GRAY LADY APPEARS 5 
mebbe you ran across them in the village, and if so, how 
came you to speak?” 
Sarah opened her lips to answer and then stammered 
and grew red under her grandmother’s keen gaze. “I 
didn’t pass their gate and I didn’t meet them in the village. 
I was — I was just taking a bunch of field flowers, that I 
got along the road, up to the cemetery to mother, and 
then when I go there, I usually take some to the General’s 
mound too, ’cause nobody took anything, except a little 
flag Memorial Day, and it’s usually all faded by now. 
This year, though, the lot was planted with flowers, and I 
was wondering why. I was sittin’ there watching a 
gray squirrel that lives in one of the old cannons that 
stand at the plot corners. You see the squirrel knows 
me because I’ve taken him nuts two winters whenever 
we’ve gone to Pine Hill coasting, and he comes up real 
close. To-day when he came up, I only had some cracker 
crumbs in my pocket, but he acted real pleased to see me, 
and I was so busy talking to him that I didn’t hear any- 
body coming up until somebody said, ‘Who is this little 
girl that brings flowers to an old soldier’s grave, and has 
a squirrel for a friend ?’”’ 
“‘A nice way of wasting your time, I must say, of a week- 
day afternoon, and so much to be done at home,” broke 
in Mrs. Barnes, rather crossly. 
But Sarah, not minding the interruption, continued: 
“Then I jumped up, and there was Gray Lady and Goldi- 
locks sitting in a nice big straw chair, like those on Judge 
Jones’ porch, only it had wheels and a handle behind like 
a baby wagon, and a fattish woman with a pleasant face 
was pushing it.” 
