Back to the Woods | Page 4

Jiggersville, on the Sitfast & Chewsmoke R.R.,
eighteen miles from Anywhere, hot and cold sidewalks and no
mosquitoes in the winter. Here you are, full particulars," and with this
Bunch handed me a printed card which let me into all the secrets of that
haven of rest in the tall grass.
Bless good old Bunch!
I offered to buy him a quart of Ruinart but he said his thirst wasn't
working, so I had to paddle off home.
That evening for the first time in several weeks I felt like speaking to
myself.
I was the life of the party and I even beamed approvingly when Uncle
Peter tuned up his mezzo contralto voice and began to write a book
about the delights of a country home.
It was a cinch, I assured myself, that the ghost story I had broiled up to
tell on the morrow would send my suburban-mad family scurrying back
to town.
Many times mentally I went over the blood curdling details and I
flattered myself that I surely had a lot of shivery goods for sale.
I couldn't see myself losing at all, at all.
So me for Jiggersville in the morning.

CHAPTER II
.
JOHN HENRY'S GHOST STORY.
When the alarm clock went to work the next morning Clara J. turned
around and gave it a look that made its teeth chatter.
She had been up and doing an hour before that clock grew nervous
enough to crow.
Her enthusiasm was so great that she was a Busy-Lizzie long before 7
o'clock and we were not booked to leave the Choo-Choo House till

10:30.
About 8 o'clock she dragged me away from a dream and I reluctantly
awoke to a realization of the fact that I was due to deliver some goods
which I had never seen and didn't want to see.
"Get up, John!" Clara J. suggested, with a degree of excitement in her
voice; "it's getting dreadfully late and you know I'm all impatience to
see that lovely home you've bought for me in the country!"
[Illustration: Clara J.--A Dream of Peaches--Please Pass the Cream.]
Me under the covers, gnawing holes in the pillow to keep from
swearing.
"Oh, dear me!" she sighed, "I'm afraid I'm just a bit sorry to leave this
sweet little apartment. We've been so happy here, haven't we?"
I grabbed the ball and broke through the center for 10 yards.
"Sorry," I echoed, tearfully; "why, it's breaking my heart to leave this
cozy little collar box of a home and go into a great large country house
full of--of--of rooms, and--er--and windows, and--er--and--er--piazzas,
and--and--and cows and things like that."
"Of course we wouldn't have to keep the cow in the house," she said,
thoughtfully.
"Oh, no," I said, "that's the point. There would be a barn, and you
haven't any idea how dangerous barns are. They are the curse of
country life, barns are."
"Well, then, John, why did you buy the cow?" she inquired, and I went
up and punched a hole in the plaster.
Why did I buy the cow? Was there a cow? Had Bunch ever mentioned
a cow to me? Come to think of it he hadn't and there I was cooking
trouble over a slow fire.
When I came to she was saying quietly, "Besides, I think I'd rather have
a milkman than a cow. Milkmen swear a lot and cheat sometimes but as
a rule they are more trustworthy than cows, and they very seldom chase
anybody. Couldn't you turn the barn into a gymnasium or something?"
"Dearie," I said, trying my level best to get a mist over my lamps so as
to give her the teardrop gaze, "something keeps whispering to me,
'Sidestep that cave in the wilderness!' Something keeps telling me that a
month on the farm will put a crimp in our happiness, and that the
moment we move into a home in the tall grass ill luck will get up and
put the boots to our wedded bliss."

Then I gave an imitation of a choking sob which sounded for all the
world like the last dying shriek of a bathtub when the water is busy
leaving it.
"Nonsense, John!" laughed Clara J.; "it's only natural that you regret
leaving our first home, but after one day in the country you'll be happy
as a king."
"Make it a deuce," I muttered; "a dirty deuce at that."
"Now," she said, joyfully; "I'm going to cook your breakfast. This may
be your very last breakfast in a city apartment for months, maybe years,
so I'm going to cook it myself. I've got every trunk packed--haven't I
worked hard? Get up, you lazy boy!" and with this she danced out of
the room.
Every trunk packed! Did she intend