The Girls of Hillcrest Farm Part 44

"And the other time?"

"On Sat.u.r.day night? I caught him trying to break in at the cellar door.

I warned him not to try no more tricks, and I told him if he did I'd make it public. We ain't been right good friends since," declared Mr.

Pritchett, chewing reflectively on a stalk of gra.s.s.

"And you don't know what it's all about?" demanded Lyddy, disappointedly.

"No more'n you do," declared Mr. Pritchett; "or as much."

"Oh, dear me!" cried Lyddy. "Then I'm just where I was when I started!"

"You wanter watch Jud Spink," grumbled Mr. Pritchett, rising from the fence-rail on which he had been squatting. "Does he want to buy the farm?"

"Why--I guess not. He only made Aunt Jane a small offer for it."

"He'll make a bigger," said Pritchett, clamping his jaws down tight on that word, and turned on his heel.

She knew there was no use in trying to get more out of him then. Cyrus Pritchett had "said his say."

When Lyddy got back to the house again she found that Grandma Castle's folks had come to see her in their big automobile, and she and 'Phemie had to hustle about with Mother Harrison to re-set the enlarged dining table and make other extra preparations for the unexpected visitors.

So busy were they that the girls did not miss Harris Colesworth and his father. They appeared just before the late dinner, rather warm and hungry-looking for the Sabbath, Harris bearing something in his arms carefully wrapped about in newspapers.

"Oh, what have you got?" 'Phemie gasped, having just a minute to speak to the young man.

"Samples of the water Spink has bottled up there," returned Harris.

"What is it?"

"I don't know. But we'll find out. Father has an idea, and if it's _so_----"

"Oh, what?" cried 'Phemie.

"You just wait!" returned Harris, hurrying away.

"Mean thing!" 'Phemie called after him. "You oughtn't to have any dinner."

But there was little chance for Harris to talk with the girls that day.

Before the dinner dishes were cleared away, a thunder cloud suddenly topped the ridge, and soon a furious shower fell, with the thunder reverberating from hill to hill, and the lightning flas.h.i.+ng dazzlingly.

Behind this shower came a wind-storm that threatened, for a couple of hours, to do much damage. Everybody was kept indoors, and as the night fell dark and threatening the Castles had to be put up until morning.

The wind quieted down at last; so did the nervous members of the party inside Hillcrest. When Lyddy and 'Phemie thought almost everybody else was abed but themselves, and they were about to lock up the house and retire, a candle appeared in the long corridor, and behind the candle was Harris Colesworth, fully dressed.

"Sunday is about over, girls," he said, "and I can't possibly sleep. I must do something. Didn't you tell me, Miss 'Phemie, there were retorts and test-tubes, and the like, in your grandfather's rooms?"

"In the east wing?" cried Lyddy.

"Yes."

"Why, the back room was his laboratory. All the things are there," said the younger girl.

"Let me go in there, then," said Harris, eagerly. "I want to test these samples of water father and I brought down from the rocks to-day."

"My mercy me!" gasped 'Phemie. "You don't suppose there's gold--or silver--held in solution in that water----"

Lyddy laughed. "How ridiculous!" she said.

"Perhaps not exactly ridiculous," returned Harris, shaking his head, and smiling.

"Why, Harris Colesworth! who ever heard of such a thing?" cried Lyddy.

"I'm no chemist, but I know _that_ would be impossible."

"Will you let me have the key of the green door?" he demanded.

"Yes!" cried 'Phemie, who had continued to carry it tied around her neck.

"But we'll go with you and see you perform your nefarious rites, Mr.

Magician!"

Lyddy went for a lamp and brought it, lighted. "A candle won't do you much good in there," she said to Harris.

"Verily, it is so!" admitted the young man, with an humble bow.

"Now, let me go first!" cried 'Phemie. "You'd both be scared stiff by my friend, Mr. Boneypart."

"Your friend _who_?" cried Lyddy.

Harris began to laugh. "So you claim Napoleon as your friend; do you, Miss 'Phemie? What do you suppose old Spink thinks about him?"

'Phemie giggled as she ran ahead with the young man's candle and closed the door of the skeleton case in the inner office.

"For the simple tests I have to make," said Harris, as Lyddy's lamp threw a mellow light into the room, "I see no reason why those old tubes won't do. Yes! there's about what I want on that bench."

"But, oh! the dust!" sighed Lyddy, trying to find a clean place on which to set the lamp.

"Your grandfather must have been something of a chemist as well as a medical sharp," observed Harris, gazing about. "I'm curious to look this place over."

"We ought to ask Aunt Jane," said Lyddy, doubtfully. "We really haven't any business in here."

"She's never told us we shouldn't come," 'Phemie returned, quickly.

"Now you young ladies sit down and keep still," commanded Harris, authoritatively, removing his coat and tying an ap.r.o.n around his waist--the ap.r.o.n being produced from his own pocket.

"Now if you had your straw cuffs you'd look just as you used to----"

"At the shop, eh?" finished Harris, when Lyddy caught herself up quick in the middle of this audible comment.

"Ye-es."