“That’s what it’s doin’ the noo,” exclaimed Pat. “It’s ownly a praste can do anythin’ right for that same bill.”
“That’s my opinion,” said Zeb, solemnly. “Those ghosts from Mrs. Wood’s are at it in broad daylight. What are we coming to?”
If the wind had been a steady one there is really no telling what the result might have been, but the lulls were so frequent and so prolonged that the intervals of silence became more difficult to comprehend than even the sudden outbreaks of half-tipsy tolling.
“Come, Val,” said Zeb, as he and the boys cut short their watery fun and began to dress themselves. “It’s time we were on hand at the Academy. They’re pretty sure to get at it this time, and I’m almost sorry we set it a-going.”
Stronger and stronger blew the western blast, as the boys marched up the street and across the green, and wilder and more protracted were the bell’s expressions of its sorrow for the loss of Bar Vernon.
“Quite a crowd of mourners, I declare,” remarked Zeb, as he pointed to the assemblage on the Academy steps and scattered over the green before it. “The bell has done well.”
A few minutes later, however, there was indeed a commotion.
There were more than a few of the female population of Ogleport whose curiosity had brought them out upon the green, just when they should have been at home getting supper ready; but now, out from the Academy door, followed in dubious silence by her husband, strode the triumphant spouse of Dr. Dryer.
“There!” she exclaimed, as she pitched Bar Vernon’s invention down upon the grass, “it was that thing did it. All it needed was a woman to find it out. That’s your ghost. Now, Dr. Dryer, I’d like you to find out who put it up there. Zebedee Fuller, come here!”
Zeb promptly responded, with Val at his side, and there were auditors in almost uncomfortable abundance.