“Well,” drawls the owner tolerantly, “a house can’t help what’s been told about it, can it?”
“But how did the story get started—about it being haunted?” the reporter is persistent.
The owner jerks a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of U. S. 60. “Is that your car parked over there?”
There is in his tone that which impels you to stand not on the order of your going. You go at once—annoyed at being no nearer the answer than when you came.
And still the curious continue to motor miles and miles to see the haunted house with the green gables.
8. Singing on the Mountain Side
Though there were and are people in the Blue Ridge Country who, like Jilson Setters, the Singin’ Fiddler of Lost Hope Hollow, can neither read nor write, such obstacles have meant no bar to their poetic bent. They sing with joy and sorrow, with pride and pleasure, of the scene about them, matching their skill with that of old or young who boast of book learning.