“Ah done heard dat ghost an’ Ah done see him wiv mah own eyes,” asserted Phrosy stubbornly. “Ah done see dat ghost walkin’ down near de swamp plain as Ah sees you all here in dis room.”
The boys started to scoff at this, but when they heard that Jessie had heard the moaning cry down near the swamp, their incredulity changed to wonder and, finally, to alarm.
“May be some poor fellow down there in need of help,” said Darry, and immediately proposed that the three boys should investigate the cry.
The girls were opposed to the idea, and did not want the boys to go. But the boys insisted and finally had their own way.
After two hours of fruitless search during which the girls sat together, talking in low tones, Darry and his companions returned, declaring that they had heard and seen nothing to excite the least suspicion.
“If you ask for my private opinion,” said Miss Alling, “it is that we had all better go back to bed for the present and talk this thing over in the morning. Shoo yourselves back to the cabin, boys, and if you hear any more noises, don’t pay any attention to them.”
After some good-natured grumbling the boys did as she suggested. But when, a few minutes later, the girls tried to coax Phrosy back to bed, they found her adamant in her intention to sit up for the rest of the night.
“Ah’s goin’ to keep dis lamp burnin’ an’ sit just where Ah is,” she declared. “An’ in de mo’nin’ Ah’m gwine away f’om here an’ nothin’ an’ nobody ain’t nebber gwine git me back, no suh, not so long as Ah lives!”
So they left her there, perforce, and in the morning found her sitting in the same place, the lamp burned out and her black head bobbing upon her breast.
But everything looks more cheerful in the daylight and this seemed true even of Phrosy’s ghosts. Between them, and using the argument that whoever or whatever was down by the swamp had not yet attempted to harm them, they finally persuaded Phrosy not to desert them just then. However, her decision to stay was provisional upon the behavior of the ghosts. The next time the “ha’nts” spoke, Phrosy left. That was certain.