Page:Hallowe'en festivities (1903).djvu/117

Rh SAVED BY A GHOST. Lem' me see. 'Twas in the year i860. I was jest begin, nin' my work on this road that year. I'd been on a road out West, but a friend got me the position here that I've kep' ever sence.

It was a rainy, disagreeable day when the affair I'm goin' to tell you about happened. Jest one o' them days that makes a feller feel blue in spite of himself, an' he can't tell why, neither, 'less he lays it all to the weather.

I don't know what made me feel so, but it seemed as if there was danger ahead ever after we left Wood's Station. An' what made it seem so curious was that the feelin' o' danger come on me all to once. It was jest about four o'clock, as near as I can tell. Anyway, jest about the time when the down express must have got safely by the place where what I'm goin' to tell you about happened, I was a-standin' with one hand on a lever, a-lookin' ahead through the drizzlin' rain, feelin' chilly an' kinder downhearted, as I've said, though I didn't know why, when all of a sudden, the idea come to me that somethin' was wrong somewhere. It took hold o' me an' I couldn't git red of it, nohow.

It got dark quite eariy, on account o' the fog an' the rain; it was dark as pitch afore we left Holbrook, which was the last station we passed afore we come to the place where I see the ghost.

"I never felt so queer in my life afore," said Jimmy, the fireman, to me, all of a sudden.

As I was feelin' queer myself, he kinder startled me, a savin' what he did.

"Why! What d'ye mean? " said I, without lettin' on that I felt uneasy myself.