'Well, that's the foolishest thing you could do. Look at pap and my mother. Fight! Why, they used to fight all the time. I remember, mighty well.'
'That ain't anything. The girl I'm going to marry won't fight.'
'Tom, I reckon they're all alike. They'll all comb a body. Now you better think 'bout this awhile. I tell you you better. What's the name of the gal?'
'It ain't a gal at all—it's a girl.'
'It's all the same, I reckon; some says gal, some says girl—both's right, like enough. Anyway, what's her name, Tom?'
'I'll tell you some time—not now.'
'All right—that'll do. Only if you get married I'll be more lonesomer than ever.'
'No you won't. You'll come and live with me. Now stir out of this and we'll go to digging.'
They worked and sweated for half an hour. No result. They toiled another halfhour. Still no result. Huck said:
'Do they always bury it as deep as this?'
'Sometimes—not always. Not generally. I reckon we haven't got the right place.'
So they chose a new spot and began again. The labor dragged a little, but still they made progress. They pegged away in silence for some time. Finally Huck leaned on his shovel, swabbed the beaded drops from his brow with his sleeve, and said:
'Where you going to dig next, after we get this one?'
'I reckon maybe we'll tackle the old tree that's over yonder on Cardiff Hill back of the widow's.'
'I reckon that'll be a good one. But won't the widow take it away from us, Tom? It's on her land.'
'SHE take it away! Maybe she'd like to try it once. Whoever finds one of these hid treasures, it belongs to him. It don't make any difference whose land it's on.'
That was satisfactory. The work went on. By and by Huck said:
'Blame it, we must be in the wrong place again. What do you think?'
'It is mighty curious, Huck. I don't understand it. Sometimes witches interfere. I reckon maybe that's what's the trouble now.'
'Shucks! Witches ain't got no power in the daytime.'
'Well, that's so. I didn't think of that. Oh, I know what the matter is! What a blamed lot of fools we are! You got to find out where the shadow of the limb falls at midnight, and that's where you dig!'
'Then consound it, we've fooled away all this work for nothing. Now hang it all, we got to come back in the night. It's an awful long way. Can you get out?'
'I bet I will. We've got to do it tonight, too, because if somebody sees these holes they'll know in a minute what's here and they'll go for it.'
'Well, I'll come around and maow tonight.'
'All right. Let's hide the tools in the bushes.'
The boys were there that night, about the appointed time. They sat in the shadow waiting. It was a lonely place, and an hour made solemn by old traditions. Spirits whispered in the rustling leaves, ghosts lurked in the murky nooks, the deep baying of a hound floated up out of the distance, an owl answered with his sepulchral note. The boys were subdued by these solemnities, and talked little. By and by they judged that twelve had come; they marked where the shadow fell, and began to dig. Their hopes commenced to rise. Their interest grew stronger, and their industry kept pace with it. The hole deepened and still deepened, but every time their hearts jumped to hear the pick strike upon something, they only suffered a new disappointment. It was only a stone or a chunk. At last Tom said:
'It ain't any use, Huck, we're wrong again.'
'Well, but we CAN'T be wrong. We spotted the shadder to a dot.'
'I know it, but then there's another thing.'
'What's that?'.
'Why, we only guessed at the time. Like enough it was too late or too early.'
Huck dropped his shovel.
'That's it,' said he. 'That's the very trouble. We got to give this one up. We can't ever tell the right time, and besides this kind of thing's too awful, here this time of night with witches and ghosts a-fluttering around so. I feel as if something's behind me all the time; and I'm afeard to turn around, becuz maybe there's others in front a- waiting for a chance. I been creeping all over, ever since I got here.'
'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.
CHAPTER XVI
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:
'Lookyhere, Tom, do you know what day it is?'
Tom mentally ran over the days of the week, and then quickly lifted his eyes with a startled look in them—
