[THE MATE OF HIS SOUL]
Though he became a man later, he was a child of three when I first knew him, and I was a youngster of ten. He was fair-haired, pink-cheeked, and somewhat girlish—that is, a sweet-faced child, who attracted affection and attention. He had a father, mother, a couple of aunts—all in the same household, and several devoted cousins and neighbors, of various ages, who occasionally visited him. I was in the latter class, and, one day, after running an errand for his mother, I picked him up, after the manner of my elders, and petted him. He stood it tranquilly and smilingly, until his eyes rested on a corner of the room. Then they dilated in terror, and a piercing scream came from his lips. It was not the ordinary scream of nervous children—it was more. After the beginning it rose an octave higher, much as a policeman's whistle will rise from pressure of breath, or a steam siren take a new note when it is well at work. It was penetrating and harrowing, and his feminine relatives responded with inquiries and fumbling after possible pins. Yet the screams continued, while his eyes were fixed in indescribable intensity on the corner. He saw something there.
"What is it, boy?" I asked. "What do you see?"
"There!" he gasped, pointing. "Don't let it. Don't."
I gave him to his mother, and with the true intuition of a harum-scarum boy, I ran to the corner, shouting, "Get out of here," at the same time dealing a furious kick at an imaginary creature.
However, I was not affected at the time. Repeating my injunctions to get out, I kicked and pursued the imaginary thing out through the door, and returned, smiling, to the child.
"It's gone," he whimpered. "Don't let it come back."
"But what was it?" they asked. "What did you think you saw, Freddie?"
He did not answer, and I ventured a suggestion: "Ghosts?"
He shook his head. Perhaps he had no formulated speculations of ghosts.