tily, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and followed his
wife into the house. There he paused abruptly.

The room was lighted by the fitful flicker of the fire, for the nights
were still chilly, and an old man, almost decrepit, sat dozing in his
chair by the hearth.

"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.

"He air the man ez hev got a son," the mountaineers used to say in
grinning explanation. "Ter hear him brag 'bout'n that thar boy o' his'n,
ye'd think he war the only man in Tennessee ez ever hed a son."

Throughout all these years the name given in jocose banter had clung to
him, and now, hallowed by ancient usage, it was accorded to him
seriously, and had all the sonorous effect of a title.

So they said nothing to Old Daddy, but presently, when he had hobbled
off to bed in the adjoining shed-room, they fell to discussing their
terror of the apparition, and thus it chanced that the two boys, Tad and
Si, first made, as it were, the ghost's acquaintance.

Tad, a stalwart fellow of seventeen, sat listening spellbound before the
glowing embers. Si, a wiry, active, tow-headed boy of twelve, perched
with dangling legs on a chest, and looked now at the group by the fire,
and now through the open door at the brilliant moonlight.

"Waal, sir," he muttered, "I'll hev ter gin up the notion o' gittin'
that comical young ow_el_, what I hev done set my heart onto. 'Kase ef I
war ter fool round Old Daddy's Window, _now_, whilst I war a-cotchin' o'
the ow_el_, 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. As the fire alternately flared and
faded, the warping-bars looked as if they were dancing a clumsy measure.
The handle of a portly jug resembled an arm stuck akimbo, and its cork,
tilted askew, was like a hat set on one side; Si fancied there was a
most unpleasant grimace below that hat. The churn-dasher, left upon a
shelf to dry, was sardonically staring him out of