The Campfire Girls of Roselawn; Or, a Strange Message from the Air

by Margaret Penrose

  CHAPTER IX

  HENRIETTA IS VALIANT

  Jessie Norwood tried to remember that she should set little Henriettaa good example. She should not show panic because of the mysteriousnoise in the loft of the abandoned Carter house.

  But as the thrashing sounds continued and finally the cause of it cametumbling down the enclosed stairway and bumped against the door thatopened from the kitchen upon that stairway, Jessie screamed almost asloud as Amy.

  Amy Drew, however, ran out into the rain. Neither Jessie nor thelittle freckle-faced girl were garbed properly for an appearance inthe open; not even in as lonely a place as the clearing about the oldCarter house. To tell the truth, Henrietta kept on eating and did notat first get up from the table.

  "Aren't you scared, child?" demanded Jessie, in surprise.

  "Course I am," agreed the little girl. "But ha'nts chase you anywhere.They can go right through keyholes and doors----"

  "Mercy! Whatever it is seems determined to come through that door."

  "There ain't no keyhole to it," said Henrietta complacently.

  The banging continued at the foot of the stairs. Amy was shrieking forher chum to come out of the house. But Jessie began to be ashamed ofher momentary panic.

  "I'm going to see what it is," she declared, approaching the door.

  "Maybe you won't see nothing," said Henrietta. "Mrs. Foley says thatha'nts is sometimes just wind. You don't see nothing. Only you feelcreepy and cold fingers touch you and a chilly breath hits the back o'your neck."

  "I declare!" exclaimed Jessie. "That Mrs. Foley ought not to tell yousuch things."

  She looked about for some weapon, for the sounds behind the doorpanels seemed to suggest something very material. There was a longhardwood stick standing in the corner. It might have been a mop handleor something of the kind. Jessie seized it, and with more courageagain walked toward the door.

  Bang, bang, thump! the noise was repeated. She stretched a tentativehand toward the latch. Should she lift it? Was there somethingsupernatural on the stairway?

  She saw the door tremble from the blows delivered upon it. There wasnothing spiritual about that.

  "Whatever it is----"

  To punctuate her observation Jessie Norwood lifted the iron latch andjerked open the door. It was dusky in the stairway and she could notsee a thing. But almost instantly there tumbled out upon the kitchenfloor something that brought shriek after shriek from Jessie's lips.

  "Hi!" cried Henrietta. "Did it bite you?"

  Jessie did not stop to answer. She seized her skirt drying before thefire and wrapped it around her bare shoulders as she ran through theouter door. She left behind her writhing all over the kitchen floor apair of big blacksnakes.

  The fighting snakes hissed and thumped about, wound about each otherlike a braided rope. Probably the warmth of the fire passing up thechimney had stirred the snakes up, and it was evident that they werein no pleasant frame of mind.

  "What is it? Ghosts?" cried Amy Drew, standing in the rain.

  "It's worse! It's snakes!" Jessie declared, looking fearfully behindher, and in at the door.

  She had dropped the stick with which she had so valiantly faced theunknown. But when that unknown had become known--and Jessie had alwaysbeen very much afraid of serpents--all the girl's valor seemed to haveevaporated.

  "Mercy!" gasped Amy. "What's going on in there? Hear that thumping,will you?"

  "They are fighting, I guess," replied her chum.

  "Where's Hen?"

  "She's in there, too. She didn't stop eating."

  At that Amy began laughing hysterically. "She can't eat the snakes,can she?" she shrieked at last. "But maybe they'll eat her. How manysnakes are there, Jess?"

  "Do you suppose I stopped to count them? Dozens, maybe. They camepouring out of that dark stairway----"

  "Where _is_ the child?" demanded Amy, who had come up upon the porch,and was now peering in through the doorway.

  The sounds from inside, like the beating of a flail, continued. Amycraned her head around the door jamb to see.

  "Goodness, mercy, child!" she shouted. "Look out what you are doing!You will get bitten!"

  The noise of the thrashing stopped. At least, the larger part of thenoise. Henrietta came to the door with the stick that Jessie haddropped in her hand.

  "I fixed 'em," she said calmly. "I just hate snakes. I always killthem black ones. They ain't got no poison. And I shut the door so ifthere's any more upstairs they won't come down. You can come back todinner."

  "Well, you darling!" gasped Jessie.

  Her chum leaned against the door jamb while peal after peal oflaughter shook her. She could just put out her hands and make motionsat the freckled little girl.

  "She--she--she----"

  "For pity's sake, Amy Drew!" exclaimed Jessie. "You'll have a fit, orsomething."

  "She--she didn't even--stop--chewing!" Amy got out at last.

  "Bless her heart! She's the bravest little thing!" Jessie declared,shakingly. "We two great, big girls should be ashamed."

  "I guess you ain't so much acquainted with snakes as I am," Henriettasaid, sliding onto the bench again. "But I certainly am glad it wasn'tCarter's ha'nt."

  "But," cried Amy, still weak from laughing, "it _was_ the ghost. Ofcourse, those snakes had a home upstairs there. Probably in thechimney. And every time anybody came here to picnic and built a fire,they got warmed up and started moving about. Thusly, the ghost storiesabout the Carter house."

  "Your explanation is ingenious, at any rate," admitted Jessie. "Ugh!They are still writhing. Are you sure they are dead, Henrietta?"

  "That's the trouble with snakes," said the child. "They don't knowenough to keep still when they're dead-ed. I smashed their heads goodfor 'em."

  But Amy could not bear to sit down to the bench again until she hadtaken the stick and poked the dead but still writhing snakes out ofthe house. The rain was diminishing now and the thunder and lightninghad receded into the distance. The two older girls ate very little ofthe luncheon they had brought. It was with much amazement that theywatched Henrietta absorb sandwiches, cake, eggs, and fruit. She did athorough job.

  "Isn't she the bravest little thing?" Jessie whispered to her chum."Did you ever hear the like?"

  "I guess that girl we saw run away with, was her cousin all right,"said Amy. "How she did fight!"

  At that statement Jessie was reminded of the thing that had beenpuzzling her for some days. She began asking questions about Bertha,how she looked, how old she was, and how she was dressed.

  "She's just my cousin. She is as old as you girls, I guess, but not soawful old," Henrietta said. "I don't know what she had on her. Sheain't as pretty as you girls. Guess there ain't none of our familyreal pretty," and Henrietta shook her head with reflection.

  "What happened to her that she wanted to leave that dreadful fatwoman?" asked Amy, now, as well as her chum, taking an interest inthe matter.

  "There wasn't a thing happened to her that I know of," said Henrietta,shaking her head again. "But by the way that lady talked it wouldhappen to her if she got hold of Bertha again."

  "How dreadful," murmured Jessie, looking at her chum.

  "I don't see how we can help the girl," said Amy. "She has been shutup some place, of course. If I could just think who that skinny womanis--or who she looks like. But how she can drive a car!"

  "I think we can do something," Jessie declared. "I've had my head sofull of radio that I haven't thought much about this poor child'scousin and her trouble."

  "What will you do?" asked Amy.

  "Tell daddy. He ought to be able to advise."

  "That's a fact," agreed Amy, her eyes twinkling. "He is quite a goodlawyer. Of course, not so good as Mr. Wilbur Drew. But he'll do at apinch."