Madge Morton's Trust

by Amy D. V. Chalmers

After a few miles' journey along the river bank he came to a bend where he could see, farther ahead, the "Merry Maid," the poor little houseboat, looking as deserted and lonely as David felt. Her decks were cleared and her cabins locked until the return of the houseboat party. She was being taken care of by a colored boy who lived not far away.

David felt a sudden rush of longing. The houseboat was filled with happy memories of the girls. He was tired out and exhausted. He must rest somewhere. The boy climbed aboard the houseboat. But he did not rest. He walked feverishly up and down the deck.

An overwhelming impulse never to return to the Preston farm swept over David. The love of wandering was in his blood. To-day he did not feel fit to associate with the girls and boys who made up the two boat parties. He ought never to have come with them. His lowly birth and lack of training were against him. David knew that trouble, and perhaps disgrace, might be in store for him if he went back to Mr. Preston's and faced what was probably going to happen.

The poor boy wrestled with temptation. Mr. and Mrs. Preston had been good to him. Miss Betsey meant to be kind, in spite of her fussiness, and she had evidently told his new acquaintances nothing to his discredit. Tom Curtis and Madge Morton trusted him. Yet could he face the suspicion which he felt sure would fall upon him?

The sun was going down and the river was a flaming pathway of gold when David turned his back on the houseboat and started for Mr. Preston's home. His steps grew heavier and heavier as he walked. He was stiff, sore and weary. The bandages were nearly off his hands and the flesh smarted and burned from the exposure to the air. David was also ravenously hungry. Against his heart the things wrapped in the old red handkerchief cut like sharp tools.

Night and the stars came. David was still far from home. He decided that it might be best for him to struggle on no farther. It would be easier to explain in the morning that he had gone out for a walk and lost his way; than to face his friends to-night with any explanation of his trip.

David remembered that the house that the colored boy, Sam, had described as "ha'nted" lay midway between the houseboat and the farm. He could sleep out on its old porch.

David filled his hat with Sam's "hoodoo" peaches. He sat on the veranda steps as he ate them, thinking idly of Sam's story of the old place and getting it oddly mixed with what he had heard of Harry Sears's ghost story. David was not superstitious. He did not believe that he could be afraid of ghosts. He had other live troubles to worry him, which seemed far worse. Still, he hoped that if ghosts did walk at midnight about this forlorn old spot that they would choose any other night than this.

It was a soft, warm summer evening with a waning moon. David rolled his coat up under his head for a pillow and lay down in one corner of the porch.

He did not go to sleep at once; he was too tired and his bed was too hard. How long he slept he did not know. He was awakened by a sound so indescribably soft and vague that it might have been only a breath of wind stirring. But David felt his hands grow icy cold and his breath come in gasps. He was conscious of something uncanny near him. Something warm touched him. He could have screamed with terror. But it was only a thin, black cat, the color of the night shadows.