to take on me the hull religious trainin' of a ghost. I was busy all day preparin' for it. Our folks was Congregationals, an' as my ghost didn't seem to have any partikiler leanin' to any belief, I meant to bring him up as I'd been brought; so for quite a spell arter the pepp'mint scent come into the room I wouldn't turn my head. He stopped and said so mournful, "Don't you want to hear me speak my piece?" I said, "Yes, deary." He begun in a shaky voice:
"Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,
A youth to fortin' an' to fame unknown."
Then I begun my religious teaching. My startin' pint was the fall. But o' course I had to allude to Adam an' Eve, an' all that. Then I learnt him verses out of the New England Primer, and then the tears come agin, an' I turned away to sop 'em up. When I looked around, he was gone. I was a mite nervous next time. But I needn't a worried, for I hadn't hardly time to answer that same old question, "Don't you want to hear me speak my piece? " afore he started off:
"Oh, what a fall was there my countrymen!
When me an' you an' all on us fell down."
The real catechism doctrine you see, "all mankind by the fall," an' so on.
So it went on day arter day, I didn't allers keep to the doctrines. Seein' he was so fond o' pieces, I learnt him pretty verses out of the Primer, like:
"Vashti for pride
Was set aside,"
"Elijah hid
By ravens fed."
He was so tickled with that piece about
"Good children must
Fear God all day,
Parents obey
No false thing say,"
An' so on.
