"This door has been nailed up with a great many nails," said he.
"I can't imagine who would do that," said Mr. Rogers; "this isn't the first day of April."
Neither could the policemen. In fact, I have observed that policemen have very little imagination. In this instance, five of them, all imagining at once, could not imagine who nailed up that door. The nearest they could come to it was, that it was probably done with a heavy, blunt instrument, in the hands of some person or persons unknown.
When, later in the day, we boys stood contemplating what Ned called the "shipwreck of the door"—older people than he call all sorts of wrecks shipwrecks—he remarked that he didn't know what his father would say, if he should find out who did it.
Mr. Rogers had taken the next train for Albany.
"He will find out," said Phaeton; "for I shall tell him as soon as he gets home."
The day that his father returned, Phaeton told, at the tea-table, the whole story of how the door was bewitched. A week had then passed, and—such are the soothing influences of time—Mr. Rogers laughed heartily at the whole affair, and at his own excitement most of all.
"I had no idea," said Ned, solemnly, "that so much trouble could be caused by a few nails."
His mother thought "few" was good.
The next day I heard little May Rogers telling another child about it. This was her story: