Page:Weird Tales volume 42 number 04.djvu/82

 ell—a typical New England farmhouse. Built a century and a half ago, it appears to be in sound condition. The hand-hewn timbers, tenon and mortice and trunnel-fitted, the pine panelling throughout downstairs acknowledge this antiquity, and conceivably help provide whatever susceptibility may be needed for psychic manifestations. It is neither extremely isolated or otherwise, though it would appear so to a city-dweller, for seventy-five yards separate it from the nearest neighbors. The location on the edge of Whittaker Intervale, against the wooded slopes of Dawn Mountain would be agreeable, though lonely in winter when the sun goes down early in the afternoon.

Anne Orne, Oliver's wife, is a small, energetic woman who does a great deal of work, though with all the stir of a wren in a dust-bath. Oliver also is a worker, running his own extensive farm and hiring out with his tractor and other farm and lumbering machinery. Eliza Blaine is an attractive, well-bred girl of fifteen, with large brown eyes and brown hair. Judging by her voice and manners she would appear to be of an even, genial disposition, without perceptible neurotic tendencies surely. She had been adopted the summer before, following the death of her father, a distant relative of Mrs. Orne. Before coming to Whittaker Intervale she had lived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where her father had given her a number of benefits in education and upbringing.

The first occurrence prior to my arrival at the Orne Place, was in April. Eliza had just bidden her foster parents good night at the door leading from the kitchen which shuts off the back stairs and prevents drafts from dispelling the heat in winter. Oliver saw the door shut, and heard the girl's footsteps ascending the stairs. Then, half a beat behind them another footstep started up. Eliza was nearly at the top of the stairs before Oliver gathered his wits and opened the door. She was alone there, turning to look down at him beneath the bare light bulb. Her face wore a strange, devilish smile, compounded of mockery, yet fearfully, terribly alien.

Oliver stood dumbfounded, turning over in his mind whether Eliza had somehow prankishly skipped upstairs, but was unable to fit this deviltry with her character. So he ended up, staring gape-jawed until she turned, snapping off the light and proceeding in the dark to the next light switch just inside her room. When Oliver turned back into the kitchen, his wife looked up, nonplussed, from her darning. Their discussion made no headway with the matter, partly perhaps since Oliver somehow omitted telling his wife of Eliza's strange expression. They concluded that this might have been a freak of sound involving the wood frame of the old house, and called to mind reports of similar happenings.

N THE latter part of May on a rainy afternoon, the minister, Mr. Brainerd, came to call. Mrs. Orne was in the kitchen frying doughnuts, while Eliza was washing clothes, using set-tubs and a washing machine in the ell, also connected to the kitchen by a door. Mrs. Orne naturally exclaimed regarding the condition of the house, her hair and dress while Mr. Brainerd climbed from his car. Nevertheless, after shedding these fluttering preliminaries of a parishional call, she had settled Mr. Brainerd, a young, easygoing fellow, over coffee, fresh doughnuts and discreet gossip. He sat facing the open ell door, where Eliza was continuing her work. His coffee cup was halfway to his lips, which were pursed with intent to retract if the liquid proved too hot, when a cake of soap floated through the air coming from the ell and swinging in a near ninety degree arc, to settle in the soap dish by the kitchen sink. That was one cup of coffee Mr. Brainerd did not drink.

Several minutes later, when Mr. Brainerd and Anne Orne looked into the ell they found Eliza caught by nervous laughter, badly convulsed, apparently from the effort of her performance. Indeed the two mystified witnesses had to put her on the front room couch and minister to her with damp cloths, smelling salts, or whatever they thought best. There was no trace of the diabolical about her expression then. On