Read Ebook: Thankful's Inheritance by Lincoln Joseph Crosby

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 3141 lines and 107924 words, and 63 pages

"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.

Miss Howes, left to share with General Jackson the "sociability" of the shed, watched that lantern with faint hope and strong anxiety. She saw it bobbing like a gigantic firefly about the walls of the house, stopping here and there and then hurrying on. Soon it passed around the further corner and disappeared altogether. The wind howled, the rain poured, General Jackson stamped and splashed, and Emily shivered.

At last, just as the watcher had begun to think some serious accident had happened to her courageous relative and was considering starting on a relief expedition, the lantern reappeared.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet