ourse, but I expect that man with a gray beard wanders about the road
after dark and catches them as they are going home from school, perhaps
in the evening--"

"Catches them? What does he catch?" interrupted John.

"Why, catches boys about your size, of course! I've just said so,
haven't I? How stupid you are!" answered Lewis, speaking quite as
contemptuously as Madge in her most overbearing moods. "And then they
are locked into the cellars under the house.--Chained? Oh yes! hand
and foot. Gags in their mouths too, if they groan loudly enough to be
heard. I know the sound when I am awake at night. Mrs. Howard calls
it the wind in the chimneys, but I know better than that."

"But what does she want boys for?" asked John in a trembling voice.

"Nobody knows. Perhaps she sells them as slaves to the black people,
just as black people used to be sold to white. Perhaps she keeps them
prisoners for life in her cellars. Nobody knows." Lewis began to
whistle, and positively declined to give any further information.

"I think I'll go home, it's getting rather late," said John presently.
"And very likely I sha'n't be able to come here to-morrow to meet you.
It doesn't seem quite safe to come every day if that dreadful man is
always on the look-out. Besides, I don't think I shall have much time
after lessons, some days we dig in our gardens."

"You aren't afraid to come without your sisters, I suppose? It looks
remarkably like it," said Lewis disagreeably.

"No! of course not!" cried John, as he hurriedly scrambled out of the
tree.

In another moment he was in full flight home. It did not require much
persuasion on Betty's part that evening to convince him that, after
all, one's own brothers and sisters are much safer and pleasanter
companions than any chance strangers.

"But," concluded Betty, "though Lewis talks so much about the dangers
he goes through I don't believe he is half as brave as Madge. See how
she plunged into that water the other day without hesitating an
instant, though it was very cold, for my hands were quite blue after
sailing my boat. It's so odd how water keeps cold even in the summer!
But I don't think Lewis could have done it. He made such a fuss when
he scratched his hand with a sharp stone in the wall one day. Of
course he is very brave about being shut up in those dreadful cellars;
only I don't think they can be quite so dreadful as he pretends, or
nobody could bear them."