“'Twa'n't him, then. I thought not.”
“HIM? My husband? What DO you mean?”
And then Asaph begun to put on the fine touches. He leaned acrost the table and says he, in a sort of mysterious whisper: “Mrs. Badger,” says he, “do you ever see things? Not common things, but strange—shadders like?”
“Mercy me!” says the widow. “No. Do YOU?”
“Sometimes seems's if I did. Jest now, as I set here looking at you, it seemed as if I saw a man come up and put his hand on your shoulder.”
Well, you can imagine Debby. She jumped out of her chair and whirled around like a kitten in a fit. “Good land!” she hollers. “Where? What? Who was it?”
“I don't know who 'twas. His face was covered up; but it kind of come to me—a communication, as you might say—that some day that man was going to marry you.”
“Land of love! Marry ME? You're crazy! I'm scart to death.”
Ase shook his head, more mysterious than ever. “I don't know,” says he. “Maybe I am crazy. But I see that same man this afternoon, when I was in that trance, and—”
“Trance! Do you mean to tell me you was in a TRANCE out there by the wood-pile? Are you a MEDIUM?”