any more, and the sister says to the mother: 'Mother, I'm sure that it
isn't Johnny that's there. It's only his shadow, for when I look at him,
it isn't his features or face, but the face of another thing. He used to
be so pleasant and cheerful, but now he looks like quite another man.
Mother,' said she, 'we haven't Johnny at all.' Soon he got a little
stronger and went to the capital town with corn. Several other men went
also to get their corn ground. They were all coming home together a very
cold night, and the men got up and sat on their sacks of corn. The other
horses walked on all right with them, but Johnny's horses wouldn't move,
not one step while he was on top of the load. Well, my dear, he called
for the rest to come and help him--to see if the horses would go for
them. But they would not move one step, though they whipped them and
shouted at them to start on, for Johnny he was as heavy as lead. And he
had to get down. Soon as he got down, the horses seemed glad and went
off on a gallop after the rest of the train. So they all went off
together, and Johnny wandered away into the bogs. His friends supposed,
of course, he was coming on, thought he was walking beside his load; the
snow was falling down, and perhaps they were a little afraid. He was
left behind. They scoured the country for him next day, and, bedad, they
found him, stiff dead, sitting against a fence. There's where they found
him. They brought him on a door to his mother. Oh, it was a sad thing to
see--to see her cry and hear her mourn!"

"And what more?" I asked.

"That's all. He was waked and buried, and that's what he got for playing
cards! And that's all as true as ever could be true, for it's myself
knew the old mother, and she told me it her very self, and she cried
many tears for her son."