of oak knees down by the packet, and one on 'em rolled down from the
top of the pile and struck him just below the knee. He was poling, for
there wan't a breath o' wind, and he always felt certain there was
somethin' mysterious about it. He'd had a good deal worse knocks than
that seemed to be, as only left a black and blue spot, and he said he
never see a deck load o' timber piled securer. He had some queer
notions about the doin's o' sperits, Dan'l had; his old Aunt Parser
was to blame for it. She lived with his father's folks, and used to
fill him and the rest o' the child'n with all sorts o' ghost stories
and stuff. I used to tell him she'd a' be'n hung for a witch if she'd
lived in them old Salem days. He always used to be tellin' what
everything was the sign of, when we was first married, till I laughed
him out of it. It made me kind of notional. There's too much now we
can't make sense of without addin' to it out o' our own heads."

Mrs. Jake and Mrs. Martin were quite familiar with the story of the
night when there were no candles and Mr. Thacher had broken his leg,
having been present themselves early in the morning afterward, but
they had listened with none the less interest. These country neighbors
knew their friends' affairs as well as they did their own, but such an
audience is never impatient. The repetitions of the best stories are
signal events, for ordinary circumstances do not inspire them. Affairs
must rise to a certain level before a narration of some great crisis
is suggested, and exactly as a city audience is well contented with
hearing the plays of Shakespeare over and over again, so each man and
woman of experience is permitted to deploy their well-known but always
interesting stories upon the rustic stage.

"I must say I can't a-bear to hear anything about ghosts after
sundown," observed Mrs. Jake, who was at times somewhat troubled by