Chapter 14 Chapter Thirteen The Late Mr. Bartholomew

At the Kitsons' house the time was not so out of order as in the garden, where the tree fell and then stood up again; now it was Hattie in her aunt's garden, now in the distant past when Hattie had just arrived at her aunt's house, waiting Wait. In the Kitsons' house time had been advancing according to its normal rhythm, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. The day came for Tom to go home, but he asked to stay.The day before he was due to go home, he worked up his courage, cleared his throat and said, "I don't want to leave tomorrow." Uncle Allen was reading the newspaper when he heard this.Looking at Tom, he said, "What?"

"I don't want to go to-morrow," repeated Tom aloud, but dared not say anything more. Aunt Gwen was surprised and happy when she heard that, she clapped her hands and said, "Do you want to stay longer?" "yes." "A few more days or a week?" "Probably more than a week," said Tom. "I'll telegraph your parents right away," said Aunt Gwen, and ran out. Tom and his uncle were left in the house.Alan Kitson looked at Tom carefully with curious eyes, and asked, "Why don't you want to leave again?" "If you don't want to, I won't stay." Tom felt that his uncle's question hurt his self-esteem, but his heart sank when he thought of leaving.

"Oh, no, no . . . that's not what I meant," said Uncle Allen, still watching him. "I was wondering . . . what would interest a boy here, what would there be to pass the time?" "I just like this place," Tom stammered. Aunt Gwen came home from her telegram to Tom's parents, a little flushed with excitement.She said enthusiastically: "Tom, we're going to go to the streets together and go hiking. You don't have to be isolated now, and you can visit many places after staying for a while. How boring it is to be locked in the house!" Tom said absently, "Thank you." But he wished that he would be locked up in the same boring way as in the past.

The really interesting time is at night, in the garden; during the day, I would rather be alone in the garden quietly, thinking about the future plans, and writing letters to Peter, introducing the situation of the garden.There is also the need to rest. Aunt Gwen took him to the shops, to the Castleford Museum, to the cinema.Tom bore it all in silence.He likes watching movies the most, because the movie theater is dark, and he can close his eyes and think about his own business. A few days before Tom came home, the weather turned bad and it rained all the time.Aunt Gwen still insisted on going out with Tom with a rain gear.

Once, when they came out to wait for the bus after the movie, Tom had been standing in a puddle, and when the bus pulled into the stop, my aunt noticed it and exclaimed. "Tom, why are you standing in the water? The water is quite deep!" Tom himself was very surprised, his thoughts drifted with the white clouds in the sky, and he didn't pay attention to where he was standing at all.After his aunt reminded him, he felt his feet were wet and cold. "Don't catch a cold," said my aunt anxiously. Tom sneezed as if in answer to his aunt. My aunt hurried him home, gave him a cup of hot tea, took a hot bath, and put him to bed.However, the disease of a cold will not be cured in one or two days.

Thus Tom caught a bad cold, and he lay in bed for several days, and shut up in his room even longer.He deliberately pretended to recover slowly. Aunt Gwen was delighted that Tom was staying, and wrote to her sister to tell her sister that Tom was too ill to travel. Tom also wrote to Peter, saying: "I am so lucky that although I don't have measles, it is ideal to have a cold." In this way, he could sneak into the garden to play every night as in the past.As soon as he arrived in the garden, his fever subsided. The green lawn and lush flowers and trees seemed to drive away the high fever.He plays with Hatty.

During the day, he lay on the bed, deliberately pretending to be listless.When Uncle Allen saw that he was ill, he couldn't help feeling sorry for him, and offered to teach him how to play chess.Tom declined, on the grounds that his head was too dazed to talk, and he didn't even bother to listen to the girls' adventure stories his aunt read to him. When Tom first fell ill, his head was really dizzy, and his eyes seemed glued and he couldn't open them, which he didn't care, because when he closed them he could imagine he was back in the garden again, watching Hattie play.

My aunt used to come into Tom's bedroom on tiptoe and give him an anxious look.She didn't know if Tom was asleep, so she often called him softly. When Tom heard it, he opened his eyes and saw that it was his bedroom.But somehow, between the barred window and the small closet, between himself and his aunt standing at the head of his bed, he caught a glimpse of Hatty's shadow. Hatty's shadow appeared in Tom's mind all the time.At this time, he wondered whether Hatty was a ghost, and he thought seriously.But no one knew about Hatty becoming a ghost, so no one could tell him whether Hatty was a ghost or not. He had to imagine for himself: Hatty must have lived in this house a long, long time ago, when there was a The garden is the one he often goes to.She lived here and died here...

At this moment, Mrs. Bartholomew's great clock came from downstairs.The Grand Clock must know these secrets, but it cannot speak.As Tom listened to the bell, a thought flashed into his mind, and he held his breath with tension, Mrs. Bartholomew, yes!Perhaps she alone knew the history of the building; there had been a Mr. Bartholomew here, and the building had belonged to his family for several generations, so he must know all about it.He would surely tell his wife the history of the house, she should remember these things. Tom resolved to call on Mrs. Bartholomew when he was better.Although she was a withdrawn old lady, and everyone was a little afraid of her, it did not shake Tom's resolve.

He had to have the guts to ring her doorbell.She would open a crack in the door and look out at him angrily through the crack.However, as soon as she saw Tom's innocent and lovely face, her anger melted like ice and snow.Tom had read stories like this in old children's books and never believed it could happen, but this time he was convinced it could happen. Mrs. Bartholomew did not like children, but the sight of Tom's face took a liking to him, and drew him into her room.Then, invite Tom to sit at a coffee table, which is filled with all kinds of delicious things specially for him, and let him eat and listen.She told stories from long ago.

Sometimes Tom asked some questions, and she answered them one by one. Tom asked, "Is there a little girl named Hattie?" She would musing and say, "Oh, yes. My husband told me about this child, oh, it was a long time ago! She was an only child, an orphan, and when her parents died, her aunt took She's here to live. Her aunt is a nasty woman..." This is how Tom imagined the storyline to develop.But there are places where he can't explain clearly, so the plot is chaotic and incoherent.but.At any rate, he was going to visit Mrs. Bartholomew soon, and then he could learn all about it from her. I guess she'd say in the end, deep, "From then on, Tom, people began to say that Hattie and her garden and other ghosts haunted this building. Go downstairs when the sound knocks, open the door of the garden, and you can see the garden and the ghost of the little girl." Tom thinks about it all the time.His cold is much better, and his uncle and aunt often come to his room to keep him company, so that he will not be lonely. One day Tom murmured to himself: "When Mr. Bartholomew lived here..." "Mr. Bartholomew never lived here," said Aunt Gwen. "Is that so, Alan?" Uncle Allen didn't answer right away, he was absorbed in thinking about a difficult problem on the chessboard, but Tom had no interest in playing chess. "No, Aunt Gwen," said Tom. "It's his house. How else would he know the history of the house and the stories of the ghosts? Or how would he tell Mrs. Bartholomew?" "Tom, what are you talking about..." The aunt was confused. "Whoever is Mr. Bartholomew, he's never lived here," said Uncle Allen emphatically. "Mrs. Bartholti was a widow when she moved here. It wasn't that long ago." "Then how did the big clock come about?" "What big clock?" "It's the clock in the hall downstairs. You say it belongs to Mrs. Bartholomew, but it was in the building a long time ago, when there was a garden outside the building." .” "Tom, what's the basis for your hypothesis?" Uncle Allen's voice was softer than usual, for he really thought the boy was still running a fever. Tom racked his brains to invent an answer which would prevaricate the secret.Just at this time, my aunt unintentionally helped him out.She said, "You know what, Aaron, the grand clock must have been here a long time, the screws on the back of it are all rusted in the wall." "Well, Tom, this can be regarded as a basis." Uncle Allen patted Tom's hand stretched out of the quilt lightly, and said along with him: "As you said, the big clock here may have already passed the time." For a long time, the screws had rusted away over time, so that the Grand Clock could not be moved, or it would be broken. When Mrs. Bartholomew came here, she had to buy the house and the Grand Clock. Do you understand? It's easy, Tom, as long as you explain the truth clearly." From that time Tom had given up hope in Mrs. Bartholomew, thinking she had nothing to say. But the possibility that Hatty was a ghost remained buried in the back of Tom's mind, though he didn't realize it himself. One day in the garden this idea had been the cause of a quarrel, the only time he and Hattie had really quarreled.That's what happened: They were building a house on the tree called St. Paul's Steps.As usual, Tom directed and Hattie did the work.Hatty dragged sticks and wove them into walls; planks from the tool shed and made them into floors. Hattie hummed hymns, folk songs, and other songs as she worked.At the moment she is singing the closing part of the folk song "Lovely Molly Malone": her ghost cart through the streets Sings: 'Cockles and mussels, what!Fresh - fresh! '" Hatty hummed the last line over and over again: "Ah! Fresh—fresh! Ah! Fresh—fresh!" Tom couldn't help blurting out: "Do you know what it's like to be a ghost after death?" Hattie stopped singing at once, and looked back at Tom slyly, and laughed.Tom said again: "What's it like to be a ghost?" "What's it like?" Hatty asked back. She turned, put one hand on Tom's knee, and looked at him brightly. "Then tell me, Tom!" Tom didn't understand what she meant for a moment, and when he heard the voice, he jumped up angrily and shouted: "I'm not a ghost!"