ng, and nobody ever thought of talking loud or raising any fuss when she was around. She had enough money of her own to run herse

drawly kind of voices, Martha says, no one had ever dared to ast her abou

p your back, it was so solemn. Miss Hampton had been jilted years ago, Martha said, and the name of the jilter was David Armstrong. Well, he must of been a low down sort of man. Martha said if thin

you would of married that

s she w

you wouldn't of. If he cleaved David Armstrong

ering looks at each other through the window bars. And they would be happy thata-way. And she would get her a white dove and train it so it would fly up to that wind

She expected too much of one. I thought it over fur a little spell without saying anything, and I tried to make myse

you, I ain't saying a word agin their way of acting. I can't say how I would of been myself, if I had been brung up like th

to a duck in Martha's mind when one of them nights popped into her head. When I run 'em down that-a-way, she says to the blind all things is blind, and if I had any chivalry into me myself I'd of seen t

it will make you feel any better. If I ever happen to run acrost this here David Armstrong, and he is anywheres near my size, I'll lick him f

er find him. But what I said se

r with it, and was hung fur it,

would build a chapel over the tomb where I was buried in. And every year, on the day of the month I was hung on, she would lead all the other nuns into that chapel, an

er why she don't wait on her. But she don't want her to, Martha says. She's been staying in the house ever since we been in town, and jest wants to be let alone. I thinks all that is kind of funny

elieve in

'em, and sometimes I think I do, but anyhow I wo

"because-but I hadn

ys; "it's no use bein

" she says, "bu

d she would tell. Martha liked having

e says, finally, "and that her staying

rabbed holt of Martha's arm all of a sudden so tight she pinched it. Which it was very natcheral that she would be startled, coming across three strange men all of a sudden at night around a turn in the road. They went along home, and Martha went inside and lighted a lamp, but Miss Hampton lingered on the porch fur a minute. Jest as she lit the lamp Martha hearn another little gasp, or kind of sigh,

fingers over her forehead in a

had seen a ghost,

es along upstairs to bed. And since then she ain't been out of the house. She tells Martha it

wouldn't see no more

ouldn't? She knows a lot about

ir hair stand up when they do. But some humans that have the gift can see them in the

e a witch. And if she is a witch

nd sight you don't need to be a

nigh a year, in all kinds of weather; but Primrose never come. Mis' Primrose says he never lied to her, and he always done jest as she told him, and if he could of come she knowed he would; and when he didn't she quit believing in ghosts. But they was others in our town said it didn't prove nothing at all. They said Primrose had really been lying

alk about 'em, first and last, and I ain't ready to say they ain't no ghosts, nor yet ready to say they is any. To say they is any is to say something that is too plumb unlikely. And too many people has saw them fur me to say they ain't any. But if they is, or they ain't, so fur as I can see, it don't make much difference. Fur they never do nothing, besides scaring you, except to rap on tables and tell fortunes, and such fool things. Wh

long, and I says to myself before I go I'm going to have that girl fur my girl, or else know the reason why. No matter what I was talking about, that idea was in the back of my head, and somehow it kin

ng away from here in

er said

be sorry?"

she will

s, "WHY will

iked me a lot. But she says the reason she will be sorry is because there will be no one n

e'n likely I won't never se

parting comes betwee

Sir Marmeluke fellers would of knowed what to say. Or Doctor Kirby would. Or mebby even Looey

, of course, I don

, so I gets up and make

f mine to remember me by," I tells her, "but if you don't wa

she would lik

ill bring them to yo

s, "Tha

nger. I got brave all of a sudden

braveness stuttered itself awa

a." Which wasn't jest exactly

ys she kind of

e you more'n any girl I

. But she did know all the time. I knowed she did. She knowed I knowed it, too. Gosh-dern it, I says to myself, here I am wasting all this time jes

ing her head back. And the second one she didn't help me none. But the third t

f that afternoon. I couldn't rightly describe it if I w

'n him. It stands to reason others has felt that-a-way, but you don't believe it. You want to tell people about it one minute. The next

sudden I busted out laughing agin. The doctor asts if I am crazy. And Looey says he has thought I was from the very first, and some night him and the doctor will be killed whilst asleep. One of the things we have every night in the show is an Injun dance, and Looey and I sings what the doctor calls the Siwash war chant, whirling round and round each other, and making licks at each other with our tommyhawks, and letting ou

is sperrits, and he shakes his hea

ar of Romeo and

t it was I hearn I can't

rried on the same as you.

ays, "where

d me all about them and how Young Cobalt had done fur them. But from what I could make out it a

he says to look at Damon and Pythias, and Othello and the Merchant of Venus. And

happy somet

t don't," says Looey. "Look

c like, "I suppose they

says Looey,

d Burrsheba and all the rest of them old-timers.

fur lost. But I can't sleep none myself. So purty soon I gets up and puts on my shoes and sneaks t

tha's window. I knowed she would be in bed long ago, but-- Well, I was jest plumb foolish that night, and I couldn't of kept away fur any money. That moonlight had got into my head, it seemed like, and made me drunk. But I would rather be looney that-a-way than to have as much sense as King Solomon and all his adverbs. I was that looney that if I had kno

see into the shadder where I laid, that is, if it was a human and not a ghost. Fur my first thought was it might be one of them ghosts I had been running down so that very day, and mebby the same one Miss Hampton seen on that very same porch. I thought I was in fur it then, mebby, and I felt like some one had whispered to the back of my neck it ought to be scared. And I WAS scared clean up into my hair. I stared hard, fur

ain. It wasn't no ghost, it was a lady. Then I knowed it must be Miss Hampton standing there. Away off through th