CHAPTER XXIX. A WEIRD TALE
On an early June evening Rainbow Valley was an entirely delightful placeand the children felt it to be so, as they sat in the open glade wherethe bells rang elfishly on the Tree Lovers, and the White Lady shookher green tresses. The wind was laughing and whistling about them likea leal, glad-hearted comrade. The young ferns were spicy in the hollow.The wild cherry trees scattered over the valley, among the dark firs,were mistily white. The robins were whistling over in the maples behindIngleside. Beyond, on the slopes of the Glen, were blossoming orchards,sweet and mystic and wonderful, veiled in dusk. It was spring, and youngthings MUST be glad in spring. Everybody was glad in Rainbow Valleythat evening--until Mary Vance froze their blood with the story of HenryWarren's ghost.
Jem was not there. Jem spent his evenings now studying for his entranceexamination in the Ingleside garret. Jerry was down near the pond,trouting. Walter had been reading Longfellow's sea poems to the othersand they were steeped in the beauty and mystery of the ships. Then theytalked of what they would do when they were grown up--where they wouldtravel--the far, fair shores they would see. Nan and Di meant to go toEurope. Walter longed for the Nile moaning past its Egyptian sands, anda glimpse of the sphinx. Faith opined rather dismally that she supposedshe would have to be a missionary--old Mrs. Taylor told her she oughtto be--and then she would at least see India or China, those mysteriouslands of the Orient. Carl's heart was set on African jungles. Unasaid nothing. She thought she would just like to stay at home. It wasprettier here than anywhere else. It would be dreadful when they wereall grown up and had to scatter over the world. The very idea made Unafeel lonesome and homesick. But the others dreamed on delightedly untilMary Vance arrived and vanished poesy and dreams at one fell swoop.
"Laws, but I'm out of puff," she exclaimed. "I've run down that hilllike sixty. I got an awful scare up there at the old Bailey place."
"What frightened you?" asked Di.
"I dunno. I was poking about under them lilacs in the old garden, tryingto see if there was any lilies-of-the-valley out yet. It was dark asa pocket there--and all at once I seen something stirring and rustlinground at the other side of the garden, in those cherry bushes. It wasWHITE. I tell you I didn't stop for a second look. I flew over the dykequicker than quick. I was sure it was Henry Warren's ghost."
"Who was Henry Warren?" asked Di.
"And why should he have a ghost?" asked Nan.
"Laws, did you never hear the story? And you brought up in the Glen.Well, wait a minute till I get by breath all back and I'll tell you."
Walter shivered delightsomely. He loved ghost stories. Their mystery,their dramatic climaxes, their eeriness gave him a fearful, exquisitepleasure. Longfellow instantly grew tame and commonplace. He threw thebook aside and stretched himself out, propped upon his elbows to listenwhole-heartedly, fixing his great luminous eyes on Mary's face. Marywished he wouldn't look at her so. She felt she could make a better jobof the ghost story if Walter were not looking at her. She could put onseveral frills and invent a few artistic details to enhance the horror.As it was, she had to stick to the bare truth--or what had been told herfor the truth.
"Well," she began, "you know old Tom Bailey and his wife used to live inthat house up there thirty years ago. He was an awful old rip, they say,and his wife wasn't much better. They'd no children of their own, but asister of old Tom's died and left a little boy--this Henry Warren--andthey took him. He was about twelve when he came to them, and kind ofundersized and delicate. They say Tom and his wife used him awful fromthe start--whipped him and starved him. Folks said they wanted him todie so's they could get the little bit of money his mother had left forhim. Henry didn't die right off, but he begun having fits--epileps, theycalled 'em--and he grew up kind of simple, till he was about eighteen.His uncle used to thrash him in that garden up there 'cause it was backof the house where no one could see him. But folks could hear, and theysay it was awful sometimes hearing poor Henry plead with his unclenot to kill him. But nobody dared interfere 'cause old Tom was such areprobate he'd have been sure to get square with 'em some way. He burnedthe barns of a man at Harbour Head who offended him. At last Henry diedand his uncle and aunt give out he died in one of his fits and that wasall anybody ever knowed, but everybody said Tom had just up and killedhim for keeps at last. And it wasn't long till it got around that HenryWALKED. That old garden was HA'NTED. He was heard there at nights,moaning and crying. Old Tom and his wife got out--went out West andnever came back. The place got such a bad name nobody'd buy or rent it.That's why it's all gone to ruin. That was thirty years ago, but HenryWarren's ghost ha'nts it yet."
"Do you believe that?" asked Nan scornfully. "_I_ don't."
"Well, GOOD people have seen him--and heard him." retorted Mary. "Theysay he appears and grovels on the ground and holds you by the legs andgibbers and moans like he did when he was alive. I thought of that assoon as I seen that white thing in the bushes and thought if it caughtme like that and moaned I'd drop down dead on the spot. So I cut andrun. It MIGHTN'T have been his ghost, but I wasn't going to take anychances with a ha'nt."
"It was likely old Mrs. Stimson's white calf," laughed Di. "It pasturesin that garden--I've seen it."
"Maybe so. But I'M not going home through the Bailey garden any more.Here's Jerry with a big string of trout and it's my turn to cook them.Jem and Jerry both say I'm the best cook in the Glen. And Cornelia toldme I could bring up this batch of cookies. I all but dropped them when Isaw Henry's ghost."
Jerry hooted when he heard the ghost story--which Mary repeated as shefried the fish, touching it up a trifle or so, since Walter had gone tohelp Faith to set the table. It made no impression on Jerry, but Faithand Una and Carl had been secretly much frightened, though they wouldnever have given in to it. It was all right as long as the others werewith them in the valley: but when the feast was over and the shadowsfell they quaked with remembrance. Jerry went up to Ingleside with theBlythes to see Jem about something, and Mary Vance went around that wayhome. So Faith and Una and Carl had to go back to the manse alone. Theywalked very close together and gave the old Bailey garden a wide berth.They did not believe that it was haunted, of course, but they would notgo near it for all that.