After that the evening was finished by our picking the feathers from each other's hair.
Sometimes we played cards or checkers, munching frost-bitten apples between moves.

Sometimes the women sewed, and we children wound yarn or worsted for grandmother's knitting.

If somebody had a story to tell while the rest worked, the evening passed with a pleasant sense of semi-idleness for all.
On a Saturday night, the Sabbath being just departed, ghost stories were particularly in favor.

After two or three of the creepy legends we began to move closer together under the lamp.

At the end of an hour or so we started and screamed if a spool fell, or a window rattled.