"My heart thumps like a mouse in the wall. I'm going to get out of this place. I feel as if there's a ghost in here. It creeps all over me. I can't get my breath."
Dotty rose cautiously; but she had been lying so long in a cramped position that both her feet were asleep. While trying to recover her balance she caught at something, which proved to be a glass jar of raspberry jam. The cover came off, and the jam poured down her neck in a thick stream.
"My beautiful white dress with the red spots! Who put that dirty thing in my way? Smells like purserves. They ought to be ashamed!"
Dotty tried bearing her weight on both feet, and found she could walk.
"But I've whirled round three or four times. I didn't ever know which way to go, and now I'm sure I don't know so well as I did in the first place. If I step any more, perhaps I'll step into some molasses."
Dotty's meditations were becoming more confused than ever. Now it was not only ghosts, but jam and jelly which went to make up the terrors of the situation. But she was growing desperate. She groped right and left, saying to herself,—
At last she came to the door, which she had unconsciously closed when she entered the pantry. She opened it, and her eyes were greeted with light. It was the moon shining in at the kitchen windows.
Her fears vanished. She was just wondering whether to return to the parlor in a forgiving spirit, or to stay away and make everybody unhappy, when a strange, horrible object met her view,—not white, but yellow.
Was it—was it—a truly, truly ghost? O, it must be a ghost on fire! It hadn't any sheet round it. Nothing was to be seen but a hideous head peeping in at the window. No man ever looked like that. No man ever had such a mouth. It was as deep as a cave, and all ablaze. Somebody had gone and swallowed a stove; somebody had come to do—do—O, what had he come to do?