One dark night long ago a brave boy climbed up the steep hill to the old mansion that everyone said was haunted.
The longer he listened, the braver he felt. It was easy to see that the noise was caused by some loose boards rattling against the windows caused by the wind, but a loud “Whoa!” issued from the door where he taped with the poker that he carried in his hand.
“Who’s there?” cried a voice seemingly at his elbow, and turning quickly, the boy saw standing by his side a tall figure almost as white as a snowflake. The hair stood on the boy’s head and bristled like a frightful tail in a thunderstorm, and he trembled like a leaf in the Autumn wind. But remembering the fate of sad Captain Smith when he heard the war-whooping of the Indians, he turned at once upon the ghost.
“It’s so dark,” he said, “one can’t see a thing. Do you mind just opening the door yourself, ghost, or showing me where the latch-key is? I don’t believe a ghost like you would do anybody any harm–or knows where to find a latch-key, anyway.”
“Nobody ever asks me to do anything,” murmured the ghost, “but sits down afraid, cowering in a corner. I’ll be glad to help you get in if you want to come in, so come right along.”
So the brave boy entered and was soon seated before the cheerful fire which burned in the big old-fashioned fire-place. There before him on one side of the fire sat an Uncle Tom the ghost, and on the other side a white-faced Mohawk Indian who turned out to be a very jolly old fellow.
“Oh dear!” sighed the ghost. “I used to have such good times with poor Captain Smith when he was a little chap, but now I sit alone night after night with nothing but the wind complaining in the cracks and crannies and the rain beating against my windows.”
“I’m glad you came,” said the Mohawk, “for it frightens away the ghostly boy who comes and sits here thinking. You are an American, I see.”
The boy shook hands with the Mohawk, and turning to the ghost said.
“I am sorry to find you languishing so drearily in your tomb. Nobody likes that kind of existence. If I could once put second thought into your head, you might possibly through kind treatment of your fellowmen be able to bury ghosts and grow into a man.”
The ghost brightened up at this, but said nothing while the Mohawk grumbled,
“Go away! You worry a fellow-creature by sitting on him to get these words out of him, till not a bit of a morrow or laughter is left in him.”
“Quite right!” chirruped Uncle Tom. “Nothing like a good sound sleep with all the blankets of which one has been robbed in a night of rest–no old creaking tavern-trick to do nothing–or at any rate close one’s eyes and be as fast asleep as a doorknob, that you might see doorknobs seldom is not good; or the stillness of the tomb, should one lose his sleep, and be never so cruelly tormented by the ghost of a disagreeable dream.”
How good the fire felt! But every half-hour or so the boy jumped up and the Mohawk threw a stick of wood on the fire.
When ten o’clock struck, the Mohawk took a candle, blew the smoke at the boy, said good-night, and went quarreling upstairs to bed.
“I am so glad you came,” said the ghost, “or I should have missed all this.”
“Well, come down tomorrow evening, and I will show you some books which I think will interest you. By the way, do you happen to know if Captain Kidd was buried at Pompton?”
“Yes,” said the ghost, “what there was of him.”