Felix and I shivered. We felt suddenly that we had escaped a
dreadful danger--the danger of having been born somebody else.
But it took the Story Girl to make us realize just how dreadful
it was and what a terrible risk we had run years before we, or
our parents either, had existed.

"Who lives over there?" I asked, pointing to a house across the
fields.

"Oh, that belongs to the Awkward Man. His name is Jasper Dale,
but everybody calls him the Awkward Man. And they do say he
writes poetry. He calls his place Golden Milestone. I know why,
because I've read Longfellow's poems. He never goes into society
because he is so awkward. The girls laugh at him and he doesn't
like it. I know a story about him and I'll tell it to you
sometime."

"And who lives in that other house?" asked Felix, looking over
the westering valley where a little gray roof was visible among
the trees.

"Old Peg Bowen. She's very queer. She lives there with a lot of
pet animals in winter, and in summer she roams over the country
and begs her meals. They say she is crazy. People have always
tried to frighten us children into good behaviour by telling us
that Peg Bowen would catch us if we didn't behave. I'm not so
frightened of her as I once was, but I don't think I would like
to be caught by her. Sara Ray is dreadfully scared of her.
Peter Craig says she is a witch and that he bets she's at the
bottom of it when the butter won't come. But I don't believe