I've been dealing with the ghosts of Cabot citizens all afternoon, sometimes not very successfully. There are certain papers which, when placed squarely on the scanning table look fine in the preview but come out tilted crazily, missing edges and corners as if some bold and wicked hand had intervened. One document having several pages, was particularly troublesome and I'm pretty sure old Benjamin Webster was telling me he hadn't been completely satisfied with the court ordered settlement by John Perkins.

Another one that gave me trouble was the case of Ebenezer Andrews of Cabot against Abram Powers of Barre (Barry in the court document) This took place in 1808, and apparently Powers had purchased a great many household articles from Andrews and owed him fifty dollars and costs. This was more money than most of the cases recorded in Cabot that I've seen so far, and there was an attorney involved, Alec Holton, if I'm reading the name correctly. When I read the list Powers had purchased, it seemed he must have been setting up a new homestead - there was a spinning wheel, several kittles, a fire shovel, a butter tub, etc. - I wondered if he was able to get on top of his debts, so I looked in the 1810 census and sure enough, he was still living in Barre, so I guess he worked things out. I had a hard time getting things to line up so I had a good copy of his court document, though.

It's been snowing most of the day. During mid day the temperature got up to about 40 so the snow was melting as soon as it hit the ground, but later this afternoon it began to get colder and now the snow is sticking. It's quite lovely to look at, but I imagine it's enough to make roads slippery, especially our back roads.

I took these pictures a few minutes ago. The temperature is still about 35 degrees, but I suppose it will go lower later tonight. It's supposed to remain colder tomorrow, too. It reminds me of trick or treating with my kids when they were little and we would come to Cabot to see Grandma and Grandpa Bolton. There would often be snow here and none, of course, in St. Johnsbury. I didn't go trick or treating when I was a kid. On the Plain there weren't many houses and most kids had chores to do and were probably too tired to walk miles just to visit a neighbor who probably wouldn't have had any treats and none of us were inclined to do much tricking. I do remember my grandmother Bolton showing me how to make a noise maker out of a wooden spool sewing thread came on. I made uneven cuts in the edges and then wound a string around it. With a pencil through the hole, it made a great noise when you held it against a pane of glass and pulled the string to make the spool spin. I probably only used it at her house or my parents - it was really dark and cold this time of year and none of us wanted to be outside for long unless we had to be.

Now I'm having a new problem with this blog. The whole thing keeps dropping down from the top where I started so there's a big white space . . . gremlins at work? Fred just turned on the TV to get the news and says the satellite is trying to find a signal . . . ? I even saw a flock of geese flying north this afternoon. I tried to flag them down, but they just honked louder and kept on course,headed straight for Canada. Perhaps their GPS wasn't working well today . . . I guess it's going to be that kind of night. The goblins and witches are out there, messing around and playing tricks.