"Hello!" Nellie Yarrow greeted Brother and Sister. "What do you think?"  
"What?" asked Sister, apparently¹ unable to think.
 
Nellie Yarrow pointed² her finger as one having important news to tell.
 
"The haunted house is rented!" she said, excitedly.
 
The "haunted" house was an object of curiosity to every child in Ridgeway. It was a small, shabby brown shingled³ dwelling⁴ on one of the side streets, and it was whispered that a man had once seen a "ghost" sitting at one of the windows. That was enough. Ever after no boy or girl would go past the house at night, if it were possible to avoid it, and the more timid ran by it even in the day time. Of course they should have known there are no such things as "ghosts," but some of them didn't.
 
"Who is going to live in it?" asked Sister curiously⁵. "Don't you suppose they will be afraid?"
 
"Well, I wouldn't live in it," declared Nellie positively⁶. "Some folks don't care anything about ghosts, though. Let's go down and watch 'em carry in the furniture."
 
Not many new families moved into Ridgeway during the year, and a June moving was something of an event. The children found a little group of folk watching the green van backed up to the gate. Two colored men were carrying in furniture, and an old lady with her head tied up in a towel was sweeping⁷ off the narrow front porch.
 
"Gee⁸, she's got a parrot!" cried a ragged⁹, redheaded little boy who was trying to walk on top of the sharp pickets¹⁰.
 
He was barefooted and the pickets were very sharp, so when the moving—van man, having put down the parrot and its cage on the porch, pretended to run straight toward him, the boy lost his balance and fell. He was up in a moment and running down the street as fast as though the furniture man were really chasing him.
 
"Sister!" Brother spoke¹¹ excitedly. "That's the little boy I told you about. We saw him downtown, Louise and I, when we were buying things for the fishpond for my birthday; remember? Only he didn't have a rag on his foot today."
 
"He used to be in my class at school," said Nellie. "Oh, look at all the boxes of books!"
 
Brother meant to ask Nellie what the redheaded boy's name was, but she had danced out to the van to see how large it was inside, and when she came back Brother had forgotten his question.
 
"My father says an old lady is going to live here," volunteered Francis Rider, a freckle-faced lad of ten or twelve. "She lives all by herself, and she doesn't like noise. Her name is Miss Putnam."
 
Neither, they were to learn, did Miss Putnam like company, especially that of boys and girls.
 
When the last piece of furniture had been carried in, and the van had driven creakingly off down the street, the old lady, with her head tied in the towel, was seen approaching the fence.
 
"That's Miss Putnam," whispered Francis.
 
"Get off that fence!" cried Miss Putnam, brandishing¹² her broom. "Get off! I'm not going to have my fence broken down by a parcel of young ones. Go on home, I tell you!"
 
The children

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