oo. I'll
make lame-legged Joe gather a heap of pine cones, that will burn the
greenest wood as ever sulked on a hearth," chirped the blithe old lady,
as she set the poker in its place.

And then she went to the back door of the back room, and standing on the
covered porch, called out:

"Joe, Joe, fetch in a basket of pine cones to make the fire burn!"

A rumbling noise a little resembling a human voice was heard in the
distance, and the old lady shut the door, returned to her seat, and
resumed her reeling.

"I--don't feel to think it is the firewood, mother; I--I think it is the
souls," slowly and solemnly announced Miss Libby, who had not spoken
before.

"The _what_? What in patience are _you_ talking about, Libby?" severely
demanded the old lady, as she briskly wound off her yarn.

"The _souls_, mother, the souls--the souls that do wander about without
rest on this awful night."

"Well, I do think," gravely began the aged woman, laying down the ball
she was winding, and taking off her spectacles, that she might speak
with the more impressiveness, "I do really think, of all the foolish
women in this foolish world, my two daughters is the foolishest! Here's
Tabby always whimpering about the sorrowful things in _this_ world, and
Libby always whispering about the supernatural things in t'other! If you
had both on you married twenty or thirty years ago, you wouldn't be so
full of whimsies now! But, Libby, as the oldest of the two, and a woman
nigh sixty years of age, you really ought to set a better example to
your sister."

And having delivered this little lecture, old Mrs. Winterose replaced
her spectacles on her nose, and resumed her reeling.

"It's all very well for you to talk that a way, mother, and it's all
very right; but for all that, you _know_ as how the old folks _do_ say,
as on this awful night, of all the nights in the year, the 'churchyards
yawn and the graves give up their dead,' and the unsheltered souls do
wander restlessly over the earth; and though we may not see them, they
come in at our doors and stand beside us or hover over us all the night.
Ugh! It do make me feel as if ice water was a trickling down my backbone
only to think of it! For what if as how _her_ soul was a wandering about
here now!" continued Miss Libby, solemnly clasping her hands and rolling
up her pale-blue eyes. "Yes! what if as how _her_ soul was a wandering
about here now--_here_, where, all unprepared to go, on just su