an can't
get him to Mother Hook's with her medicine after dark. Unless it's made
up so that he can take it by daylight, they have to send for it."

"What's that for?" asked Miss Deb.

Master Cheese cracked on at his walnuts. "You have not heard the tale
that's going about, I suppose, Miss Deb?" he presently said.

"I have not heard any tale," she answered.

"And I don't know that I must tell it you," continued Master Cheese,
filling his mouth with five or six quarters at once, unpeeled. "Jan
ordered me to hold my tongue indoors."

"It would be more respectful, Master Cheese, if you said Mr. Jan,"
rebuked Miss Deborah. "I have told you so often."

"Who cares?" returned Master Cheese. "Jan doesn't. The fact is, Miss
Deb, that there's a ghost about at night just now."

"Have they got up that folly again? Rachel Frost rests a great deal
quieter in her grave than some of you do in your beds."

"Ah, but it's not Rachel's this time," significantly responded Master
Cheese. "It's somebody else's."

"Whose is it, then?" asked Miss Deb, struck with his manner.

"I'll tell you if you won't tell Jan. It's--don't start, Miss Deb--it's
Fred Massingbird's."

Miss Deb did not start. She looked keenly at Master Cheese, believing he
might be playing a joke upon her. But there were no signs of joking in
his countenance. It looked, on the contrary, singularly serious, not to
say awe-struck, as he leaned forward to bring it nearer Miss Deborah's.

"It is a fact that Fred Massingbird's ghost is walking," he continued.
"Lots have seen it. I have seen it. You'd have heard of it, as everybody
else has, if you had not been Mrs. Verner's sister. It's an unpleasantly
queer thing for her, you know, Miss Deb."

"What utter absurdity!" cried Deborah.

"Wait till you see it, before you say it's absurdity," replied Master
Cheese. "If it's not Fred Massingbird's ghost, it is somebody's that's
the exact image of him."

Miss Deborah sat down on a stone jar, and got Master Cheese to tell her
the whole story. That he should put in a few exaggerations, and so
increase the marvel, was only natural. But Deborah West heard sufficient
to send her mind into a state of uneasy perplexity.

"You say Mr. Jan knows of this?" she asked.

"There's nobody about that doesn't know of it except you and the folks
at Verner's Pride," responded Master Cheese. "I say, don't you go and
tell Jan that you made me betray it to you, Miss Deb! You'll get me into
a