“Just to know that any noise isn’t here,” she apologized to herself, poking her yellow head into a nest of cobwebs and jerking back with a little gasp.
“Oh!” she panted, “Cousin Jerry wants cobwebs for his surveying instruments. I must be sure to remember where that nest is.”
Over by the chimney a line of paper bags hung and these now seemed “spooky” in the shadowy light. Other hanging things in the low parts of the attic that were set away from the center, the latter which was forming the unfinished bed room, all added to the grotesque outline.
“But I’ve got to do it,” declared little Nora, crawling at last under the fresh bed covering Cousin Ted had provided.
“I’ll leave the light on for a little while just to try it,” decided Nora, her yellow head buried so deeply beneath the covers that it was quite impossible to tell light from darkness.
A little click from somewhere brought her up straight in the bed, a moment later. She listened with all her alert senses but nothing else happened. With a new feeling, somewhat akin to disappointment, Nora once more settled down, first, however, she actually turned off the light, and only the slim streak from the far away hall showed a single beam that framed the chimney line.
Being brave—as brave as all this—was really a new experience to Nora, but she had promised herself to “hold out”; and then Cousin Jerry had seemed so proud of her pluck she would never disappoint him.
“Makes me feel almost as big as a boy,” she encouraged herself, “and won’t I have a wonderful story to write Barbara.”
Now she thought of Barbara, the tom-boy girl at school: she who could climb and romp, laugh and cry, defy the prim madams who conducted the school, it was certainly conducted not “run,” and the Misses Baily were types of teachers such as the most carping critic might depict, black string eye-glasses and all.
The vision flitted before the blinking eyes of Nora. She was so glad to get away from school restrictions and perhaps—well perhaps Cousin Jerry and Cousin Ted might get to love her so fondly they would not send her back.