The Stone Image | Page 6

cuddled in both of hers, we
agreed to oust the stone demon from the house before another night.
Getting rid of a statue, however, especially one like ours, is often more
easily discussed than accomplished. First, the thing weighed nearly two
hundred pounds; second, it was fragile to an unbelievable degree and
had to be handled as carefully as high explosive; lastly, it had cost us
nearly five hundred dollars--and wasn't entirely paid for. I would gladly
have forfeited the unpaid balance for the pleasure of smashing the
hateful thing into smithereens; but Betty's frugal soul revolted at the
mere suggestion. Ready as she is to pauperize herself--and me--for new
things, Betty would sooner part with an arm than suffer a loss on any
article once in her possession.

Then, too, the image had to be crated and packed before any drayman
would consent to handle it; so, pending the time it could be properly
prepared for its journey to the auction rooms, we wrapped it in rugs and
stood it in a secluded corner of the backyard, where it stared in hooded
fury at the blank wall of the garage and attracted the speculative
interest of all the small boys in the neighborhood.
I was forever going to take a day off and box the thing up properly, but
like the man who pleaded inclement weather as an excuse for not
mending his leaking roof when it was raining, and lack of necessity
when the weather was fine, I delayed the operation from day to day,
while the image stood unpacked, save for its covering of carpet.
"You'd better get someone out from the city to crate that thing today,"
Betty advised me one morning about three weeks after the statue had
been evicted from the house.
"Um-m?" I answered absently, engrossed in a combination of toast,
coffee, and the morning's paper.
"Yes, you would," she repeated, "or I'll be leaving the house. Look!"
She pointed through the dining-room window to the backyard.
I looked, and set my paper down suddenly, swallowing several
mouthfuls of air in quick succession as I did so. "It can't be!" I
ejaculated.
"But it is," Betty insisted.
And it was. The image was nearer the house by twenty feet than it had
been the night before. "How the devil did it get there?" I asked
querulously of nobody in particular.
"I--I d-don't know," Betty faltered. But from the shakiness of her voice
and the wideness of her eyes I knew that she had her own opinion.
"Well, it can't have walked there, you know," I argued.

"N-no, of course not," Betty agreed a trifle too readily.
I went out to investigate, not stopping to put on either hat or overcoat.
There was no doubt about it; the thing had moved nearer the house
since darkness the day before. "Some of the neighborhood boys must
have decided to play a joke on us, and moved the thing during the
night," I explained, after looking the ground over. "They probably
intended to set it up on the front lawn, but gave it up when they found
out how heavy it was."
"Yes, that must be it," Betty concurred rather unsteadily. "It simply
couldn't have walked there itself," she repeated, as if anxious to
convince herself of the impossibility of any such thing having
happened.
With the aid of our Swedish maid, who was as strong as any man and
twice as clumsy, we replaced the statue and returned to the house, I to
finish my interrupted breakfast, Betty to chirp happily over the details
of the dance we were going to attend that night.
By the time I returned to the house that evening I had developed one of
the worst head colds it had ever been my misfortune to acquire, due to
my hatless excursion into the yard that morning. Every other breath
was followed by a sniff, and each time I spoke the remark was
punctuated by a sneeze. In such a condition my attendance at the dance
was quite impossible.
"Another score I owe that cursed image," I muttered as I discarded the
fifth handkerchief I had used that day and unfolded the sixth.
Betty's sympathy for me was matched only by her disappointment at
missing the dance. "Miss the dance?" I echoed as I brought my seventh
handkerchief into play. "Who said you'd have to miss the dance? You
can go with Frank and Edith Horton in their car, and they can drop you
here on the way home."
"And you won't mind staying here alone, and won't get sick, old dear?"
Betty asked as she picked up the telephone to tell the Hortons to call for

her. "Doctor Towbridge will be there tonight, I know, and I'll bring him
home with me, if