hanged hilarities across the space between the
basement and the barn-door. "Yes," Mrs. Durgin admitted, "he's an
American; and he learnt his trade at one of the best hotels in Portland.
He's pretty headstrong, but I guess he does what he's told--in the
end. The meanyous? Oh, Franky Whitwell prints then. He's got an amateur
printing-office in the stable-loft."

XIV.

One morning toward the end of August, Whitwell, who was starting
homeward, after leaving his ladies, burdened with their wishes and
charges for the morrow, met Westover coming up the hill with his
painting-gear in his hand. "Say!" he hailed him. "Why don't you come
down to the house to-night? Jackson's goin' to come, and, if you ha'n't
seen him work the plantchette for a spell, you'll be surprised. There
a'n't hardly anybody he can't have up. You'll come? Good enough!"

What affected Westover first of all at the seance, and perhaps most of
all, was the quality of the air in the little house; it was close and
stuffy, mixed with an odor of mould and an ancient smell of rats. The
kerosene-lamp set in the centre of the table, where Jackson afterward
placed his planchette, devoured the little life that was left in it.
At the gasps which Westover gave, with some despairing glances at the
closed windows, Whitwell said: "Hot? Well, I guess it is a little. But,
you see, Jackson has got to be careful about the night air; but I guess
I can fix it for you." He went out into the ell, and Westover heard him
raising a window. He came back and asked, "That do? It 'll get around in
here directly," and Westover had to profess relief.

Jackson came in presently with the little Canuck, whom Whitwell
presented to Westover: "Know Jombateeste?"

The two were talking about a landslide which had taken place on the
other side of the mountain; the news had just come that they had found
among the ruins the body of the farm-hand who had been missing since the
morning of the slide; his funeral was to be the next day.

Jackson put his planchette on the table, and sat down before it with a
sigh; the Canuck remained standing, and on foot he was scarcely a head
higher than the seated Yankees. "Well," Jackson said, "I suppose he
knows all about it now," meaning the dead farm-hand.

"Yes," Westover suggested, "if he knows anything."

"Know anything!" Whitwell shouted. "Why, man, don't you believe he's as
much alive as ever he was?"

"I hope so," said Westover, submissively.