“What did you hear?”
“Why, we heard the same old sound and a lot more. Just as true as I am sitting here there was a voice that sounded all through the house and it was calling, ‘John, John’.”
“Did you answer it?”
“Did I answer it? No, sir, I didn’t answer it. I was out of that house before you could count ten.”
“I didn’t know that it affected you that way,” laughed George, “to have anybody speak to you.”
“It doesn’t to have any live body, but that name was sounded all through the house. It wasn’t loud either, it was just that whispered, ‘John, John,’ that I don’t think I shall ever forget as long as I live.”
“It seems to have affected Uncle Sim even worse than it did you,” suggested George, as Uncle Sim clasped his hands and lifted them far above his head and offered various incantations, as if he were doing his utmost to ward off the evil spirits.
“Well, all I have got to say,” explained George at last, “is that the Go Ahead boys ought to change their name.”
“Why?” demanded Fred sharply.
“Because it seems to me that they can leave any place and make better time than anybody I have ever seen. Even Uncle Sim forgets his rheumatism and ‘mis’ry’ and keeps up with John when he races across the field. To-morrow morning I will give John one dollar if he will make as good time from the old Meeker House out to the road as he made to-night when it was dark.”