"I rented a small house on Prospect Street in the summer of 1945. The war was over, and I was there alone with my two-year-old daughter, Betsy, waiting for my husband to come back from overseas. The island was filled with young war wives at the time. Many of the houses were boarded up. We all rode bikes to and from the store, and it was unusually peaceful and quiet. The island still had the subdued feeling that it had had during the worst of the war years.

"The house is a pre-Revolutionary saltbox with two front rooms, which were once used as parlors, and a larger keeping room behind. I had set up my bed and Betsy's cot in the left parlor. At night, the street lamps illuminated the room. The house had a friendly feeling to it. Although I was only twenty-four, I never felt lonely or uncomfortable there.

"This particular experience was an isolated incident. I had spent the evening in the keeping room with a friend. We had been talking about this and that, and making argyle socks in front of the fire. My friend left at about ten o'clock and I went to bed and fell asleep immediately.

"I was awakened in the night by the thump-click sound of a latch being lifted. I turned over and saw a short, elderly man crossing the room. He had apparently just entered by the keeping-room door, for it was still swinging open behind him, and he was headed toward the other door, which opens from our bedroom into the front hall. Dressed in oilskins, he was long in the body and short in the legs. He had a sword fisherman's cap on, and was carrying a pail. He never gave any sign that he was aware of my presence, and was halfway across the bedroom, walking at a normal pace, when I said something like 'What are you doing in here?' As I spoke he vanished.

"I knew it was only a nightmare, but I was badly shaken. I got Betsy and put her in bed with me. Curling up with the baby, I closed my eyes and eventually went back to sleep.

"In the morning I noticed that the bedroom door, which I always closed at night, was open. It's impossible for one of those deep latch fittings to open by itself. The goose flesh rose on my neck. I gathered Betsy up and went over to my neighbor's house. A sensible, brusque word or two was what I needed. Mrs. Olney Dunham was a straightforward Scandinavian woman who called a spade a spade. I told her what had happened to me, and described the little man in detail. She looked at me oddly and said, 'Why, George Cushman's been dead for years!'"