“What’s come, an’ what night did we see it?”
“Why, ole Jordan’s haunt,” gasped Dan. “I seed him jest now in broad
daylight--I did, as sure’s I’m settin’ on this yere bench tellin’
ye--an’ thar was others seed him too; an’ thar was that eye of his’n in
the middle of his head, an’ it kept a flickerin’ an’ a winkin’ jest as
it done that night in the dark. O, my soul!”
Godfrey hardly knew what to do with himself, so terrified and astounded
was he. He took his pipe out of his mouth, jumped up from the bench,
and looked all around as if he were trying to make up his mind which
way to run first.
“O, it ain’t a comin’ here,” said Dan, who could tell by these
movements what his father was thinking about. “It done went into the
gen’ral’s barn. It’s got a hidin’-place in thar.”
These words reassured Godfrey, who being satisfied that the terrible
apparition was at a safe distance, seated himself on the bench again,
and began to question Dan. He hoped that the boy was mistaken, and that
his very lively imagination had converted a stump or some other object
he had seen in the woods, into what he supposed to be old Jordan’s
ghost; but Dan gave his evidence in such a way, and was so very
positive on every point on which his father asked information, that
Godfrey was obliged to believe that he had seen something wonderful.
Perhaps after the reader hears Dan’s story he will believe it too. We
will follow him, but tell it in our way.
Dan said he had had better luck in the woods that morning than he
usually did--the bunch of squirrels he exhibited, and to which he had
held fast during his headlong flight, proved that statement--and having
shot all the game he wanted, he was coming home by way of the general’s
lane. He saw the hostler and two or three other negroes standing
in front of the barn, and when he came up he found that they were
holding an earnest consultation, and that they were all more or less
frightened. Dan at once inquired into the cause of their alarm, and was
informed that something very strange and mysterious had just happened.
The hostler was busy with his usual duties in the barn, and the others
were at work in the field close by, when a queer-looking object
suddenly made its appearance among them. It was dressed in a suit of
white cottonade, and looked and acted like an old, decrepit negro; but
it could not have been that, for if it had been, it would have returned
some of the numerous greetings that were addressed to it. Besides, it
did not seem to hear or see anything.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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