the houses like an earthquake. However, Rugg's
neighbours never afterward watched again; some of them treated it all
as a delusion, and thought no more of it. Others, of a different
opinion, shook their heads and said nothing. Thus Rugg and his child,
horse and chair, were soon forgotten; and probably many in the
neighbourhood never heard a word on the subject.

"There was indeed a rumour that Rugg afterward was seen in
Connecticut, between Suffield and Hartford, passing through the
country like a streak of chalk. This gave occasion to Rugg's friends
to make further inquiry. But the more they inquired, the more they
were baffled. If they heard of Rugg one day in Connecticut, the next
day they heard of him winding around the hills in New Hampshire; and
soon after, a man in a chair, with a small child, exactly answering
the description of Peter Rugg, would be seen in Rhode Island,
inquiring the way to Boston.

"But that which chiefly gave a colour of mystery to the story of Peter
Rugg was the affair at Charlestown bridge. The toll-gatherer asserted
that sometimes, on the darkest and most stormy nights, when no object
could be discerned about the time Rugg was missing, a horse and
wheelcarriage, with a noise equal to a troop, would at midnight, in
utter contempt of the rates of toll, pass over the bridge. This
occurred so frequently that the toll-gatherer resolved to attempt a
discovery. Soon after, at the usual time, apparently the same horse
and carriage approached the bridge from Charlestown square. The
toll-gatherer, prepared, took his stand as near the middle of the
bridge as he dared, with a large three-legged stool in his hand. As
the appearance passed, he threw the stool at the horse, but heard
nothing except the noise of the stool skipping across the bridge. The
toll-gatherer on the next day asserted that the stool went directly
through the body of the horse, and he persisted in that belief ever
after. Whether Rugg, or whoever the person was, ever passed the bridge
again, the toll-gatherer would never tell; and when questioned, seemed
anxious to waive the subject. And thus Peter Rugg and his child, horse
and carriage, remain a mystery to this day."

This, sir, is all that I could learn of Peter Rugg in Boston....

[Footnote 2: From Jonathan Dunwell of New York, to Mr. Herman Krauff.]

End of Project Gutenberg's Famous Stories Every Child Should Know, by Various

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