Both were startled a little later by a scurrying sound back under the eaves at a little distance. Jannet flashed her light in that direction, to find a bright-eyed gray squirrel sitting up as squirrels do, most surprised at the light. “Nell!” exclaimed Jannet, “that accounts for some of the noises in the attic, doesn’t it? They are not rats, but squirrels.”
Jannet had scarcely said this when there was a curious sound again. Something dropped, “tap, tap tap, tap.” “A nut falling down some steps! And where are the steps?”
Jannet asked Nell if she had the nerve to go back in the attic with her again, but Nell said that she thought a squirrel had dropped the nut between the rafters or in the wall somewhere. “I heard a few scampering over the roof this afternoon,” she added.
There was a sighing sound in the trees outside. More squirrels seemed to gather in the attic’s far corners; but they were not tame enough to come near the girls, who concluded that it would be well to eat their last cooky and drink up the lemonade before they had any small visitors. Jannet was more nervous about the squirrels than Nell, who was used to them. A cool air blew through the attic now, but when the drops of rain began to blow in at the window, Jannet bravely went back to close the other one. This they could watch.
“It was pretty spooky, Nell, creeping back there to shut that window, but I saw where the squirrels get in, not far from just over my room. I saw one cute little chap on a rafter.”
The wind grew more violent and seemed to change direction, for no more rain came in at the window, though as yet there was little sound of rain on the roof.
But with the veering of the wind there began that weird sound which they had heard once before, and Jannet, half laughing, half startled, exclaimed, “The ‘Dutch Banshee’! Nell, we can locate it!”
“Not I, thank you,” said Nell, putting her head down into the pillow. But Jannet turned on her light and stood up, listening. Nell clung to her hand, but Jannet said, “I’m not forgetting, Nell, that I came to the attic to find out things. That sound is made somewhere here and the wind does it!”
“All right; if you are going anywhere, I’m going too. I’m not going to sit alone in the dark.”
Following the sound, the girls carefully made their way back, flashing their lights into this corner and that, until they felt a little air blowing on them and saw a piece of brown sacking waving a little in a corner. “That is an awful place to get to,” said Jannet, “but I’m going. Turn your flash, Nell, on the rafters,—please.”