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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