of the girls came
running in, crying out, "O Thankful! Thankful! John Gibbins has
appeared to us! His spirit is in the barn!" The plates dropt from my
cousin's hand, and, with a faint cry, she fell back against the wall for
a little space; when, hearing a man's voice without, speaking her name,
she ran to the door, with the look of one beside herself; while I,
trembling to see her in such a plight, followed her. There was a clear
moon, and a tall man stood in the light close to the door.

"John," said my cousin, in a quick, choking voice, "is it You?"

"Why, Thankful, don't you know me? I'm alive; but the folks in the barn
will have it that I 'm a ghost," said the man, springing towards her.

With a great cry of joy and wonder, my cousin caught hold of him: "O
John, you are alive!"

Then she swooned quite away, and we had a deal to do to bring her to
life again. By this time, the house was full of people, and among the
rest came John's old mother and his sisters, and we all did weep and
laugh at the same time. As soon as we got a little quieted, John told
us that he had indeed been grievously stunned by the blow of a tomahawk,
and been left for dead by his comrades, but that after a time he did
come to his senses, and was able to walk; but, falling into the hands of
the Indians, he was carried off to the French Canadas, where, by reason
of his great sufferings on the way, he fell sick, and lay for a long
time at the point of death. That when he did get about again, the
savage who lodged him, and who had taken him as a son, in the place of
his own, slain by the Mohawks, would not let him go home, although he
did confess that the war was at an end. His Indian father, he said, who
was feeble and old, died not long ago, and he had made his way home by
the way of Crown Point and Albany. Supper being ready, we all sat down,
and the minister, who had been sent for, offered thanks for the
marvellous preserving and restoring of the friend who was lost and now
was found, as also for the blessings of peace, by reason of which every
man could now sit under his own vine and fig-tree, with none to molest
or make him afraid, and for the abundance of the harvest, and the
treasures of the seas, and the spoil of the woods, so that our land
might take up the song of the Psalmist: "The Lord doth build up
Jerusalem; he gathereth the outcasts of Israel; he healeth the broken in
heart. Praise thy God, O Zion I For he strengthen