"Don't you think this a good place to eat the luncheon Mrs. Preston has given us?" Harry called out, poised on the broken steps that led up to the tumbled-down front porch. "The well is here to supply us with water and I'm jolly hungry."
The houseboat travelers formed a circle on the grass just in front of the old house. Sam spread out the luncheon. It was a warm day, the clouds hung low in the sky and the garden was humming with honey-full bees.
There was nothing mysterious about the place that Sam described as "ha'nted," except that it was entirely deserted.
Harry Sears reached out for a sandwich. "Tell us why this old house is supposed to be inhabited by ghosts, Sam," he ordered.
CHAPTER X
A GHOST STORY
IT all happened such a long time ago I can't zactly call to mind the whole story," confessed Sam. "But they was two brothers that owned this here old place. They was in the war and fought side by side. Then they lived here together, peaceful, for a long time. One of them was married and the other wasn't, but it didn't seem to make no difference. All of a sudden they fell out, and after a while one of the brothers died, mysterious like. The live man went away from here and he hasn't been heard of since. But they do say," Sam shivered and looked fearfully at the dilapidated mansion, "that the murdered man still walks around this here place at night. People even claim to see him in the daytime. Sometimes he is by himself, and then again he brings a lady-ghost with him, but there ain't nobody ever lived in this here house since them two brothers fell out," Sam concluded, mightily pleased with the gruesome impression that his tale had made on his hearers.
"I should think not," agreed Lillian Seldon hastily. "I don't like ghost stories."
"I am sorry, Lillian, because I know a perfectly stunning one that is as true as history," declared Harry Sears. "If we had time, and Lillian didn't mind, I was going to tell it to you while we rested."