The Boarded-Up House by C. Clyde Squires Read Free Book Online Page B

day! The twin brother did something she didn’t like, and she turned his picture to the wall. Hers happened to be in the same frame too, but she evidently didn’t care about that. Now what have you to say, Cynthia Sprague?”
    â€œYou must be right,” admitted Cynthia. “I thought we were ‘stumped’ again when I first saw that picture, but it’s been of some use, after all. Do you suppose the miniature was a copy of the same thing?”
    â€œIt may have been, or perhaps it was just the brother alone when he was older. We can’t tell about that.” All this while Cynthia had been standing, candle in one hand and dust-cloth in the other. At that point she put the candlestick on the table and stood gazing intently at the dust-cloth. Presently she spoke:
    â€œJoyce, do you think there would be any harm in my doing something I’ve longed to do ever since we first entered this house?”
    â€œWhat in the world is that?” queried Joyce.
    â€œWhy, I want to dust this place, and clear out of the way some of the dirt and cobwebs! They worry me terribly. And, besides, I’d like to see what this lovely furniture looks like without such quantities of dust all over it.”
    â€œGood scheme, Cyn!” cried Joyce, instantly delighted with the new idea. “I’ll tell you what! We’ll come in here this afternoon with old clothes on, and have a regular house-cleaning! It can’t hurt anything, I’m sure, for we won’t disturb things at all. I’ll bring a dust-cloth, too, and an old broom. But let’s go and finish our studying now, and get that out of the way. Hurrah for house-cleaning, this afternoon!”
    Filled with fresh enthusiasm, the two girls rushed out to hurry through the necessary studies before the anticipated picnic of the afternoon. If their respective mothers had requested them to perform so arduous a task as this at home, they would, without doubt, have been instantly plunged into deep despair. But because they were to execute the work in an old deserted mansion saturated with mystery, no pleasure they could think of was to be compared with it. This thought, however, did not enter the heads of the enthusiastic pair.
    Smuggling the house-cleaning paraphernalia into the cellar window, unobserved, that afternoon, proved no easy task, for Cynthia had added a whisk-broom and dust-pan to the outfit. Joyce came to the fray with an old broom and a dust-cloth, which latter she thought she had carefully concealed under her sweater, But a long end soon worked out and trailed behind her unnoticed, till Goliath, basking on the veranda steps, spied it. The lure proved too much for him, and he came sporting after it, as friskily as a young kitten, much to Cynthia’s delight when she caught sight of him.
    â€œOh, let him come along!” she urged. “I do love to see him about that old house. He makes it sort of cozier. And, besides, he seems to belong to it, anyway. You know he discovered it first!” And so Goliath followed into the Boarded-up House.
    They began on the drawing-room. Before they had been at work very long, they found that they had “let themselves in” for a bigger task than they had dreamed. Added to that, performing it by dim candle-light did not lessen its difficulties, but rather increased them tenfold. First they took turns sweeping, as best they could, with a very ancient and frowsy broom, the thick, moth-eaten carpet. When they had gone over it once, and taken up what seemed like a small cart-load of dust, they found that, after all, there remained almost as much as ever on the floor. Cynthia was for going over it again.
    â€œOh, never mind it!” sighed Joyce. “My arms ache and so do yours. We’ll do it again another time. Now let’s dust the furniture and pictures.” And they fell to work with whisk-broom and dust-cloths. Half an hour later, exhausted and grimy, they dropped