ght when we hadn't nothin' to eat at home, mother
and me, an' she was a sittin' there with tears in her eyes wonderin'
what we'd do next day, I ree-collected, Levin, that there was four
tarrapins down in the cellar,--black tarrapin, that had been put there
six months before. I said to mother: 'I 'spect them ole tarrapins is
dead an' starved, but I'll go see.'

"I found 'em under the wood-pile, an' they didn't smell nor nothin', so
I took 'em all four up to mother an' put 'em on the kitchen table befo'
the fire, an' I devilled 'em every way to wake up, an' crawl, and show
some signs of life. No, they was stone dead!

"'Well, mother,' says I, 'put on your bilin' water an' we'll see if dead
tarrapin is fit fur to eat!' She smiled through her cryin', and put the
water on, an' when it began to bubble in the pot, I lifted up one of
them tarrapins an' dropped him in the bilin' water, an' Jack, I'll be
dog-goned if them other three tarrapins didn't run right off the table
an' drop on to the flo' an' skeet for that cellar door!

"I caught 'em an' biled 'em, an' as we sat there eatin' stewed tarrapin
without no salt, or sherry wine, or coffee, or even corn-bread, we heard
somethin' like paper scratchin' on the window, an' mother fell back and
clasped her hands, an' said, 'There, do you hear the ghost?'

"I rushed to the door an' hopped into the yard, an' not a livin'
creature did I see; but there on the window-shelf was packages of salt,
coffee, tea, and flour, and a half a dollar in silver! I run back in the
house, white as a ghost myself, an' I cried out, 'Mother, it's father's
sperrit come again!'

"She made me git on my knees an' pray with her to give poor father's
spirit comfort in his home or in heaven!"

CHAPTER XVII.

SABBATH AND CANOE.

They now approached an island with low bluffs, on which appeared a
considerable village, shining whitely amid the straight brown trunks of
a grove of pine-trees; but no people seemed moving about it, and they
saw but a single vessel at anchor in the thoroughfare or strait they
steered into--a canoe, which revealed on her bow, as they rounded to
beside her, a word neither Levin nor Jack could read, except by hearsay:
_The Methodist_.

"Jack," said Levin, "that was a big pine-tree the parson hewed his canoe
outen. She fell like cannon, going off inter the swamp. She's a'most
five fathom long, an' a man can lie down acrost her. She's to carry the
Methodis' preachers out to