"Child, ef a ghost's cold fingers teches you, your heart grows stone cold. There ain't nobody that loves you and you don't love nobody ever after. Don't you go near that old house, chilluns. It ain't no place for the likes of you," pleaded Mammy Ellen. "I tell you there am more buried there than youall knows. That old house am a grave for the young and the old. Mind what I say. It sure am."
"Why do you think we are going to the 'ghost house,' Mammy?" queried David, laughing.
The old colored woman shook her head slowly. "It ain't caze I think youall's going to the old place that I warn ye; it am only caze I's so afeerd you might. I know there ain't nobody, in their right good senses as would want their wits scairt clean out of 'em."
"But we don't believe in ghosts, Mammy," argued Madge.
Mammy Ellen peered into Madge's bright face. "Go 'long, child," she said. "You don't believe in ghosts caze you ain't seen 'em, jest as ye don't believe in most of the things you's got to find out."
Mammy Ellen bowed courteously to Miss Betsey and the young people as she walked away from them.
"I do wish we hadn't met that old colored woman, Madge," whispered Phil. "She makes me feel as though we were intruding on ghosts when we go prying about their haunts at night."
Every leaf of every tree, every rustling blade of grass, every stirring breath of the night wind took on a more sinister character as the four ghost-investigators slipped up the tangled, overgrown path to the house of mystery.
"We must put out all our lanterns but one," ordered David. "If any one happens to be walking along the road, we don't wish them to see us prowling about this place. Besides, we don't want to frighten the ghosts."
The three women put out the light of their lanterns. David kept his light, walking in front, with Miss Betsey next and Madge and Phyllis bringing up the rear. The women clutched at one another's skirts as they went around and around the dark old house, tumbling over crumbling bricks and tangled vines. They thought it best to look thoroughly around the outside of the house for loiterers, whether ghostly or real, before exploring the inside.