“Sam,” said we, after maturely reflecting over the story, “what do you
suppose was in that pot?”

“Lordy massy! boys: ye never will be done askin' questions. Why, how
should I know?”

“MIS' ELDERKIN'S PITCHER.”

[Illustration: 9146]

E see, boys,” said Sam Lawson, as we were gathering young wintergreen on
a sunny hillside in June,--“ye see, folks don't allers know what their
marcies is when they sees 'em. Folks is kind o' blinded; and, when a
providence comes along, they don't seem to know how to take it, and
they growl and grumble about what turns out the best things that ever
happened to 'em in their lives. It's like Mis' Elderkin's pitcher.”

“What about Mis' Elderkin's pitcher?” said both of us in one breath.

“Didn't I never tell ye, now?” said Sam: “why, I wanter know?”

No, we were sure he never had told us; and Sam as usual, began clearing
the ground by a thorough introduction, with statistical expositions.

“Wal, ye see, Mis' Elderkin she lives now over to Sherburne in about the
handsomest house in Sherburne,--a high white house, with green blinds
and white pillars in front,--and she rides out in her own kerridge; and
Mr. Elderkin, he's a deakin in the church, and a colonel in the malitia,
and a s'lectman, and pretty much atop every thing there is goin' in
Sherburne, and it all come of that 'are pitcher.”

“What pitcher?” we shouted in chorus.

“Lordy massy! that 'are's jest what I'm a goin' to tell you about; but,
ye see, a feller's jest got to make a beginnin' to all things.

“Mis' Elderkin she thinks she's a gret lady nowadays, I s'pose; but
I 'member when she was Miry Brown over here'n Oldtown, and I used to be
waitin' on her to singing-school.

“Miry and I was putty good friends along in them days,--we was putty
consid'able kind o' intimate. Fact is, boys, there was times in them
days when I thought whether or no I wouldn't _take_ Miry myself,” said
Sam, his face growing luminous with the pleasing idea of his former
masculine attractions and privileges. “Yis,” he continued, “there was
a time when folks said I could a hed Miry ef I'd asked her; and I putty
much think so myself, but I didn't say nothin': marriage is allers kind
o'ventursome; an' Miry had such up-and-down kind o' ways, I was sort o'
fraid on't.

“But Lordy massy! boys, you mustn't never tell Hepsy I said so, 'cause
she'd be mad enough to bite a shingle-nail in two. Not that she sets
so very gret by me neither; but then women's backs is allers up ef they
think anybody else could a hed you, whether they want you themselves or
not.

“Ye see, Miry she was old Black Hoss John Brown's da'ter, and lived up
there in that 'are big brown house by the meetin'-house, that 'hes the
red hollyhock in the front yard. Miry was about the handsomest gal that
went into the singers' seat a Sunday.

“I tell you she wa'n't none o' your milk-and-sugar gals neither,--she
was 'mazin' strong built. She was the strongest gal in her arms that
I ever see. Why, I've seen Miry take up a barrel o' flour, and lift it
right into the kitchen; and it would jest make the pink come into her
cheeks like two roses, but she never seemed to mind it a grain. She had
a good strong back of her own, and she was straight as a poplar, with
snappin' black eyes, and I tell you there was a snap to her tongue too.
Nobody never got ahead o' Miry; she'd give every fellow as good as he
sent, but for all that she was a gret favorite.

“Miry was one o' your briery, scratchy gals, that seems to catch fellers
in thorns. She allers fit and flouted her beaux, and the more she fit
and flouted 'em the more they'd be arter her. There wa'n't a gal in all
Oldtown that led such a string o' fellers arter her; 'cause, you see,
she'd now and then throw 'em a good word over her shoulder, and then
they'd all fight who should get it, and she'd jest laugh to see 'em do
it.

“Why, there was Tom Sawin, he was one o' her beaux, and Jim Moss, and
Ike Bacon; and there was a Boston boy, Tom Beacon, he came up from
Cambridge to rusticate with Parson Lothrop; he thought he must have his
say with Miry, but he got pretty well come up with. You see, he thought
'cause he was Boston born that he was kind o' aristocracy, and hed a
right jest to pick and choose 'mong country gals; but the way he got
come up with by Miry was too funny for any thing.”

“Do tell us about it,” we said, as Sam made an artful pause, designed to
draw forth solicitation.

“Wal, ye see, Tom Beacon he told Ike Bacon about it, and Ike he told me.
'Twas this way. Ye see, there was a quiltin' up to Mis' Cap'n Broad's,
and Tom Beacon he was there; and come to goin' home with the gals, Tom
he cut Ike out, and got Miry all to himself; and 'twas a putty long
piece of a walk from Mis' Cap'n Broad's up past the swamp and the stone
pastur' clear up to old Black Hoss John's.

“Wal, Tom he was in high feather 'cause Miry took him, so that he didn't
reelly know how to behave; and so, as they was walkin' along past Parson
Lothrop's apple-orchard, Tom thought he'd try bein' familiar, and he
undertook to put his arm round Miry. Wal, if she didn't jest take that
little fellow by his two shoulders and whirl him over the fence into the
orchard quicker'n no time. 'Why,' says Tom, 'the fust I knew I was lyin'
on my back under the appletrees lookin' up at the stars.' Miry she jest
walked off home and said nothin' to nobody,--it wa'n't her way to talk
much about things; and, if it hedn't ben for Tom Beacon himself, nobody
need 'a' known nothin' about it. Tom was a little fellow, you see, and
'mazin' good-natured, and one o' the sort that couldn't keep nothin' to
himself; and so he let the cat out o' the bag himself. Wal, there didn't
nobody think the worse o' Miry. When fellers find a gal won't take saace
from no man, they kind o' respect her; and then fellers allers thinks ef
it hed ben _them_, now, things 'd 'a' been different. That's jest what
Jim Moss and Ike Bacon said: they said, why Tom Beacon was a fool not
to know better how to get along with Miry,--_they_ never had no trouble.
The fun of it was, that Tom Beacon himself was more crazy after her than
he was afore; and they say he made Miry a right up-and-down offer, and
Miry she jest wouldn't have him.

“Wal, you see, that went agin old Black Hoss John's idees: old Black
Hoss was about as close as a nut and as contrairy as a pipperage-tree.
You ought to 'a' seen him. Why, his face was all a perfect crisscross o'
wrinkles. There wa'n't a spot where you could put a pin down that there
wa'n't a wrinkle; and they used to say that he held on to every cent
that went through his fingers till he'd pinched it into two. You
couldn't say that his god was his belly, for he hedn't none, no more'n
an old file: folks said that he'd starved himself till the moon'd shine
through him.

“Old Black Hoss was awfully grouty about Miry's refusin' Tom Beacon,
'cause there was his houses and lots o' land in Boston. A drefful
worldly old critter Black Hoss John was: he was like the rich fool in
the gospel. Wal, he's dead and gone now, poor critter, and what good has
it all done him? It's as the Scriptur' says, 'He heapeth up riches, and
knoweth not who shall gather them.'

“Miry hed a pretty hard row to hoe with old Black Hoss John. She was up
early and down late, and kep' every thing a goin'. She made the cheese
and made the butter, and between spells she braided herself handsome
straw bunnets, and fixed up her clothes; and somehow she worked it so
when she sold her butter and cheese that there was somethin' for
ribbins and flowers. You know the Scriptur' says, 'Can a maid forget her
ornaments?' Wal, Miry didn't. I 'member I used to lead the singin'
in them days, and Miry she used to sing counter, so we sot putty near
together in the singers' seats; and I used to think Sunday mornin's
when she come to meetin' in her white dress and her red cheeks, and her
bunnet all tipped off with laylock, that 'twas for all the world jest
like sunshine to have her come into the singers' seats. Them was the
days that I didn't improve my privileges, boys,” said Sam, sighing
deeply. “There was times that ef I'd a spoke, there's no knowin' what
mightn't 'a' happened, 'cause, you see, boys, I was better lookin' in
them days than I be now. Now you mind, boys, when you grow up, ef you
get to waitin' on a nice gal, and you're 'most a mind to speak up to her,
don't you go and put it off, 'cause, ef you do, you may live to repent
it.

“Wal, you see, from the time that Bill Elderkin come and took the
academy, I could see plain enough that it was time for me to hang up
my fiddle. Bill he used to set in the singers' seats, too, and he
would have it that he sung tenor. He no more sung tenor than a
skunk-blackbird, but he made b'lieve he did, jest to git next to Miry
in the singers' seats. They used to set there in the seats a writin'
backward and forward to each other till they tore out all the leaves of
the hymn-books, and the singin'-books besides. Wal, I never thought that
the house o' the Lord was jest the place to be courtin' in, and I used
to get consid'able shocked at the way things went on atween 'em. Why,
they'd be a writin' all sermon-time; and I've seen him a lookin' at her
all through the long prayer in a way that wa'n't right, considerin' they
was both professors of religion. But then the fact was, old Black Hoss
John was to blame for it, 'cause he never let 'em have no chance to hum.
Ye see, old Black Hoss he was sot agin Elderkin 'cause he was poor.
You see, his mother, the old Widdah Elderkin, she was jest about the
poorest, peakedest old body over to Sherburne, and went out to days'
works; and Bill Elderkin he was all for books and larnin', and old Black
Hoss John he thought it was just shiftlessness: but Miry she thought
he was a genius; and she got it sot in her mind that he was goin' to be
President o' the United States, or some sich.

“Wal, old Black Hoss he wa'n't none too polite to Miry's beaux in
gineral, but when Elderkin used to come to see her he was snarlier than
a saw: he hadn't a good word for him noways; and he'd rake up the
fire right before his face and eyes, and rattle about fastenin' up the
windows, and tramp up to bed, and call down the chamber-stairs to Miry
to go to bed, and was sort o' aggravatin' every way.

“Wal, ef folks wants to get a gal set on havin' a man, that 'ere's the
way to go to work. Miry had a consid'able stiff will of her own; and, ef
she didn't care about Tom Beacon before, she hated him now; and, if she
liked Bill Elderkin before, she was clean gone over to him now. And
so she took to 'goin' to the Wednesday-evenin' lecture, and the
Friday-even-in' prayer-meetin', and the singin'-school, jest as regular
as a clock, and so did he; and arterwards they allers walked home the
longest way. Fathers may jest as well let their gals be courted in the
house, peaceable, 'cause, if they can't be courted there, they 'll find
places where they can be: it's jest human natur'.

“Wal, come fall, Elderkin he went to college up to Brunswick; and then I
used to see the letters as regular up to the store every week, comin' in
from Brunswick, and old Black Hoss John he see 'em too, and got a way
of droppin' on 'em in his coat-pocket when he come up to the store, and
folks used to say that the letters that went into his coat-pocket didn't
get to Miry. Anyhow, Miry she says to me one day, says she, 'Sam, you're
up round the post-office a good deal,' says she. 'I wish, if you see any
letters for me, you'd jest bring 'em along.' I see right into it, and I
told her to be sure I would; and so I used to have the carryin' of great
thick letters every week. Wal, I was waitin' on Hepsy' along about them
times, and so Miry and I kind o' sympathized. Hepsy was a pretty gal,
and I thought it was all best as 'twas; any way, I knew I couldn't get
Miry, and I could get Hepsy, and that made all the difference in the
world.

“Wal, that next winter old Black Hoss was took down with rheumatism,
and I tell you if Miry didn't have a time on't! He wa'n't noways
sweet-tempered when he was well; but come to be crooked up with the
rheumatis' and kep' awake nights, it seemed as if he was determined
there shouldn't nobody have no peace so long as he couldn't.

“He'd get Miry up and down with him night after night a makin' her
heat flannels and vinegar, and then he'd jaw and scold so that she was
eenymost beat out. He wouldn't have nobody set up with him, though
there was offers made. No: he said Miry was his daughter, and 'twas her
bisness to take care on him.

“Miry was clear worked down: folks kind o' pitied her. She was a strong
gal, but there's things that wears out the strongest. The worst
on't was, it hung on so. Old Black Hoss had a most amazin' sight o'
constitution. He'd go all down to death's door, and seem hardly to have
the breath o' life in him, and then up he'd come agin! These 'ere old
folks that nobody wants to have live allers hev such a sight o' wear
in 'em, they jest last and last; and it really did seem as if he'd wear
Miry out and get her into the grave fust, for she got a cough with bein'
up so much in the cold, and grew thin as a shadder. 'Member one time I
went up there to offer to watch jest in the spring o' the year, when the
laylocks was jest a buddin' out, and Miry she come and talked with me
over the fence; and the poor gal she fairly broke down, and sobbed as if
her heart would break, a tellin' me her trouble.

“Wal, it reelly affected me more to have Miry give up so than most gals,
'cause she'd allers held her head up, and hed sich a sight o' grit and
resolution; but she told me all about it.

“It seems old Black Hoss he wa'n't content with worryin' on her,
and gettin' on her up nights, but he kep' a hectorin' her about Bill
Elderkin, and wantin' on her to promise that she wouldn't hev Bill when
he was dead and gone; and Miry she wouldn't promise, and then the old
man said she shouldn't have a cent from him if she didn't, and so they
had it back and forth. Everybody in town was sayin' what a shame 'twas
that he should sarve her so; for though he hed other children, they was
married and gone, and there wa'n't none of them to do for him but jest
Miry.

“Wal, he hung on till jest as the pinys in the front yard was beginnin'
to blow out, and then he began to feel he was a goin', and he sent for
Parson Lothrop to know what was to be done about his soul.

“'Wal,' says Parson Lothrop, 'you must settle up all your worldly
affairs; you must be in peace and love with all mankind; and, if you've
wronged anybody, you must make it good to 'em.'

“Old Black Hoss he bounced right over in his bed with his back to the
minister.

“'The devil!' says he: ''twill take all I've got.' And he never spoke
another word, though Parson Lothrop he prayed with him, and did what he
could for him.

“Wal, that night I sot up with him; and he went off 'tween two and three
in the mornin', and I laid him out regular. Of all the racks o' bone
I ever see, I never see a human critter so poor as he was. 'Twa'n't
nothin' but his awful will kep' his soul in his body so long, as it was.

“We had the funeral in the meetin'-house a Sunday; and Parson Lothrop he
preached a sarmon on contentment on the text, 'We brought nothin' into
the world, and it's sartin we can carry nothin' out; and having food and
raiment, let us be therewith content.' Parson Lothrop he got round the
subject about as handsome as he could: he didn't say what a skinflint
old Black Hoss was, but he talked in a gineral way about the vanity o'
worryin' an' scrapin to heap up riches. Ye see, Parson Lothrop he could
say it all putty easy, too, 'cause since he married a rich wife he never
hed no occasion to worry about temporal matters. Folks allers
preaches better on the vanity o' riches when they's in tol'able easy
circumstances. Ye see, when folks is pestered and worried to pay their
bills, and don't know where the next dollar's to come from, it's a great
temptation to be kind o' valooin' riches, and mebbe envyin' those that's
got 'em; whereas when one's accounts all pays themselves, and the money
comes jest when its wanted regular, a body feels sort o' composed like,
and able to take the right view o' things, like Parson Lothrop.

“Wal, arter sermon the relations all went over to the old house to hear
the will read; and, as I was kind o' friend with the family, I jest
slipped in along with the rest.

“Squire Jones he had the will; and so when they all got sot round all
solemn, he broke the seals and unfolded it, cracklin' it a good while
afore he begun and it was so still you might a heard a pin drop when he
begun to read. Fust, there was the farm and stock, he left to his son
John Brown over in Sherburne. Then there was the household stuff and all
them things, spoons and dishes, and beds and kiver-lids, and so on, to
his da'ter Polly Blanchard. And then, last of all, he says, he left to
his da'ter Miry _the pitcher that was on the top o' the shelf in his
bed-room closet._

“That' 'are was an old cracked pitcher that Miry allers hed hated the
sight of, and spring and fall she used to beg her father to let her
throw it away; but no, he wouldn't let her touch it, and so it stood
gatherin' dust.

“Some on 'em run and handed it down; and it seemed jest full o'
scourin'-sand and nothin' else, and they handed it to Miry.

“Wal, Miry she was wrathy then. She didn't so much mind bein' left out
in the will, 'cause she expected that; but to have that 'are old pitcher
poked at her so sort o' scornful was more'n she could bear.

“She took it and gin it a throw across the room with all her might; and
it hit agin the wall and broke into a thousand bits, when out rolled
hundreds of gold pieces; great gold eagles and guineas flew round
the kitchen jest as thick as dandelions in a meadow. I tell you, she
scrabbled them up pretty quick, and we all helped her.

[Illustration: 0163]

“Come to count 'em over, Miry had the best fortin of the whole, as
'twas right and proper she should. Miry she was a sensible gal, and
she invested her money well; and so, when Bill Elderkin got through his
law-studies, he found a wife that could make a nice beginnin' with him.
And that's the way, you see, they came to be doin' as well as they be.

“So, boys, you jest mind and remember and allers see what there is in a
providence afore you quarrel with it, 'cause there's a good many things
in this world turns out like Mis' Elderkin's pitcher.”

THE GHOST IN THE CAP'N BROWN HOUSE.

[Illustration: 9165]

OW, Sam, tell us certain true, is there any such things as ghosts?”

“Be there ghosts?” said Sam, immediately translating into his vernacular
grammar: “wal, now, that are's jest the question, ye see.”

“Well, grandma thinks there are, and Aunt Lois thinks it's all nonsense.
Why, Aunt Lois don't even believe the stories in Cotton Mather's
'Magnalia.'”

“Wanter know?” said Sam, with a tone of slow, languid meditation.

We were sitting on a bank of the Charles River, fishing. The soft
melancholy red of evening was fading off in streaks on the glassy water,
and the houses of Oldtown were beginning to loom through the gloom,
solemn and ghostly. There are times and tones and moods of nature that
make all the vulgar, daily real seem shadowy, vague, and supernatural,
as if the outlines of this hard material present were fading into the
invisible and unknown. So Oldtown, with its elm-trees, its great square
white houses, its meeting-house and tavern and blacksmith's shop and
mill, which at high noon seem as real and as commonplace as possible, at
this hour of the evening were dreamy and solemn. They rose up blurred,
indistinct, dark; here and there winking candles sent long lines of
light through the shadows, and little drops of unforeseen rain rippled
the sheeny darkness of the water.

“Wal, you see, boys, in them things it's jest as well to mind your
granny. There's a consid'able sight o' gumption in grandmas. You look at
the folks that's allus tellin' you what they don't believe,--they don't
believe this, and they don't believe that,--and what sort o' folks is
they? Why, like yer Aunt Lois, sort o' stringy and dry. There ain't no
'sorption got out o' not believin' nothin'.

“Lord a massy! we don't know nothin' 'bout them things. We hain't ben
there, and can't say that there ain't no ghosts and sich; can we, now?”

We agreed to that fact, and sat a little closer to Sam in the gathering
gloom.

“Tell us about the Cap'n Brown house, Sam.”

“Ye didn't never go over the Cap'n Brown house?”

No, we had not that advantage.

“Wal, yer see, Cap'n Brown he made all his money to sea, in furrin
parts, and then come here to Oldtown to settle down.

“Now, there ain't no knowin' 'bout these 'ere old ship-masters, where
they's ben, or what they's ben a doin', or how they got their money. Ask
me no questions, and I 'll tell ye no lies, is 'bout the best philosophy
for them. Wal, it didn't do no good to ask Cap'n Brown questions too
close, 'cause you didn't git no satisfaction. Nobody rightly knew 'bout
who his folks was, or where they come from; and, ef a body asked him,
he used to say that the very fust he know'd 'bout himself he was a young
man walkin' the streets in London.

“But, yer see, boys, he hed money, and that is about all folks wanter
know when a man comes to settle down. And he bought that 'are place, and
built that 'are house. He built it all sea-cap'n fashion, so's to feel
as much at home as he could. The parlor was like a ship's cabin. The
table and chairs was fastened down to the floor, and the closets was
made with holes to set the casters and the decanters and bottles in,
jest's they be at sea; and there was stanchions to hold on by; and they
say that blowy nights the cap'n used to fire up pretty well with his
grog, till he hed about all he could carry, and then he'd set and hold
on, and hear the wind blow, and kind o' feel out to sea right there to
hum. There wasn't no Mis' Cap'n Brown, and there didn't seem likely to
be none. And whether there ever hed been one, nobody know'd. He hed an
old black Guinea nigger-woman, named Quassia, that did his work. She was
shaped pretty much like one o' these 'ere great crookneck-squashes. She
wa'n't no gret beauty, I can tell you; and she used to wear a gret red
turban and a yaller short gown and red petticoat, and a gret string o'
gold beads round her neck, and gret big gold hoops in her ears, made
right in the middle o' Africa among the heathen there. For all she
was black, she thought a heap o' herself, and was consid'able sort o'
predominative over the cap'n. Lordy massy! boys, it's alius so. Get a
man and a woman together,--any sort o' woman you're a mind to, don't
care who 'tis,--? and one way or another she gets the rule over him, and
he jest has to train to her fife. Some does it one way, and some does it
another; some does it by jawin', and some does it by 'kissin', and some
does it by faculty and contrivance; but one way or another they allers
does it. Old Cap'n Brown was a good stout, stocky kind o' John Bull sort
o' fellow, and a good judge o' sperits, and allers kep' the best in them
are cupboards o' his'n; but, fust and last, things in his house went
pretty much as old Quassia said.

“Folks got to kind o' respectin' Quassia. She come to meetin' Sunday
regular, and sot all fixed up in red and yaller and green, with glass
beads and what not, lookin' for all the world like one o' them ugly
Indian idols; but she was well-behaved as any Christian. She was a
master hand at cookin'. Her bread and biscuits couldn't be beat, and
no couldn't her pies, and there wa'n't no such pound-cake as she made
nowhere. Wal, this 'ere story I'm a goin' to tell you was told me by
Cinthy Pendleton. There ain't a more respectable gal, old or young, than
Cinthy nowheres. She lives over to Sherburne now, and I hear tell she's
sot up a manty-makin' business; but then she used to do tailorin' in
Oldtown. She was a member o' the church, and a good Christian as ever
was. Wal, ye see, Quassia she got Cinthy to come up and spend a week to
the Cap'n Brown house, a doin' tailorin' and a fixin' over his close:
'twas along toward the fust o' March. Cinthy she sot by the fire in the
front' parlor with her goose and her press-board and her work: for there
wa'n't no company callin', and the snow was drifted four feet deep right
across the front door; so there wa'n't much danger o' any body comin'
in. And the cap'n he was a perlite man to wimmen; and Cinthy she liked
it jest as well not to have company, 'cause the cap'n he'd make himself
entertainin' tellin' on her sea-stories, and all about his adventures
among the Ammonites, and Perresites, and Jebusites, and all sorts o'
heathen people he'd been among.

“Wal, that 'are week there come on the master snow-storm. Of all the
snow-storms that hed ben, that 'are was the beater; and I tell you the
wind blew as if 'twas the last chance it was ever goin' to hev.

“Wal, it's kind o' scary like to be shet up in a lone house with all
natur' a kind o' breakin' out, and goin' on so, and the snow a comin'
down so thick ye can't see 'cross the street, and the wind a pipin' and
a squeelin' and a rumblin' and a tumblin' fust down this chimney and
then down that. I tell you, it sort o' sets a feller thinkin' o' the
three great things,--death, judgment, and etarnaty; and I don't care
who the folks is, nor how good they be, there's times when they must be
feelin' putty consid'able solemn.

“Wal, Cinthy she said she kind o' felt so along, and she hed a sort o'
queer feelin' come over her as if there was somebody or somethin' round
the house more'n appeared. She said she sort o' felt it in the air; but
it seemed to her silly, and she tried to get over it. But two or three
times, she said, when it got to be dusk, she felt somebody go by her up
the stairs. The front entry wa'n't very light in the daytime, and in the
storm, come five o'clock, it was so dark that all you could see was jest
a gleam o' somethin', and two or three times when she started to go up
stairs she see a soft white suthin' that seemed goin' up before her, and
she stopped with her heart a beatin' like a trip-hammer, and she sort o'
saw it go up and along the entry to the cap'n's door, and then it seemed
to go right through, 'cause the door didn't open.

“Wal, Cinthy says she to old Quassia, says she, 'Is there anybody lives
in this house but us?'

“'Anybody lives here?' says Quassia: 'what you mean?' says she.

“Says Ointhy, 'I thought somebody went past me on the stairs last night
and to-night.'

“Lordy massy! how old Quassia did screech and laugh. 'Good Lord!' says
she, 'how foolish white folks is! Somebody went past you? Was 't the
capt'in?'

“'No, it wa'n't the cap'n,' says she: 'it was somethin' soft and white,
and moved very still; it was like somethin' in the air,' says she.
Then Quassia she haw-hawed louder. Says she, 'It's hy-sterikes, Miss
Cinthy; that's all it is.'

“Wal, Cinthy she was kind o ' 'shamed, but for all that she couldn't help
herself. Sometimes evenin's she'd be a settin' with the cap'n, and she'd
think she'd hear somebody a movin' in his room overhead; and she knowed
it wa'n't Quassia, 'cause Quassia was ironin' in the kitchen. She took
pains once or twice to find out that 'are.

“Wal, ye see, the cap'n's room was the gret front upper chamber over the
parlor, and then right oppi-site to it was the gret spare chamber where
Cinthy slept. It was jest as grand as could be, with a gret four-post
mahogany bedstead and damask curtains brought over from England; but it
was cold enough to freeze a white bear solid,--the way spare chambers
allers is. Then there was the entry between, run straight through the
house: one side was old Quassia's room, and the other was a sort o'
storeroom, where the old cap'n kep' all sorts o' traps.

“Wal, Cinthy she kep' a hevin' things happen and a seein' things, till
she didn't railly know what was in it. Once when she come into the
parlor jest at sundown, she was sure she see a white figure a vanishin'
out o' the door that went towards the side entry. She said it was so
dusk, that all she could see was jest this white figure, and it jest
went out still as a cat as she come in.

“Wal, Cinthy didn't like to speak to the cap'n about it. She was a close
woman, putty prudent, Cinthy was.

“But one night, 'bout the middle o' the week, this 'ere thing kind o'
come to a crisis.

“Cinthy said she'd ben up putty late a sewin' and a finishin' off down
in the parlor; and the cap'n he sot up with her, and was consid'able
cheerful and entertainin', tellin' her all about things over in the
Bermudys, and off to Chiny and Japan, and round the world ginerally. The
storm that hed been a blowin' all the week was about as furious as ever;
and the cap'n he stirred up a mess o' flip, and hed it for her hot to
go to bed on. He was a good-natured critter, and allers had feelin's for
lone women; and I s'pose he knew 'twas sort o' desolate for Cinthy.

“Wal, takin' the flip so right the last thing afore goin' to bed, she
went right off to sleep as sound as a nut, and slep' on till somewhere
about mornin', when she said somethin' waked her broad awake in a
minute. Her eyes flew wide open like a spring, and the storm hed gone
down and the moon come out; and there, standin' right in the moonlight
by her bed, was a woman jest as white as a sheet, with black hair
bangin' down to her waist, and the brightest, mourn fullest black eyes
you ever see. She stood there lookin' right at Cinthy; and Cinthy thinks
that was what waked her up; 'cause, you know, ef anybody stands and
looks steady at folks asleep it's apt to wake 'em.

[Illustration: 0175]

“Any way, Cinthy said she felt jest as ef she was turnin' to stone. She
couldn't move nor speak. She lay a minute, and then she shut her eyes,
and begun to say her prayers; and a minute after she opened 'em, and it
was gone.

“Cinthy was a sensible gal, and one that allers hed her thoughts about
her; and she jest got up and put a shawl round her shoulders, and went
first and looked at the doors, and they was both on 'em locked jest as
she left 'em when she went to bed. Then she looked under the bed and in
the closet, and felt all round the room: where she couldn't see she felt
her way, and there wa'n't nothin' there.

“Wal, next mornin' Cinthy got up and went home, and she kep' it to
herself a good while. Finally, one day when she was workin' to our house
she told Hepsy about it, and Hepsy she told me.”

“Well, Sam,” we said, after a pause, in which we heard only the rustle
of leaves and the ticking of branches against each other, “what do you
suppose it was?”

“Wal, there 'tis: you know jest as much about it as I do. Hepsy told
Cinthy it might 'a' ben a dream; so it might, but Cinthy she was sure it
wa'n't a dream, 'cause she remembers plain hearin' the old clock on the
stairs strike four while she had her eyes open lookin' at the woman; and
then she only shet 'em a minute, jest to say 'Now I lay me,' and opened
'em and she was gone.

“Wal, Cinthy told Hepsy, and Hepsy she kep' it putty close. She didn't
tell it to nobody except Aunt Sally Dickerson and the Widder Bije Smith
and your Grandma Badger and the minister's wife; and they every one o'
'em 'greed it ought to be kep' close, 'cause it would make talk. Wal,
come spring somehow or other it seemed to 'a' got all over Old town. I
heard on't to the store and up to the tavern; and Jake Marshall he
says to me one day, 'What's this 'ere about the cap'n's house?' And the
Widder Loker she says to me, 'There's ben a ghost seen in the cap'n's
house;' and I heard on 't clear over to Needham and Sherburne.

“Some o' the women they drew themselves up putty stiff and proper. Your
Aunt Lois was one on 'em.

“'Ghost,' says she; 'don't tell me! Perhaps it would be best ef 'twas a
ghost,' says she. She didn't think there ought to be no sich doin's
in nobody's house; and your grandma she shet her up, and told her she
didn't oughter talk so.”

“Talk how?” said I, interrupting Sam with wonder. “What did Aunt Lois
mean?”

“Why, you see,” said Sam mysteriously, “there allers is folks in every
town that's jest like the Sadducees in old times: they won't believe in
angel nor sperit, no way you can fix it; and ef things is seen and done
in a house, why, they say, it's 'cause there's somebody there; there's
some sort o' deviltry or trick about it.

“So the story got round that there was a woman kep' private in Cap'n
Brown's house, and that he brought her from furrin parts; and it growed
and growed, till there was all sorts o' ways o' tellin on 't.

“Some said they'd seen her a settin' at an open winder. Some said that
moonlight nights they'd seen her a walkin' out in the back garden kind
o' in and out 'mong the bean-poles and squash-vines.

“You see, it come on spring and summer; and the winders o' the Cap'n
Brown house stood open, and folks was all a watchin' on 'em day and
night. Aunt Sally Dickerson told the minister's wife that she'd seen in
plain daylight a woman a settin' at the chamber winder atween four and
five o'clock in the mornin',--jist a settin' a lookin' out and a doin'
nothin', like anybody else. She was very white and pale, and had black
eyes.

“Some said that it was a nun the cap'n had brought away from a Roman
Catholic convent in Spain, and some said he'd got her out o' the
Inquisition.

“Aunt Sally said she thought the minister ought to call and inquire why
she didn't come to meetin', and who she was, and all about her: 'cause,
you see, she said it might be all right enough ef folks only know'd jest
how things was; but ef they didn't, why, folks will talk.”

“Well, did the minister do it?”

“What, Parson Lothrop? Wal, no, he didn't. He made a call on the cap'n
in a regular way, and asked arter his health and all his family. But the
cap'n he seemed jest as jolly and chipper as a spring robin, and he gin'
the minister some o' his old Jamaiky; and the minister he come away and
said he didn't see nothin'; and no he didn't. Folks---never does see
nothin' when they aint' lookin' where 'tis. Fact is, Parson Lothrop
wa'n't fond o' interferin'; he was a master hand to slick things over.
Your grandma she used to mourn about it, 'cause she said he never gin no
p'int to the doctrines; but 'twas all of a piece, he kind o' took every
thing the smooth way.

“But your grandma she believed in the ghost, and so did Lady Lothrop. I
was up to her house t'other day fixin' a door-knob, and says she, 'Sam
your wife told me a strange story about the Cap'n Brown house.'

“'Yes, ma'am, she did,' says I.

“'Well, what do you think of it?' says she.

“'Wal, sometimes I think, and then agin I don't know,' says I. 'There's
Cinthy she's a member o' the church and a good pious gal,' says I.

“'Yes, Sam,' says Lady Lothrop, says she; 'and Sam,' says she, 'it is
jest like something that happened once to my grandmother when she was
livin' in the old Province House in Bostin.' Says she, 'These 'ere
things is the mysteries of Providence, and it's jest as well not to have
'em too much talked about.'

“'Jest so,' says I,--'jest so. That 'are's what every woman I've talked
with says; and I guess, fust and last, I've talked with twenty,--good,
safe church-members,--and they's every one o' opinion that this 'ere
oughtn't to be talked about. Why, over to the deakin's t'other night we
went it all over as much as two or three hours, and we concluded that
the best way was to keep quite still about it; and that's jest what they
say over to Needham and Sherburne. I've been all round a hushin' this
'ere up, and I hain't found but a few people that hedn't the particulars
one way or another.' This 'ere was what I says to Lady Lothrop. The
fact was, I never did see no report spread so, nor make sich sort o'
sarchin's o' heart, as this 'ere. It railly did beat all; 'cause,
ef 'twas a ghost, why there was the p'int proved, ye see. Cinthy's a
church-member, and she _see_ it, and got right up and sarched the room:
but then agin, ef 'twas a woman, why that 'are was kind o' awful; it
give cause, ye see, for thinkin' all sorts o' things. There was Cap'n
Brown, to be sure, he wa'n't a church-member; but yet he was as honest
and regular a man as any goin', as fur as any on us could see. To be
sure, nobody know'd where he come from, but that wa'n't no reason agin'
him: this 'ere might a ben a crazy sister, or some poor critter that he
took out o' the best o' motives; and the Scriptur' says, 'Charity hopeth
all things.' But then, ye see, folks will talk,--that 'are's the pester
o' all these things,--and they did some on 'em talk consid'able strong
about the cap'n; but somehow or other, there didn't nobody come to the
p'int o' facin' on him down, and sayin' square out, 'Cap'n Brown, have
you got a woman in your house, or hain't you? or is it a ghost, or what
is it?' Folks somehow never does come to that. Ye see, there was the
cap'n so respectable, a settin' up every Sunday there in his pew, with
his ruffles round his hands and his red broadcloth cloak and his cocked
hat. Why, folks' hearts sort o' failed 'em when it come to sayin' any
thing right to him. They thought and kind o' whispered round that the
minister or the deakins oughter do it: but Lordy massy! ministers, I
s'pose, has feelin's like the rest on us; they don't want to eat all the
hard cheeses that nobody else won't eat. Anyhow, there wasn't nothin'
said direct to the cap'n; and jest for want o' that all the folks in
Oldtown kep' a bilin' and a bilin' like a kettle o' soap, till it seemed
all the time as if they'd bile over.

“Some o' the wimmen tried to get somethin' out o' Quassy. Lordy massy!
you might as well 'a' tried to get it out an old tom-turkey, that 'll
strut and gobble and quitter, and drag his wings on the ground, and fly
at you, but won't say nothin'. Quassy she screeched her queer sort o'
laugh; and she told 'em that they was a makin' fools o' themselves, and
that the cap'n's matters wa'n't none o' their bisness; and that was true
enough. As to goin' into Quassia's room, or into any o' the store-rooms
or closets she kep' the keys of, you might as well hev gone into a
lion's den. She kep' all her places locked up tight; and there was no
gettin' at nothin' in the Cap'n Brown house, else I believe some o' the
wim-men would 'a' sent a sarch-warrant.”

“Well,” said I, “what came of it? Didn't anybody ever find out?”

“Wal,” said Sam, “it come to an end sort o', and didn't come to an
end. It was jest this 'ere way. You see, along in October, jest in the
cider-makin' time, Abel Flint he was took down with dysentery and died.
You 'member the Flint house: it stood on a little rise o' ground
jest lookin' over towards the Brown house. Wal, there was Aunt Sally
Dickerson and the Widder Bije Smith, they set up with the corpse. He was
laid out in the back chamber, you see, over the milk-room and kitchen;
but there was cold victuals and sich in the front chamber, where the
watchers sot. Wal, now, Aunt Sally she told me that between three and
four o'clock she heard wheels a rumblin', and she went to the winder,
and it was clear starlight; and she see a coach come up to the Cap'n
Brown house; and she see the cap'n come out bringin' a woman all wrapped
in a cloak, and old Quassy came arter with her arms full o' bundles; and
he put her into the kerridge, and shet her in, and it driv off; and she
see old Quassy stand lookin' over the fence arter it. She tried to wake
up the widder, but 'twas towards mornin', and the widder allers was a
hard sleeper; so there wa'n't no witness but her.”

“Well, then, it wasn't a ghost,” said I, “after all, and it _was_ a
woman.”

“Wal, there 'tis, you see. Folks don't know that 'are yit, 'cause there
it's jest as broad as 'tis long. Now, look at it. There's Cinthy, she's
a good, pious gal: she locks her chamber-doors, both on 'em, and goes
to bed, and wakes up in the night, and there's a woman there. She jest
shets her eyes, and the woman's gone. She gits up and looks, and both
doors is locked jest as she left 'em. That 'ere woman wa'n't flesh and
blood now, no way,--not such flesh and blood as we knows on; but then
they say Cinthy might hev dreamed it!

“Wal, now, look at it t'other way. There's Aunt Sally Dickerson; she's
a good woman and a church-member: wal, she sees a woman in a cloak
with all her bundles brought out o' Cap'n Brown's house, and put into
a kerridge, and driv off, atween three and four o'clock in the mornin'.
Wal, that 'ere shows there must 'a' ben a real live woman kep' there
privately, and so what Cinthy saw wasn't a ghost.

“Wal, now, Cinthy says Aunt Sally might 'a' dreamed it,--that she got
her head so full o' stories about the Cap'n Brown house, and watched
it till she got asleep, and hed this 'ere dream; and, as there didn't
nobody else see it, it might 'a' ben, you know. Aunt Sally's clear she
didn't dream, and then agin Cinthy's clear _she_ didn't dream; but which
on 'em was awake, or which on 'em was asleep, is what ain't settled in
Oldtown yet.”

COLONEL EPH'S SHOE-BUCKLES.

[Illustration: 9188]

ES, this 'ere's Tekawampait's grave,” said Sam Lawson, sitting leisurely
down on an ancient grass-grown mound, ornamented by a mossy black
slate-stone slab, with a rudely-carved cherub head and wings on top.

“And who was Tekawampait?”

“I wanter know, now, if your granny hain't told you who Tekawampait
was?” said Sam, pushing back his torn straw hat, and leaning against the
old slanting gravestone.

“No, she never told us.”

“Wal, ye see, Tekawampait he was the fust Christian Indian minister o'
the gospel there was in Old-town. He was a full-blooded Indian, but he
was as good a Christian as there was goin'; and he was settled here over
the church in Oldtown afore Parson Peabody; and Parson Peabody he come
afore Parson Lothrop; and a very good minister Teka-wampait was too.
Folks hes said that there couldn't nothin' be made o' Indians; that they
was nothin' but sort o' bears and tigers a walkin' round on their hind
legs, a seekin' whom they might devour; but Parson Eliot he didn't think
so. 'Christ died for them as wal as for me,' says he; 'and jest give
'em the gospel,' says he, 'and the rest 'll come along o' itself.' And so
he come here to Oldtown, and sot up a sort o' log-hut right on the spot
where the old Cap'n Brown house is now. Them two great elm-trees that's
a grown now each side o' the front gate was two little switches then,
that two Indians brought up over their shoulders, and planted there for
friendship trees, as they called 'em; and now look what trees they
be! He used to stand under that 'are big oak there, and preach to the
Indians, long before there was any meetin'-house to speak in here in
Oldtown.

“Wal, now, I tell you, it took putty good courage in Parson Eliot to do
that 'are. I tell you, in them days it took putty consid'able faith to
see any thing in an Indian but jest a wild beast. Folks can't tell
by seein' on 'em now days what they was in the old times when all the
settlements was new, and the Indians was stark, starin' wild, a ravin'
and tarin' round in the woods, and a fightin' each other and a fightin'
the white folks. Lordy massy! the stories I've heard women tell in their
chimbley-corners about the things that used to happen when they was
little was enough to scare the very life out o' ye.”

“Oh, do, do tell us some of them!” said Henry and I.

“Lordy massy, boys: why, ye wouldn't sleep for a week. Why, ye don't
know. Why, the Indians in them days wa'n't like no critter ye ever did
see. They was jest the horridest, paintedest, screeehinest, cussedest
critters you ever heard on. They was jest as artful as sarpents, and
crueller than any tigers. Good Dr. Cotton Mather calls 'em divils, and
he was a meek, good man, Dr. Cotton was; but they cut up so in his days,
it's no wonder he thought they was divils, and not folks. Why, they kep'
the whole country in a broil for years and years. Nobody knowed when
they was safe; for they were so sly and cunnin', and always watchin'
behind fences and bushes, and ready when a body was a least thinkin'
on't to be down on 'em. I've heard Abiel Jones tell how his father's
house was burnt down at the time the Indians burnt Deerfield. About
every house in the settlement was burnt to the ground; and then another
time they burnt thirty-two houses in Springfield,--the minister's house
and all, with all his library (and books was sca'ce in them days);
but the Indians made a clean sweep on't. They burnt all the houses in
Wendham down to the ground; and they came down in Lancaster, and burnt
ever so many houses, and carried off forty or fifty people with 'em into
the woods.

“There was Mr. Rolandson, the minister, they burnt his house, and
carried off Mis' Rolandson and all the children. There was Jerushy
Pierce used to work in his family and do washin' and chores, she's told
me about it. Jerushy she was away to her uncle's that night, so she
wa'n't took. Ye see, the Lancaster folks had been afeard the Indians'd
be down on 'em, and so Parson Rolandson he'd gone on to Boston to get
help for 'em; and when he come back the mischief was all done. Jerushy
said in all her life she never see nothin' so pitiful as that 'are poor
man's face when she met him, jest as he come to the place where the
house stood. At fust he didn't say a word, she said, but he looked kind
o' dazed. Then he sort o' put his hand to his forehead, and says he,
'My God, my God, help me!' Then he tried to ask her about it, but he
couldn't but jest speak. 'Jerushy,' says he, 'can't you tell me,--where
be they?' 'Wal,' says Jerushy, 'they've been carried off.' And with
that he fell right down and moaned and groaned. 'Oh!' says he, I'd rather
heard that they were at peace with the Lord.' And then he'd wring his
hands: 'What shall I do? What shall I do?'

“Wal, 'twa'n't long after this that the Indians was down on Medford, and
burnt half the houses in town, and killed fifty or sixty people there.
Then they came down on Northampton, but got driv' back; but then they
burnt up five houses, and killed four or five of the folks afore they
got the better of 'em there. Then they burnt all the houses in Groton,
meetin'-house and all; and the pisen critters they hollared and
triumphed over the people, and called out to 'em, 'What will you do for
a house to pray in now? we've burnt your meetin'-house.' The fightin'
was goin' on all over the country at the same time. The Indians set
Marlborough afire, and it was all blazin' at once, the same day that
some others of 'em was down on Springfield, and the same day Cap'n
Pierce, with forty-nine white men and twenty-six Christian Indians, got
drawn into an ambush, and every one of 'em killed. Then a few days after
this they burnt forty houses at Rehoboth, and a little while after they
burnt thirty more at Providence. And then when good Cap'n Wadsworth went
with seventy men to help the people in Sudbury, the Indians came pourin'
round 'em in the woods like so many wolves, and killed all but four or
five on 'em; and those poor fellows had better hev been killed, for the
cruel critters jest tormented 'em to death, and mocked and jeered at
their screeches and screams like so many divils. Then they went and
broke loose on Andover; and they was so cruel they couldn't even let the
dumb critters alone. They cut out the tongues of oxen and cows, and left
'em bleedin', and some they fastened up in barns and burnt alive. There
wa'n't no sort o' diviltry they wa'n't up to. Why, it got to be so in
them days that folks couldn't go to bed in peace without startin' every
time they turned over for fear o' the Indians. Ef they heard a noise in
the night, or ef the wind squealed and howled, as the wind will, they'd
think sure enough there was that horrid yell a comin' down chimbley.

“There was Delily Severence; she says to me, speakin' about them times,
says she, 'Why, Mr. Lawson, you've no idee! Why, that 'are screech,'
says she, 'wa'n't like no other noise in heaven above, or earth beneath,
or water under the earth,' says she. 'When it started ye out o' bed
between two or three o'clock in the mornin', and all your children
a cryin', and the Indians a screechin' and yellin' and a tossin' up
firebrands, fust at one window and then at another, why,' says she, 'Mr.
Lawson, it was more like hell upon earth than any thing I ever heard
on.'

“Ye see, they come down on Delily's house when she was but jest up arter
her third baby. That 'are woman hed a handsome head o' hair as ever
ye see, black as a crow's wing; and it turned jest as white as a
table-cloth, with nothin' but the fright o' that night.”

“What did they do with her?”

“Oh! they took her and her poor little gal and boy, that wa'n't no older
than you be, and went off with 'em to Canada. The troubles them poor
critters went through! Her husband he was away that night; and well he
was, else they'd a tied him to a tree and stuck pine slivers into him
and sot 'em afire, and cut gret pieces out'o his flesh, and filled the
places with hot coals and ashes, and all sich kind o' things they did to
them men prisoners, when they catched 'em. Delily was thankful enough
he was away; but they took her and the children off through the ice
and snow, jest half clothed and shiverin'; and when her baby cried
and worried, as it nat'rally would, the old Indian jest took it by its
heels, and dashed its brains out agin a tree, and threw it into the
crotch of a tree, and left it dangling there; and then they would mock
and laugh at her, and mimic her baby's crying, and try every way they
could to aggravate her. They used to beat and torment her children right
before her eyes, and pull their hair out, and make believe that they
was goin' to burn 'em alive, jest for nothin' but to frighten and worry
her.”

“I wonder,” said I, “she ever got back alive.”

“Wal, the wimmen in them times hed a sight o' wear in 'em. They was
resolute, strong, hard-workin' wimmen. They could all tackle a hoss,
or load and fire a gun. They was brought up hard, and they was used to
troubles and dangers. It's jest as folks gets used to things how they
takes 'em. In them days folks was brought up to spect trouble; they
didn't look for no less. Why, in them days the men allers took their
guns into the field when they went to hoe corn, and took their guns with
'em to meetin' Sundays; and the wimmen they kep' a gun loaded where
they knew where to find it; and when trouble come it was jest what they
spected, and they was put even with it. That's the sort o' wimmen they
was. Wal, Delily and her children was brought safe through at last, but
they hed a hard time on't.”

“Tell us some more stories about Indians, Sam,” we said, with the usual
hungry impatience of boys for a story.

“Wal, let me see,” said Sam, with his hat pushed back and his eyes fixed
dreamily on the top of Eliot's oak, which was now yellow with the sunset
glory,--“let me see. I hain't never told ye about Col. Eph Miller, hev
I?”

“No, indeed. What about him?”

“Wal, he was took prisoner by the Indians; and they was goin' to roast
him alive arter their fashion, and he gin 'em the slip.”

“Do tell us all about it.”

“Wal, you see, Deliverance Scranton over to Sherburne, she's Col. Eph's
daughter; and she used to hear her father tell about that, and she's
told me time and agin about it. It was this way,--You see, there hedn't
ben no alarm about Indians for some time, and folks hed got to feelin'
kind o' easy, as folks will. When there don't nothin' happen for a good
while, and it keeps a goin' on so, why, you think finally there won't
nothin' happen; and so it was with Col. Eph and his wife. She told
Deliverance that the day before she reely hed forgot all about that
there was any Indians in the country; and she'd been out after spruce
and wintergreen and hemlock, and got over her brass kettle to bile for
beer; and the child'n they brought in lots o' wild grapes that they
gathered out in the woods; and they said when they came home that they
thought they see an Indian a lyin' all along squirmin' through the
bushes, and peekin' out at 'em like a snake, but they wa'n't quite sure.
Faith, the oldest gal, she was sure she see him quite plain; but 'Bijah
(he was Col. Eph's oldest boy) he wa'n't so sure.

“Anyway, they didn't think no more about it, and that night they hed
prayers and went off to bed.

“Arterwards, Col. Eph he said he remembered the passage o' Scriptur' he
read that night; it was, 'The race is not to the swift nor the battle
to the strong.' He didn't notice it much when he read it; but he allers
spoke of it arterwards as a remarkable providence that that 'are passage
should have come jest so that night.

“Wal, atween twelve and one o'clock they was waked up by the most awful
screechin' that ever you heard, as if twenty thousand devils was
upon 'em. Mis' Miller she was out o' bed in a minit, all standin'. 'O
husband, husband, the Indians are on us!' says she; and sure enough
they was. The children, 'Bijah and Faith come a runnin' in. 'O father,
father! what shall we do?'

“Col. Eph was a man that allers knew in a minit what to do, and he kep'
quite cool. 'My dear,' says he to his wife, 'you take the children, and
jest run with 'em right out the buttery-door through the high corn, and
run as fast as you can over to your father Stebbins', and tell him to
rouse the town; and Bije,' says he to the boy, 'you jest get into the
belfry window, and ring the bell with all your might,' says he. 'And
I 'll stay and fight 'em off till the folks come.'

“All this while the Indians was a yellin' and screechin' and a wavin'
fire-brands front of the house. Col. Eph he stood a lookin' through a
hole in the shutter and a sightin' his gun while he was a talkin'. He
see that they'd been a pilin' up a great pile o' dry wood agin the door.
But the fust Indian that came up to put fire to't was shot right down
while he was a speakin'.

“Wal, Mis' Miller and Faith and Bije wa'n't long a dressin', you may
believe; and they jest put on dark cloaks, and they jest streaked it
out through the buttery-door! There was thick pole-beans quite up to the
buttery-door, and then a field o' high corn, so that they was hid, and
the way they run wasn't slow, I tell you.

“But Col. Eph he hed to stop so to load that they got the pile o' brush
afire, though he shot down three or four on 'em, and that was some
comfort. But the long and the short o' the matter was, that they driv
the door in at last, and came a whoopin' and yellin' into the house.

“Wal, they took Col. Eph, and then went search-in' round to find
somebody else; but jest then the meetin'-house bell begun to ring, and
that scart 'em, and they took Col. Eph and made off with him. He hedn't
but jest time to get into his clothes and get his shoes on, when they
hurried him off. They didn't do nothin' to him jest then, you see, these
Indians was so cur'ous. If a man made a good fight, and killed three or
four on 'em afore they could take him, they sot great store by him, and
called him a brave man. And so they was 'mazin' careful of Col. Eph, and
treated him quite polite for Indians; but he knew the ways on 'em well
enough to know what it was all for. They wanted a real brave man to
burn alive and stick slivers into and torment, and Col. Eph was jest the
pattern for 'em, and his fight-in' so brave made him all the better for
what they wanted.

“Wal, he was in hopes the town would be roused in time for some of 'em
to come arter him; but the Indians got the start of 'em, and got 'way
off in the woods afore people hed fairly come together and found out
what the matter was. There was Col. Eph's house a blazin' and a lightin'
up all the country for miles round; and the colonel he said it come
ruther hard on him to be lighted on his way through the woods by such a
bonfire.

“Wal, by mornin' they come to one o' their camps, and there they hed
a great rejoicin' over him. They was going to hev a great feast, and
a good time a burnin' on him; and they tied him to a tree, and sot an
Indian to watch him while they went out to cut pine knots and slivers to
do him with.

“Wal, as I said, Col. Eph was a brave man, and a man that always kep'
his thoughts about him; and so he kep' a workin' and a workin' with the
withs that was round his hands, and a prayin' in his heart to the Lord,
till he got his right hand free. Wal, he didn't make no move, but kep'
a loosenin' and a loosenin' little by little, keepin' his eye on the
Indian who sot there on the ground by him.

“Now, Col. Eph hed slipped his feet into his Sunday shoes that stood
there by the bed and hed great silver shoe-buckles; and there was a
providence in his doin' so, for, ye see, Indians are 'mazin' fond o'
shiny things.

[Illustration: 0203]

“And the old Indian he was took with the shine o' these shoe-buckles, and
he thought he might as well hev 'em as anybody; so he jest laid down his
tommyhawk, and got down on his knees, and was workin' away as earnest
as could be to get off the buckles, and Col. Eph he jest made a dart
forward and picked up the tommyhawk, and split open the Indian's skull
with one blow: then he cut the withs that was round his legs, and in a
minute he was off on the run with the tommyhawk in his hand. There was
three Indians give chase to him, but Col. Eph he kep' ahead of 'em. He
said while he was a runnin' he was cryin,' and callin' on the Lord with
all his might, and the words come into his mind he read at prayers
the night afore, 'The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the
strong.'

“At last he see the Indians gained on him; and he faced round suddenly,
and struck the nighest one smack on the head with his tommyhawk. Then
when the next one come up he cut him down too; and the third one, when
he see both the others cut down, and Col. Eph comin' full blaze towards
him with his tommyhawk a swingin', he jest turned and run for dear life.
Then Col. Eph he turned and cut for the settlement. He run, and he run,
and he run, he didn't well know how long, till, finally, he was clear
tuckered out, and he jest dropped down under a tree and slept; and he
lay there all the rest of that day, and all night, and never woke till
the next day about sundown.

“Then he woke up, and found he was close by home, and John Stebbins, his
wife's father, and a whole party, was out lookin' for him.

“Old Col. Eph used to tell the story as long as he lived, and the tears
used to run down his cheeks when he told it.

“'There's a providence in every thing,' he used to say, 'even down to
shoe-buckles. Ef my Sunday shoes hadn't happened to 'a' set there so
I could 'a' slipped into 'em, I couldn't 'a' killed that Indian, and I
shouldn't 'a' been here to-day.' Wal, boys, he was in the right on't.
Some seem to think the Lord don't look out only for gret things, but, ye
see, little things is kind o' hinges that gret ones turns on. They say,
take care o' pennies, and dollars 'll take care o' themselves. It's jest
so in every thing; and, ef the Lord don't look arter little things, he
ain't so gret as they say, anyway.

“Wal, wal,” said Sam in conclusion, “now, who'd 'a' thought that anybody
could 'a' made any thing out o' Indians? Yet there 'twas. All them
Martha Vineyard Indians turned Christians, and there was Indian
preachers and Indian teachers; and they reely did settle down, and get
to be quite like folks. But I tell you, boys, it took faith to start
with.”

THE BULL-FIGHT.

[Illustration: 9207]

T was Saturday afternoon,--time of blessed memory to boys,--and we were
free for a ramble after huckleberries; and, with our pails in hand, were
making the best of our way to a noted spot where that fruit was most
abundant.

Sam was with us, his long legs striding over the ground at a rate that
kept us on a brisk trot, though he himself was only lounging leisurely,
with his usual air of contemplation.

“Look 'ere, boys,” he suddenly said, pausing and resting his elbow on
the top of a rail-fence, “we shall jest hev to go back and go round by
Deakin Blodgett's barn.”

“Why so?” we both burst forth in eager tones.

“Wal, don't ye see the deakin's turned in his bull into this 'ere lot?”

“Who cares?” said I. “I ain't afraid.”

“Nor I,” said Harry. “Look at him: he looks mild enough: he won't hurt
us.”

“Not as you knows on,” said Sam; “and then, agin, you don't
know,--nobody never knows, what one o' them 'ere critters will do:
they's jest the most contrary critters; and ef you think they're goin'
to do one way they're sure to do t'other. I could tell ye a story now
that'd jest make yer har stan' on eend.” Of course we wanted to have our
hair stand on end, and beset Sam for the story; but he hung off.

“Lordy massy! boys, jest let's wait till ye've got yer huckleberries:
yer granny won't like it ef ye don't bring her none, and Hepsy she 'll
be in my har,--what's left on't,” said Sam, taking off his old torn hat,
and rubbing the loose shock of brash and grizzled hair.

So we turned and made a _detour_, leaving the bull on the right, though
we longed amazingly to have a bout with him, for the fun of the thing,
and mentally resolved to try it when our mentor was not round.

It all comes back to me again,--the image of that huckleberry-pasture,
interwoven with fragrance of sweet-fern, and the ground under our feet
embroidered with star-moss and wintergreen, or foamy patches of mossy
frost-work, that crushed and crackled delightfully beneath our feet.
Every now and then a tall, straight fire-lily--black, spotted in its
centre--rose like a little jet of flame; and we gathered it
eagerly, though the fierce August sun wilted it in our hands. The
huckleberry-bushes, bending under their purple weight, we gathered in
large armfuls, and took them under the shadow of the pine-trees, that we
might strip them at our leisure, without being scorched by the intense
glare of the sun. Armful after armful we carried and deposited in the
shade, and then sat down to the task of picking them off into our pails.
It was one of those New-England days hotter than the tropics, Not a
breath of air was stirring, not a bird sang a note, not a sound was
heard, except the drowsy grating of the locusts.

“Well, now, Sam, now tell us that story about the bull.”

“Lordy massy, how hot 'tis!” said Sam, lying back, and resting on the
roots of a tree, with his hands folded under his head. “I'm all in a
drip of sweat.”

“Well, Sam, we 'll pick off your berries, if you 'll talk.”

“Wall, wall, be kerful yer don't git no green ones in among 'em, else
Hepsy 'll be down on me. She's drefful partikelar, she is. Every thing
has to be jest so. Ef it ain't, you 'll hear on't. Lordy massy I boys,
she's always telling me I don't do nothin' for the support of the
family. I leave it to you if I didn't ketch her a nice mess o' fish a
Tuesday. I tell her folks can't expect to roll in money, and allers to
have every thing jess 'z they want it. We brought nothin' into the world
with us, and it's sartain we ken carry nothin' out; and, having food
and raiment, we ought to be content. We have ben better off'n we be now.
Why, boys, I've seen the time that I've spent thirty-seven cents a week
for nutmegs; but Hepsy hain't no gratitude: such folks hez to be brought
down. Take care, now, yer ain't a-putting green ones in; be yer?”

“Sam, we sha'n't put in any at all, if you don't tell us that story.”

“Lordy massy! you young ones, there ain't never no contentin' yer, ef a
fellow was to talk to the millennium. Wonder now if there is going to
be any millennium. Wish I'd waited, and been born in them days, 'spect
things would a sorter come along easier. Wall, I shall git through some
way, I s'pose.”

“Sam,” said I, sitting back, “we're putting all our berries into your
pail; and, if you don't begin to tell us a story, we won't do it.”

“Lordy massy! boys, I'm kind o' collectin' my idees. Ye have to talk
a while to git a-goin', everybody does. Wal, about this 'ere story. Ye
'member that old brown house, up on the hill there, that we saw when we
come round the corner? That 'are was where old Mump Moss used to live.
Old Mump was consid'able of a nice man: he took in Ike Sanders, Mis'
Moss's sister's boy, to help him on the farm, and did by him pretty much
ez, he did by his own. Bill Moss, Mump's boy, he was a con-trairy kind
o' critter, and he was allers a-hectorin' Ike. He was allers puttin'
off the heaviest end of every thing on to him. He'd shirk his work, and
git it off on to Ike every way he could. And he allers threw it up at
him that he was eatin' his father's bread; and he watched every mouthful
he ate, as if he hated to see it go down. Wal, ye see, for all that.
Ike he growed up tall and strong, and a real handsome young feller; and
everybody liked him. And Bill he was so gritty and contrairy, that his
own mother and sisters couldn't stan' him; and he was allers a-flingin'
it up at 'em that they liked Ike more'n they did him. Finally his mother
she said to him one day, 'Why shouldn't I,' sez she, 'when Ike's allers
pleasant to me, and doin' every thing he ken fur me, and you don't do
nothin' but scold.' That 'are, you see, was a kind o' home-thrust, and
Bill he didn't like Ike a bit the better for that. He did every thing he
could to plague him, and hector him, and sarcumvent him, and set people
agin him.

“Wal, ye see, 'twas the old story about Jacob and Laban over agin. Every
thing that Ike put his hand to kind o' prospered. Everybody liked him,
everybody hed a good word for him, everybody helped grease his wheels.
Wal, come time when he was twenty-one, old Mump he gin him a settin'
out. He gin him a freedom suit o' clothes, and he gin him a good cow,
and Mis' Moss she knit him up a lot o' stockings, and the gals they made
him up his shirts. Then, Ike he got a place with Squire Wells, and got
good wages; and he bought a little bit o' land, with a house on it, on
Squire Wells's place, and took a mortgage on't, to work off. He used
to work his own land, late at night and early in the mornin', over and
above givin' good days' works to the squire; and the old squire he sot
all the world by him, and said he hedn't hed sich a man to work since he
didn't know when.

“Wal, a body might ha' thought that when Bill had a got him out o' the
house, he might ha' ben satisfied, but he wasn't. He was an ugly fellow,
Bill Moss was; and a body would ha' thought that every thing good that
happened to Ike was jest so much took from him. Come to be young men,
growed up together, and waitin' on the gals round, Ike he was pretty apt
to cut Bill out. Yer see, though Bill was goin' to have the farm, and
all old Mump's money, he warn't pleasant-spoken; and so, when the gals
got a chance, they'd allers rather go with Ike than him. Finally, there
was Delily Sawin, she was about the handsomest girl there was round,
and she hed all the fellers arter her; and her way was to speak 'em all
fair, and keep 'em all sort o' waitin' and hopin', till she got ready
to make her mind up. She'd entertain Bill Saturday night, and she'd tell
Ike he might come Sunday night; and so Ike he was well pleased, and Bill
he growled.

“Wal, there come along a gret cattle-show. Squire Wells he got it up: it
was to be the gretest kind of a time, and Squire Wells he give money fur
prizes. There was to be a prize on the best cow, and the best bull, and
the best ox, and the best horse, and the biggest punkins and squashes
and beets, and there was a prize for the best loaf o' bread, and the
best pair o' stockin's, and the handsomest bed-quilt, and the rest
o' women's work. Wal, yer see, there was a gret to-do about the
cattle-show; and the wagons they came in from all around,--ten miles;
and the gals all dressed up in their best bunnits, and they had a ball
in the evenin'. Wal, ye see, it so happened that Bill and Ike each on
'em sent a bull to the cattle-show; and Ike's bull took the prize. That
put the cap-sheaf on for Bill. He was jest about as much riled as a
feller could be; and that evenin' Delily she danced with Ike twice as
many times ez she did with him. Wal, Bill he got it round among the
fellers that the jedges hed been partial; and he said, if them bulls was
put together, his bull would whip Ike's all to thunder. Wal, the fellers
thought 'twould be kind o' fun to try 'em, and they put Ike up to it.
And finally 'twas agreed that Ike's bull should be driv over to old
Mump's; and the Monday after the cattle-show, they should let 'em out
into the meadow together and see which was the strongest. So there was
a Sunday the bulls they were both put up together in the same barn; and
the 'greement was, they wasn't to be looked at nor touched till the time
come to turn 'em out.

“Come Sunday mornin', they got up the wagon to go to meetin'; and Mis'
Moss and the gals and old Mump, they was all ready; and the old yaller
dog he was standrn' waitin' by the wagon, and Bill warn't nowhere to be
found. So they sent one o' the girls up chamber to see what'd got
him; and there he was a-lyin' on the bed, and said he'd got a drefful
headache, and didn't think he could go to meetin'. Wal, the second
bell was a-tollin', and they had to drive off without him: they never
mistrusted but what 'twas jest so. Wal, yer see, boys, 'twas that 'are
kind o' Sunday headache that sort o' gets better when the folks is all
fairly into meetin'. So, when the wagon was fairly out o' sight, Bill he
thought he'd jest go and have a peek at them bulls. Wal, he looked
and he peeked, and finally he thought they looked so sort o' innocent
'twouldn't do no harm to jest let 'em have a little run in the cow-yard
aforehand. He kind o' wanted to see how they was likely to cut up. Now,
ye see, the mischief about bulls is, that a body never knows what they's
goin' to do, 'cause whatever notion takes 'em allers comes into their
heads so kind o' suddin, and it's jest a word and a blow with 'em. Wal,
fust he let out his bull, and then he went in and let out Ike's. Wal,
the very fust thing that critter did he run up to Bill's bull, full
tilt, and jest gin one rip with his horns right in the side of him, and
knocked him over and killed him. Didn't die right off, but he was done
for; and Bill he gin a the old feller turned right round, and come at
_him_. I tell you, Bill he turned and made a straight coattail, rippin'
and peelin' it towards the house, and the bull tearin' on right arter
him. Into the kitchen he went, and he hedn't no time to shut the door,
and the bull arter him; and into the keepin'-room, and the bull arter
him there. And he hedn't but jest time to git up the chamber-stairs,
when he heard the old feller roarin' and tearin' round there like all
natur. Fust he went to the lookin'-glass, and smashed that all to
pieces. Then he histed the table over, and he rattled and smashed the
chairs round, and made such a roaring and noise, ye'd ha' thought there
was seven devils there; and in the midst of it Bill he looked out of the
window, and see the wagon a-comin' back; and 'Lordy massy!' he thought
to himself, 'the bull 'll kill every one on 'em,' and he run to the
window and yelled and shouted, and they saw him, and thought the house
must be afire.

[Illustration: 0217]

“Finally, he bethought him of old Mump's gun, and he run round and got
it, and poked it through a crack of the chamber-door, and fired off
bang! and shot him dead, jest as Mis' Moss and the girls was comin' into
the kitchen-door.

“Wal, there was, to be sure, the 'bomination o' desolation when they
come in and found every thing all up in a heap and broke to pieces, and
the old critter a-kickin' and bleedin' all over the carpet, and Bill
as pale as his shirt-tail on the chamber-stairs. They had an awful mess
on't; and there was the two bulls dead and to be took care uv.

“'Wal, Bill,” said his father, “'I hope yer satisfied now. All that comes
o' stayin' to home from meetin', and keepin' temporal things in yer head
all day Sunday. You've lost your own bull, you've got Ike's to pay for,
and ye 'll have the laugh on yer all round the country.'

“'I expect, father, we ken corn the meat,' says Mis' Moss, 'and maybe
the hide 'll sell for something,' sez she; for she felt kind o' tender
for Bill, and didn't want to bear down too hard on him.

“Wal, the story got round, and everybody was a-throwin' it up at Bill;
and Delily, in partikelar, hectored him about it till he wished the
bulls had been in the Red Sea afore he'd ever seen one on 'em. Wal, it
really driv him out o' town, and he went off out West to settle, and
nobody missed him much; and Ike he married Delily, and they grew from
better to better, till now they own jest about as pretty a farm as
there is round. Yer remember that white house with green blinds, that we
passed when we was goin' to the trout-brook? Wal, that 'ere's the one.”

[Illustration: 5221]

HOW TO FIGHT THE DEVIL

[Illustration: 9222]

OOK here, boys,” said Sam, “don't you want to go with me up to the
Devil's Den this arternoon?”

“Where is the Devil's Den,” said I, with a little awe.

“Wal, it's a longer tramp than I've ever took ye. It's clear up past the
pickerel pond, and beyond old Skunk John's pasture-lot. It's a 'mazin'
good place for raspberries; shouldn't wonder if we should get two, three
quarts there. Great rocks there higher'n yer head; kinder solemn, 'tis.”

This was a delightful and seductive account, and we arranged for a walk
that very afternoon.

In almost every New-England village the personality of Satan has been
acknowledged by calling by his name some particular rock or cave, or
other natural object whose singularity would seem to suggest a more than
mortal occupancy. “The Devil's Punchbowl,” “The Devil's Wash-bowl,” “The
Devil's Kettle,” “The Devil's Pulpit,” and “The Devil's Den,” have been
designations that marked places or objects of some striking natural
peculiarity. Often these are found in the midst of the most beautiful
and romantic scenery, and the sinister name seems to have no effect in
lessening its attractions. To me, the very idea of going to the Devil's
Den was full of a pleasing horror. When a boy, I always lived in the
shadowy edge of that line which divides spirit land from mortal life,
and it was my delight to walk among its half lights and shadows. The old
graveyard where, side by side, mouldered the remains of Indian sachems
and the ancients of English blood, was my favorite haunt. I loved to
sit on the graves while the evening mists arose from them, and to fancy
cloudy forms waving and beckoning. To me, this spirit land was my
only refuge from the dry details of a hard, prosaic life. The
schoolroom--with its hard seats rudely fashioned from slabs of
rough wood, with its clumsy desks, hacked and ink-stained, with its
unintelligible textbooks and its unsympathetic teacher--was to me
a prison out of whose weary windows I watched the pomp and glory of
nature,--the free birds singing, the clouds sailing, the trees waving
and whispering,--and longed, as earnestly as ever did the Psalmist, to
flee far away, and wander in the wilderness.

Hence, no joy of after life--nothing that the world has now to give--can
equal that joyous sense of freedom and full possession which came over
me on Saturday afternoons, when I started off on a tramp with the
world all before me,--the mighty, unexplored world of mysteries and
possibilities, bounded only by the horizon. Ignorant alike of all
science, neither botanist nor naturalist, I was studying at firsthand
all that lore out of which science is made. Every plant and flower had a
familiar face to me, and said something to my imagination. I knew where
each was to be found, its time of coming and going, and met them year
after year as returning friends.

So it was with joyous freedom that we boys ram bled off with Sam this
afternoon, intent to find the Devil's Den. It was a ledge of granite
rocks rising in the midst of a grove of pines and white birches. The
ground was yellow and slippery with the fallen needles of the pines of
other days, and the glistening white stems of the birches shone through
the shadows like ivory pillars. Underneath the great granite ledges, all
sorts of roots and plants grappled and kept foothold; and whole armies
of wild raspberries matured their fruit, rounder and juicier for growing
in the shade.

In one place yawned a great rift, or cavern, as if the rocks had been
violently twisted and wrenched apart, and a mighty bowlder lodging in
the rift had roofed it over, making a cavern of most seductive darkness
and depth. This was the Devil's Den; and after we had picked our pail
full of berries, we sat down there to rest.

“Sam, do you suppose the Devil ever was here?” said I. “What do they
call this his den for?”

“Massy, child! that 'are was in old witch times. There used to be witch
meetins' held here, and awful doins'; they used to have witch sabba'
days and witch sacraments, and sell their souls to the old boy.”

“What should they want to do that for?”

“Wal, sure enough; what was it for? I can't make out that the Devil ever
gin 'em any thing, any on 'em. They warn't no richer, nor didn't get no
more'n this world than the rest; and they was took and hung; and then ef
they went to torment after that, they hed a pretty bad bargain on't, I
say.”

“Well, people don't do such things any more, do they?” said I.

“No,” said Sam. “Since the gret fuss and row-de-dow about it, it's kind
o' died out; but there's those, I s'pose, that hez dealins' with the old
boy. Folks du say that old Ketury was a witch, and that, ef't ben in old
times, she'd a hed her neck stretched; but she lived and died in peace.”

“But do you think,” said I, now proposing the question that lay nearest
my heart, “that the Devil can hurt us?”

“That depends consid'able on how you take him,” said Sam. “Ye see, come
to a straight out-an'-out fight with him, he 'll git the better on yer.”

“But,” said I, “Christian did fight Apollyon, and got him down too.”

I had no more doubt in those days that this was an historic fact than I
had of the existence of Romulus and Remus and the wolf.

“Wal, that 'ere warn't jest like real things: they say that 'ere's an
allegory. But I 'll tell ye how old Sarah Bunganuck fit the Devil,
when he 'peared to her. Ye see, old Sarah she was one of the converted
Injuns, and a good old critter she was too; worked hard, and got her
livin' honest. She made baskets, and she made brooms, and she used to
pick young wintergreen and tie it up in bunches, and dig sassafras
and ginsing to make beer; and she got her a little bit o' land, right
alongside o' Old Black Hoss John's white-birch wood-lot.

“Now, I've heerd some o' these 'ere modern ministers that come down from
Cambridge college, and are larnt about every thing in creation, they
say there ain't no devil, and the reason on't is, 'cause there can't be
none. These 'ere fellers is so sort o' green!--they don't mean no harm,
but they don't know nothin' about nobody that does. If they'd ha' known
old Black Hoss John, they'd ha' been putty sure there was a devil. He
was jest the crossest, ugliest critter that ever ye see, and he was ugly
jest for the sake o' ugliness. He couldn't bear to let the boys pick
huckleberries in his paster lots, when he didn't pick 'em himself; and
he was allers jawin' me 'cause I would go trout-fishin' in one o' his
pasters. Jest ez if the trout that swims warn't, the Lord's, and jest ez
much mine as his. He grudged every critter every thing; and if he'd ha'
hed his will and way, every bird would ha' fell down dead that picked
up a worm on his grounds. He was jest as nippin' as a black frost. Old
Black Hoss didn't git drunk in a regerlar way, like Uncle Eph and Toddy
Whitney, and the rest o' them boys. But he jest sot at home, a-soakin'
on cider, till he was crosser'n a bear with a sore head. Old Black Hoss
hed a special spite agin old Sarah. He said she was an old witch and an
old thief, and that she stole things off'n his grounds, when everybody
knew that she was a regerlar church-member, and as decent an old critter
as there was goin'. As to her stealin', she didn't do nothin' but pick
huckleberries and grapes, and git chesnuts and wannuts, and butternuts,
and them 'ere wild things that's the Lord's, grow on whose land they
will, and is free to all. I've hearn 'em tell that, over in the old
country, the poor was kept under so, that they couldn't shoot a bird,
nor ketch a fish, nor gather no nuts, nor do nothin' to keep from
starvin', 'cause the quality folks they thought they owned every
thing, 'way-down to the middle of the earth and clear up to the stars. We
never hed no sech doin's this side of the water, thank the Lord! We've
allers been free to have the chesnuts and the wannuts and the grapes and
the huckleberries and the strawberries, ef we could git 'em, and ketch
fish when and where we was a mind to. Lordy massy! your grandthur's
old Cesar, he used to call the pond his pork-pot. He'd jest go down and
throw in a line and ketch his dinner. Wal, Old Black Hoss he know'd the
law was so, and he couldn't do nothin' agin her by law; but he sarved
her out every mean trick he could think of. He used to go and stan'
and lean over her garden-gate and jaw at her an hour at a time; but old
Sarah she had the Injun in her; she didn't run to talk much: she used
to jest keep on with her weedin and her work, jest's if he warn't there,
and that made Old Black Hoss madder'n ever; and he thought he'd try and
frighten her off'n the ground, by makin' on her believe he was the Devil.
So one time, when he'd been killin' a beef critter, they took off the
skin with the horns and all on; and Old Black Hoss he says to Toddy and
Eph and Loker, 'You jest come up tonight, and see how I 'll frighten old
Sarah Bunganuck.'

“Wal, Toddy and Eph and Loker, they hedn't no better to do, and they
thought they'd jest go round and see. Ye see 'twas a moonlight
night, and old Sarah--she was an industrious critter--she was cuttin'
white-birch brush for brooms in the paster-lot.

“Wal, Old Black Hoss he wrapped the critter's skin round him, with the
horns on his head, and come and stood by the fence, and begun to roar
and make a noise.

[Illustration: 0223]

“Old Sarah she kept right on with her work, cuttin' her brush and
pilin' on't up, and jest let him roar. Wal, Old Black Hoss felt putty
foolish, 'specially ez the fellers were waitin' to see how she took it.
So he calls out in a grum voice,--

“'Woman, don't yer know who I be?”

“'No,' says she quite quiet, 'I don't know who yer be.'

“'Wal, I'm the Devil,' sez he.

“'Ye be?' says old Sarah. 'Poor old critter, how I pity ye!' and she
never gin him another word, but jest bundled up her broom-stuff, and
took it on her back and walked off, and Old Black Hoss he stood there
mighty foolish with his skin and horns; and so he had the laugh agin
him, 'cause Eph and Loker they went and told the story down to the
tavern, and he felt awful cheap to think old Sarah had got the upper
hands on him.

“Wal, ye see, boys, that 'ere's jest the way to fight the Devil. Jest
keep straight on with what ye're doin', and don't ye mind him, and he
can't do nothin' to ye.”

[Illustration: 5233]

LAUGHIN' IN MEETIN'

[Illustration: 9234]

E were in disgrace, we boys; and the reason of it was this: we had
laughed out in meeting-time! To be sure, the occasion was a trying one,
even to more disciplined nerves. Parson Lothrop had exchanged pulpits
with Parson Summeral, of North Wearem. Now, Parson Summeral was a man
in the very outset likely to provoke the risibles of unspiritualized
juveniles. He was a thin, wiry, frisky little man, in a powdered white
wig, black tights, and silk stockings, with bright knee-buckles and
shoe-buckles; with round, dark, snapping eyes; and a curious, high,
cracked, squeaking voice, the very first tones of which made all the
children stare and giggle. The news that Parson Summeral was going to
preach in our village spread abroad among us as a prelude to something
funny. It had a flavor like the charm of circus-acting; and, on the
Sunday morning of our story, we went to the house of God in a very
hilarious state, all ready to set off in a laugh on the slightest
provocation.

The occasion was not long wanting. Parson Lo-throp had a favorite dog
yclept Trip, whose behavior in meeting was notoriously far from that
edifying pattern which befits a minister's dog on Sundays. Trip was
a nervous dog, and a dog that never could be taught to conceal his
emotions or to respect conventionalities. If any thing about the
performance in the singers' seat did not please him, he was apt to
express himself in a lugubrious howl. If the sermon was longer than
suited him, he would gape with such a loud creak of his jaws as would
arouse everybody's attention. If the flies disturbed his afternoon's
nap, he would give sudden snarls or snaps; or, if anything troubled his
dreams, he would bark out in his sleep in a manner not only to dispel
his own slumbers, but those of certain worthy deacons and old ladies,
whose sanctuary repose was thereby sorely broken and troubled. For all
these reasons, Madame Lo-throp had been forced, as a general thing, to
deny Trip the usual sanctuary privileges of good family dogs in that
age, and shut him up on Sundays to private meditation. Trip, of course,
was only the more set on attendance, and would hide behind doors, jump
out of windows, sneak through by-ways and alleys, and lie hid till the
second bell had done tolling, when suddenly he would appear in the broad
aisle, innocent and happy, and take his seat as composedly as any member
of the congregation.

Imagine us youngsters on the _qui vive_ with excitement at seeing Parson
Summeral frisk up into the pulpit with all the vivacity of a black
grasshopper. We looked at each other, and giggled very cautiously, with
due respect to Aunt Lois's sharp observation.

At first, there was only a mild, quiet simmering of giggle, compressed
decorously within the bounds of propriety; and we pursed our muscles up
with stringent resolution, whenever we caught the apprehensive eye of
our elders.

But when, directly after the closing notes of the tolling second bell,
Master Trip walked gravely up the front aisle, and, seating himself
squarely in front of the pulpit, raised his nose with a critical air
toward the scene of the forthcoming performance, it was too much for us:
the repression was almost convulsive. Trip wore an alert, attentive air,
befitting a sound, orthodox dog, who smells a possible heresy, and deems
it his duty to watch the performances narrowly.

Evidently he felt called upon to see who and what were to occupy that
pulpit in his master's absence.

Up rose Parson Summeral; and up went Trip's nose, vibrating with intense
attention.

The parson began in his high-cracked voice to intone the hymn,--

                   “Sing to the Lord aloud,”

when Trip broke into a dismal howl.

The parson went on to give directions to the deacon, in the same
voice in which he had been reading, so that the whole effect of the
performance was somewhat as follows:--

                   “'Sing to the Lord aloud.'

“(Please to turn out that dog),--

                   “'And make a joyful noise.,”

The dog was turned out, and the choir did their best to make a joyful
noise; but we boys were upset for the day, delivered over to the
temptations of Satan, and plunged in waves and billows of hysterical
giggle, from which neither winks nor frowns from Aunt Lois, nor the
awful fear of the tithing-man, nor the comforting bits of fennel and
orange-peel passed us by grandmother, could recover us.

Everybody felt, to be sure, that here was a trial that called for some
indulgence. Hard faces, even among the stoniest saints, betrayed a
transient quiver of the risible muscles; old ladies put up their fans;
youths and maidens in the singers' seat laughed outright; and, for the
moment, a general snicker among the children was pardoned. But I was one
of that luckless kind, whose nerves, once set in vibration, could not be
composed. When the reign of gravity and decorum had returned, Harry and
I sat by each other, shaking with suppressed laughter. Every thing in
the subsequent exercises took a funny turn; and in the long prayer, when
everybody else was still and decorous, the whole scene came over me with
such overpowering force, that I exploded with laughter, and had to
be taken out of meeting and marched home by Aunt Lois, as a convicted
criminal. What especially moved her indignation was, that, the more she
rebuked and upbraided, the more I laughed, till the tears rolled down
my cheeks; which Aunt Lois construed into wilful disrespect to her
authority, and resented accordingly.

By Sunday evening, as we gathered around the fire, the re-action from
undue gayety to sobriety had taken place; and we were in a pensive and
penitent state. Grandmother was gracious and forgiving; but Aunt Lois
still preserved that frosty air of reprobation which she held to be a
salutary means of quickening our consciences for the future. It was,
therefore, with unusual delight that we saw our old friend Sam come in,
and sit himself quietly down on the block in the chimney corner. With
Sam we felt assured of indulgence and patronage; for, though always
rigidly moral and instructive in his turn of mind, he had that
fellow-feeling for transgressors which is characteristic of the
loose-jointed, easy-going style of his individuality.

“Lordy massy, boys--yis,” said Sam virtuously, in view of some of Aunt
Lois's thrusts, “ye ought never to laugh nor cut up in meetin'; that
'are's so: but then there is times when the best on us gets took down.
We gets took unawares, ye see,--even ministers does. Yis, natur' will
git the upper hand afore they know it.”

“Why, Sam, _ministers_ don't ever laugh in meetin'! do they?”

We put the question with wide eyes. Such a supposition bordered on
profanity, we thought: it was approaching the sin of Uzzah, who unwarily
touched the ark of the Lord.

“Laws, yes. Why, heven't you never heard how there was a council held to
try Parson Morrel for laughin' out in prayer-time?”

“Laughing in prayer-time!” we both repeated, with uplifted hands and
eyes.

My grandfather's mild face became luminous with a suppressed smile,
which brightened it as the moon does a cloud; but he said nothing.

“Yes, yes,” said my grandmother, “that affair did make a dreadful
scandal in the time on't! But Parson Morrel was a good man; and I'm glad
the council wasn't hard on him.”

“Wal,” said Sam Lawson, “after all, it was more Ike Babbit's fault than
'twas anybody's. Ye see, Ike he was allers for gettin' what he could
out o' the town; and he would feed his sheep on the meetin'-house
green. Somehow or other, Ike's fences allers contrived to give out, come
Sunday, and up would come his sheep; and Ike was too pious to drive 'em
back Sunday, and so there they was. He was talked to enough about it:
'cause, ye see, to hev sheep and lambs a ba-a-in' and a blatin'
all prayer and sermon time wa'n't the thing. 'Member that 'are old
meet-in'-house up to the North End, down under Blueberry Hill, the land
sort o' sloped down, so as a body hed to come into the meetin'-house
steppin' down instead o' up.

“Fact was, they said 'twas put there 'cause the land wa'n't good for
nothin' else; and the folks thought puttin' a meetin'-house on't would
be a clear savin'. But Parson Morrel he didn't like it, and was free to
tell 'em his mind on't,--that 'twas like bringin' the lame and the blind
to the Lord's sarvice; but there 'twas.

“There wa'n't a better minister, nor no one more set by in all the
State, than Parson Morrel. His doctrines was right up and down, good and
sharp; and he give saints and sinners their meat in due season; and for
consolin' and comfortin' widders and orphans, Parson Morrel hedn't his
match. The women sot lots by him; and he was allus' ready to take tea
round, and make things pleasant and comfortable; and he hed a good story
for every one, and a word for the children, and maybe an apple or a
cookey in his pocket for 'em. Wal, you know there an't no pleasin'
everybody; and ef Gabriel himself, right down out o' heaven, was to come
and be a minister, I expect there'd be a pickin' at his wings, and sort
o' fault-findin'. Now, Aunt Jerushy Scran and Aunt Polly Hokun they sed
Parson Morrel wa'n't solemn enough. Ye see, there's them that thinks
that a minister ought to be jest like the town hearse, so that ye think
of death, judgment, and eternity, and nothin' else, when ye see him
round; and ef they see a man rosy and chipper, and hevin' a pretty nice,
sociable sort of a time, why they say he an't spiritooal minded. But, in
my times, I've seen ministers the most awakenin' kind in the pulpit
that was the liveliest when they was out on't. There is a time to laugh,
Scriptur' says; tho' some folks never seem to remember that 'are.”

“But, Sam, how came you to say it was Ike Babbit's fault? What was it
about the sheep?”

“Oh, wal, yis! I'm a comin' to that 'are. It was all about them sheep.
I expect they was the instrument the Devil sot to work to tempt Parson
Morrel to laugh in prayer-time.

“Ye see, there was old Dick, Ike's bell-wether, was the fightin'est old
crittur that ever yer see. Why, Dick would butt at his own shadder;
and everybody said it was a shame the old crittur should be left to
run loose, 'cause he run at the children, and scared the women half out
their wits. Wal, I used to live out in that parish in them days. And
Lem Sudoc and I used to go out sparkin' Sunday nights, to see the Larkin
gals; and we had to go right 'cross the lot where Dick was: so we used
to go and stand at the fence, and call. And Dick would see us, and put
down his head, and run at us full chisel, and come bunt agin the fence;
and then I'd ketch him by the horns, and hold him while Lem run and got
over the fence t'other side the lot; and then I'd let go: and Lem would
holler, and shake a stick at him, and away he'd go full butt at Lem; and
Lem would ketch his horns, and hold him till I came over,--that was
the way we managed Dick; but, I tell you, ef he come sudden up behind
a fellow, he'd give him a butt in the small of his back that would make
him run on all fours one while. He was a great rogue,--Dick was. Wal,
that summer, I remember they hed old Deacon Titkins for tithing-man; and
I tell you he give it to the boys lively. There wa'n't no sleepin' nor
no playin'; for the deacon hed eyes like a gimblet, and he was quick as
a cat, and the youngsters hed to look out for themselves. It did really
seem as if the deacon was like them four beasts in the Revelations that
was full o' eyes behind and before; for which ever way he was standin',
if you gave only a wink, he was down on you, and hit you a tap with his
stick. I know once Lem Sudoc jist wrote two words in the psalm-book and
passed to Kesiah Larkin; and the deacon give him such a tap that Lem
grew red as a beet, and vowed he'd be up with him some day for that.

“Well, Lordy Massy, folks that is so chipper and high steppin' has to
hev their come downs; and the deacon he hed to hev his.

“That 'are Sunday,--I 'member it now jest as well as if 'twas
yesterday,--the parson he give us his gre't sermon, reconcilin' decrees
and free agency: everybody said that 'are sermon was a masterpiece.
He preached it up to Cambridge at Commencement, that year. Wal, it so
happened it was one o' them bilin' hot days that come in August, when
you can fairly hear the huckleberries a sizzlin', and cookin' on the
bushes, and the locust keeps a gratin' like a red-hot saw. Wal, such
times, decrees or no decrees, the best on us will get sleepy. The old
meetin'-house stood right down at the foot of a hill that kep' off all
the wind; and the sun blazed away at them gre't west winders: and there
was pretty sleepy times there. Wal, the deacon, he flew round a spell,
and woke up the children, and tapped the boys on the head, and kep'
every thing straight as he could, till the sermon was most through, when
he railly got most tuckered out; and he took a chair, and he sot down
in the door right opposite the minister, and fairly got asleep himself,
jest as the minister got up to make the last prayer.

“Wal, Parson Morrel hed a way o' prayin' with his eyes open. Folks said
it wa'n't the best way: but it was Parson Morrel's way, anyhow; and so,
as he was prayin', he couldn't help seein' that Deacon Tit-kins was a
noddin' and a bobbin' out toward the place where old Dick was feedin'
with the sheep, front o' the meetin'-house door.

“Lem and me we was sittin' where we could look out; and we jest sees old
Dick stop feedin' and look at the deacon. The deacon hed a little round
head as smooth as an apple, with a nice powdered wig on it: and he sot
there makin' bobs and bows; and Dick begun to think it was suthin sort
o' pussonal. Lem and me was sittin' jest where we could look out and see
the hull picter; and Lem was fit to split.

“'Good, now,' says he: 'that crittur 'll pay the deacon off lively,
pretty soon.'

“The deacon bobbed his head a spell; and old Dick he shook his horns,
and stamped at him sort o' threat-nin'. Finally the deacon he give a
great bow, and brought his head right down at him; and old Dick he sot
out full tilt and come down on him ker chunk, and knocked him head over
heels into the broad aisle: and his wig flew one way and he t'other; and
Dick made a lunge at it, as it flew, and carried it off on his horns.

[Illustration: 0247]

“Wal, you may believe, that broke up the meetin' for one while: for
Parson Morrel laughed out; and all the gals and boys they stomped and
roared. And the old deacon he got up and begun rubbin' his shins, 'cause
he didn't see the joke on't.

“'You don't orter laugh,' says he: 'it's no laughin' matter; it's a
solemn thing,' says he. 'I might hev been sent into 'tarnity by that
darned crittur,' says he. Then they all roared and haw-hawed the more,
to see the deacon dancin' round with his little shiny head, so smooth a
fly would trip up on't. 'I believe, my soul, you'd laugh to see me in my
grave,' says he.

“Wal, the truth on't was, 'twas jist one of them bustin' up times that
natur has, when there an't nothin' for it but to give in: 'twas jest
like the ice breakin' up in the Charles River,--it all come at once,
and no whoa to't. Sunday or no Sunday, sin or no sin, the most on 'em
laughed till they cried, and couldn't help it.

“But the deacon, he went home feelin' pretty sore about it. Lem Sudoc,
he picked up his wig, and handed it to him. Says he, 'Old Dick was
playin' tithin'-man, wa'n't he, deacon? Teach you to make allowance for
other folks that get sleepy.'

“Then Miss Titkins she went over to Aunt Jerushy Scran's and Aunt Polly
Hokum's; and they hed a pot o' tea over it, and 'greed it was awful of
Parson Morrel to set sich an example, and suthin' hed got to be done
about it. Miss Hokum said she allers knew that Parson Morrel hedn't no
spiritooality; and now it hed broke out into open sin, and led all the
rest of 'em into it; and Miss Titkins, she said such a man wa'n't fit
to preach; and Miss Hokum said she couldn't never hear him agin: and the
next Sunday the deacon and his wife they hitched up and driv eight miles
over to Parson Lothrop's and took Aunt Polly on the back seat.

“Wal, the thing growed and growed, till it seemed as if there wa'n't
nothin' else talked about, 'cause Aunt Polly and Miss Titkins and
Jerushy Scran they didn't do nothin' but talk about it; and that sot
everybody else a-talkin'.

“Finally, it was 'greed they must hev a council to settle the hash. So
all the wimmen they went to choppin' mince, and makin' up pumpkin
pies and cranberry tarts, andb'ilin' doughnuts,--gettin' ready for the
ministers and delegates; 'cause councils always eats powerful: and they
hed quite a stir, like a gineral trainin'. The hosses they was hitched
all up and down the stalls, a-stompin' and switchin' their tails;
and all the wimmen was a-talkin'; and they hed up everybody round for
witnesses. And finally Parson Morrel he says, 'Brethren,' says he, 'jest
let me tell you the story jest as it happened; and, if you don't every
one of you laugh as hard as I did, why, then, I 'll give up.'

“The parson he was a master-hand at settin' off a story; and, afore he'd
done, he got 'em all in sich a roar they didn't know where to leave off.
Finally, they give sentence that there hedn't no temptation took him but
such as is common to man; but they advised him afterwards allers to pray
with his eyes shet; and the parson he confessed he orter 'a done it, and
meant to do better in future: and so they settled it.

“So, boys,” said Sam, who always drew a moral, “ye see, it larns you,
you must take care what ye look at, ef ye want to keep from laughin' in
meetin'”.

[Illustration: 5252]

TOM TOOTHACHE'S GHOST STORY.

[Illustration: 9253]

HAT is it about that old house in Sherbourne?” said Aunt Nabby to Sam
Lawson, as he sat drooping over the coals of a great fire one October
evening.

Aunt Lois was gone to Boston on a visit; and, the smart spice of
her scepticism being absent, we felt the more freedom to start our
story-teller on one of his legends.

Aunt Nabby sat trotting her knitting-needles on a blue-mixed yarn
stocking. Grandmamma was knitting in unison at the other side of the
fire. Grandfather sat studying “The Boston Courier.” The wind outside
was sighing in fitful wails, creaking the pantry-doors, occasionally
puffing in a vicious gust down the broad throat of the chimney. It was
a drizzly, sleety evening; and the wet lilac-bushes now and then rattled
and splashed against the window as the wind moaned and whispered through
them.

We boys had made preparation for a comfortable evening. We had enticed
Sam to the chimney-corner, and drawn him a mug of cider. We had set down
a row of apples to roast on the hearth, which even now were giving faint
sighs and sputters as their plump sides burst in the genial heat. The
big oak back-log simmered and bubbled, and distilled large drops down
amid the ashes; and the great hickory forestick had just burned out into
solid bright coals, faintly skimmed over with white ashes. The whole
area of the big chimney was full of a sleepy warmth and brightness just
calculated to call forth fancies and visions. It only wanted somebody
now to set Sam off; and Aunt Nabby broached the ever-interesting subject
of haunted houses.

“Wal, now, Miss Badger,” said Sam, “I ben over there, and walked round
that are house consid'able; and I talked with Granny Hokum and Aunt
Polly, and they've putty much come to the conclusion that they 'll hev to
move out on't. Ye see these 'ere noises, they keep 'em awake nights; and
Aunt Polly, she gets 'stericky; and Hannah Jane, she says, ef they stay
in the house, _she_ can't live with 'em no longer. And what can them
lone women do without Hannah Jane? Why, Hannah Jane, she says these two
months past she's seen a woman, regular, walking up and down the front
hall between twelve and one o'clock at night; and it's jist the image
and body of old Ma'am Tillotson, Parson Hokum's mother, that everybody
know'd was a thunderin' kind o' woman, that kep' every thing in a muss
while she was alive. What the old crittur's up to now there ain't no
knowin'. Some folks seems to think it's a sign Granny Hokum's time's
comin'. But Lordy massy! says she to me, says she, 'Why, Sam, I don't
know nothin' what I've done, that Ma'am Tillotson should be set loose
on me.' Anyway they've all got so narvy, that Jed Hokum has ben up from
Needham, and is goin' to cart 'em all over to live with him. Jed,
he's for hushin' on't up, 'cause he says it brings a bad name on the
property.

“Wal, I talked with Jed about it; and says I to Jed, says I, 'Now,
ef you 'll take my advice, jist you give that are old house a regular
overhaulin', and paint it over with tew coats o' paint, and that are 'll
clear 'em out, if any thing will. Ghosts is like bedbugs,--they can't
stan' fresh paint,' says I. 'They allers clear out. I've seen it tried
on a ship that got haunted.'”

“Why, Sam, do ships get haunted?”

“To be sure they do!--haunted the wust kind. Why, I could tell ye a
story'd make your har rise on e'end, only I'm 'fraid of frightening boys
when they're jist going to bed.”

“Oh! you can't frighten Horace,” said my grandmother. “He will go and
sit out there in the graveyard till nine o'clock nights, spite of all I
tell him.”

“Do tell, Sam!” we urged. “What was it about the ship?”

Sam lifted his mug of cider, deliberately turned it round and round in
his hands, eyed it affectionately, took a long drink, and set it down in
front of him on the hearth, and began:--

“Ye 'member I telled you how I went to sea down East, when I was a boy,
'long with Tom Toothacre. Wal, Tom, he reeled off a yarn one night
that was 'bout the toughest I ever hed the pullin' on. And it come all
straight, too, from Tom. 'Twa'n't none o' yer hearsay: 'twas what he
seen with his own eyes. Now, there wa'n't no nonsense 'bout Tom, not a
bit on't; and he wa'n't afeard o' the divil himse'f; and he ginally saw
through things about as straight as things could be seen through.
This 'ere happened when Tom was mate o' 'The Albatross,' and they was
a-runnin' up to the Banks for a fare o' fish. 'The Albatross' was as
handsome a craft as ever ye see; and Cap'n Sim Witherspoon, he was
skipper--a rail nice likely man he was. I heard Tom tell this 'ere one
night to the boys on 'The Brilliant,' when they was all a-settin'
round the stove in the cabin one foggy night that we was to anchor in
Frenchman's Bay, and all kind o' lavin' off loose.

“Tom, he said they was having a famous run up to the Banks. There was a
spankin' southerly, that blew 'em along like all natur'; and they was
hevin' the best kind of a time, when this 'ere southerly brought a pesky
fog down on 'em, and it grew thicker than hasty-puddin'. Ye see,
that are's the pester o' these 'ere southerlies: they's the biggest
fog-breeders there is goin'. And so, putty soon, you couldn't see half
ship's length afore you.

“Wal, they all was down to supper, except Dan Sawyer at the wheel, when
there come sich a crash as if heaven and earth was a-splittin', and then
a scrapin' and thump bumpin' under the ship, and gin 'em sich a h'ist
that the pot o' beans went rollin', and brought up jam ag'in the
bulk-head; and the fellers was keeled over,--men and pork and beans
kinder permiscus.

“'The divil!' says Tom Toothacre, 'we've run down somebody. Look out, up
there!'

“Dan, he shoved the helm hard down, and put her up to the wind, and sung
out, 'Lordy massy! we've struck her right amidships!'

“'Struck what?' they all yelled, and tumbled up on deck.

“'Why, a little schooner,' says Dan. 'Didn't see her till we was right
on her. She's gone down tack and sheet. Look! there's part o' the wreck
a-floating off: don't ye see?'

“Wal, they didn't see, 'cause it was so thick you couldn't hardly see
your hand afore your face. But they put about, and sent out a boat, and
kind o' sarched round; but, Lordy massy! ye might as well looked for a
drop of water in the Atlantic Ocean. Whoever they was, it was all done
gone and over with 'em for this life, poor critturs!

“Tom says they felt confoundedly about it; but what could they do? Lordy
massy! what can any on us do? There's places where folks jest lets go
'cause they hes to. Things ain't as they want 'em, and they can't alter
'em. Sailors ain't so rough as they look: they'z feelin' critturs, come
to put things right to 'em. And there wasn't one on 'em who wouldn't 'a'
worked all night for a chance o' saving some o' them poor fellows. But
there 'twas, and 'twa'n't no use trying.

“Wal, so they sailed on; and by'm by the wind kind o' chopped round
no'theast, and then come round east, and sot in for one of them regular
east blows and drizzles that takes the starch out o' fellers more'n a
regular storm. So they concluded they might as well put into a little
bay there, and come to anchor.

“So they sot an anchor-watch, and all turned in.

“Wal, now comes the particular curus part o' Tom's story: and it more
curus 'cause Tom was one that wouldn't 'a' believed no other man that
had told it. Tom was one o' your sort of philosophers. He was fer
lookin' into things, and wa'n't in no hurry 'bout believin'; so that
this 'un was more 'markablfe on account of it's bein' Tom that seen it
than ef it had ben others.

“Tom says that night he hed a pesky toothache that sort o' kep'
grumblin' and jumpin' so he couldn't go to sleep; and he lay in his
bunk, a-turnin' this way and that, till long past twelve o clock.

“Tom had a'thwart-ship bunk where he could see into every bunk on board,
except Bob Coffin's; and Bob was on the anchor-watch. Wal, he lay there,
tryin' to go to sleep, hearin' the men snorin' like bull-frogs in a
swamp, and watchin' the lantern a-swingin' back and forward; and the
sou'westers and pea-jackets were kinder throwin' their long shadders
up and down as the vessel sort o' rolled and pitched,--for there was a
heavy swell on,--and then he'd hear Bob Coffin tramp, tramp, trampin'
overhead,--for Bob had a pretty heavy foot of his own,--and all sort
o' mixed up together with Tom's toothache, so he couldn't get to sleep.
Finally, Tom, he bit off a great chaw o' 'baccy, and got it well sot in
his cheek, and kind o' turned over to lie on't, and ease the pain. Wal,
he says he laid a spell, and dropped off in a sort o' doze, when he woke
in sich a chill his teeth chattered, and the pain come on like a 'knife,
and he bounced over, thinking the fire had gone out in the stove.

“Wal, sure enough, he see a man a-crouchin' over the stove, with
his back to him, a-stretchin' out his hands to warm 'em. He had on a
sou'wester and a pea-jacket, with a red tippet round his neck; and his
clothes was drippin' as if he'd just come in from a rain.

“'What the divil!' says Tom. And he riz right up, and rubbed his eyes.
'Bill Bridges,' says he, 'what shine be you up to now?' For Bill was a
master oneasy crittur, and allers a-gettin' up and walkin' nights; and
Tom, he thought it was Bill. But in a minute he looked over, and there,
sure enough, was Bill, fast asleep in his bunk, mouth wide open, snoring
like a Jericho ram's-horn. Tom looked round, and counted every man in
his bunk, and then says he, 'Who the devil is this? for there's Bob
Coffin on deck, and the rest is all here.'

“Wal, Tom wa'n't a man to be put under too easy. He hed his thoughts
about him allers; and the fust he thought in every pinch was what to do.
So he sot considerin' a minute, sort o' winkin' his eyes to be sure he
saw straight, when, sure enough, there come another man backin' down the
companion-way.

“'Wal, there's Bob Coffin, anyhow,' says Tom to himself. But no, the
other man, he turned: Tom see his face; and, sure as you live, it was
the face of a dead corpse. Its eyes was sot, and it jest came as still
across the cabin, and sot down by the stove, and kind o' shivered, and
put out its hands as if it was gettin' warm.

“Tom said that there was a cold air round in the cabin, as if an iceberg
was comin' near, and he felt cold chills running down his back; but he
jumped out of his bunk, and took a step forward. 'Speak!' says he. 'Who
be you? and what do you want?'

“They never spoke, nor looked up, but kept kind o' shivering and
crouching over the stove.

“'Wal,' says Tom, 'I 'll see who you be, anyhow.' And he walked right
up to the last man that come in, and reached out to catch hold of his
coat-collar; but his hand jest went through him like moonshine, and in
a minute he all faded away; and when he turned round the other one was
gone too. Tom stood there, looking this way and that; but there warn't
nothing but the old stove, and the lantern swingin', and the men all
snorin' round in their bunks. Tom, he sung out to Bob Coffin. 'Hullo,
up there!' says he. But Bob never answered, and Tom, he went up, and
found Bob down on his knees, his teeth a-chatterin' like a bag o' nails,
trying to say his prayers; and all he could think of was, 'Now I lay
me,' and he kep' going that over and over. Ye see, boys, Bob was a
drefful wicked, swearin' crittur, and hadn't said no prayers since he
was tew years old, and it didn't come natural to him. Tom give a grip on
his collar, and shook him. 'Hold yer yawp,' said he. 'What you howlin'
about? What's up?'

“'Oh, Lordy massy!' says Bob, 'we're sent for,--all on us,--there's been
two on 'em: both on 'em went right by me!'

“Wal, Tom, he hed his own thoughts; but he was bound to get to the
bottom of things, anyway. Ef 'twas the devil, well and good--he
wanted to know it. Tom jest wanted to hev the matter settled one way or
t'other: so he got Bob sort o' stroked down, and made him tell what he
saw.

“Bob, he stood to it that he was a-standin' right for'ard, a-leanin' on
the windlass, and kind o' hummin' a tune, when he looked down, and see
a sort o' queer light in the fog; and he went and took a look over the
bows, when up came a man's head in a sort of sou'wester, and then a pair
of hands, and catched at the bob-stay; and then the hull figger of a man
riz right out o' the water, and clim up on the martingale till he could
reach the jib-stay with his hands, and then he swung himself right up
onto the bowsprit, and stepped aboard, and went past Bob, right aft,
and down into the cabin. And he hadn't more'n got down, afore he turned
round, and there was another comin' in over the bowsprit, and he went
by him, and down below: so there was two on 'em, jest as Tom had seen in
the cabin.

“Tom he studied on it a spell, and finally says he, 'Bob, let you and me
keep this 'ere to ourselves, and see ef it 'll come again. Ef it don't,
well and good: ef it does--why, we 'll see about it.'

“But Tom he told Cap'n Witherspoon, and the Cap'n he agreed to keep an
eye out the next night. But there warn't nothing said to the rest o' the
men.

“Wal, the next night they put Bill Bridges on the watch. The fog had
lifted, and they had a fair wind, and was going on steady. The men all
turned in, and went fast asleep, except Cap'n Witherspoon, Tom, and Bob
Coffin. Wal, sure enough, 'twixt twelve and one o'clock, the same thing
came over, only there war four men 'stead o' two. They come in jes' so
over the bowsprit, and they looked neither to right nor left, but dim
down stairs, and sot down, and crouched and shivered over the stove
jist like the others. Wal, Bill Bridges, he came tearin' down like a
wild-cat, frightened half out o' his wits, screechin' 'Lord, have mercy!
we're all goin' to the devil!' And then they all vanished.

“'Now, Cap'n, what's to be done?' says Tom. 'Ef these 'ere fellows is to
take passage, we can't do nothin' with the boys: that's clear.'

“Wal, so it turned out; for, come next night, there was six on 'em come
in, and the story got round, and the boys was all on eend. There wa'n't
no doin' nothin' with 'em. Ye see, it's allers jest so. Not but what
dead folks is jest as 'spectable as they was afore they's dead. These
might 'a' been as good fellers as any aboard; but it's human natur'. The
minute a feller's dead, why, you sort o' don't know 'bout him; and it's
kind o' skeery hevin' on him round; and so 'twan't no wonder the boys
didn't feel as if they could go on with the vy'ge, ef these 'ere fellers
was all to take passage. Come to look, too, there war consid'able of a
leak stove in the vessel; and the boys, they all stood to it, ef they
went farther, that they'd all go to the bottom. For, ye see, once the
story got a-goin', every one on 'em saw a new thing every night. One
on 'em saw the bait-mill a-grindin', without no hands to grind it; and
another saw fellers up aloft, workin' in the sails. Wal, the fact war,
they jest had to put about,--run back to Castine.

“Wal, the owners, they hushed up things the best they could; and they
put the vessel on the stocks, and worked her over, and put a new coat o'
paint on her, and called her 'The Betsey Ann;' and she went a good vy'ge
to the Banks, and brought home the biggest fare o' fish that had been
for a long time; and she's made good vy'ges ever since; and that jest
proves what I've been a-saying,--that there's nothin' to drive out
ghosts like fresh paint.”

THE PARSON'S HORSE-RACE.

[Illustration: 9268]

AL, now, this 'ere does beat all! I wouldn't 'a' thought it o' the
deacon.

So spoke Sam Lawson, drooping in a discouraged, contemplative attitude
in front of an equally discouraged looking horse, that had just been
brought to him by the Widow Simpkins for medical treatment. Among Sam's
many accomplishments he was reckoned in the neighborhood an oracle in
all matters of this kind, especially by women, whose helplessness in
meeting such emergencies found unfailing solace under his compassionate
willingness to attend to any business that did not strictly belong to
him, and from which no pecuniary return was to be expected.

The Widow Simpkins had bought this horse of Deacon Atkins, apparently
a fairly well-appointed brute, and capable as he was good-looking. A
short, easy drive, when the deacon held the reins, had shown off his
points to advantage; and the widow's small stock of ready savings had
come forth freely in payment for what she thought was a bargain. When,
soon after coming into possession, she discovered that her horse, if
driven with any haste, panted in a fearful manner, and that he appeared
to be growing lame, she waxed wroth, and went to the deacon in anger, to
be met only with the smooth reminder that the animal was all right when
she took him; that she had seen him tried herself. The widow was of a
nature somewhat spicy, and expressed herself warmly: “It's a cheat and a
shame, and I 'll take the law on ye!”

“What law will you take?” said the unmoved deacon. “Wasn't it a fair
bargain?”

“I 'll take the law of God,” said the widow with impotent indignation;
and she departed to pour her cares and trials into the ever ready ear of
Sam. Having assumed the care of the animal, he now sat contemplating it
in a sort of trance of melancholy reflection.

“Why, boys!” he broke out, “why didn't she come to me afore she bought
this crittur? Why, I knew all about him! That 'are crittur was jest
ruined a year ago last summer, when Tom, the deacon's boy there, come
home from college. Tom driv him over to Sherburn and back that 'are hot
Fourth of July. 'Member it, 'cause I saw the crittur when he come home.
I sot up with Tom takin' care of him all night. That 'are crittur had
the thumps all night, and he hain't never been good for nothin' since.
I telled the deacon he was a gone hoss then, and wouldn't never be
good for nothin'. The deacon, he took off his shoes, and let him run to
pastur' all summer, and he's ben a-feedin' and nussin' on him up; and
now he's put him off on the widder. I wouldn't 'a' thought it o' the
deacon! Why, this hoss 'll never be no good to her! That 'are's a used-up
crittur, any fool may see! He 'll mabbe do for about a quarter of an hour
on a smooth road; but come to drive him as a body wants to drive, why,
he blows like my bellowsis; and the deacon knew it--must 'a' known it!”

“Why, Sam!” we exclaimed, “ain't the deacon a good man?”

“Wal, now, there's where the shoe pinches! In a gin'al way the deacon
_is_ a good man--he's con-sid'able more than middlin' good: gin'ally
he adorns his perfession. On most p'ints I don't hev nothin' agin the
deacon; and this 'ere ain't a bit like him. But there 'tis! Come to
hosses, there's where the unsanctified natur' comes out. Folks will
cheat about hosses when they won't about 'most nothin' else.” And Sam
leaned back on his cold forge, now empty of coal, and seemed to deliver
himself to a mournful train of general reflection. “Yes, hosses does
seem to be sort o' unregenerate critturs,” he broke out: “there's
suthin' about hosses that deceives the very elect. The best o' folks
gets tripped up when they come to deal in hosses.”

“Why, Sam, is there any thing bad in horses?” we interjected timidly.

“'Tain't the hosses, boys,” said Sam with solemnity. “Lordy massy! the
hosses is all right enough! Hosses is scriptural animals. Elijah went up
to heaven in a chari't with hosses; and then all them lots o' hosses in
the Ravelations,--black and white and red, and all sorts o' colors. That
'are shows hosses goes to heaven; but it's more'n the folks that hev 'em
is likely to, ef they don't look out.

“Ministers, now,” continued Sam in a soliloquizing vein--“folks allers
thinks it's suthin' sort o' shaky in a minister to hev much to do with
hosses,--sure to get 'em into trouble. There was old Parson Williams
of North Billriky got into a drefful mess about a hoss. Lordy massy! he
warn't to blame, neither; but he got into the dreffulest scrape you ever
heard on--come nigh to unsettlin' him.”

“O Sam! tell us all about it,” we boys shouted, delighted with the
prospect of a story.

“Wal, wait now till I get off this crittur's shoes, and we 'll take him
up to pastur', and then we can kind o' set by the river, and fish. Hepsy
wanted a mess o' fish for supper, and I was cal'latin' to git some for
her. You boys go and be digging bait, and git yer lines.”

And so, as we were sitting tranquilly beside the Charles River, watching
our lines, Sam's narrative began:--

“Ye see, boys, Parson Williams--he's dead now, but when I was a boy he
was one of the gret men round here. He writ books. He writ a tract
agin the Armenians, and put 'em down; and he writ a big book on the
millennium (I've got that 'are book now); and he was a smart preacher.
Folks said he had invitations to settle in Boston, and there ain't no
doubt he might 'a' hed a Boston parish ef he'd 'a' ben a mind ter
take it; but he'd got a good settlement and a handsome farm in North
Billriky, and didn't care to move: thought, I s'pose, that 'twas better
to be number one in a little place than number two in a big un. Anyway,
he carried all before him where he was.

“Parson Williams was a tall, straight, personable man; come of good
family--father and grand'ther before him all ministers. He was putty up
and down, and commandin' in his ways, and things had to go putty much
as he said. He was a good deal sot by, Parson Williams was, and his wife
was a Derby,--one o' them rich Salem Derbys,--and brought him a lot
o' money; and so they lived putty easy and comfortable so fur as this
world's goods goes. Well, now, the parson wan't reely what you call
worldly-minded; but then he was one o' them folks that _knows what's
good_ in temporals as well as sperituals, and allers liked to hev the
best that there was goin'; and he allers had an eye to a good boss.

“Now, there was Parson Adams and Parson Scranton, and most of the other
ministers: they didn't know and didn't care what hoss they hed; jest
jogged round with these 'ere poundin', potbellied, sleepy critturs
that ministers mostly hes,--good enough to crawl round to funerals and
ministers' meetin's and associations and sich; but Parson Williams, he
allers would hev a hoss as was a hoss. He looked out for _blood_;
and, when these 'ere Vermont fellers would come down with a drove, the
parson, he hed his eyes open, and knew what was what. Couldn't none of
'em cheat him on hoss flesh. And so one time when Zach Buel was down
with a drove, the doctor, he bought the best hoss in the lot. Zach said
he never see a parson afore that he couldn't cheat; but he said the
doctor reely knew as much as he did, and got the very one he'd meant to
'a' kept for himself.

“This 'ere hoss was a peeler, I 'll tell you! They'd called him
Tamerlane, from some heathen feller or other: the boys called him Tam,
for short. Tam was a gret character. All the fellers for miles round
knew the doctor's Tam, and used to come clear over from the other
parishes to see him.

“Wal, this 'ere sot up Cuff's back high, I tell you! Cuff was the
doctor's nigger man, and he was nat 'lly a drefful proud crittur. The way
he would swell and strut and brag about the doctor and his folks and
his things! The doctor used to give Cuff his cast-off clothes; and Cuff
would prance round in 'em, and seem to think he was a doctor of divinity
himself, and had the charge of all natur'.

“Well, Cuff he reely made an idol o' that 'are hoss,--a reg'lar graven
image, and bowed down and worshipped him. He didn't think nothin' was
too good for him. He washed and brushed and curried him, and rubbed
him down till he shone like a lady's satin dress; and he took pride
in ridin' and drivin' him, 'cause it was what the doctor wouldn't let
nobody else do but himself. You see, Tam warn't no lady's hoss. Miss
Williams was 'fraid as death of him; and the parson, he hed to git her a
sort o' low-sperited crittur that she could drive herself. But he liked
to drive Tam; and he liked to go round the country on his back, and a
fine figure of a man he was on him too. He didn't let nobody else back
him, or handle the reins, but Cuff; and Cuff was drefful set up about
it, and he swelled and bragged about that ar boss all round the country.
Nobody couldn't put in a word 'bout any other hoss, without Cuff's
feathers would be all up, stiff as a tom-turkey's tail; and that's how
Cuff got the doctor into trouble.

“Ye see, there nat 'lly was others that thought they'd got horses, and
didn't want to be crowed over. There was Bill Atkins out to the west
parish, and Ike Sanders, that kep' a stable up to Pequot Holler: they
was down a-lookin' at the parson's hoss, and a-bettin' on their'n, and
a-darin' Cuff to race with 'em.

“Wal, Cuff, he couldn't stan' it, and, when the doctor's back was
turned, he'd be off on the sly, and they'd hev their race; and Tam, he
beat 'em all. Tam, ye see, boys, was a hoss that couldn't and wouldn't
hev a hoss ahead of him--he jest _wouldn't!_ Ef he dropped down dead in
his tracks the next minit, he _would_ be ahead; and he allers got ahead.
And so his name got up, and fellers kep' comin' to try their horses;
and Cuff'd take Tam out to race with fust one and then another till this
'ere got to be a reg'lar thing, and begun to be talked about.

“Folks sort o' wondered if the doctor knew; but Cuff was sly as a
weasel, and allers had a story ready for every turn. Cuff was one of
them fellers that could talk a bird off a bush,--master hand he was to
slick things over!

“There was folks as said they believed the doctor was knowin' to it, and
that he felt a sort o' carnal pride sech as a minister oughtn't fer to
hev, and so shet his eyes to what was a-goin' on. Aunt Sally Nickerson
said she was sure on't.'Twas all talked over down to old Miss Bummiger's
funeral, and Aunt Sally, she said the church ought to look into't. But
everybody knew Aunt Sally: she was allers watchin' for folks' haltin's,
and settin' on herself up to jedge her neighbors.

“Wal, I never believed nothin' agin Parson Williams: it was all Cuff's
contrivances. But the fact was, the fellers all got their blood up, and
there was hoss-racin' in all the parishes; and it got so they'd even
race hosses a Sunday.

“Wal, of course they never got the doctor's hoss out a Sunday. Cuff
wouldn't 'a', durst to do that, Lordy massy, no! He was allers there
in church, settin' up in the doctor's clothes, rollin' up his eyes,
and lookin' as pious as ef he never thought o' racin' hosses. He was an
awful solemn-lookin' nigger in church, Cuff was.

“But there was a lot o' them fellers up to Pequot Holler--Bill Atkins,
and Ike Sanders, and Tom Peters, and them Hokum boys--used to go out
arter meetin' Sunday arternoon, and race hosses. Ye see, it was jest
close to the State-line, and, if the s'lectmen was to come down on 'em,
they could jest whip over the line, and they couldn't take 'em.

“Wal, it got to be a great scandal. The fellers talked about it up to