Penny and Louise were not sure that they cared to attend the barn dance. Mrs. Lear, however, was deaf to all excuses. She whisked supper onto the table and the instant dishes were done, said that she would hitch Trinidad to the buggy.
“It won’t take us long to git there,” she encouraged the girls as they reluctantly followed her to the barn. “Trinidad’s a fast steppin’ critter. Best horse in the county fer that matter.”
Soon the ancient buggy was rattling at a brisk clip along the winding woodland road. Mrs. Lear allowed Trinidad to slacken pace as they neared the Burmaster estate.
“Look at that house!” she chortled, waving her buggy whip. “Every light in the place lit up! Know why? Mrs. Burmaster’s afeared o’ her shadder. Come dark and she’s skeared to stick her nose out the door.”
“You don’t seem to be afraid of anything,” Penny remarked in admiration.
“Me afeared?” the old lady laughed gleefully. “What’s there to be skeared of?”
“Well—perhaps a certain Headless Horseman.”
Mrs. Lear hooted. “If I was to see that critter a-comin’ right now and he had twenty heads, I wouldn’t even bat an eye!”
Horse and buggy approached the giant tulip tree whose gnarled branches were twisted into fantastic shapes. “See that tree?” Mrs. Lear demanded. “In Revolutionary days a traitor was hanged from that lower limb. Sometimes you kin still hear his spirit sighin’ and moanin’.”
“You mean the wind whistling through the tree limbs,” Penny supplied.