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“It is the clams.”

All day I hid my sufferings pretty well, but as night approached, and I thought of another lonely vigil in the haunted cottage, my heart began to fail, and, when we sat telling stories in the dusk, a brilliant idea came into my head.

I would relate my ghost story, and rouse the curiosity of the listeners to such a pitch that some of them would offer to share my quarters, in hopes of seeing the spirit of the restless Tucker.

Cheered by this delusive fancy, when my turn came I made a thrilling tale of the night’s adventures, and, having worked my audience up to a flattering state of excitement, paused for applause.

It came in a most unexpected form, however, for Mrs. Grant burst out laughing, and the two boys, Johnny and Joe, rolled off the piazza in convulsions of merriment.

Much disgusted at this unseemly demonstration, I demanded the cause of it, and involuntarily joined in the general shout when Mrs. Grant demolished my ghost by informing me that Bezee Tucker lived, died in, and haunted the tumble-down house at the other end of the lane.

“Then who or what made those mysterious noises?” I asked, relieved but rather nettled at the downfall of my romance.

“My brother Seth,” replied Mrs. Grant, still laughing. “I thought you might be afraid to be there all alone, so he slipped into the bedroom, and I forgot to tell you. He’s a powerful snorer, and that’s one of the awful sounds. The other was the dripping of salt water; for you wanted some, and the girl got it in a leaky pail. Seth wiped up the slops when he came out early in the morning.”

I said nothing about the keyhole view of the harmless razor, but, feeling that I did deserve some credit for my heroic reception of the burglar, I mildly asked if it was the custom in York for men as well as turkeys to roost in trees.

An explosion from the boys extinguished my last hope of glory, for as soon as he could speak Joe answered, unable to resist the joke, though telling it betrayed his own transgressions.

“Johnny planned to be up awful early, and pick the last cherries off that tree. I wanted to get ahead of him, so I sneaked down before light to humbug him, for I was going a-fishing, and we have to be off by four.”

“Did you get your cherries?” I asked, bound to have some of the laugh on my side.

“Guess I didn’t,” grumbled Joe, rubbing his knees, while Johnny added, with an exulting chuckle,–

“He got a horrid scare and a right good scraping, for he didn’t know any one was down there. Couldn’t go fishing either, he was so lame, and I had the cherries after all. Served him right, didn’t it?”

No answer was necessary, for the two lads indulged in a friendly scuffle among the hay-cocks, while Mrs. Grant went off to repeat the tale in the kitchen, whence the sound of a muffled roar soon assured me that Seth was enjoying the joke as well as the rest of us.