



Produced by Donald Lainson.  HTML version by Al Haines.









THE WIND IN THE ROSE-BUSH

And Other Stories Of The Supernatural


By

Mary Wilkins




Contents

  The Wind in the Rose-bush
  The Shadows on the Wall
  Luella Miller
  The Southwest Chamber
  The Vacant Lot
  The Lost Ghost




THE WIND IN THE ROSE-BUSH


Ford Village has no railroad station, being on the other side of the
river from Porter's Falls, and accessible only by the ford which gives
it its name, and a ferry line.

The ferry-boat was waiting when Rebecca Flint got off the train with
her bag and lunch basket.  When she and her small trunk were safely
embarked she sat stiff and straight and calm in the ferry-boat as it
shot swiftly and smoothly across stream.  There was a horse attached to
a light country wagon on board, and he pawed the deck uneasily.  His
owner stood near, with a wary eye upon him, although he was chewing,
with as dully reflective an expression as a cow.  Beside Rebecca sat a
woman of about her own age, who kept looking at her with furtive
curiosity; her husband, short and stout and saturnine, stood near her.
Rebecca paid no attention to either of them.  She was tall and spare
and pale, the type of a spinster, yet with rudimentary lines and
expressions of matronhood. She all unconsciously held her shawl, rolled
up in a canvas bag, on her left hip, as if it had been a child.  She
wore a settled frown of dissent at life, but it was the frown of a
mother who regarded life as a froward child, rather than as