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Page 49
"My goodness!" gasped Mrs. Townsend. Her face assumed a strange
gathering of wrath in the midst of her terror. Suddenly she made a
determined move forward, although her husband strove to hold her
back.
"You let me be," said she. She moved forward. Then she recoiled
and gave a loud shriek. "The wet sheet flapped in my face," she
cried. "Take me away, take me away!" Then she fainted. Between
them they got her back to the house. "It was awful," she moaned
when she came to herself, with the family all around her where she
lay on the dining-room floor. "Oh, David, what do you suppose it
is?"
"Nothing at all," replied David Townsend stoutly. He was
remarkable for courage and staunch belief in actualities. He was
now denying to himself that he had seen anything unusual.
"Oh, there was," moaned his wife.
"I saw something," said George, in a sullen, boyish bass.
The maid sobbed convulsively and so did Adrianna for sympathy.
"We won't talk any about it," said David. "Here, Jane, you drink
this hot tea--it will do you good; and Cordelia, you hang out the
clothes in our own yard. George, you go and put up the line for
her."
"The line is out there," said George, with a jerk of his shoulder.
"Are you afraid?"
"No, I ain't," replied the boy resentfully, and went out with a
pale face.
After that Cordelia hung the Townsend wash in the yard of their own
house, standing always with her back to the vacant lot. As for
David Townsend, he spent a good deal of his time in the lot
watching the shadows, but he came to no explanation, although he
strove to satisfy himself with many.
"I guess the shadows come from the smoke from our chimneys, or else
the poplar tree," he said.
"Why do the shadows come on Monday mornings, and no other?"
demanded his wife.
David was silent.
Very soon new mysteries arose. One day Cordelia rang the dinner-
bell at their usual dinner hour, the same as in Townsend Centre,
high noon, and the family assembled. With amazement Adrianna
looked at the dishes on the table.
"Why, that's queer!" she said.
"What's queer?" asked her mother.
Cordelia stopped short as she was about setting a tumbler of water
beside a plate, and the water slopped over.
"Why," said Adrianna, her face paling, "I--thought there was boiled
dinner. I--smelt cabbage cooking."
"I knew there would something else come up," gasped Cordelia,
leaning hard on the back of Adrianna's chair.
"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Townsend sharply, but her own face
began to assume the shocked pallour which it was so easy nowadays
for all their faces to assume at the merest suggestion of anything
out of the common.
"I smelt cabbage cooking all the morning up in my room," Adrianna
said faintly, "and here's codfish and potatoes for dinner."
The Townsends all looked at one another. David rose with an
exclamation and rushed out of the room. The others waited
tremblingly. When he came back his face was lowering.
"What did you--" Mrs. Townsend asked hesitatingly.
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