"
Lydia Anderson at this juncture always said with a certain defiance
that she did not expect to be believed, and then proceeded in a
hushed voice:
"I saw what I saw, and I know I saw it, and I will swear on my
death bed that I saw it. I saw Luella Miller and Erastus Miller,
and Lily, and Aunt Abby, and Maria, and the Doctor, and Sarah, all
goin' out of her door, and all but Luella shone white in the
moonlight, and they were all helpin' her along till she seemed to
fairly fly in the midst of them. Then it all disappeared. I stood
a minute with my heart poundin', then I went over there. I thought
of goin' for Mrs. Babbit, but I thought she'd be afraid. So I went
alone, though I knew what had happened. Luella was layin' real
peaceful, dead on her bed."
This was the story that the old woman, Lydia Anderson, told, but
the sequel was told by the people who survived her, and this is the
tale which has become folklore in the village.
Lydia Anderson died when she was eighty-seven. She had continued
wonderfully hale and hearty for one of her years until about two
weeks before her death.
One bright moonlight evening she was sitting beside a window in her
parlour when she made a sudden exclamation, and was out of the
house and across the street before the neighbour who was taking
care of her could stop her.
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