hen he remembered, all of a sudden, the town talk about Debby's
believing in mediums and spooks and fortune tellers and such. And he
commenced to set up and take notice.

At the supper table he was as mum as a rundown clock; just set in his
chair and looked at Mrs. Badger. She got nervous and fidgety after a
spell, and fin'lly bu'sts out with: "What are you staring at me like
that for?"

Ase kind of jumped and looked surprised. "Staring?" says he. "Was I
staring?"

"I should think you was! Is my hair coming down, or what is it?"

He didn't answer for a minute, but he looked over her head and then
away acrost the room, as if he was watching something that moved. "Your
husband was a short, kind of fleshy man, as I remember, wa'n't he?" says
he, absent-minded like.

"Course he was. But what in the world--"

"'Twa'n't him, then. I thought not."

"HIM? My husband? What DO you mean?"

And then Asaph begun to put on the fine touches. He leaned acrost the
table and says he, in a sort of mysterious whisper: "Mrs. Badger," says
he, "do you ever see things? Not common things, but strange--shadders
like?"

"Mercy me!" says the widow. "No. Do YOU?"

"Sometimes seems's if I did. Jest now, as I set here looking at you, it
seemed as if I saw a man come up and put his hand on your shoulder."

Well, you can imagine Debby. She jumped out of her chair and whirled
around like a kitten in a fit. "Good land!" she hollers. "Where? What?
Who was it?"

"I don't know who 'twas. His face was covered up; but it kind of come to
me--a communication, as you might say--that some day that man was going
to marry you."

"Land of love! Marry ME? You're crazy! I'm scart to death."

Ase shook his head, more mysterious than ever. "I don't know," says he.
"Maybe I am crazy. But I see that same man this afternoon, when I was in
that trance, and--"

"Trance! Do you mean to tell me you was in a TRANCE out there by the
wood-pile? Are you a MEDIUM?"

Well, Ase, he wouldn't admit that he was a medium exactly, but he give
her to understand that there wa'n't many mediums in this country that
could do business 'longside of him when he was really working. 'Course
he made believe he didn't want to talk about such things, and, likewise
of course, that made Debby all the more anxious TO talk about 'em.
She found out that her new boarder was subject to trances and had
second-sight and could draw horoscopes, and I don't know what all.
Particular she wan