Page:To-morrow Morning (1927).pdf/253

 pushing rods through curtains. They had done wonders, Kate especially, since their first horrified outcries when Joe and Evelyn bought the haunted house. Then the old woman's life work of cut paper still rustled at windows, at doors, from mantelpieces, fly-spotted and torn. The house was curtained with stars, flowers, patterns of snowflakes, filth. It spoke in sighs, and with a small complaining voice as the wind ran up and down its uncarpeted stairs or cried through the broken windows. When rain fell and the staring eyes streamed with tears, milk pails had to be set here and there, under leaks, and the plop-plop of the drops sounded like plucked strings. The attic, the crazy brain of the house, swarmed with mice and weaving spiders. But now Joe and Evelyn had been living there for a week, and after to-day there would be nothing more for Kate to do.

She had her white walls and orange curtains at last, though they were in Joe's house. She had suggested them, because Evelyn seemed so vague about what she did want, so indifferent to all the practical details. Perhaps I'm doing too much, Kate thought. Perhaps I'm being a regular Mrs. Buttinsky. But somebody's got to do things, and Evelyn won't. And, anyway, I want to save her as much as I can just now. I'll leave them alone after to-morrow, though goodness knows how they'll manage.

"Tack hammer! Tack hammer!" she called to Carrie.