oist, and small eyelids heavy. The master
himself started, and awoke out of a perilous dream of other eyes and
hair to collect himself severely. For the irresolute, half-embarrassed,
half-lazy figure of a man had halted doubtingly before the porch and
open door. Luckily the children, who were facing the master with their
backs to the entrance, did not see it.

Yet the figure was neither alarming nor unfamiliar. The master at
once recognized it as Ben Dabney, otherwise known as "Uncle Ben," a
good-humored but not over-bright miner, who occupied a small cabin on an
unambitious claim in the outskirts of Indian Spring. His avuncular title
was evidently only an ironical tribute to his amiable incompetency and
heavy good-nature, for he was still a young man with no family ties, and
by reason of his singular shyness not even a visitor in the few families
of the neighborhood. As the master looked up, he had an irritating
recollection that Ben had been already haunting him for the last two
days, alternately appearing and disappearing in his path to and from
school as a more than usually reserved and bashful ghost. This, to the
master's cynical mind, clearly indicated that, like most ghosts, he had
something of essentially selfish import to communicate. Catching the
apparition's half-appealing eye, he proceeded to exorcise it with a
portentous frown and shake of the head, that caused it to timidly wane
and fall away from the porch, only however to reappear and wax larger a
few minutes later at one of the side windows. The infant class hailing
his appearance as a heaven-sent boon, the master was obliged to walk to
the door and command him sternly away, when, retreating to the fence, he
mounted the uppermost rail, and drawing a knife from his pocket, cut
a long splinter from the rail, and began to whittle it in patient and
meditative silence. But when recess was declared, and the relieved
feelings of the little flock had vent in the clearing around the
schoolhouse, the few who rushed to the spot found that Uncle Ben had
already disappeared. Whether the appearance of the children was too
inconsistent with his ghostly mission, or whether his heart failed him
at the last moment, the master could not determine. Yet, distasteful
as the impending interview promised to be, the master was vaguely and
irritatingly disappointed.

A few hours later, when school was being dismissed, the master
found Octavia Dean lingering near his desk. Looki