"Well, Jimmy was six months old, or so, when we begun to be woke up every night by his cryin'. Nothin' seemed to be the matter with him: he was only frightened-like, an' couldn't be quieted. I heerd noises sometimes,--nothin' like what come afterwards,--but sort o' crackin' an' snappin', sich as you hear in new furnitur', an' it seemed like somebody was in the room; but I couldn't find nothin'. It got wuss and wuss: Mary Ann was sure the house was haunted, an' I had to let her go home for a whole winter. When she was away, it went on the same as ever,--not every night,--sometimes not more 'n onst a week,--but so loud as to wake me up, reg'lar. I sent word to Mary Ann to come on, an' I'd sell out an' go to Illinois. Good perairah land was cheap then, an' I'd ruther go furder off, for the sake o' quiet. "So we pulled up stakes an' come out here: but it weren't long afore the noise follered us, wuss 'n ever, an' we found out at last what it was. One night I woke up, with my hair stan'in' on end, an' heerd Rachel Emmons's voice, jist as you heerd it last night. Mary Ann heerd it too, an' it's little peace she's giv' me sence that time. An' so it's been goin' on an' on, these eight or nine year." "But," I asked, "are you sure she is alive? Have you seen her since? Have you asked her to be merciful and not disturb you?" "Yes," said he, with a bitterness of tone which seemed quite to obliterate the softer memories of his love, "I've seen her, an' I've begged her on my knees to let me alone; but it's no use. When it got to be so bad I couldn't stan' it, I sent her a letter, but I never got no answer. Next year, when our second boy died, frightened and worried to death, I believe, though he _was_ scrawny enough when he was born, I took some money I'd saved to buy a yoke of oxen, an' went to Toledo o' purpose to see Rachel. It cut me awful to do it, but I was desprit. I found her livin' in a little house, with a bit o' garden, she'd bought. I s'pose she must 'a' had five or six hundred dollars when the farm was sold, an' she made a good deal by sewin', besides. She was settin' at her work when I went in, an' knowed me at onst, though I don't believe I'd ever 'a' knowed _her_. She was old, an' thin, an' hard-lookin'; her mouth was pale an' sot, like she was bitin' somethin' all the time; an' her eyes, though they was sunk into her head, seemed to look through an' through an' away out th' other side o' you.