Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1866-03-24
A GHOST STORY.

A
When was youDgster, / used to do
six months of summer sailing on Lake
Ontario, and then make winter har-
| Dor with nice farmers family, living
on by-road that wasn't travelled much.
about a mile from the lake shore the
| family consisted of Farmer Fairfield.
Mrs. Fairfield, very fair, fat, pretty
| woman of forty; old Lion, and, six
months out of twelve, Tom Allen-that's
myself, you know. CF. arr
About third of mile from Mrs
Fairfield's in bit of clearing, in a sort
of shanty log house, close by the road
side, surrounded by dark, gloomy hem
lock woods, and On the road to the lit
tie village where we used to go for our
groceries and letters, and the doctor,
lived man named Nehemiah May; Mi
alb, everybody called him,-a sullen,
sneaking, piraticai-looking fellow. with
long hair, black beard, black,
devilish eyes, and skin only two or three
shades lighter. Everybody said Miah
was thief, and good many said pref
ty boldly that he was murderer; that
several years before / knew anything
about the country, he had murdered
pack peddler and buried him down on
the lake shore. Anyway, there was
peddler found murdered and robbed,
and buried there, and Miah was the
man who had been seen with him last.
One fall, when was eighteen, came
home to my winter-quarters, and the
first news heard was that Miah May
| had hung himself to beam in his log
hut; that his family had moved away,
aud every night the white shrouded
ghost of the suicide could be seen
swinging from the beam just within the
entrance of the hut.
/ didn't believe in ghosts mite, and
visited the place every night for a week,
| and then declared the whole thing a
humbug. But everybody-Mrs. Fair
| field ucluded-contended there was a
| ghost there, and would find it to my
sorrow some night. ~ ,
One dark, clustering, November night,
| Mrs. Fairfield made the discovery, about
eight o'clock in the evening, that she
| had no coffee for breakfast, and, like a
| fool, i volunteered TO ride to the village
store and get the article. In ten min
utes was on brown Jasper, and off like
a rocket. 80 As@
! On the homeward passage / rode
more leisurly, and when L got to knoll
about five hundred yards from the de-
parted hut, it occurred to me that it was
a capital night to see Miah's ghost, and
well, I saw It'll When i got opposite
| the open door of the hut, there swung
the lnbberly ghost, just within the en-
trance, swinging to and fro, as white as
a snow-drift.
Ny teeth chartered, and the prespira-
ton sprang out in little brooks all over
me, but some internal fascination laid
hold of my senses, and / rode Jasper
right up to the door, dismounted and
entered the hut. My hat..rose right up
on the end of my hair, as I crept along
/ toward the swinging ghost, with my
arme stretched out, and hands two feet
apart, ready for a clinch; was within
| arms length ZIP, / grabbed the thing,
and-ha ha lit was half hysterical
laugh, after all. But / held between
| my hands a man of strdlc, wound in a
white sheet.
1 cut down the ghost, swung it by
the halter, mounted the colt, and said
to myself: I'll explode this humbug to-
morrow. B. .u H
Three hundred yards down the road
| towards home the hazel and elder
bushes grew thick on both sides, maxi
ing a narrow passage. As L entered
| the file, a half-dozen internal white
| ghosts leaped out of the thicket on eli.
Their hand. Jasper shot from under
me like a bonn shell, down came
wallop-straw ghosts and all, and in a
second every ghost pounced upon me,
with screams like forty thousand
screech-owls; there was a rough and
tumble fight for ABOUT ten minutes, af-
ter which--well, the most knew to a
certainty was that Mrs. Fairfield cane
ont of the tussle looking ten times more
like the Greek slave than she did like
a ghost When she cut and run for
home, I don't believe she had ten
square inches of dimity to show to the
breeze.
Another of the ghosts, little clipper
beauty-Miss Cecilia Goodsil-came
out of the squat in a pair of stockings,
CATERS, and a white sun-bonnet. / lent
Cecilia my pea-jacket to scud home
under; and just three years afterwards