Finally, he dropped
down to the other side, and started in the direction of the gander
thicket.
It was a place that the negroes had been afraid of since her earliest
recollection. It was only a little stretch of woodland, where the
neglected underbrush had grown into a tangled thicket. No one remembered
now what had given rise to the name, and no one living had ever seen the
ghostly white ganders that were said to haunt the place at night. Still,
the story was handed down from one to another, and the place was shunned
as much as possible.
Brier Crook church stood at one end, with its desolate little graveyard,
where the colored people buried their dead under its weeping willows and
gloomy cedars.
John Jay avoided the lonely road that led in that direction, and took
the one that wound around the other end of the thicket, past a deserted
mill. Yet, when he reached the ruined old building, with its staring
windows and sunken roof, he was half sorry that he had not gone the
other way.
The berries were on the far side of the thicket, and he was obliged to
pass either the graveyard or the old mill to reach them.
Pages:
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79