to know me.

"I trembled all over as though I had seen a ghost. I was so faint that I
sat down on the meal-chest.

"As I was in that place, a bill pecked against the door. The door
opened. The strange gander came hobbling over the crib-stone and went to
the corn-bin. He stopped there, looked at me, and gave a sort of glad
"honk," as though he knew me and was glad to see me.

"I was certain that he was the gander I had raised, and that Nathaniel
had lifted into the air when he gave me his last recognition from the
top of the hill.

"It overcame me. It was Thanksgiving. The church bell would soon be
ringing as on Sunday. And here was Nathaniel's Thanksgiving dinner; and
brother Aaron's--had it flown away? Where was the vessel?

"Years have passed--ten. You know I waited and waited for my boy to come
back. December grew dark with its rainy seas; the snows fell; May
lighted up the hills, but the vessel never came back. Nathaniel--my
Nathaniel--never returned.

"That gander knows something he could tell me if he could talk. Birds
have memories. He remembered the corn-crib--he remembered something
else. I wish he _could_ talk, poor bird! I wish he could talk. I will
never sell him, nor kill him, nor have him abused. _He knows!_"