“One night, jest after he’d got in a bawrel o’ granilated, he went to the cellar an’ made ’rangements to discover the trouble. He hed his ole shot-gun along an’ hung an ile lantern to a joist in the middle. Then he set down on a pile o’ sacks in a corner to watch. He wasn’t a bit skeered at first, fer the lantern was burnin’ cheery. An hour went by, an’ he begin to git weary; they was no signs of anything wrong. Then another, an’ he begin to doze off. How long he slep’ he didn’t know, but a foot-fall woke him, an’ he set up on the pile o’ sacks an’ looked. The lantern was flickerin’ low, fer the ile hed most burned out, so they was only a dim light in the placet. His heart stopped beatin’, an’ his breath wouldn’t come. Fer a moment they was dead silence. The lantern seemed like it was a-goin’ to go out.
“Over from the other end of the cellar come a faint sound like the splashin’ of wotter, drippin’, drippin’, drippin’. Pap raised hisself on his knees, all a-tremblin’. They was another spell o’ quiet; then the same sound of a foot-fall; then ’nother an’ ’nother; an’ every time it made his heart thump like ’twould break an’ jarred him all over. Out o’ the dark, into the light o’ the lantern, come the figur’ of an ole man, walkin’ slow, step be step, ’crosst the cellar toward the sugar bawrel. Pap rubbed his eyes in surprise, fer the felly was Ed Harmon, who for eight year had ben layin’ in the Meth’dis’ buryin’-ground, never missed. He wore that ole shiny black coat o’ hisn, his broken, patched boots, an’ gray cap; ’bout his neck was wound a blue woolen comforter, an’ in his hand he kerried a bucket o’ wotter. He’d wrapped a piece o’ paper ’round the han’le to keep it from cuttin’ his fingers. His face was all white like it used to be, ’cept his nose, which was red from his drinkin’ too much hard cider. He walked all doubled up, fer the bucket seemed to blow him consid’able.
“Pap laid quiet at first, he was so scared, tremblin’ all over, with his teeth chatterin’ to beat all. Sudden Ed stopped right under the lantern an’ set the bucket down, the wotter splashin’ over the side an’ goin’ up in a fog ’hen it struck the floor. Then he straightened up like to stretch his back, an’ raised his hands to his mouth an’ begin to blow on ’em. Pap didn’t hear no sound but he seen the lamp flickerin’; an’ at the sight o’ Ed standin’ there so nat’ral his courage come back.
