BRANTFORD EXPOSITOR:.'. CHRISTMAS NUMBER, l)I".CEMBER, I891. 13

A’BRAM.

He was a curious old customer, industrious but slow, intelligent but superstitious, in short, a typical old Indian to whom honesty was a religion and fidelity a creed.

I cannot recall the time when he was not in some capacity or other in the employment of our household—— gardener, hostler, harvester, in all he rroved himself a priceless retainer and trustworthy frieni . Every June of my childhood was particularly identified with A’bram’s presence on the old estate, for my father never entrusted the cutting of the June grass and the haying thereof to any one else, and many of my happiest young hours have been spent in sprawlin r out in the sunshine on the terraces while I watche him mow the lawns with the big crooked scythe that swathed with such monotonous regularity back and forth, leaving behind it a long heaped- up line of silverish green, and the indescribable freshness and fragrance of newly~cut hay.

One morning a week after my final release from the school-room, the familiar swish of the scythe floated in through the old French windows, and in five minutes I had forgotten my young-ladyisms and was lolling out on the grass as of yore chatting away to the old man, while I watched the hot . une sunshine glint along the surface of the river that coiled its sparkling length far round the lowlands, where some lads were tossing the already dried hay into cocks. _ _

A’bram was in one of his silent moods.‘ ‘,Wliat’s up?” I asked. “You seem to be in the dumps.”

He (lid not answer for some moments. I can see him now, standing with his shoulders erect, his knees slightl bent, as he wiped his forehead with the back of his hant ,

i-lien to-GK ILUIII iiis hip pocket at w iiei,si.oiic aiiu. iicgaii to '

indolently sharpen his scythe. The very memory of that sound ringing across the years makes me homesick for the

_faithful ol-il fellow, who I considered iiioi'e ainusiiig than

anything else in those d:i.ys. _ . _ _ At, la,-1, he spoke. ‘ I, den‘t like it what liappcu d’liis

mornin’,” he said. ‘ y “ Why! what liappenedfl ’ I asked.

“Your fatlier lie’s '/.li<mtiiig HI||lll‘l’(\l1-4, dayliglit.” “ Yes. I lH‘.l|.l'1l.lillU gun," I Haul. _ “ Well! one .s«|uIi‘rel when he fall, lie step III the fork

of the dree ~-dead.” _ “Well! what of it?”

“ It’s bad,” replied the old man, solemnly.

“Bad ?” _

“Very had, someone here die, sure.”

“Now Abe,” I said iinpatu-.ntl_y, “that’s an old silly

yarn. I believe you made it up.”

“ No, its ole Indian sign, sure; ll(‘.I(‘.1‘l.€Lll.”

“I don’t want to know about its failing, but did you ever know it to come true,” I asked, anticipating a good old superstitious story.

“Yes, alwas, once to me.”

It was a trying ordeal for me to compose my face to gravity, but I succeeded in doing so and ileferentiall y requested him to tell me all about it. He pushed back his wide straw hat, laid down his scythe, attempted a few more words in English, then dropped into the quaint and beautiful Mohawk of which the following is but an unworthy interpretation :-

“ It happened Christmas Week, years ago, when I was a little boy and lived away up the rivei - at Tutela Heights. The winter had been soft, and we waited weeks for the roads to freeze up, so that we could take a load of grain over to get ground at the mill. There was no town then in the valley below the Heights, only the old church, one or two settlers’ houses and the lodges of the Upper Mohawks. I can remember my father tellin r how he used to walk to Ancaster with a bag of grain on is shoulders to have it ground ; but at the time ‘ Speak of there was 2; grist mill where the town of Paris now stands, and as we had a team, we boys used to be sent off there twice a year with a load of wheat, and I can tell you it was always a great event to us, for as we had to stay there two or three days sometimes. The old miller and his wife always put us up and treated us well. The roads froze up only three days before Christmas, and as we had no flour my father hitched up the team and sent us off, telling us to be sure and get back by Christmas Eve. _

But a queer thing happened before we started; it was this same thing I told you of. My father had been shoot- ing black squirrels, and as one fell it lodged in the crotch of a tree, and when my father came in to breakfast he looked uneasy, and said he had had a warning, and was scared to let us go ; but we didn’t care, and started off in

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Tun FIGURE SWAYED ON WITII Irs SCYTHE.

high spirits. We got there about noon, but the miller had so much grain waiting to be ground that he told us if we got home by Christmas morning we would be lucky.

I was rather glad, for I liked visiting the old couple and watching the machinery of the mill. It was after dark Christmas Eve before they began on our grain, and as the miller said he thought we could start home about daybreak with the flour, my brother Joe and I went to bed early.

I could not sleep for a while, the throbbing ‘of the machinery, the wash of the water over the wheel, kept me awake as it had never done before; but after a while I dropped oil’ and dreamt a strange thing,—th-at something was moving slowly about the room near the ceiling. Then I saw it was little Susan, my pet and playmate sister circling above me, wrapped in a dress, long, misty, feathery as a cloud. I wakened with a peculiar, pleased feeling, for the dream was pleasant, and I wished I might see her so again. I had this wish gratified.

No sooner had I fallen asleep than the curious vision reappeared, circling this time a little nearer to me. I started, ’wake1iing with a suspicion of fear. I did not like it so well as the first time. I turned over, put out my hand to feel if Joe was there, and then lay for a long while listening to the throbbing of the mill. I was afraid to sleep. but bye-and—bye I did so. and she came again, her little face pale and tired, flying close, close to me, until as I awoke, I swear her long, cloudy dress brushed my fore- liead. I felt it; I can feel it now, and it chilled me to the )Ol10.

I sprang up in a terror; my hands shook as I hurried into my clothes, my lips were stiff and my heart beat like the machinery of the mill beneath me. I would not have taken a hundred dollars to see that thing again.

“Why, Abe, what’s the matter,” said the old miller, when I showed my scared face downstairs.

“ I’m going home,” I said.

“You’re going right back to bed, youngster, I rather think,” he answered.

“No,” I said, “ something’s wrong at home. I’m going%[_ Is the grain done ? ”

“ es,” he replied, “but you can’t go, the weatlier’s soft again up stream, I guess, for the water has risen two feet since sundown ; you can’t ford with the wagon.”

“ I’ll go and see what it’s like outside,” I said.

The night was black as a crow, and a light rain was falling, but no storm or flood could have kept me in that old mill until daylight. I got one of the horses out, put on the bridle, and started through the night for home, scared of nothing——nothing but having that ghostly dream again.

V\Ihat a ride it was! I lashed the poor horse over the ford, though there was but little more than his head above water. The poor beast shivered and shook as he came out, but I raced him into a sweat in five minutes, down through the dark and the rain, over the terrible road with its forest, blacker even than the night, looming up on either side——I began then to get scared and terrified at everything. I feared ghosts and witches, for my father had often seen such things along the river. I had myself heard them cry through

the bush many a time at night. As I neared home I heard with horror a

fox bark away off in the valley. I knew then that death was somewhere near. Then through the bush and the blackness I saw my’father’s house, there were lights in the window, a strange thing I thought I swung off the paiiting, sweating horse, and thought to dash into the house, but my knees weakened, I trembled from my head to my feet, and every drop of blood seemed frozen in my veinl. Quietly I opened the door and iilepped iniilde. '.l‘Iie room looked natural enough. 'I‘lie Ilre burned low, its light dodging about. the strings of purple corn hiuiging from the rafters, and over the stooped, mute figure of my father, who looked up as I entered and said: “ Don't ’wu.ke your mother, its the first sleep she’s had.”

“ But Susan, Susan,” I gasped, “ is she all right? is she well? I dreamt--”

“ Dead,” I said, my heart standing stil within me, “dead? when? how?"

He touched his chest with his finger. “Pain here,” he said. “ She died at mid- night.”

I went out of the house and shut the door. I was choking and thought I would breathe easier perhaps in the open air. It was just coming daylight. The east was white like silver, and down next the trees the sky was yellow as a field of grain. I could hear the swollen river rushing along through the black valley at my feet, and far across the flats some of the settlers

sons were ringing the old church bell- it was Christmas morning.

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The freshening scent of the June grass blew up the hill, the red squirrels chirruped and coughed from their haunts in the trees above, while I lay on the grass and watched the old man take up his scythe and start to work again ; but all the beauties of June and its hot sunshine could not dispel the loneliness from my heart as I thought of the poor desolate little boy standing __________________

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