e 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 Hampton 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 daytime.

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 Primrose 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