“Sure, I did. Wha’d I do with them matches?” Nickie asked himself desperately.
It was another day before he found out, and in the interim they had decided that there was no other room in the house which offered the comparative peace of their own room. At least they could shut themselves in there. And that they did, not stopping until they had pushed their heavy bed tight against the stout oaken door.
“What we afraid of, huh?” Skippy asked in a small voice. They had undressed and were in bed.
“I dunno, kid!” Nickie admitted honestly. “I’m kinda broke up in a hundred pieces like, since that scream.”
“Timmy’s?”
“Say, was it sure enough him?”
“Why, sure—gee whiz, who else....”
“That’s why I ast if you believe’n spooks!”
“Nickie! Gee whiz, we heard Timmy talkin’—didn’t he tell us twas all a trick with Devlin—didn’t he say Devlin meant to kill him and....”
“Yeah, an’ ain’t that like his dream the other night? Ain’t it like he comes back in his dream an’ stands under that big tree? Ain’t it all in his dream how he’s tellin’ us up at the winder an’ warnin’ us, when zip, he sees this arm come out an’ pretty soon he feels like he’s chokin’? How do we know he ain’t kicked off somehow last night an’ tonight he comes back from the dead, hah?”