the children and supplied them with entertainment. Wonderful
entertainment it was. That was a time of visions and dreams, small.
gossip and superstitions. Old tales were repeated over and over, with
adornments and improvements suggested by immediate events. At evening
the Clemens children, big and little, gathered about the great open
fireplace while Jennie and Uncle Ned told tales and hair-lifting legends.
Even a baby of two or three years could follow the drift of this
primitive telling and would shiver and cling close with the horror and
delight of its curdling thrill. The tales always began with "Once 'pon a
time," and one of them was the story of the "Golden Arm" which the
smallest listener would one day repeat more elaborately to wider
audiences in many lands. Briefly it ran as follows:

"Once 'Pon a time there was a man, and he had a wife, and she had a' arm
of pure gold; and she died, and they buried her in the graveyard; and one
night her husband went and dug her up and cut off her golden arm and tuck
it home; and one night a ghost all in white come to him; and she was his
wife; and she says:

"W-h-a-r-r's my golden arm? W-h-a-r-r's my golden arm? W-h-a-r-r's my
g-o-l-den arm?"

As Uncle Ned repeated these blood-curdling questions he would look first
one and then another of his listeners in the eyes, with his bands drawn
up in front of his breast, his fingers turned out and crooked like claws,
while he bent with each question closer to the shrinking forms before
him. The tone was sepulchral, with awful pause as if waiting each time
for a reply. The culmination came with a pounce on one of the group, a
shake of the shoulders, and a shout of:

"YOU'VE got it!' and she tore him all to pieces!"

And the children would shout "Lordy!" and look furtively over their
shoulders, fearing to see a woman in white against the black wall; but,
instead, only gloomy, shapeless shadows darted across it as the
flickering flames in the fireplace went out on one brand and flared up on
another. Then there was a story of a great ball of fire that used to
follow lonely travelers along dark roads through the woods.

"Once 'pon a time there was a man, and he was riding along de road and he
come to a ha'nted house, and he heard de chains'a-rattlin' and a-rattlin'
and a-rattlin', and a ball of fire come rollin' up and got under his
stirrup, and it didn't make no difference if his horse galloped or went
slow or stood still, de ball o