Surprised at her daring, overwhelmed by the boldness of the thing she had undertaken, they watched Peggy disappear over the top of the river bank.
[CHAPTER IV—THE INSIDE OF GLOOMY HOUSE]
Up the long walk to Gloomy House, her feet sinking in the wet leaves that had fallen from the branches overhead, Peggy went slowly, her heart pounding.
She was doing what no one else in town would have dared to do, and as she neared the old house, with its tumbled-down step, she began to wonder if perhaps she was afraid.
“Walk on, walk on,” she whispered to herself, for she knew that if she hesitated for an instant she would run. And how could she go back and face the cooking class if, after all her planning, she was a coward now?
So mechanically she walked on, and at last she found herself really ascending the creaking steps. When she stood on the porch with its leafless and ragged vines flapping in the wind a kind of chill unreality seemed to shut her in. She hurried to ring the bell so that someone—anyone—would come and she would not be alone. The bell was an old fashioned one, and as she rang she heard it jangling emptily through the house. It was certainly a very dismal way for callers to have to announce themselves.
When the unpleasant sound had ceased the house and everything about it settled back to silence again. This lasted and lasted. Peggy clutched nervously at her little red jacket. What if nobody would come at all? There was no one TO come, except Mr. Huntington himself—and now he evidently wasn’t going to. She might have known. She was overwhelmed with a sense of failure. Those lovely hot muffins she had dreamed of preparing for him, that wonderful steak, smothered in onions, that delicious— Down the uncarpeted stairs inside she could hear the reluctant thud, thud of footsteps!
Oh, he was coming.
Gratingly, the door swung open and a man’s head looked cautiously out.
Peggy reflected that Mr. Huntington looked a great deal more scared than she was, and the thought helped a little.