“But, Aunt, I’ve seen the Duneswoman,” protested Mermaid. “So has Dad.”
“All you’ve seen is a face and an arm,” corrected Mrs. Hand. “And I can’t find any one else who has seen as much as that. A face and an arm are not a ghost. They’re a—I don’t know what,” she finished.
“A hallucination,” Mermaid offered.
“A hallelujah. That’s what you say when you see one. You say ‘Hallelujah!’” came from Ho Ha.
“When I see one I may say something even more remarkable,” his wife responded, grimly.
It was several nights later when she awoke and uttered a long-drawn scream of terror.
“Hosea!” she cried, clutching her pillow. “Hosea, there’s someone at the window!”
Ho Ha leaped up manfully, went to the window, stuck his head through the netting which was tacked on as a screen, and drew it in again.
“Nonsense, Keturah,” he said, gently. “No one in sight except Captain Vanton standing on the dune in front of his house.” The Vanton cottage was a dune away, but a valley lay between. “You—why, you must have seen a ghost. Oh, ho-ho-ho!”
He communicated the nature of the disturbance to Mermaid in the next room, and when Cap’n Smiley, who slept at the station, came over for breakfast next morning, there was some chaffing about the ghost Keturah had seen.