make a signals to me alonk of the sink,
und see how it happens!"

More she would not say, but rocked out and up.

Johnnie went at his dishes hard. The table cleared, the sink empty, and
the cupboard full, he tied the clothesline out of the way, then with
broom and dustpan invaded Big Tom's bedroom, which Grandpa shared with
his hulking son. Here were two narrow, iron bedsteads. Between them was
barely room for the wheel chair when it rolled the little old man in to
his night's rest. To right and left of the door, high up, several nails
supported a few dusty garments. That was all.

If Johnnie stooped in the doorway of this room, he could see every
square foot of its floor, and every article in it. Yet from the very
first he had feared the place, into which no light and air came direct.
Whenever he swept it and made the beds, his heart beat fast, and he felt
nervous concerning his ankles, as if Something were on the point of
seizing them! For this reason he always put off his bedroom work as long
as he could; then finished it up quickly, keeping the door wide while he
worked. At other times, he kept it tight shut. Often when old Grandpa
was asleep by the stove, Johnnie would tiptoe to that door, lean
against the jamb of it, and listen. And he told Cis that he could
plainly hear _creakings_!

But this morning he felt none of his usual nervousness, so taken up was
his mind with Mrs. Kukor's mystery. Swiftly but carefully he made the
two beds. As a rule, he contented himself with straightening each out,
but so artfully that Barber would think the sheets had been turned.
Sometimes Barber threw a bit of paper or a sock into one bed or the
other, in order to trap Johnnie, who found it wise always to search for
evidence.

Now he pulled each bed apart, turned the old mattresses with the loudest
thumps, snapped the sheets professionally (Cis had taught him that!),
whacked the pillows with might and main, and tucked in the worn blankets
like a trained nurse. Then with puffs and grunts he swept under as well
as around the beds, searching out the deep cracks with the cornstraw,
and raising a prodigious cloud.

When he came out of the bedroom it was to empty his garnerings into the
stove and repeat the dust-gathering process in Cis's room, that
cubby-hole, four-by-seven, which had no window, and doubtless had been
intended for a storage place, or a bathroom free from draughts. It held
no furniture at all--only a long, low shel