“Papa! what happened?” “You must have had a dream, honey.” “But my head hurts.” “I heard you scream and I found you on the floor.” “In my room?” “Yes.” “That’s funny! I thought I fell down the cellar stairs.” “That would be funny!” “I thought I saw you in the cellar.” “What would I be doing in the cellar?” “You were—papa, where’s Jud Lasher?” “He’s gone to sea, hasn’t he?” “Will he come back? Ever?” “Not unless you talk about him. He might if you do.” “I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts.” “There are ghosts and ghosts. Foolish people talk about the imaginary ones. The real ones—big men don’t talk about them at all, and you’re getting to be a big man, aren’t you?” “Yes, papa; yes, sir.” He was dizzy. He swung like a blown rag on a clothesline—or like a sailor on a—a whaler. A sailor on a whaler. The old rooster snored. His father’s hands came out across the ocean and drew the covers over the sailor’s hands. He—he was—was—— It was morning. It takes girls a long while to dress, and Keith was always downstairs long before Immy. This morning he was quicker than ever. He wanted to get to that cellar and see it by daylight. He met his father in the hall, pacing up and down. His father looked at him queerly as if he were afraid. That was a silly thing to think, of course, but his father looked sick—as if he hadn’t slept well or any at all. The boy thought it best to be frank. “Papa, was that a dream? All of it?” “Was what a dream?” “About me being in the cellar and seeing you taking stones out of the wall.” “Let’s go down and look at the cellar.” Keith loved that. When in doubt, visit the scene of the legend. He went down the steps. The morning light came in through little windows smeared with cobwebs. Keith missed first the heap of stones on the floor, the hole in the foundation of the chimney, the box of quicklime. The stones were in place. There was no hole in the wall, no quicklime. The cellar floor was clean—cleaner than usual. “I guess it was a dream, papa.” He took his father’s hand. The hand felt funny, gritty and clammy, as if it had been washed very hard. He glanced down and the nails were white along the edges. He said nothing as they started upstairs, but his backward look noted a thing he thought he ought to speak of: “Papa, the stones in the chimney look like they’d been chiseled out and put back in again with fresh mortar.” “Do they?” his father gasped, and sat down hard on the cellar steps. He nodded and groaned wearily. “They do look that way.” He thought a while, then rose and took an old broom and jabbed it into spider webs on the windows and whisked them away and spread them across the fresh lines. “Does that look better?” “If you could get the spiders to move there it would.” Now the boy felt that he was made an accomplice. His father took his criticism and acted on it.