“Tom tole ye—­what?” asked the tanner, puzzled by Byers’s grave, anxious face, and Rufe’s mysterious sneers.

Rufe broke into the liveliest cackle.  “Tom, he ’lowed ter me ez he war tucked up in the trundle-bed, fast asleep, that night when his dad got home from old Mis’ Price’s house, whar he had been ter hear her las’ words.  Tom, he ‘lowed he war dreamin’ ez his gran’dad hed gin him a calf—­Tom say the calf war spotted red an’ white—­an’ jes’ ez he war a-leadin’ it home with him, his dad kem racin’ inter the house with sech a rumpus ez woke him up, an’ he never got the calf along no furder than the turn in the road.  An’ thar sot his dad in the cheer, declarin’ fur true ez he hed seen old Mis’ Price’s harnt in the woods, an’ b’lieved she mus’ be dead afore now.  An’ though thar war a right smart fire on the h’a’th, he war shiverin’ an’ shakin’ over it, jes’ the same ez ef he war out at the wood-pile, pickin’ up chips on a frosty mornin’.”

And Rufe crouched over, shivering in every limb, in equally excellent mimicry of a ghost-seer, or an unwilling chip-picker under stress of weather.

“My!” he exclaimed with a fresh burst of laughter; “whenst Tom tole me ‘bout’n it I war so tickled I war feared I’d fall.  I los’ the use o’ my tongue.  I couldn’t stop laffin’ long enough ter tell Tom what I war laffin’ at.  An’ ez Tom knowed I war snake-bit las’ June, he went home an’ tole his mother ez the p’ison hed done teched me in the head, an’ said he reckoned, ef the truth war knowed, I hed fits ez a constancy.  I say—­fits!”

Once more the bewildered tanner glanced from one to the other.

“Why, ye never tole me ez ye hed seen su’thin’ strange in the woods, Andy,” he exclaimed, feeling aggrieved, thus balked of a sensation.  “An’ the old woman ain’t dead, nohow,” he continued reasonably, “but air strengthenin’ up amazin’ fast.”

“Waal,” put in Rufe, hastening to explain this discrepancy in the spectre, “I hearn you-uns a-sayin’ that mornin’, fore ye set out from the tanyard, ez she war mighty nigh dead an’ would be gone ‘fore night.  An’ ez he hed tole me he’d skeer the wits out’n me, I ’lowed ez I could show him ez his wits warn’t ez tough ez mine.  Though,” added the roguish Rufe, with a grin of enjoyment, “arter I hed dressed up the blackberry bush in mam’s apron an’ shawl, an’ sot her bonnet a-top, it tuk ter noddin’ and bowin’ with the wind, an’ looked so like folks, ez it gin me a skeer, an’ I jes’ run home ez hard ez I could travel.  An Towse, he barked at it!”

Andy Byers spoke suddenly.  “Waal, Birt holped ye, then.”

“He never!” cried Rufe, emphatically, unwilling to share the credit, or perhaps discredit, of the enterprise.  “Birt dunno nuthin’ ’bout it ter this good day.”  Rufe winked slyly.  “Birt would tell mam ez I hed been a-foolin’ with her shawl an’ bonnet.”

Andy Byers still maintained a most incongruous gravity.