THE “KLEPTOMANIANTIC” GHOST
The other girls crowded around then and wanted to know what had happened. Laura pinched Liz and said:
“She dropped those plates. Guess we won’t make her pay for the broken ones, girls. Go on, now. I’ll finish helping Liz wipe them.”
So the matter of the “ha’nt” did not become public property just then. In fact, Mother Wit talked so seriously to the maid-of-all-work that she hoped the “ha’nt” had been laid, before they sought their cots that night.
But in the morning there was a most surprising sequel to the incident. The larder had been robbed!
“It can’t be,” said Laura, who heard of the trouble first of all when she popped out of the sleeping tent. Lizzie Bean had awakened Mrs. Morse and that lady—bundled in a blanket-robe—had come to the cook-tent to see.
“I ain’t never walked in my sleep yet—and 115 knowed it,” stated Lizzie, with conviction. “And there’s the things missin’––”
The remainder of the big ham, a strip of bacon, coffee, sugar, syrup, canned milk, and half a sack of flour were among the things which had disappeared.
While the three stood there, amazed, Bobby came. “Bet it was those boys,” said she. “Playing a joke on us. They’re over here somewhere.”
The sun was just rising, and its early beams shone on the camp across the lake. Laura ran for the binoculars and examined the boys’ camp. Both powerboats were there, and the five canoes. The boys were all disporting themselves in the water—Laura could count the six.
“If they did it,” she said, “they got back to their camp very early.”
“See this!” shrieked Bobby, suddenly.
She was pointing to the table, set as usual for breakfast. Pinned to the red and white checked table-cloth was a crisp ten dollar bill.
“Whoever robbed us paid for the goods,” Mrs. Morse said, feebly.
“It was that ha’nt!” declared Liz.
At that the story of the man’s face she had seen at the edge of the wood the evening before, came out. All the girls heard the story, and at once there was a great hullabaloo! 116
“A man on the island!” gasped Nellie. “I’m going home.”
“Pooh!” said Bobby. “Liz says it’s a ghost. A kleptomaniac ghost at that.”
“He can’t be a kleptomaniac, Bobby,” said Laura, laughing, “or he wouldn’t have left money for the goods.”
“He’s a kleptomani-antic ghost, then!” giggled Bobby.
“How ridiculous!” said Jess. “Whoever heard the like?”
“The fact remains,” said her mother, “that some stranger has been here while we slept, and taken the provisions—and we shall have to get more.”
“The ten dollars will more than pay for what’s missing,” said Laura, slowly.
“What of that?” demanded Nellie. “I don’t like the idea.”
Lizzie was somewhat flurried. “And me—I was sleepin’ right behind that canvas curtain. Not again! never! I’m goin’ back to town.”
At this the girls all set up a wail. “Oh, Liz! you mustn’t! You promised to stay! We’re paying you good wages, Liz! Don’t leave us to do all the work!” was the chorus of objections.
“Well! I ain’t goin’ to stay right here where that ha’nt can get me,” declared Liz. 117
“But,” put forth Laura, seriously, though her eyes twinkled, “you shouldn’t be afraid of that haunt if he was such a nice young man as you say he was.”
“Huh!” grumbled Lizzie Bean, practically. “No young man is nice after he’s dead.”
There seemed to be no answer to this statement. But Mrs. Morse came to the rescue.
“You can bring your cot into the cabin, Lizzie,” she said. “You will not be afraid if you sleep there with me, will you?”
“No, Ma’am. I reckon not,” admitted the girl.
“But how about us?” cried Lil Pendleton. “Surely, we won’t stay here if there are men on the island?”
“It’s big enough for them and us, too, I guess,” said Bobby, doubtfully.
“Maybe the man—or men—who stole our food, is no longer on the island,” Laura said, slowly.
“And they paid for it!” exclaimed Dora.
“Money isn’t everything,” said Nellie.
“What is?” demanded Bobby.
“Our peace of mind,” declared the doctor’s daughter, “is more important. I shall be afraid to stay here if there are strange men on the island.” 118
“We’ll settle that,” Laura declared, with vigor, “and at once.”
“How?” demanded Dorothy, wonderingly.
“Search the island,” said practical Mother Wit. “Certainly not by sitting down and sucking our thumbs.”
“Oh, Laura!” wailed Lil. “I wouldn’t dare!”
“Wouldn’t dare what?” was Laura’s rejoinder.
“Hunt for those men on this island. Why! we don’t want to find them.”
“And I’d like to know why not? I don’t care if they did leave money for the food they took––”
“But there must be something bad about them––”
“How do we know that, Lil?” asked Laura. “There is, rather, something good about them, or they would not have left the money for the stolen food.”
“Dear Laura is right—as she almost always is,” said Mrs. Morse, fondly. “A real thief at heart would not have left that ten dollar bill.”
“An’ I’m tellin’ you that chap was the nicest one that lived at Missis Brayton’s boardin’ house,” put in Liz, reflectively.
“The ha’nt,” said Liz, simply.
“Oh, dear me, Lizzie!” said Laura, in some disgust. “Don’t keep that up.”
“Well, then! If it wasn’t his ha’nt, it was himself. Guess I know him,” declared the girl-of-all-work.
“Tell me about it, please?” said Jess’ mother, “You girls run and get your baths and we’ll get breakfast.”
“I—I don’t want to leave the tent if there are thieves about,” complained Lil, to whom the water looked just as cold on this morning as it had the day before. “I—I’ve got some jewelry in my bag.”
“Very foolish,” said Bobby, bluntly. “We told you not to bring anything to camp that you cared about.”
“Gently! gently!” said Laura, the peacemaker, “Come on, Lil. Don’t be afraid of either the kleptomaniantic thief, as Bobby calls him, or the cold water—neither will hurt you, I guess.”
They had their plunge and that—or something else—stirred Mother Wit’s “thinking machine.” She said, as they trooped up to dress:
“We’ll wig-wag the boys and bring them over. They will help us search the island. Besides, we shall need one of the powerboats to go for more food. It seems funny that a man who was willing 120 to pay for what he took—and pay so well—did not go down to Elberon Crossing and buy at the store just what he took from us.”
“He’s an outlaw—a murderer, maybe, fleeing for his life,” suggested Lil, tremblingly.
“Pooh! so are you!” scoffed Jess. “More than likely he is some lazy fisherman who did not want to go to the store—some rich fellow from the city.”
“If Liz knows what she is talking about,” said Laura, “it is a rich fellow from Albany. A Mr. Norman. And she told me last night that he was a great fisherman and hunter.
“But what under the sun,” demanded Bobby, “should he take our food for?”
“You can’t tell me it is anything as simple as that,” Lil Pendleton declared. “He is a thief, just the same. And it as dangerous for us to be on this island with him. Why! I wouldn’t stay another night—unless the boys were here to defend us.”
“Ah! the cat is out of the bag,” chuckled Bobby. “Lil wants Purt over here with his revolver,” and then the other girls laughed and Lil got mad again.