BILLY BISHOP. 



BOBBING FOR EELS. 



IF these hills should come together where would I be?" 

 asked Billy when he found himself alone in Quacken- 

 dary Hollow, where he had been sent to cut cord- 

 wood. This was his excuse for returning from a lone- 

 some spot which his superstitious mind peopled with all 

 kinds of creatures, which might even draw the hills to- 

 gether and crush him, as they had done on many occa- 

 sions, he said, in Holland, where his grandparents came 

 from. The scarcity of hills in that country may not have 

 been known to Billy, but that was a matter of no impor- 

 tance to him. 



The hollow lay half a mile above the village of Green- 

 bush, and was then well timbered and uninhabited. 

 Twenty years later it had quite a settlement, and was often 

 called "Nigger Hollow." But Billy Bishop was fonder of 

 the society of man than of those weird inhabitants who 

 worked evil in the dark forests by day or in open fields by 

 night. On the hill above the railroad was a field which 

 formed part of the farm of Mr. Frederick Aiken, and a 

 dilapidated barn in it was prominent in the sky-line from 

 the river road above the first creek. This was the "spook- 

 house lot" and the "spook-house barn," the house which 

 gave the name having burned before my recollection. 

 Billy told me that spooks danced in the barn on certain 

 nights, and that in the shape of stumps of trees a dozen of 

 them had chased him down the hill one night; but before 

 daylight they changed into bats and flew back. This was 



certified to by John Pulver and Jakey Van Hoesen, chums 



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