hosts. Taking advantage of these
superstitions, my brother and myself made him the sufferer in many a
practical joke. Upon one occasion, we put into circulation, in the
neighborhood, a story full of wonder. A remarkable spectre had been
seen near the mill on dark nights, and especially on those misty nights
of murky gloom, common in early spring to this latitude. Its form was
unique and exaggerated, with flaming eyes, and mouth of huge
proportions, with long, pointed teeth, white and sharp. For weeks, this
gorgon of my imagination constituted the theme of neighborhood gossip.
Several negroes had seen it, and fled its fierce pursuit, barely
escaping its voracious mouth and attenuated claws, through the
fleetness of fear. The old hardshell Baptist preacher, of the vicinage,
had proclaimed him from the pulpit as Satan unchained, and commencing
his thousand years of wandering up and down the earth.

I had procured from a vine in the plum-orchard a gourd of huge
dimensions, such as in that day were used by frugal housewives for the
keeping of lard for family use. It would hold in its capacious cavity
at least half a bushel. This was cut one-third of its circumference for
a mouth, and this was garnished with teeth from the quills of a
venerable gander, an especial pet of my mother. The eyes were in
proportion, and were covered with patches of red flannel, purloined
from my mother's scrap-basket. A circle, an inch in diameter, made of
charcoal, formed an iris to a pupil, cut round and large, through the
flannel. A candle was lighted, and introduced through a hole at the
bottom of the gourd, and all mounted upon a pole some ten feet long. In
the dark it was hideous, and, on one or two occasions, had served
secretly to frighten some negroes, to give it reputation. It was
designed for Rhea, the Carolinian. On Saturday night it was his uniform
practice to come up to the house, cleanly clad, to spend the evening.
There was a canal which conveyed the water from the head above to the
mill. This ran parallel with the stream, and was crossed, on the public
road, by a bridge, one portion of which was shaded by a large
crab-apple bush. Though fifty years ago, it still remains to mark the
spot. Beyond the creek (which was bridged, for foot-passengers, with
the trunk of a large tree,) was a newly cleared field, in which the
negroes were employed burning brush on the Saturday night chosen for my
sport. Here, under this crab-tree, I awaited