Something long and white slapped across his face.  An unearthly, wavering voice sounded a hoarse, long-drawn “Moo-oo-oo!” just in front of him.  He sank down in a helpless little heap, blubbering and groaning aloud, with his teeth chattering, and the tears running down his clammy face.  There was a louder crackling, and out of the bushes walked an old spotted cow, calmly switching her white tail and looking at John Jay in gentle-eyed wonder.

Strength came back to the boy with that familiar sight, but not being sure that the cow was not as ghostly as the ganders, he scrambled to his feet and started to run again.  To avoid passing the cow, he turned in another direction.  This time, it happened to be the right one, and in a few moments more he had dashed into the open.  Then he saw that it was not yet dark in the fields.

Mammy heard the sound of rapid running up the path, and came to the door.  John Jay dropped at her feet, trembling and cold, and so frightened that he could only cling to her skirts, sobbing piteously.  When, at last, he found his breath, all he could gasp was, “Oh, Mammy! the gandahs are aftah me! the gandahs are aftah me!”

Big boy as he was, Mammy stooped and lifted him in her arms, and holding him close, with his head on her shoulder, rocked back and forth in the big wooden chair until he grew calmer.  Not until he had sobbed out the whole story, and wiped his eyes several times on her apron, did he see that there was company in the room.

George Chadwick was sitting by the door.  It was the first time he had been in the cabin since his return from college.  He had ridden up from the toll-gate on a passing wagon to see his old friend, Sheba, and had been there the greater part of the afternoon, listening to her tales of his mother in the old slavery days.  He had not intended to accept her urgent invitation to stay to supper, but when he saw that she shared John Jay’s fright, he decided to remain.  Had it not been for his protecting presence in the house, Mammy was so affected by the boy’s story that she would have barred every opening.  Then, cowering around one little flickering candle, they would have fed each other’s superstitious fears until bedtime.  George knew this, and so he stayed to reassure them by his matter-of-fact explanations, and his cheerful common sense.  While he could not convince them that they had been needlessly alarmed, he drew their attention to other things, by stories of college life and experiences at the North, while Sheba bustled about, bringing out the best of her meagre store to do him honor.

Ivy, scrubbed until she shone, and in a stiffly starched apron, sat on his knee and sucked her thumb.  Bud squatted at his feet in silence, sticking his little red tongue in and out of the hole where the lost tooth had been.  As for John Jay, his hero-worship passed that night into warmest love.  From that time on, he would have gone through fire and water to serve his “Rev’und Gawge,”—­anywhere in fact, save one place.  Never any more was there motive deep enough or power strong enough to drag him within calling distance of the gander thicket.