“Didn’t you hear that there bell ring?”
“I was in the front of the house working; I didn’t notice anything.”
They were facing each other and not looking toward the bell at all, so I let her have another one. Glang she went, and I thought Willis was going to fall off the steps. “There!” he yelled, shaking his skinny hand in Batten’s face. “There, maybe you heard that, eh? Maybe I was dreaming then. Now, tell me what made that. Who rung it? No human bein’ rung it, I say. Something’s gone wrong with this place, it has! It’s ghosts, that’s what it is; and I’m a-goin’ to pack and git for town.”
“Ghosts!” snorts Batten. “Bosh!” But he didn’t look easy in his mind, and was watching the bell uncomfortable-like. “There ain’t no such thing,” he says.
“No sich thing! Why, my father he—”
He’d got Batten looking at him instead of the bell, so I banged it again. This time Batten jumped most as high as Willis.
“Bill!” he yelled; “come here, Bill!”
A big young fellow in his shirt-sleeves, with a pencil in his hand, came to the door. I judged he was the drawing-man that was taking off the design of the engine. They palavered quite a spell, and I didn’t get a chance to shoot; besides, I didn’t want it to get too common. Even a ghost that hangs around too much will get to be a habit; folks will get used to it, and it won’t scare them any more. I let them talk.
“Where’s the dog?” says Batten, all of a sudden, and commenced to whistle and call. Of course the dog didn’t come, and you could see that worried them.
“He never goes off,” said Willis, and he tried whistling; but the dog was a long ways away, and the rope that tied him to his tree was good and stout.