha’ levied on him, on’y the boat’s worth more’n he is.”

“Sell for more in Ogleport,” remarked Zeb. “Puff’s the best fisherman on the lake, but I wouldn’t care to own him. Now, Hy, I’ve got[Pg 171] something more to tell you ’bout the new teacher. I’ve taken that young man right in hand.”

“Hope he’ll turn out better than old Sol,” said Hy.

“Hiram,” said Zeb, “I’m afraid Solomon’s a failure. I give him up, but I’ve great hopes of George Brayton.”

Hy was quite ready to listen, for every day was bringing the fall term nearer, and school matters were assuming a place of first-class importance in the minds of the boys of Ogleport.