Their voices murmured on in a pleasing flow; his head sunk lower on the
pillow, and his breathing was a little louder. Then his hand dropped
down at his side. He was sound asleep just when Aunt Susan was about to
begin one of her most thrilling ghost stories.

In the midst of an account of "a ha'nt that walked the graveyard every
thirteenth Friday in the year," John Jay turned over in his sleep with a
little snort. Aunt Susan nearly jumped out of her chair, and Uncle Billy
dropped his pipe. There was a moment of frightened silence till Mammy
said, "It must have been Bud, I reckon. John Jay is allus a-knockin' him
in his sleep an' makin' him holler out. Go on, sis' Susan."

The moon had travelled well across the sky when Mammy's guests said good
night. She lingered outside after they had gone, to look far down the
road, where a single point of light, shining through the trees, marked
the toll-gate. It would not be so lonely for Mars' Nat, now that George
had come home. She recalled the laughing face of the little black boy as
she had known it long ago, and tried to call up in her imagination a
picture of the man that Uncle Billy had described. Visions of the old
days rose before her. As she stood there with her hands wrapped in her
apron, it was not the moon-flooded night she looked into, but the warm,
living daylight of a golden past.

At last, with a sigh, she turned to take the chairs into the house.
Lifting the big rocker high in front of her, she stepped over the
threshold and started to shuffle her way along to the candle shelf. The
chair came down in the middle of the floor with a sudden bang, as she
caught her foot in John Jay's pillow and sprawled across him.