child would be standing beside her with the dish-towel, wiping them.
Of course, that was terrible. Mrs. Bird would wash the dishes all
over. Sometimes she didn't tell Mrs. Dennison, it made her so nervous.
Sometimes when they were making cake they would find the raisins all
picked over, and sometimes little sticks of kindling-wood would be
found laying beside the kitchen stove. They never knew when they would
come across that child, and always she kept saying over and over that
she couldn't find her mother. They never tried talking to her, except
once in awhile Mrs. Bird would get desperate and ask her something, but
the child never seemed to hear it; she always kept right on saying that
she couldn't find her mother.

"After they had told me all they had to tell about their experience
with the child, they told me about the house and the people that had
lived there before they did. It seemed something dreadful had happened
in that house. And the land agent had never let on to them. I don't
think they would have bought it if he had, no matter how cheap it was,
for even if folks aren't really afraid of anything, they don't want to
live in houses where such dreadful things have happened that you keep
thinking about them. I know after they told me I should never have
stayed there another night, if I hadn't thought so much of them, no
matter how comfortable I was made; and I never was nervous, either.
But I stayed. Of course, it didn't happen in my room. If it had I
could not have stayed."

"What was it?" asked Mrs. Emerson in an awed voice.

"It was an awful thing. That child had lived in the house with her
father and mother two years before. They had come--or the father
had--from a real good family. He had a good situation: he was a
drummer for a big leather house in the city, and they lived real
pretty, with plenty to do with. But the mother was a real wicked
woman. She was as handsome as a picture, and they said she came from
good sort of people enough in Boston, but she was bad clean through,
though she was real pretty spoken and most everybody liked her. She
used to dress out and make a great show, and she never seemed to take
much interest in the child, and folks began to say she wasn't treated
right.

"The woman had a hard time keeping a girl. For some reason one
wouldn't stay. They would leave and then talk about her awfully,
telling all kinds of things. People didn't believe it at first; then