There I was alone in the house with a ghost. And thinkses I, I must try to use it well, so’s to get rid of it; for I thought like as not if I madded it, it would stick right by me. And so I says, in as near the words I could remember, as I had hearn tell they talked to spirits:
“Are you a good spirit?” says I. “If you are a good spirit, raise up and rap three times.”
I s’pose my voice sounded low and tremblin’ down under the bed-clothes, and my teeth chattered so loud that they probable drounded the words some. But the rappin’ kep’ up.
And says I agin: “If you are a likely spirit, raise up and rap three times, and then leave.” And then says I, for I happened to think what I had heard they done to get ’em away, for I had been that flustrated and horrer-struck that I couldn’t think of nothin’ hardly, says I:
“I will you away. I will you off out of this house, if you please,” I added, for I was so afraid of maddin’ it. Thinkses I to myself, I would ruther mad a burgler or a rapiner ten times over than to get a apperition out with me. I s’pose I had spoke up louder this time, for the ghost (or what I thought was such) answered back to me, and says:
“I am Miss Moony.”
Says I: “Not she that was Tamer Sansey?”
“Yes, I be.”
Says I, in stern tones, for truth and rectitude is my theme, even in talkin’ with a apperition, and I felt, skairt as I was, that it would be better to improve a ghost than to not be a doin’ anything in the cause of right. And so says I firmly:
“Do you stop tellin’ such stuff to me.” Says I: “You are a lyin’ spirit. Tamer Moony is alive and enjoyin’ middlin’ good health, if she wuzn’t so nervous. Eliab Gansey is a visitin’ of her now. She never was a ghost, nor nothin’ like it, and apperition or not, you shan’t stand there and lie to me.”