The Boarded-Up House

by C. Clyde Squires

  “The dearest little meddlers in the world!” cried Mrs. Collingwood. “Can any forgiveness be necessary?” And she cuddled them both in her arms.

  “There’s just one thing I’d like to ask, if you don’t mind,” said Cynthia, coming suddenly out of a brown study. “It’s the one thing we never could account for. Why was that room upstairs locked, and what has become of the key?” Mrs. Collingwood flushed.

  “I locked the door and threw the key down the well—that night!” she answered slowly. “I don’t suppose you can quite understand, if you are not afflicted with a passionate temper, as I was. When my son—when Fairfax here—had gone, and I was shutting up the house and came to his room,—I wanted to go in,—oh, you cannot know how I wanted to go in! But I knew that if I once entered and stood among his dear belongings, I should relent— I should rush away to find him and beg him to come back to me. And I—I did not want to relent! I stood there five minutes debating it. Then I suddenly locked the door on the outside, and before giving myself time for a second thought, I rushed downstairs, out of doors, and threw the key into the old well,— where I could never get it again!

  “Children, I am an old woman. I shall be seventy-five next birthday. Will you heed a lesson I have learned and paid for with the bitterest years of my life? If you are blessed with a calm, even, forgiving nature, thank God for it always. But if you are as I was, pray daily for help to curb that nature, before you have allowed it to work some desperate evil!” She hid her face in her hands.

  “There, there, little Mother of mine!” murmured her son. “Let us forget all that now! What does anything matter so long as we are together again—for always?” He leaned over, pulled her hands from her face, and kissed her tenderly. The moment was an awkward one, and Cynthia wished madly that she had not been prompted to ask that unfortunate question. Suddenly, however, the tension was broken by Mrs. Collingwood exclaiming:

  “Mercy me! See that enormous cat walking in! Wherever did it come from?” They all turned toward the door.

  “Oh, that’s Goliath!” said Joyce, calmly. “He feels very much at home here, for he has come in with us often. He led the way that first day, if you remember. And he’s been such a help!—He’s a better detective than any of us!”

  “Blessings on Goliath then, say I!” laughed Mr. Fairfax Collingwood, and, approaching the huge feline with coaxing words, he gathered its unresisting form in his arms and deposited the warm, furry purring beast in his mother’s lap.

  And while they were all laughing over and petting Goliath, a queer thing happened. The candles, which had been burning now for several hours, had, unnoticed by all, been gradually guttering and spluttering out. At length only four or five flames remained, feebly wavering in their pools of melted wax. The occupants of the room had been too absorbed with their own affairs to notice the gradual dimming of the illumination. But now Joyce suddenly looked up and perceived what had happened.

  “Why, look at the candles!” she cried. “There are only about three left, and they won’t last more than a minute or two!” Even as she spoke, two of them flickered out. The remaining one struggled for another half-minute, and flared up in one last, desperate effort. The next instant, the room was in total darkness. So unexpected was the change, that they all sat very still. The sudden pall of darkness in this strange house of mystery was just a tiny bit awesome.

  “Well! This is a predicament!” exclaimed Fairfax Collingwood who was first to recover from the surprise. “Fortunately I have a box of matches!”

  Then, with one accord they began to steer their way around the furniture

  “Oh, don’t worry!” added the practical Cynthia. “There’s an extra candle that I left on the mantel. It will do nicely to light us out.” Groping to the chimney-place with the aid of his matches, Mr. Collingwood found the candle and lit it. Then, with one accord, they all rose and began to steer their way around the furniture toward the hall, Goliath following. In the hall, Mr. Collingwood looked at his watch, exclaiming:

  “It is six-thirty! Who would believe it!” The two girls gave a simultaneous gasp of dismay.

  “Dinner!—It was ready half an hour ago! What will they think?” cried Joyce.

  “Never mind what they think, just for tonight!” responded Mrs. Collingwood, gaily. “You can tell them when you’re explaining all this, that what you’ve done for us two people is beyond the power of words to express. They’ll forgive you!” She bent down and kissed them both with a caress that thrilled them to their finger-tips. Then they all passed out through the great front door to the wide old veranda. Mr. Collingwood, taking the key from his mother, locked the little door in the boarding, after them. And in the warm, waning May afternoon, they filed down the steps. At the gate, Mr. Collingwood turned to the girls:

  “I am taking my mother back to New York for a few days. She must rest, and we have much to talk over. I scarcely need tell you that I am not returning to Australia!—We shall come back here very soon, open up this old home, put it in order, and probably spend the rest of our lives between here and the South.

  “Dear girls, I hardly need say to you that in all the world we shall consider that we have no closer or more devoted friends than yourselves I This house will always be open to you. You must look upon it as a second home. You have given back to us the most priceless blessing,—the one thing we neither hoped nor expected to enjoy again in this world,—each other!” He could not go on. He was very much moved. And as for the two girls, they were utterly speechless under the pressure of feeling.

  They remained standing at the gate, watching the two go down the street in the sunset, and waved to them wildly as they turned to look back, just before rounding the comer. And at last the intervening trees shut them from sight.

  When they were gone, Cynthia and Joyce turned and looked long and incredulously into each other’s eyes. They might have made, on this occasion, a number of high-flown and appropriate remarks, the tenor of which would be easy to imagine. Certainly the time for it was ripe, and beyond a doubt they felt them! But, as a matter of fact, they indulged in nothing of the sort. Instead, Joyce suddenly broke into a laugh.

  “We’ll never have to go in there by the cellar window again!” she remarked.

  “Sure enough!” agreed Cynthia. “What a relief that’ll be!”

  And so ended the adventure of the Boarded-up House!

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