“I hope that ghost isn’t becoming a habit with you, Mose.”
“Deed Miss Penny, he’s mo’ dan a habit,” the colored man sighed. “He’s a suah-nuff live ghost. De fust time I seed him I thought he wasn’t no imagination ghost. But when I saw him agin’ tonight I was dead suah of it.”
“What happened this time, Mose?”
“Well, Miss Penny, I was a walking along dat same road, down by de ole Harrison place when I seed him again. He was a-cavortin’ behind dat same iron gate. And he was dressed de same too, in a long white robe.”
“And you ran the same too, I suppose?” smiled Penny.
“Ah made myself scarce around dat gate, but I didn’t run home dis time. I was a-skeered of mah ole woman. I beats it to de restaurant on de co’ner and waits dere ’till a bus comes. Oh, I’se gettin’ good, Miss Penny! I can see a ghost and git to work on time, all de same evenin’!”
“Well, keep up the good work,” Penny said jokingly as she turned away.
The meeting with Old Mose had served to divert the girl’s mind from her own difficulties. Riding home by taxi, she caught herself reviewing the details of the colored man’s outlandish tale.
“Mose couldn’t have seen a ghost,” she thought, “but he’s honest about being frightened. If I didn’t have so many serious troubles, I’d be tempted to investigate the old Harrison estate myself.”
Penny alighted at her home and walked wearily up the shoveled path. Snow was falling once more. Already the exposed porch was covered with a half-inch coating of feathery flakes.