len Golyer, standing
by his gate, saw Saul Chaney slouching along in the twilight, and hailed
him: "What news from the sperrits, Saul?"

"Nothing for you, Al Golyer," said Saul, gloomily. "The god of this world
takes care of the like o' you."

Golyer smiled, as a prosperous man always does when his poorer neighbors
abuse him for his luck, and rejoined: "I ain't so fortunate as you think
for, Saul Chaney. I lost a Barksher pig yesterday: I reckon I must come up
and ask Gershom what's come of it."

"Come along, if you like. It's been a long while sence you've crossed my
sill. But I'm gitting to be quite the style. Young Lawyer Marshall is
a-coming up this evening to see my Gershom."

Before Mr. Golyer started he filled a basket, "to make himself welcome and
pay for the show," with the reddest and finest fruit of his favorite apple
tree. His wife followed him to the gate and kissed him--a rather unusual
attention among Western farmer-people. Her face, still rosy and comely,
was flushed and smiling: "Al, do you know what day o' the year it is?"

"Nineteenth of Aprile?"

"Yes; and twenty years ago to-day you planted the Blood Seedlin' and I
give you the mitten!" She turned and went into the house, laughing
comfortably.

Allen walked slowly up the hollow to the Chaney house, and gave the apples
to Seraphita and told her their story. A little company was assembled--two
or three Chaney Creek people, small market-gardeners, with eyes the color
of their gooseberries and hands the color of their currants; Mr. Marshall,
a briefless young barrister from Warsaw, with a tawny friend, who spoke
like a Spaniard.

"Take seats, friends, and form a circle o' harmony," said Saul Chaney.
"The me'jum is in fine condition: he had two fits this arternoon."

Gershom looked shockingly ill and weak. He reclined in a great hickory
arm-chair, with his eyes half open, his lips moving noiselessly. All the
persons present formed a circle and joined hands.

The moment the circle was completed by Saul and Seraphita, who were on
either side of their son, touching his hands, an expression of pain and
perplexity passed over his pale face, and he began to writhe and mutter.

"He's seein' visions," said Saul.

"Yes, too many of 'em," said Gershom, querulously. "A boy in a boat, a man
on a shelf, and a man with a spade--all at once: too many. Get me a
pencil. One at a time, I tell you--one at a time!"

The circle broke up, and a table was brough