“It's over there somewhere,” she said. “The light went out, but it ain't likely the lantern went with it. Now you go to sleep.”
Miss Howes obeyed. She was asleep very soon thereafter. But Thankful lay awake, thinking and wondering—yes, and dreading. What sort of a place was this she had inherited? She distinctly did not believe in what Hannah Parker had called “aberrations,” but she had heard something—something strange and inexplicable in that little back bedroom. The groans might have been caused by the gale, but no gale spoke English, or spoke at all, for that matter. Who, or what, was it that had said “Oh Lord!” in the darkness and solitude of that bedroom?
CHAPTER IV
Thankful opened her eyes. The sunlight was streaming in at the window. Beneath that window hens were clucking noisily. Also in the room adjoining someone was talking, protesting.
“I don't know, Hannah,” said Mr. Parker's voice. “I tell you I don't know where it is. If I knew I'd tell you, wouldn't I? I don't seem to remember what I done with it.”
“Well, then, you've got to set down and not stir till you do remember, that's all. When you went out of this house last evenin' to go to the postoffice—Oh, yes! To the postoffice—that's where you said you was goin'—you had the lantern and that umbrella. When you came back, hollerin' about the light you see in the Cap'n Abner house, you had the lantern. But the umbrella you didn't have. Now where is it?”
“I don't know, Hannah. I—I—do seem to remember havin' had it, but—”
“Well, I'm glad you remember that much. You lost one of your mittens, too, but 'twas an old one, so I don't mind that so much. But that umbrella was your Christmas present and 'twas good gloria silk with a real gilt-plated handle. I paid two dollars and a quarter for that umbrella, and I told you never to take it out in a storm because you were likely to turn it inside out and spile it. If I'd seen you take it last night I'd have stopped you, but you was gone afore I missed it.”
“But—but, consarn it all, Hannah—”