“Bring anything you like. I’m going to take a flashlight. Here comes our roller, now. We’d better finish the tennis court.”
Rebecca told the story of the old spring house when they saw her. She could remember Scotty McDougal, the old watchmaker who had lived there.
“Land, yes, I should say I could. He used to wear an old coonskin cap with the tail hanging down, and carried an old gun along with him wherever he went. After he died, two old women moved in from somewhere in the woods toward Dayville. They were Indian, I guess, or gypsy, real good-hearted people so far as I could see. Used to weave carpet and rag rugs and make baskets. There was a story around that they could tell fortunes and see things in the future, but that’s just talk. I never pay any attention to such things at all. Probably, if you could clear the house of its name, somebody’d be willing to live in it. It belongs to Judge Ellis.”
“Who’s Judge Ellis?” asked Kit, who always caught at a new name.
“Who’s he?” Becky laughed heartily. “Meanest man in seven counties, I guess. He ran for Senator years ago and was beaten, and he took a solemn oath he’d never have anything to do with anybody in this township again, and I guess he’s kept it. He lives in the biggest house here.”
“All alone?” asked Tommy.
“All alone excepting for a housekeeper and his grandson. He’s just a fussy old miser, and the way he lets that boy run wild makes my heart ache.”
“How old a boy is he, Becky?” asked Mrs. Craig, feeling sympathetic at once.
“Oh, I should say about fifteen. Name’s Billie. He’s a case, I tell you. What he can’t think of in five minutes isn’t worth doing. Still, he’s a good boy, too, at that. Five of my cows strayed off from the pasture lot last summer, and he found them after Matt had run his legs off looking for them. And once we lost some turkeys, and he found them over in the pines roosting with the crows. He knows every foot of land for ten miles around here and more, I guess. You never know when he’s going to bob out of the bushes and grin at you. The Judge don’t pay any more attention to him than if he was a scarecrow. Seems that he had one son, Finley Ellis, and he was that wild the Judge turned him off years ago. And one day he got a letter, so Mr. Ricketts told me, from New York, and away he went, looking cross enough to chew tacks. When he came back he had Billie with him, and that’s all Elmhurst ever found out. Billie says he’s his grandfather, and the Judge says nothing.”
“I’d like to see him,” Jean exclaimed.