“Bless yo heart now, will you? Well, I’ll tell you then, ’cause yo goin’ to be so good. Well, honey, when I was a young girl, I lived up at The House; that was befo’ the wah. I was one of the house servants, sort of waitin’ maid, and table maid, too. Well, one stormy night, I was in the dinin’-room, settin’ the dinnah table. The rain and sleet was bangin’ aginst the windows, and it was growin’ mighty dark. I thought I’d go out and shut the shuttahs; I thought I’d run out the front doah, and close the pahlor shuttahs too. The lamp wasn’t lit in the hall yet, and as I went through, it seemed to me I saw somethin’ white curled up on the lower stair. I opened the front doah so that I could see bettah what it was, and then I turned and went to it, and there, cuddled all up in a heap, was a strange little girl. She had a little peaked white face and great blue eyes, and her hair was about the coloh of you-all’s. She had on a little white dress, and had somethin’ in her hands—looked like a man’s cap, and it was all torn and bloody; and there was blood on her dress. “‘My land, honey, whar you come from?’ I says, and she huddled down closer than ever, and began to cry just like her heart was most broke. I stooped down to pick her up in my ahms”—Aunt Polly’s voice sank to a whisper—“and—she—wasn’t—there. I rubbed my eyes and looked agin, then I run to the doah and looked out; but they wasn’t nobody about. Then I got so skeered I banged the doah shut and run whoopin’ and screamin’ to the kitchen. Aunt Susan, the cook, grab me by the ahm. ‘Shut yo haid, girl, and tell me wha’s de mattah,’ she said. So I done told her all about it, and she just dropped all in a heap and she say: ‘O my Lawd, O my deah Lawd, the judgment am a comin’ agin! Tell me, gal, was dat baby laughin’ or cryin’?’ and I say, ‘Cryin’;’ and she say, ‘Ooh, my poo’ mistess;’ and I said, ‘Oh, Aunt Susan, what is it?’ She say: ‘Gal, you done see a ghost. Dat’s no baptized baby; dat’s a poo’ child dat was muhdard yeahs and yeahs ago by some wicked limb of dis fambly, fo’ to get its money. Whenever dat child comes here a weepin’ and a moanin’, dat’s de sign of a death; if it comes a laughin’, den it brings good luck to we-alls.’ “Well, I was that skeered to think I’d done seen a ghost, that I shuck all over, and couldn’t wait on the table. Well, honey, I kep’ a waitin’ for a death or somefin as bad; and ’bout a week later, my mastah’s oldest boy was out huntin’, and the gun went off too soon, and blowed the top of his haid plum off. They brought his torn and bloody cap home. I’d—seen—it—before.