for the telltale scent of fear, but there was none, and without warning he rose and lapped Nath’s face from ear to ear.
“Gee!” gasped Nath. “Half of me is washed already!” Meg laughed. She worked the pump while he sloshed the hay dust out of his hair and off his arms. “Some pond,” he continued, with a nod toward the tarn. He tucked in his shirt and put on his jacket. “Deep?”
“You bet,” said Meg. “But you’ll find a path to the right that hugs the water all the way round until it meets the road through Oxhead Woods. Let’s go in, Nath; it’s getting sort of cold.”
At Yocum Farm any meal was an event, but supper especially so. Heavy food was passed at midday, but along toward evening either Ellen or Lottie would get to fidgeting around the range, and, first thing you knew, delectable odors would start drifting through the house. Leek-and-potato soup has a fine smell to it, so have roasting spareribs, but perfume is the word for popovers. After perhaps only an apple and a piece of cake for lunch, Meg’s mouth would get to watering so she couldn’t speak without sputtering. But tonight topped all the suppers she could remember, with Nath so filled with wonderment that his eyes worked harder than his jaws.
Since the age of ten, he had hired out occasionally and seen a sight of farmhouses, but never any like this. An aura of abundance with Pete as its hub embraced the generous-sized logs alight in the big fireplace, and all the furniture was ponderous. Even the built-in corner cupboard was twice as big as ordinary, and Lottie, waiting on table, added an exotic note. She was imperturbable and strange, and gave him a sense of having invaded a foreign land. On the surface, everything seemed tranquil, yet he was troubled by a shadow. He happened to glance at Pete’s pudgy little hands, and the shadow took on the form of a horseshoe slowly straightening.
“What’s the matter, Nath?” asked Ellen with a smile. “Can’t you eat?”
He colored and dug in, making up for lost time so fast that he finished as soon as Meg. At home he would have helped with the dishes, and it made him nervous just to sit around while one person did all the work. He felt he ought to go, but Pete hadn’t paid him yet, and it seemed cheap to ask for a measly fifty cents. The sun had set, and as darkness billowed in from the eastern windows over the tarn, Lottie finished her work and left. Pete backed his chair well away from the table, and Ellen and Meg went to sit near the fire. Nath rose and stood uncertainly.
“Come take a seat, Nath,” said Meg.
Perhaps she was wondering why he was hanging around, not knowing he hadn’t received his pay. In the dimming light she seemed unlike any girl at all, a shadowy substance strangely illumined from within. He glanced at Pete and promptly forgot Meg. Sitting enthroned in his big chair at the outermost edge of the fire’s glow, Pete appeared to be in the process of enlarging, as if he could make his great bulk swell out at will like a toad. That wasn’t all. His gaze had an intensity that gave Nath the creeps. He decided he wouldn’t bother about the fifty cents, and turned to go.
“Guess I better not,” he said: “it’s getting late.”
Pete gave a labored puff, not his usual quick explosion. “Which way was you aiming to go, boy?” he asked.
“Why,” said Nath, puzzled, “through Oxhead Woods, to save all of three miles.”
“I wouldn’t attempt it if I was you,” said Pete, “no, sir. Shortest ain’t always the quickest by a long shot.”
Nath stood frowning, trying to figure what the old goat was driving at. What did it matter, anyway? “Guess that’s right,” he agreed. “Well, good night and thanks for the supper.”
“Reckon you’ve never heard tell of the jumpity Red House,” said Pete.
Nath stopped again. “What kind of house?” he asked.
“Jumpity,” repeated Pete. “Set yourself down and I’ll tell ye.”
Ellen cast Pete a curious glance. “You’ll do nothing of the sort,” she said. “Let the boy go.”
“Set,” urged Pete softly, as though she hadn’t spoken. “Later, you’ll be right thankful I told ye the tale.”
Nath sank tentatively on the edge of a chair. “All right,” he said, “if it ain’t too long.”
“Forty-nine year ago,” said Pete, “the Red House stood at the fork of Deep Tun in the depths of the Barrens, where it sprung from the soil a hundred year afore that. But it don’t stand there no more.”
“Well,” said Nath, half rising, “I guess you’d better finish it tomorrow, Mr. Pete. I guess perhaps I’d better get going.”
“Funny thing about that house,” continued Pete, his eyes reaching out from the gloom as strong as two hands to push Nath back into his chair. “Lots of folks has seen it since it moved from where it was, the only house on record that has ever traveled up and down and across by night, looking for a man.”
“But that’s plumb crazy!” exclaimed Nath impatiently.
“Sounds so,” admitted Pete. “But it wa’n’t no big house and it’s been seen in five places in the last forty-eight year to the certain knowledge of God-fearing men. Always by night and in some darksome hollow. Far apart as Frog Ocean or the sump that feeds into Millington Creek.” He cleared his throat so sharply it gave everybody a scare, and spat toward the fireplace. “The house itself ain’t much, but the screams that comes out of it, once heard, they anchors a man inside his flesh, piling the flesh on year by year.”
Nath laughed out loud, more of a bark than a laugh. “Is that what happened to you, Mr. Pete?”
Across the semidarkness, Pete’s little eyes broadened into a glare. “Yes, sir,” he said, “it was.”
A moment ago he had seemed funny, trying to make a scare out of growing fat. But now? What about the horseshoe? Had that been funny? Perhaps just flesh could become a prison stronger than walls of stone, and if Pete’s bulk lay heavier on his soul than cross and crown of thorns, why shouldn’t he pick on weight as the scariest curse of all?
“Shame on you, Pete,” said Ellen, suddenly breaking into the silence. “Let the boy run along home.”
“Why would I?” asked Pete sharply. “What have I got ag’in’ Nath? So be he’ll promise to go back by the County Road, well and good. But not through Oxhead Woods.”
“Aw, why not?” said Nath, wondering to find his mouth dry.
“Because that’s where it happened to me,” said Pete, “no further from here than the middle of Oxhead Woods. Perhaps it’s there again, perhaps it ain’t. But if it is, the sound you’ll hear will lay weight to your bones all the years of your life. Want I should tell you when and where to look?”
Nath glanced uneasily at Miss Ellen, hoping she might say something that would show up Pete for a fraud and shatter this foolish tensity with a cackle of laughter. But to his dismay, though she held no needles, Ellen’s fingers were working as if she were knitting fast.
“Go ahead,” said Nath loudly. “Tell me where to look.”
“It would be after you pass the far end of the tarn,” said Pete quietly, “the place where the bridge is broke and you have to jump across the black hole that once was the start of a
