-GO- 
     
    
   
   
    
     mid-October evening, when I was about ten years old, my father returned 
     
     from the city somewhat later than usual. To prepare for an early start 
     
     next morning at somo fall plowing, he told me to go to the back of the farm 
     
     and bring home a pair of horses that were pasturing there. I relished the 
     
     assignment not at all; it was pitch dark; and on the way I would have to 
     
     pass the "Swamp." But there could be no questioning of the order, and so_ 
     
     I set out on my errand. The horses strongly resented being disturbed at 
     
     Such aM hour; consequently, it took an unusually long time to persuade 
     
     them to leave the pasture and go out on the road. - The night was Starless; 
     
     for the sake of companionship of a sort, I followed closely at the horses! 
     
     heels. As we passed the Swamp, they snorted loudly and broke into a 
     
     gallop. At the same moment, I caught sight of a large white object gliding 
     
     toward me from among the roadaide shrubbery. 
     
    

    
     Obeying an overwhelming urge to be somewhere else, I went headfirst over 
     
     the fence into our cattle pasture and struck out for home at a speed that © 
     
     I am certain put all existing track records to shame. Convinced that the 
     
     ghost was close at my heels, I soared over the intervening fences, 
     
     hurtled past the barn, and plunged through the back kitchen door.in a 
     
     state of near panic. When I could catch my breath, I launched into a vivid 
     
     account of my frightful experience and my narrow escape, but my mother 
     
     interrupted to say that it must have been my father that I had seen. He had, 
     
     she said, got tired of waiting for ms to arrive with the horses, and had 
     
     gone to investigate the delay. And so it turned out. He had stepped off 
     
     the road to allow the horses to pass. The white shirt that he was still 
     
     wearing was my "ghost." 
     
    

    
     During the eighteen years that I lived on the Island, I was never a 
     
     skeptic; neither was I indifferent to the stories that made the rounds from 
     
     time to time. One could scarcely go outdoors without passing some reputed 
     
    
   
   
    
     haunt, hence there was always that back-of-the-mind feeling that at any