They passed right by our camp, and they seen us there by the fire, all three of us. But they was in the road in the dark, and we was all in the light, so none of the three of us seen them. Miss Hampton was kind of scared of us, first glance, fur she gasped and grabbed holt of Martha's arm all of a sudden so tight she pinched it. Which it was very natcheral that she would be startled, coming across three strange men all of a sudden at night around a turn in the road. They went along home, and Martha went inside and lighted a lamp, but Miss Hampton lingered on the porch fur a minute. Jest as she lit the lamp Martha hearn another little gasp, or kind of sigh, from Miss Hampton out there on the porch. Then they was the sound of her falling down. Martha ran out with the lamp, and she was laying there. She had fainted and keeled over.
Martha said jest in the minute she had left her alone on the porch was when Miss Hampton must of seen the ghost. Martha brung her to, and she was looking puzzled and wild-like both to oncet.
Martha asts her what is the matter.
"Nothing," she says, rubbing her fingers over her forehead in a helpless kind of way, "nothing.""You look like you had seen a ghost," Martha tells her.
Miss Hampton looks at Martha awful funny, and then she says mebby she HAS seen a ghost, and goes along upstairs to bed. And since then she ain't been out of the house. She tells Martha it is a sick headache, but Martha says she knows it ain't. She thinks she is scared of something.
"Scared?" I says. "She wouldn't see no more ghosts in the daytime."Martha says how do I know she wouldn't? She knows a lot about ghosts of all kinds, Martha does.
Horses and dogs can see them easier than humans, even in the daytime, and it makes their hair stand up when they do. But some humans that have the gift can see them in the daytime like an animal.
And Martha asts me how can I tell but Miss Hamp-ton is like that?
"Well, then," I says, "she must be a witch.
And if she is a witch why is she scared of them a-tall?"But Martha says if you have second sight you don't need to be a witch to see them in the day-time.
Well, you can never tell about them ghosts.
Some says one thing and some says another. Old Mis' Primrose, in our town, she always believed in 'em firm till her husband died. When he was dying they fixed it up he was to come back and visit her.
She told him he had to, and he promised. And she left the front door open fur him night after night fur nigh a year, in all kinds of weather; but Prim-rose never come. Mis' Primrose says he never lied to her, and he always done jest as she told him, and if he could of come she knowed he would;and when he didn't she quit believing in ghosts.
But they was others in our town said it didn't prove nothing at all. They said Primrose had really been lying to her all his life, because she was so bossy he had to lie to keep peace in the fambly, and she never ketched on. Well, if I was a ghost and had of been Mis' Primrose's husband when I was a human, I wouldn't of come back neither, even if she had of bully-ragged me into one of them death-bed promises. I guess Primrose figgered he had earnt a rest.
If they is ghosts, what comfort they can get out of coming back where they ain't wanted and scaring folks is more'n I can see. It's kind of low down, I think, and foolish too. Them kind of ghosts is like these here overgrown smart alecs that scares kids. They think they are mighty cute, but they ain't. They are jest foolish. A human, or a ghost either, that does things like that is jest simply got no principle to him. I hearn a lot of talk about 'em, first and last, and I ain't ready to say they ain't no ghosts, nor yet ready to say they is any. To say they is any is to say something that is too plumb unlikely. And too many people has saw them fur me to say they ain't any. But if they is, or they ain't, so fur as I can see, it don't make much difference. Fur they never do nothing, besides scaring you, except to rap on tables and tell fortunes, and such fool things. Which a human can do it all better and save the expense of paying money to one of these here sperrit mediums that travels around and makes 'em perform. But all the same they has been nights I has felt different about 'em myself, and less hasty to run 'em down.
Well, it don't do no good to speak harsh of no one, not even a ghost or a ordinary dead man, and if Iwas to see a ghost, mebby I would be all the scareder fur what I have jest wrote.
Well, with all the talking back and forth we done about them ghosts we couldn't agree. That after-noon it seemed like we couldn't agree about any-thing. I knowed we would be going away from there before long, and I says to myself before Igo I'm going to have that girl fur my girl, or else know the reason why. No matter what I was talking about, that idea was in the back of my head, and somehow it kind of made me want to pick fusses with her, too. We was setting on a log, purty deep into the woods, and there come a time when neither of us had said nothing fur quite a spell. But after a while I says:
"Martha, we'll be going away from here in two, three days now."She never said nothing.
"Will you be sorry?" I asts her.
She says she will be sorry.
"Well," I says, "WHY will you be sorry?"
I thought she would say because _I_ was going.
And then I would be finding out whether she liked me a lot. But she says the reason she will be sorry is because there will be no one new to talk to about things both has read. I was considerable took down when she said that.
"Martha," I says, "it's more'n likely I won't never see you agin after I go away."She says that kind of parting comes between the best of friends.
I seen I wasn't getting along very fast, nor saying what I wanted to say. I reckon one of them Sir Marmeluke fellers would of knowed what to say. Or Doctor Kirby would. Or mebby even Looey would of said it better than I could. So Iwas kind of mad with myself, and I says, mean-like:
"If you don't care, of course, I don't care, neither."She never answered that, so I gets up and makes like I am starting off.
