couldn’t stir for a minute or two; then it was gone. We talked about it in low voices. Tom says: 

 “They’re mostly dim and smoky, or like they’re made out of fog, but this one wasn’t.” 

 “No,” I says; “I seen the goggles and the whiskers perfectly plain.” 

 “Yes, and the very colors in them loud countrified Sunday clothes—plaid breeches, green and black—” 

 “Cotton velvet westcot, fire-red and yaller squares—” 

 “Leather straps to the bottoms of the breeches legs and one of them hanging unbottoned—” 

 “Yes, and that hat—” 

 “What a hat for a ghost to wear!” 

 You see it was the first season anybody wore that kind—a black stiff-brim stove-pipe, very high, and not smooth, with a round top—just like a sugar-loaf. 

 “Did you notice if its hair was the same, Huck?” 

 “No—seems to me I did, then again it seems to me I didn’t.” 

 “I didn’t either; but it had its bag along, I noticed that.” 

 “So did I. How can there be a ghost-bag, Tom?” 

 “Sho! I wouldn’t be as ignorant as that if I was you, Huck Finn. Whatever a ghost has, turns to ghost-stuff. They’ve got to have their things, like anybody else. You see, yourself, that its clothes was turned to ghost-stuff. Well, then, what’s to hender its bag from turning, too? Of course it done it.” 

 That was reasonable. I couldn’t find no fault with it. Bill Withers and his brother Jack come along by, talking, and Jack says: 

 “What do you reckon he was toting?” 

 “I dunno; but it was pretty heavy.” 

 “Yes, all he could lug. Nigger stealing corn from old Parson Silas, I judged.” 

 “So did I. And so I allowed I wouldn’t let on to see him.” 

 Prev. P 18/54 next