In the evening Jim broached the subject of his resignation to the “boss,” who blankly refused to accept it, and informed him that if he wanted to go he must walk to the station, as he would see him—ahem’d—before he would allow him the use of a horse and sleigh. As I have said before, the village was considerably over five miles from the farm, and to walk there through the snow was out of the question. It meant almost certain death.
But Jim avowed his intention of performing this feat, and very early on the following morning he rose, packed up his scanty wardrobe, and departed.
Just before daybreak, about two hours after Jim’s exit, the infernal clock rang out my doom. Upon reaching the barn I hung my lantern upon a hook in the beam above, and sitting down upon my milk-stool, commenced operations upon one of the cows.
Suddenly I heard a voice at my elbow. “I can’t go through that wood—it’s haunted.” A little bit scared myself, I turned round abruptly, and in the dim light encountered the white face of the adventurous Jim. Pulling myself together, I rather hastily demanded what uneasy spirit could find pleasure in being out in such beastly weather.
“Well, you come with me, and see if there ain’t a ghost.”
Curious to know what had frightened the fellow, I took down the lantern, and together we sallied forth into the snow. We had hardly reached the middle of the meadow when a dark object came rushing towards us, and a sepulchral “bur-bur” sent Jim flying back in the direction of the barn.
“There it is!” he cried, in a voice full of terror.
I held the lantern aloft and shouted, “Who’s there?”
“Bur-bur,” was the reply. Then I ascertained the name and condition of this perturbed spirit. It was a calf! It suddenly dawned upon me that I had noticed the barn door was open when I first came down, and I immediately came to the conclusion that Jim had let the ghost out himself when he went in to put on his boots, which he was in the habit of leaving in the barn when his day’s work was over.
When Jim received a personal introduction to his ghost, he grew as courageous as Bob Acres before he came into actual contact with pistols and cold lead, and shouldering his bundle again he started forth, just as daylight was dawning in the east. I gave him my pouch of tobacco to render his journey less irksome, and that was the last I ever saw or heard of poor Jim.