them from those who stop for drinks at the store. One meets another near
our house, and says, 'Where did you meet Bill?' 'Just this side of
Small's Brook,' or 'At the top of Gray's Pinch,' 'At the Dry Mill-Pond,'
'Just the other side of Lemmy Jones's,' 'On the long causeway,' 'At
Jeems Gowen's,' 'Coming down the Pulpit Rock Hill,' 'Coming down Tarkill
Hill.' I have heard these answers till I have them by heart, without
having any idea where any of the places are, excepting the one I have
seen to-day. While on the bridge near the Pulpit, Mr. West, who lives
not far away, came along and asked where I had been. On my telling him,
he said that no money would hire him to go up to that pulpit; that the
Devil used to preach from it long and long ago; that on a time when
hundreds of them were listening to one of his sermons, a great chief
laughed in the Devil's face, upon which he stamped his foot, and the
ground to the southwest, where they were standing, sunk fifty feet, and
every Indian went down out of sight, leaving a swamp to this day. He
declared that he once stuck a pole in there, which went down easily
several feet, but then struck the skull-bone of an Indian, when
instantly all the hassocks and flags began to shake; he heard a yell as
from fifty overgrown Pequots; that he left the pole and ran for life.
Mr. West also said that no Indian had ever been known to go near that
swamp since, but that whenever one came that way, he turned out of the
road near the house of Mr. West, and went straight to Thomas Pond,
keeping to the eastward of Pulpit Rock, giving it a wide berth. Mr. West
talked as though he believed what he said.

* * * * *

"A pedler named Dominicus Jordan was to-day in Uncle Richard's store,
telling a ghost-story. I listened intently, but tried not to seem
interested. The story was of a house, the owner of which was suddenly