Ghost of Opalina, The by Bacon Peggy

Author:Bacon, Peggy [Bacon, Peggy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Juvenile, Animals, Cats
Publisher: Unofficial e-book edition / Plusle
Published: 2012-05-23T04:01:41+00:00

The fire died to a rosy bed of embers. There was a long pause. Patrick and Pelley were feeling warm and drowsy when Batsy stood up, kicked the ashes over the smoldering coals and announced: “I’ll be takin’ yer home.”

The words immediately reminded the twins of the punishment still hanging over them and conjured up a picture of their infuriated grandfather waiting in the hall with a riding whip.

“Do we have to go now?” Patrick groaned.

“It’s so far!” moaned Pelley.

‘Tain’t so far, as the crow flies,” Batsy asserted. “You come the longest way, by the trail. I got a shortcut.”

“But the woods are so dark!” Pat protested.

“Shucks!” said Batsy stoutly. “I kin lead yer.”

“Can’t we stay here with you?” Pelley pleaded.

“Couldn’t we stay till tomorrow?” Pat put in.

“Mother and Father often let us sleep out.”

“It’s a warm night.”

“Couldn’t we stay with you till we go the farm?”

“That’s only four more days,” Pelley wheedled.

“We won’t be any trouble,” Patrick coaxed.

“We can help you gather firewood.”

“We’ll help you fish.”

“We can go hunting with you!”

“Oh, please let us stay!”

“Please do! Oh, please!”

Batsy was astonished, also flattered. He scratched his head and scrabbled in his beard. “I thought yer had to go home.”

“But it’s too late.”

Batsy was puzzled. “What yer mean, too late?”

“Dinner was over long ago,” said Pelley.

“Yer et, didn’t yer?” Batsy sounded injured. “Didn’t yer git enough?”

“Yes, of course! But Grandpa will thrash us.”

“Thrash yer! What for?”

“For being late to dinner.”

“Thrash yer fer nothin’ but that?” Batsy was shocked.

If the twins found it hard to understand why they should have to be on time for meals, it was utterly incomprehensible to Batsy Diggs, who had never owned a clock. Batsy’s dinner was a three-act play: he caught it, then he cooked it, then he ate it, no matter what the hour happened to be. He knew that the villagers lived otherwise, buying their food lazily in shops and eating regularly three times a day — a greedy, pampered contemptible way of life it seemed to Batsy Diggs, child of nature.

Had he been able to observe the to-do that went on in the Cumberland dining room at seven o’clock each night, he would have been even more baffled: the table spread with damask and loaded with silver, crystal, porcelain, flowers, lighted candelabra; the constant changing of plates, the many courses served by the lordly butler and liveried footman, the lace doilies, the finger bowls, the peppermints! And Mr. and Mrs. Cumberland presiding, like human peacocks in their fuss and feathers! Knowing nothing of the worldly customs that made the dinner hour so important, Batsy concluded that Mr. Cumberland must be an unreasonable man with a cruel disposition.

“Poor little fellers!” he thought. “I’ll keep ‘em away from that ornery granpaw fer a coupla days.” Aloud he said: “Reckon yer folks would let yer stick around here?”

“I don’t see why not,” said optimistic Pelley.

“I don’t think Grandpa and Grandma like to have us there too much,” Pat said dolefully.

Batsy pondered, tugging at his beard. There was a problem.

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