United States or Japan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Then it flung its arms wildly above its head, and with a nimble spring disappeared upward. Jonas Creyshaw watched it, his eyes distended, his face pallid, his pipe trembling in his shaking hand. "Mirandy!" he quavered faintly. His wife, a thin, ailing woman with pinched features and an uncertain eye, came to the door.
He even wished that the baby would wake up, and put some life into things with a good healthy, rousing bawl. But the baby slept peacefully on, and after so long a time Si Creyshaw slept too. With broad daylight his courage revived. He was no longer afraid to think of the ghost.
"Mirandy," said Jonas Creyshaw in a whisper, "'pears like ter me ez father hed better not be let ter know 'bout'n that thar harnt. It mought skeer him so ez he couldn't live another minit. He hev aged some lately an' he air weakly." This was "Old Daddy." Before he had reached his thirtieth year, he was thus known, far and wide.
'Kase ef I war ter fool round Old Daddy's Window, now, whilst I war a-cotchin' o' the owel, the ghost mought cotch Me!" A sorry ghost, to be sure, that has nothing better to do than to "cotch" him! But perhaps Si Creyshaw is not the only one of us who has an inflated idea of his own importance. He was greatly awed, and he found many suggestions of supernatural presence about the familiar room.
"That's my bid!" said the old man sternly. "Fotch the beastis." There was no one else about the place. Jonas Creyshaw had gone fishing shortly after daybreak. His wife had trudged off to her sister's house down in the cove, and had taken the baby with her. Tad was ploughing in the cornfield on the other side of the ravine.
"'Kase," he argued sagely, "ef them skeered-ter-death grown folks war ter find out ez I war the harnt I mean ez the harnt war me ennyhow," he concluded desperately, "I'd KETCH it sure!" So impressed was he with this idea that he discreetly held his tongue. And from that day to this, Jonas Creyshaw and his friends have been unable to solve the mystery of Old Daddy's Window.
Silas Creyshaw stood amazed, for Old Daddy had not mounted a horse for twenty years. "Studyin' 'bout'n the harnt so much hev teched him in the head," the small boy concluded. Then he made an excuse, for he knew his grandfather was too old and feeble to safely undertake a solitary jaunt on horse-back. "I war tole not ter leave ye fur a minit, gran'dad. I war ter stay nigh ye an' mind yer bid."
One night Jonas Creyshaw sat alone in the porch of his log cabin, hard by on the slope of the ravine, smoking his pipe and gazing meditatively at "Old Daddy's Window." The moon was full, and its rays fell aslant on one of the cliffs, while the rugged face of the opposite crag was in the shadow.
Word Of The Day