There was the little house, rather more spick
and span than when we had known it, freshly painted in its brown and
white, the privet hedge very handsomely shaven, and its present
occupant busily engaged in trimming some tufts of grass along the
pavement. We did not linger, and that cheerful-looking man little
knew how many ghosts he was living among. All of us, we suppose,
dwell amid ghosts we are not aware of, and this gentleman would be
startled if he knew the tenacity and assurance of certain shades who
moved across his small lawn that afternoon.
It was strange, we aver, to see how little the place had changed,
for it seemed that we had passed round the curves and contours of a
good many centuries in those four or five years. In the open meadow
the cow was still grazing; perhaps the same cow that was once
pestered by a volatile Irish terrier who used to swing merrily at
the end of that cow's tail; a merry and irresponsible little
creature, she was, and her phantom still scampers the road where the
sharp scream of the Freeport trolley brings back her last fatal
venture to our mind. It was strange to look at those windows, with
their neat white sills, and to remember how we felt when for the
first time we slept in a house of our own, with all those Long
Island stars crowding up to the open window, and, waking in drowsy
unbelief, put out a hand to touch the strong wall and see if it was
still there.
Pages:
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154