Although tired of my journey, it was some little time before I could get asleep; and it so fell out, that after the folks of the house were all abed, and still, it being, as I judge, nigh midnight, I chanced to touch with my foot a pumpkin lying near the bed, which set it a-rolling down the stairs, bumping hard on every stair as it went.

Thereupon I heard a great stir below, the woman and her three daughters crying out that the house was haunted.

Presently she called to me from the foot of the stairs, and asked me if I did hear anything.

I laughed so at all this, that it was some time before I could speak; when I told her I did hear a thumping on the stairs.

"Did it seem to go up, or down ?" inquired she, anxiously; and on my telling her that the sound went downward, she set up a sad cry, and they all came fleeing into the corn-loft, the girls bouncing upon my bed, and hiding under the blanket, and the old woman praying and groaning, and saying that she did believe it was the spirit of her poor husband.