ABOUT noon the next day the boys arrived at the dead tree; they had come for their tools. Tom was impatient to go to the haunted house; Huck was measurably so, also--but suddenly said:

     "Lookyhere, Tom, do you know what day it is?"

     Tom mentally ran over the days of the week, and then quickly lifted his eyes with a startled look in them--

     "My! I never once thought of it, Huck!"

     "Well, I didn't neither, but all at once it popped onto me that it was Friday."

     "Blame it, a body can't be too careful, Huck. We might 'a' got into an awful scrape, tackling such a thing on a Friday."

     "Might! Better say we would! There's some lucky days, maybe, but Friday ain't."

     "Any fool knows that. I don't reckon you was the first that found it out, Huck."

     "Well, I never said I was, did I? And Friday ain't all, neither. I had a rotten bad dream last night--dreampt about rats."

     "No! Sure sign of trouble. Did they fight?"