But though she tried, she didn't really sound convinced, and Uncle Jake was seen to shake his head. "The place looks like a training school for witches," Mr. Blake remarked in utmost gloom. The children, however, refused to be disappointed and went running toward the house with briers snatching at their jeans and Julian clattering more than usual because of the buckets. "I think it's suave," he assured Portia, as he jolted along beside her. "All it needs is fixing up. Heck, it hasn't been fixed _up_ in fifty years! What do they expect?" "I don't know," Portia said, feeling grateful to her cousin and indignant with her other relatives. "I think it's a perfectly wonderful house!" "So do I," agreed Foster, dog-trotting behind them, slightly out of breath. "It's so nice and fancy; that's what I like about it. It's got so much stuff. I think it's suave." Portia turned to beam at him. "And you know what you are? You're a wonderful _boy_," she told him. "Big deal," Foster said, embarrassed. They slowed down, for they were near the house. It towered above them, very large and quiet, very old. The great porch that ran halfway around it was supported by pillars set with cobblestones that reminded one of monstrous chunks of peanut brittle. The unpruned vine hung down in portieres from the eaves of the porch, and on its rotting floor were drifts of leaves. It was a dark, unfriendly thing, and even Portia thought she would not miss it when they took it away. "But what will happen to the owls that used to nest here?" she asked. "Oh, they'll find another site," Julian said. "If there's one thing you don't have to worry about, it's owls." The slow grownups caught up with them at last, armed with their peaceable weapons. "We'll try the back door first," Mr. Blake announced. "The front one might as well be turned to stone. We may have to blast!" "Why can't we just climb in the window, the way we did last year?" Foster wanted to know. He would have preferred this course. "It's boarded up again, too, remember? And anyway we can't just go flitting in and out of odd openings all the time like--like swallows," his father said. "We need a door. Like people." He led the way, and they all trooped around one corner, then another, to the back stoop, with its boarded-up back door. "Nailed fast, of course, and the nails are rusted," Uncle Jake said. "Well, let's have a go at it." It took a while. Foster and Davey grew bored and began to roughhouse, tumbling on the dead grass. The women poked about the shrubbery trying to identify the bushes and decide which ones were still alive. Portia sat on one of the buckets, turned upside down, watching and whistling between her teeth; trying to, anyway; her tooth braces made it nearly impossible. Her father and uncle and cousin worked and worked at the barricade, and finally, as they pried them loose with a crowbar, the nailed boards were wrenched free, with loud, protesting snarls.