“Up with the anchor! Heave ho! Shake out another reef! Salt horse for mess! Kill the cook! Kill the cook!”
“I beg your pardon,” said the spinster in a surprisingly mild and gentle tone of voice; “it’s only my parrot. I got him from an old sea captain.”
“Oh!” said Ben, plainly relieved. “I didn’t know. I thought——”
“Some one was being murdered, I s’pose,” smiled Miss Kent. “Living alone, as I have, my pets have served as company. Won’t you step in?”
Was this mild, fragile, gentle woman the person all Oakdale declared cracked in the upper story? Ben wondered; and then he remembered hearing it said that she was afflicted only at intervals.
“My name is Stone,” he explained. “I’m a scholar at the academy, and I thought I’d call on Grant.”
“You’re the first caller he’s had. I think he’ll be s’prised to see you.”
A door opened at the head of the stairs, and Grant appeared in the light that shone from a room beyond.
“Who is it, aunt?” he asked.
“A caller to see you, Rodney. He says his name is Stone.”