  In real panic, Arden and Sim wheeled about, dropping some of the branches they had treasured. Fairly glaring at them from the small stone building was Viney Tucker. She wore a heavy black cloak and had on a black bonnet from the edges of which had escaped several wisps of straggling gray hair. What a startling picture she presented! “What do you want here?” she asked again. “Oh, how do you do!” greeted Sim, though the words were rather shaky. She had heard about the queer cousin from the other girls and felt she knew Viney well enough not to be afraid of her. “I’m as well as I ever expect to be,” was the somewhat ungracious answer, and she gave the old bonnet a vicious tug. “We thought you were away,” Arden told her kindly. “Who told you that?” she snapped. “Dick.” “Hum! Young folks know too much nowadays. It was different in my time. Then children were seen and not heard!” “Do you—do you object to us taking some of this mistletoe?” asked Arden. “Mistletoe! That isn’t mistletoe, though lots of folks think it is. No, I can’t say I object. This place isn’t anybody’s now. Do as you like. Turn out the rightful owners!” Her voice was vindictive. “We aren’t turning anyone out.” Sim tried to make her voice very gentle. Really she felt sorry for the old lady, who did not seem to have the resigned spirit of Granny Howe. “Well, the state is doing it, and you’re part of the state, aren’t you? I am, so you must be.” “Yes, I suppose we can call ourselves citizens of the state,” admitted Arden. “Well, the state is turning me and my cousin out of our property. Making a park of it for folks to ride horses in and birds to feed in. Bah! Don’t talk to me! The state! I’d state ’em if I had my way!” “Please don’t blame us,” urged Sim. “We really would love to help you and Granny Howe get money for this place and perhaps——” “Ahem!” coughed Arden loudly. “Better get back home where you belong, not out here catching cold!” snapped Viney Tucker. “Terrible weather! I hate snow!” “I guess she hates everything and everybody,” thought Arden. The strange old woman stood in the open doorway of the old stone building. From the footprints in the snow the girls could easily guess that she had recently entered it. Also it was plain that she had come from over a distant hill and not from Granny Howe’s cottage, which nestled in a little hollow about a quarter of a mile back of the old Hall. “Then you don’t mind if we take some of this mistletoe?” asked Sim, after a pause. “No! Why should I? You can settle with the state,” and she laughed scornfully. “It doesn’t belong to my folks any more. Only don’t call it mistletoe.” “What is it?” asked Sim. “How should I know? I’m not a botanist or a bird-sanctuary teacher.” Really Viney Tucker must have arisen from the wrong side of her bed that morning, Sim reflected. She surely was cross. “So you didn’t go away?” asked Arden, wondering what the next move would be. “Yes, I did. Went to stay with Sairy Pendleton. But she and I never could get along, so I came back. I came out here to the old smokehouse to get away from everybody. Folks get on my nerves—more than often! This old smokehouse sort of sets me up—better than the perfume you girls use. Bah!” Sim and Arden were aware of a distinctly smoky odor floating out to them above the head of Viney Tucker. They were aware, now, of the use to which the small stone building had formerly been put. In the old days hams and bacon were cured there over a fire of hickory branches and corncobs, and that smoky smell always remained. It was a curious whim of the old lady to come there for solitude; surely lonely and uncanny. “Well, if you’ve got all that wrongly called mistletoe you want,” Viney Tucker suggested after rather an awkward pause, “you might as well take yourselves back home so you won’t catch cold.” “Won’t you catch cold, staying out in this bleak place?” asked Sim. “No. I never catch cold. It’s only this soft new generation that catches colds. Silly of ’em. Good-bye!” She popped back into the smokehouse and closed the door. Sim and Arden stood there, looking at each other in astonishment. “Come on,” Sim whispered after a pause. “We have enough—mistletoe and smokehouses.” “Yes,” Arden agreed. “Let’s go.” “And enough of such a strange woman,” added Sim as they walked away from the smokehouse. “She is strange,” Arden agreed. “But I feel sorry for her.” “So do I, in a way. But I feel a lot more sorry for Granny Howe. She takes it standing up. This creature whines and moans.” “She does,” Arden admitted. “But different people have a different way of taking adversity. Granny is sweet and serene.” “And Viney Tucker is bitter—but not sweet. Oh, well, it takes all sorts to make a world. This will be something to tell Terry and Dot, won’t it?” “Indeed it will.” “I wonder why she comes to such a lonesome smelly place as the old smokehouse to brood over her troubles?” “It must bring back the days when she was a girl,” suggested Arden. “I’ve heard my father, who was born on a farm, tell how they used to smoke hams and bacon in a little house like that one.” She looked back toward it. There was no sign of Viney Tucker. She had shut herself in the strange place. “Probably,” went on Arden, “Viney used to help smoke the hams out here. They must have had a delicious flavor.” “Not like the chemically prepared hams we have to eat,” Sim surmised. “Moselle was saying, only yesterday, that she wished she had a Smithfield razor-back ham to bake with cloves for Christmas.” “Maybe Mrs. Tucker could supply one,” suggested Arden. “I wouldn’t ask her.” “No, I don’t believe it would be wise. But isn’t it queer of her to go off visiting, and then return and go sit out in an old smokehouse?” “Very queer,” agreed Sim. Carrying their “mistletoe,” the girls went back to their parked car. As they were passing the Hall, they noticed the front door was closed as they had left it. There were no footprints in the snow other than those they themselves had made. “Hark!” suddenly exclaimed Arden as they were at the edge of the sagging old front porch. “What?” asked Sim. “Didn’t you hear a noise?” “Where?” They stood still and listened. There was no doubt of it. Echoing footsteps were coming from the old mansion. Faint but unmistakable. They floated out of one of the upper windows, the frame of which had been torn away by the wreckers. “Someone is in there!” whispered Sim. “Well, they can stay there for all I’ll ever do to get them out!” gasped Arden. “Come on!” They ran back to the car, not pausing to listen any further. Tossing their branches into the rumble seat, the two girls climbed into the roadster. Sim’s trembling foot pressed the starter switch. “Oh, I’m so glad it went off with a bang like that,” she murmured as the motor chugged into service. Steering rather wildly, Sim shot up the hill and out upon the main road and away from Jockey Hollow. “What do you think it was?” asked Arden when they had their hearts and breaths under control. “Haven’t the least idea.” “We must tell Harry.” “Of course. He may be able to figure out how noises can come from an old house when there isn’t a single mark in the snow to show that anyone has entered.” “The scream happened that same way; no one went in, but the scream came out, he said.” “Oh, it’s all so mysterious!” sighed Sim. “Shall we ever be able to solve it? Seems to me it gets worse.” “I hope we can solve it,” said her companion solemnly. They created quite a sensation when they reached Sim’s house, not only with the “mistletoe,” over which Dot went into wild raptures, but with their story of Viney Tucker and the strange noises. “What a queer old woman,” said Dorothy. “I wouldn’t want to meet her alone in the dark.” “Oh, I guess she’s just a poor old crank whose troubles have gotten the best of her,” said Arden. “I feel sorry for her.” “She must be a trial to Granny Howe,” suggested Terry, who seemed much improved. “Granny isn’t the sort that gives way to trials,” said Sim. “Oh, it will be so wonderful if we can help her!” “Leave it to Harry,” said Arden. “And, by the way, don’t you think we had better tell him the latest happening?” “Of course,” said Dorothy quickly. “Shall I telephone him?” “Why—er—yes,” said Sim slowly, with a quick look at Arden and Terry. “I’ll tell him to come over to dinner, shall I?” Her eyes were shining. “Yes,” said Sim, smiling a little. “Harry is always welcome.” “And if he can make anything out of this latest development,” said Arden, “he’s a wonder.” “I think he’s quite wonderful anyway,” said Terry, snuggling a little deeper down in the bed. “Wasn’t he grand when he let us give him up and collect the reward?” “Them was the happy days!” laughed Arden. “I’m going to phone,” called Dot from the hall. |
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