“We’ll all go down,” suggested Polly. “You can turn on the light at the head of the stairs, can’t you, Margy?”
Most of the houses in River Bend were wired for electricity, and there was a switch at the head of the Williamsons’ cellar stairs. Margy pressed the button, but even the flood of light which lit the cellar did not give any of them any great confidence. They went down the steps slowly, and not for anything in the world would they have looked over their shoulders.
Margy found the lantern behind the furnace, and, as they had not brought matches, there was no reason for staying, since to light it they would have to go back to the kitchen. Jess led the way upstairs, and as she gained the top step, she cried out. Fred was just closing the outside door.
“Hello!” he said comfortably. “Where’ve you all been?”
“Where have you been?” Margy countered. “You scared us pretty near into fits. We thought the ghost had caught you.”
“Ward and I were coming out to hunt for you,” Artie said, waving the lantern. “We went down cellar to get this.”
“Huh, that wasn’t a ghost,” replied Fred. “If you’d hung around a little, the way I did, you would have found it out pretty quick.”
Margy switched off the cellar light and shut the door.
“What was it, if it wasn’t a ghost?” she asked.
“Joe Anderson,” was Fred’s surprising reply. “He thought he’d be smart. You haven’t been crying, have you, Margy?”