Joe had no idea what the funny-sounding word meant. Evidently it was a word which excited them. He waited with stretched ears for some clue to its meaning.
“Do you mean that merely in a manner of speaking,” asked Mrs. Boardman of Joe; “or do you mean you can actually see her as if she were a living person?”
Joe had no doubt of the answer required to this question. “I kin see her just as plain as I see you ’m.” He closed his eyes, and went on: “She was a tall woman and she gen’ally wore a grey dress, real full in the skirt. She had real black hair, parted in the middle, and brushed down flat, and she wore a little gold cross hangin’ round her neck, and a gold ring on her finger. We wasn’t so poor then.”
“An authentic spirit portrait. . . . Huh? . . .” murmured Miss Gittings to her sister. “Tell me,” she asked Joe in some excitement, “under what circumstances does she usually . . . Huh? . . . how? when? where?”
“Oh, she comes most any time,” said Joe, “but gen’ally at night. She shows brighter in the dark, seems like.”
“What a spirit touch!” murmured the sisters.
“She most allus comes when I’m feelin’ bad,” Joe went on. “When I ain’t had no supper; or when I gotta sleep on a park bench. Then I see her beside me, bendin’ over. She puts her hand on my wrist. . . .”
“Can you feel her hand?” demanded Miss Gittings breathlessly. “This is important. . . . Huh?”
“Surest thing you know ’m! Just like this!” Joe grasped his own wrist.
“How truly remarkable!”