In the Closed Room | Page 7

Jane Foster called out. "Come here with your basket;
what you staying for?"
Judith returned to her.

"We've got to get a move on," said Jane, "or we shan't get nothin' done
before supper time. What was you lookin' at?"
"There's a picture in there of a little girl I know," Judith said. "I don't
know her name, but I saw her in the Park once and--and I dreamed
about her."
"Dreamed about her? If that ain't queer. Well, we've got to hurry up.
Here's some more of them dropped flowers. Give me the basket."
They went through the whole house together, from room to room, up
the many stairs, from floor to floor, and everywhere Judith felt the
curious stillness and silence. It can not be doubted that Jane Foster felt
it also.
"It is the stillest house I was ever in," she said. "I'm glad I've got you
with me, Judy. If I was sole alone I believe it 'ud give me the creeps.
These big places ought to have big families in them."
It was on the fourth floor that they came upon the Closed Room. Jane
had found some of the doors shut and some open, but a turn of the
handle gave entrance through all the unopened ones until they reached
this one at the back on the fourth floor.
"This one won't open," Jane said, when she tried the handle. Then she
shook it once or twice. "No, it's locked," she decided after an effort or
two. "There, I've just remembered. There's one kept locked. Folks
always has things they want locked up. I'll make sure, though."
She shook it, turned the handle, shook again, pressed her knee against
the panel. The lock resisted all effort.
"Yes, this is the closed one," she made up her mind. "It's locked hard
and fast. It's the closed one."
It was logically proved to be the closed one by the fact that she found
no other one locked as she finished her round of the chambers.

Judith was a little tired before they had done their work. But her
wandering pilgrimage through the large, silent, deserted house had been
a revelation of new emotions to her. She was always a silent child. Her
mind was so full of strange thoughts that it seemed unnecessary to say
many words. The things she thought as she followed her from room to
room, from floor to floor, until they reached the locked door, would
have amazed and puzzled Jane Foster if she had known of their
existence. Most of all, perhaps, she would have been puzzled by the
effect the closed door had upon the child. It puzzled and bewildered
Judith herself and made her feel a little weary.
She wanted so much to go into the room. Without in the least
understanding the feeling, she was quite shaken by it. It seemed as if
the closing of all the other rooms would have been a small matter in
comparison with the closing of this one. There was something inside
which she wanted to see--there was something--somehow there was
something which wanted to see her. What a pity that the door was
locked! Why had it been done? She sighed unconsciously several times
during the evening, and Jane Foster thought she was tired.
"But you'll sleep cool enough to-night, Judy," she said. "And get a good
rest. Them little breezes that comes rustling through the trees in the
Park comes right along the street to us."
She and Jem Foster slept well. They spent the evening in the highest
spirits and--as it seemed to them--the most luxurious comfort. The
space afforded them by the big basement, with its kitchen and laundry
and pantry, and, above all, the specially large room which had been
used for billiard playing, supplied actual vistas. For the sake of
convenience and coolness they used the billiard room as a dormitory,
sleeping on light cots, and they slept with all their windows open, the
little breezes wandering from among the trees of the Park to fan them.
How they laughed and enjoyed themselves over their supper, and how
they stretched themselves out with sighs of joy in the darkness as they
sank into the cool, untroubled waters of deep sleep.
"This is about the top notch," Jem murmured as he lost his hold on the
world of waking life and work.

But though she was cool, though she was undisturbed, though her body
rested in absolute repose, Judith did not sleep for a long time. She lay
and listened to the quietness. There was mystery in it. The footstep of a
belated passer-by in the street woke strange echoes; a voice heard in the
distance in a riotous shout suggested weird things. And as she lay and
listened, it