I could pick it up again, couldn't I?"
"You could, but I doubt if you would. You might have ate it, you're
so absent-minded. Nervous! YOU nervous! What do you think of me? Mrs.
Barnes," turning to Thankful and once more resuming the "company"
manner, "you'll excuse our bein' a little upset. You see, when my
brother came home and said he'd seen lights movin' around in the old
Barnes' house, he frightened us all pretty near to death. All Cap'n Obed
could think of was tramps, or thieves or somethin'. Nothin' would do but
he must drag Kenelm right back to see who or what was in there. And I
was left alone to imagine all sorts of dreadful things. Tramps I might
stand. They belong to this world, anyhow. But in THAT house, at eleven
o'clock at night, I--Mrs. Barnes, do you believe in aberrations?"
Thankful was nonplused. "In--in which?" she asked.
"In aberrations, spirits of dead folks comin' alive again?"
For just a moment Mrs. Barnes hesitated. Then she glanced at Emily,
who was trying hard not to smile, and answered, with decision: "No, I
don't."
"Well, I don't either, so far as that goes. I never see one myself, and
I've never seen anybody that has. But when Kenelm came tearin' in to say
he'd seen a light in a house shut up as long as that one has been, and a
house that folks--"
Captain Bangs interrupted. He had been regarding Thankful closely and
now he changed the subject.
"How did it happen you saw that light, Kenelm?" he asked. "What was you
doin' over in that direction a night like this?"
Kenelm hesitated.
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