“Well, I’ve been pretty much so, too,
Huck. They most always put in a dead man when
they bury a treasure under a tree, to look out for
it.”
“Lordy!”
“Yes, they do. I’ve always heard
that.”
“Tom, I don’t like to fool around much
where there’s dead people. A body’s
bound to get into trouble with ’em, sure.”
“I don’t like to stir ’em up, either.
S’pose this one here was to stick his skull
out and say something!”
“Don’t Tom! It’s awful.”
“Well, it just is. Huck, I don’t
feel comfortable a bit.”
“Say, Tom, let’s give this place up, and
try somewheres else.”
“All right, I reckon we better.”
“What’ll it be?”
Tom considered awhile; and then said:
“The ha’nted house. That’s
it!”
“Blame it, I don’t like ha’nted
houses, Tom. Why, they’re a dern sight
worse’n dead people. Dead people might talk,
maybe, but they don’t come sliding around in
a shroud, when you ain’t noticing, and peep over
your shoulder all of a sudden and grit their teeth,
the way a ghost does. I couldn’t stand
such a thing as that, Tom—nobody could.”
“Yes, but, Huck, ghosts don’t travel around
only at night. They won’t hender us from
digging there in the daytime.”
“Well, that’s so. But you know mighty
well people don’t go about that ha’nted
house in the day nor the night.”
“Well, that’s mostly because they don’t
like to go where a man’s been murdered, anyway—but
nothing’s ever been seen around that house except
in the night—just some blue lights slipping
by the windows—no regular ghosts.”
“Well, where you see one of them blue lights
flickering around, Tom, you can bet there’s
a ghost mighty close behind it. It stands to
reason. Becuz you know that they don’t anybody
but ghosts use ’em.”
“Yes, that’s so. But anyway they
don’t come around in the daytime, so what’s
the use of our being afeard?”
“Well, all right. We’ll tackle the
ha’nted house if you say so—but I
reckon it’s taking chances.”
They had started down the hill by this time.
There in the middle of the moonlit valley below them
stood the “ha’nted” house, utterly
isolated, its fences gone long ago, rank weeds smothering
the very doorsteps, the chimney crumbled to ruin,
the window-sashes vacant, a corner of the roof caved
in. The boys gazed awhile, half expecting to
see a blue light flit past a window; then talking in
a low tone, as befitted the time and the circumstances,
they struck far off to the right, to give the haunted
house a wide berth, and took their way homeward through
the woods that adorned the rearward side of Cardiff
Hill.
About noon the next day the boys arrived at the
dead tree; they had come for their tools. Tom
was impatient to go to the haunted house; Huck was
measurably so, also—but suddenly said:
