"And why should he have a ghost?" asked Nan.

"Laws, did you never hear the story? And you brought up in the
Glen. Well, wait a minute till I get by breath all back and I'll
tell you."

Walter shivered delightsomely. He loved ghost stories. Their
mystery, their dramatic climaxes, their eeriness gave him a
fearful, exquisite pleasure. Longfellow instantly grew tame and
commonplace. He threw the book aside and stretched himself out,
propped upon his elbows to listen whole-heartedly, fixing his
great luminous eyes on Mary's face. Mary wished he wouldn't look
at her so. She felt she could make a better job of the ghost
story if Walter were not looking at her. She could put on
several frills and invent a few artistic details to enhance the
horror. As it was, she had to stick to the bare truth--or what
had been told her for the truth.

"Well," she began, "you know old Tom Bailey and his wife used to
live in that house up there thirty years ago. He was an awful
old rip, they say, and his wife wasn't much better. They'd no
children of their own, but a sister of old Tom's died and left a
little boy--this Henry Warren--and they took him. He was about
twelve when he came to them, and kind of undersized and delicate.
They say Tom and his wife used him awful from the start--whipped
him and starved him. Folks said they wanted him to die so's they
could get the little bit of money his mother had left for him.
Henry didn't die right off, but he begun having fits--epileps,
they called 'em--and he grew up kind of simple, till he was about
eighteen. His uncle used to thrash him in that garden up there