STOP


Suddenly something, it seemed like a shadow, crossed the window outside.
If Peter's little room had been downstairs he might have thought that a
spectre of the night was passing. He looked up, startled, dumbfounded.
And while he gazed the tall dusky apparition passed back across the
window again.

Half frightened and very curious he raised the little sash and looked
out. The night was dark but the sky was filled with stars. Not a light
of man's making was there in all the country roundabout. He concentrated
his gaze along the back road and tried to pick out the spot where
Peace-justice Fee's house was, thinking that perhaps some sign
thereabout would furnish the key to this ghostly mystery. But there was
not the faintest twinkle there, nor any sound of life. Only solemn,
unanswering darkness. Somewhere in the woods a solitary screech owl was
hooting its discordant song.

"Is--is--anybody here?" Peter asked, his voice shaking. There was no
answer, nothing but silent, enveloping darkness.

Peter groped behind him for the old piece of broomstick which propped
the window open, and with this in place, he leaned far out and gazed
toward the little graveyard where his father and his grandfather and all
the simple forbears of the lonely neighborhood had gone to their rest.
Not a sound was there in that solemn little acre. He strained his eyes
and tried to identify the place by Deacon Small's tall, white tombstone,
but he could not make it out.