, he found
enough to make my claim as clear as a bell and make McKellop's as flat
as a pancake. Now, what do you think of _that_, hey?"

Once more the old man peered into Birchard's face, and the schoolmaster
answered one question with another, after the custom of the country:

"Did you ever know anything about the blazed tree before McKellop found
the blaze?"

"When I come to think it over, I found I did," said Uncle Jabez, falling
all unconscious into the trap set for him. "I hadn't no papers about it,
but my father had told me all the ins and outs of it when I was a boy,
and it had somehow gone out of my mind."

"Ah!" said the schoolmaster.

"I don't know what you mean by 'Ah' in this connection," said Uncle
Jabez, speaking with unwonted sharpness; "but if you're misdoubtin' what
I tell you I may as well shet up and go home."

"I don't doubt your word in the least, Uncle Jabez; I assure you I
don't," Mr. Birchard hastened to say. "And I'm deeply interested. I hope
you will go on and tell me all your experiences of this kind. I've heard
and read a good many ghost-stories; but in all of them the ghosts were
malicious creatures, who seemed to come back chiefly for the fun of
scaring people out of their wits. Yours is the first really benevolent
and well-meaning ghost of which I have ever heard; and it interests me
immensely; for I never could see why a person who was all goodness and
generosity while he--or she--was alive should turn into an unmitigated
nuisance after dying. I should think, if they must needs come back, they
might just as well be pleasant about it and make people glad to see--or
hear--them."

"That's exactly the view I've always taken," said Mr. Crumlish modestly;
"and one reason I've never felt to doubt any of Uncle Jabez's stories is
that all the ghosts he's ever seen or heard tell of have been
decent-behaving ghosts, that didn't come back just for the fun of
scaring people to death."

"That's so; that's so," said the old man, entirely mollified, and
hearing no note of sarcasm in the schoolmaster's rapidly-uttered
eloquence. "If any one of 'em was to behave ugly," he continued, "it
would shake my faith in the whole thing considerable; for I couldn't
bring myself to believe that anybody I've ever knowed could be so far
given over as to want to be ugly after dyin'."

"Well, now, I don't know," said Mr. Dickey argumentatively. "I
_hev_ knowed certain folks that it seems to me would stick to th