Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/259

 her hands and carryin' on fit to make your hair stand up on end.

"Just to make sure o' things before I went any further, I grubbed a good-sized stone out of the old gravel walk, and let it fly at her, hard as I could go, just as she come wailin' and cryin' round the corner of the house. It seemed kind o' cruel, at first, but if she was a reg'ler, out-and-out ghost, I knew it was n't goin' to do her any harm, and if she was just foolin' and carryin' on that way for show, she would be gettin' what was comin' to her. Well, I let drive right at her, and it took her plum in the waist. But it went clean through her, without stoppin'! And I could see a line of sparks where it lit up against the basement stonework, kind o' blue, and sulphury, and queer-lookin'.

"Then I minded hearin' old Marm Watkins—she 's the colored woman who used to wash for the Litseys—tellin' Speck no ghost would ever walk over a cross, and if ever he got caught overnight in a graveyard, just to make a circle o' crosses round himself, and no ha'nt 'd ever get near him.

"So I went back to the road fence, and