he said he
never see a deck load o' timber piled securer. He had some queer
notions about the doin's o' sperits, Dan'l had; his old Aunt Parser
was to blame for it. She lived with his father's folks, and used to
fill him and the rest o' the child'n with all sorts o' ghost stories
and stuff. I used to tell him she'd a' be'n hung for a witch if she'd
lived in them old Salem days. He always used to be tellin' what
everything was the sign of, when we was first married, till I laughed
him out of it. It made me kind of notional. There's too much now we
can't make sense of without addin' to it out o' our own heads."

Mrs. Jake and Mrs. Martin were quite familiar with the story of the
night when there were no candles and Mr. Thacher had broken his leg,
having been present themselves early in the morning afterward, but
they had listened with none the less interest. These country neighbors
knew their friends' affairs as well as they did their own, but such an
audience is never impatient. The repetitions of the best stories are
signal events, for ordinary circumstances do not inspire them. Affairs
must rise to a certain level before a narration of some great crisis
is suggested, and exactly as a city audience is well contented with
hearing the plays of Shakespeare over and over again, so each man and
woman of experience is permitted to deploy their well-known but always
interesting stories upon the rustic stage.

"I must say I can't a-bear to hear anything about ghosts after
sundown," observed Mrs. Jake, who was at times somewhat troubled by
what she and her friends designated as "narves." "Day-times I don't
believe in 'em 'less it's something creepy more'n common, but after
dark it scares me to pieces. I do' know but I shall be afeared to go
home," and she laughed uneasily. "There! when I get through with this
needle I believe I won't knit no more. The back o' my neck is all
numb."

"Don't talk o' goin' home yet awhile," said the hostess, looking up
quickly as if she hated the thought of being left alone again. "'T is
just on the edge of the evenin'; the nights is so long now we think
it's bedtime half an hour after we've got lit up. 'T was a good lift
havin' you step over to-night. I was really a-dreadin' to set here by
myself," and for some minutes nobody spoke and the needles clicked
faster than ever. Suddenly there was a strange sound outside the door,
and they stared at each other in terror and held their breath, but
nob