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Page 42
"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 their
ugliness alive or dead, and, though I've never seen no appearances of
any kind, as I may say, I can believe jist as easy that some of 'em come
back for mischief as that others come back for good."
There was a few minutes' constrained silence after this remark. Mr.
Dickey's first wife had been what is popularly known as "a Tartar," and
there was a generally current rumor that as the last shovelful of earth
was patted down on her grave he had been heard to murmur, "Thanks be to
praise, she's quiet at last." The idea of her reappearance in her wonted
haunts was indeed a dismaying one, especially as Mr. Dickey had recently
married again, and, if the gossips knew anything about it, was repeating
much of his former painful experience. The silence, which was becoming
embarrassing, was finally broken by the schoolmaster.
"Had you any more experiences of the kind you have just related, Uncle
Jabez?" he asked, in tones of such deep respect and lively interest that
Uncle Jabez responded, with gratifying promptness,--
"Plenty, plenty, though perhaps them two that I've just told you was the
most strikin'. But it always seemed to me, after that first time, that
Lavina was on hand when anything went wrong or was likely to go wrong;
and ef I was to tell you all the scrapes she's kep' me out of and pulled
me out of, I should keep you settin' here all night. There was one
more," he continued, "that struck me a good deal at the time. It was
about money, like the fust one, in a different sort of way. It was
durin' those days when specie was so skurce and high that it was quite a
circumstance to get a piece of hard money. There come along a peddler in
a smart red wagon, with all sorts of women's trash packed into it, and
Gracie took it into her head to want some of his things. It happened to
be her birthday that day, and, as she didn't often pester me about
clothes, I told her to choose out what she wanted, up to five dollars'
worth, and, if the feller could change me a twenty-dollar note, I'd pay
for it. He jumped at it, sayin' he didn't count it any trouble at all to
give change, the way some storekeepers did, and that he always kep' a
lot on hand to oblige his customers. I will say for him that it seemed
to me he give Gracie an amazin' big five dollars' worth, and when he
come to make the change he handed out a ten-dollar gold piece, or what I
then took to be such, as easy as if he'd found it growin' on a bush, and
said nothin' whatever about the premium on it. Perhaps I'd ought to have
mentioned it, but it seemed to me it was his business more'n mine: so I
jest took it as if it was the most natural thing in life, and he went
off. I thought I might as well as not get the premium on it before it
went down the way folks said it was goin' to: so, after dinner, I
harnessed up, and drove down to the post-office,--it was kep' in the
drug-store then, the same as it is now,--and when I handed my gold piece
to the postmaster, which was also the druggist, and said I'd take a
quarter's worth of stamps, and I believed gold was worth a dollar
fifteen just now, he first smelt of it, and then bit it, and then poured
some stuff out'n a bottle onto it, and then handed it back to me with a
pityin' smile that somehow riled me more'n a little, and he says, says
he,--
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