An' so when other naughty boys would coax me into sin,
I try to skwush the tempter's voice 'at urges me within;
An' when they's pie for supper or cakes 'at's big an' nice
I want to — but I do not pass my plate f'r them things twice I
No, ruther let starvation wipe me slowly out of sight
Than I should keep a-livin' an' seein' things at night.
A Speakin' Ghost.
By Sara S. Rice.
[This can be effectively given as a costume-recitation, the reciter to be dressed as an old lady, with cap, spectacles, kerchief crossed over breast, and knitting in hand.]
Yes, I do b'lieve in 'em, in one of 'em, tennerate. An' I know why you ask me if I do. Somebody's put you up to it, so's you can make me tell my ghost-story.
Well, I s'pose I'll s'prise you when I say it all happened in New York city. I was born about here, an' come of a good old stock. There was father'n mother, three boys, Amos, Ezry, an' Peleg, an' me, Mary Ann. We was pretty well to do; we had a good home; father was a good man, an' mother was the best of women, an' I was dreffle fond of the boys. But one day in September they went out in a sail-boat, an' a storm come up, an' their boat capsized—an' they was brought home so dreffle still. Mother never held up her head arter that, an' afore New Year come she'd follered pa an' the boys. It left me dreffle lonesome. So when I had an opp'tunity to go to New York, I. took it. 'Twas Mis' Davis, an' she writ to know if I'd come an' take care o' her house while she was away, an' look arter her pa. An' 'twas right there in the front basement o' that city house that I see the ghost. 'Twa'n't like any ord'nary other ghost I ever heerd-on; 'twas a speakin' one. I don't mean oce that talks, but one that speaks pieces.
