She went out to see about it with the girls at her heels and found the old man and the boy in a heated argument over something.
"Well, if you want to go into that there haunted house, it's your concern," the old man was saying in a querulous voice. "As for me, I wouldn't step a foot inside of it, no sir, not if you was to give me a farm!"
CHAPTER XV
A NOISE IN THE DARK
"Maybe you wouldn't do it for a farm," said Mrs. Gilligan, striding resolutely toward the man and the boy, while the two drew apart and stared at her in surprise, "but you're goin' to do it for me. If you think I'm going to lug those trunks and provisions and things into the house all by myself, you never was so much mistaken in your life. What do you suppose I'm paying you my good money for? Now, get a move on and hurry those things inside, or I'll have to take a hand in the matter myself. Trunks first!"
And too much surprised by this deluge of words to refuse, the old man turned to the trunks, and, assisted by the boy, carried them into the hall.
"This is far enough," he said, but Mrs. Maria Gilligan, accustomed to having her own way, would have none of it.
"Upstairs," she ordered. "You don't suppose we are going to sleep on the ground floor, do you? And we're not going to carry them ourselves, either."
And once more the old man obeyed her, while the boy, wicked youngster, laughed at him behind his back.
"If you meet a ghost coming downstairs, Gramper," he taunted, "just tell him to be careful and not stumble over you. There now, be careful, will you? You almost dropped the thing on my foot."