Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/257

 decided we were a-goin' to find out about that ghost. Saturdays we 'd crawl in through the fence, and wriggle in past the burdocks, and shove through the bushes, and each time we 'd get able to come a little nearer to the house itself without turnin' tail every minute a squirrel ran up a tree.

"Well, Speck and me were nosin' round there one Saturday afternoon, wonderin' what made that house look so uncommon like a big white tombstone, when Speck drops flat down on his stummick, injun-fashion, and pulls me down after him. 'Did you see her?' he whispers to me, kind o' blue around the gills, and shakin' as though he had the fever-'n-ague. 'What?' I says, tryin' to look up through the bushes. But Speck, he hauled me down. 'Don't you take no risks like that. Lonely,' he says, with his teeth a-shakin'. And I began to feel kind o' creepish and queer-like, it was beginnin' to get so dark and quiet in there. Then Speck he says 'Hssssh!' all of a sudden, and I peeked up through the mullein and ragweed, and then I seen it!"

"What was it?" demanded Pinkie Ball, with blanching cheeks.