Just as Jack said “commotion,” with a fine roll upon the word, the Professor caught his toe upon a root, and down he went—and I laughed. Aunt Jane didn’t call me her dear child that time; she said, “Zel-l-l-ah!” But I don’t care. Jack laughed too, though he did pretend he was just coughing.
We found the cabin, half hidden by the tall burdocks and wild rosebushes. The door-step was sunken and covered deep with the leaves of many summers.
Jack threw open the door and cried “Spooks!” in a sepulchral tone which gave me a chill, but when Mabel gave a squawk and caught Clifford’s arm I just pushed Mr. Jack headlong over the threshold and went on in.
The lightning glared in at the open door and showed us a great, old fireplace, with a huge pile of dry wood stacked in one corner, and there were some chairs and a table, and that was all.
Jack swooped down upon the fireplace with a shout, and we had a roaring fire in no time, for Jack’s matches were dry, for a wonder. Goodness knows he paid enough for his matchbox; Aunt Jane said it was a scandalous price, but it was worth every cent of it to have dry matches that night. We huddled around the fire, half frozen from our ducking. I spread out my old golf-cape to dry, so that I might have some good of the old thing—I had lugged it around all summer and hadn’t used it once. Aunt Jane and I took down our hair and wrung out the water. Mabel wouldn’t; she said hers wasn’t very wet—and that settled the switch question in my mind, and from the way Jack grinned I know what he thought about it—and Aunt Jane trying to make a match between those two!
Professor Goldburn backed up to the fire, rubbed his pudgy hands together behind him, and ogled till I felt downright sick, but I wouldn’t show it. He had lost his eyeglass and the curl was out of his mustache and his collar all crumpled, and that oily smile didn’t seem to match the rest of him a bit. I don’t care if he is worth a million or more, I just think he’s horrid! I smiled back at him just to see Clifford scowl. But Clifford wasn’t looking my way. He was whispering something to Mabel and had his back turned to me—both of which I consider rude in anybody, no matter who does it.
Then Jack got to wondering what was in the next room, for there appeared to be two, and he and I went to explore.
The room had been a bedroom, I think. It was bare of everything but dust and cobwebs, and was so small it didn’t take us long—Jack only burned one match and two fingers.
After that we sat around the fire and listened to the storm, and tried to think we weren’t famished, which was hard to do, seeing we had had nothing since luncheon.
Aunt Jane worried over Uncle John and how anxious he’d be, but I was rather glad for him. He’d lectured me awfully that morning because I wasn’t nice and dignified, like Mabel. I hoped he’d remember it with remorse.