The pair sauntered back to their places about the cheerless stove. The Storekeeper leaned his chair against the counter, fixed his feet firmly on the rungs and clasped both knees tightly with his hands.
“You can laugh an’ say they ain’t no sech things ez spooks,” he said, “but I notice that you uns an’ most other folks ’hen ye walks be the buryin’-ground at night, cuts th’oo the fields ez fur ’way from it ez ye can git.”
The Loafer reddened. For a moment he beat his feet slowly against the side of the counter on which he had seated himself between the Miller and the Tinsmith. Then he retorted hotly, “I hain’t sayd they was no sech things ez spooks.”
“Mebbe they is an’ mebbe they ain’t,” ventured the Miller in a low tone. “But ef they ain’t, why hesn’t Abe Scissors ben able to git a tenant fer that leetle place o’ his back on the ridge? They sais it hes a ha’nt, an’ tho’ I’ve never seen it, I knows folks that sais they hes, an’ I’ve no reasons to doubt their words.”
The G. A. R. Man nodded his head in assent. “I don’t b’lieve in them ghosts meself, but ’hen it comes to goin’ home be way o’ the Meth’dis’ buryin’-ground at night I allus goes the back road, even ef it is furder.”
There was silence. Outside the rain beat furiously against the windows; in the garret overhead the wind whistled mournfully; from the cellar below came the faint clatter of loose boards as the rats scampered to and fro.
The Storekeeper reached behind him and turned the wick of the lamp up a little higher.
The Miller slipped from his place on the counter and seated himself on the box beside the veteran. He filled and lighted his clay pipe, and began: “My gran’pap used to tell how night after night he heard the churn splashin’ down in his spring-house; an’ how he stepped out once to find out what done it. He seen the sperrit of his first wife churnin’ an’ churnin’, an’ she told him how lest some un ’ud break the spell she’d hev to——”
The Chronic Loafer had glided off the counter and was rolling a keg close to the speaker. He fixed himself comfortably on it; then cried, “Turn up that there light. This dark hurts a felly’s eyes.”
The Tinsmith glanced furtively behind him into the blackness beneath the counter. He pushed himself from his perch, intending to join the little knot about the stove. Hardly had he reached the floor and taken one step when he halted.