The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-11-25
IyI.-Latest Account.

What my niece Alice Bleaberry says is ali
true, and what her husband Lester Maverick
says is true too, and now Pm a going to have
my say, not very long say neither.
True as l hope one DAY to be buried in q
coffin OF my own invention, on that very Thanks
giving morning Alice speaks of | was standing
by her grave looking down upon her face. All
the many months had been at work on that
coffin l had never dreamed that my own niece
would be the first one on whom its advantages
were to be tried.
Every body in Tinsdale village, where was
born, and where, please God, shall die, unless
l shall be struck down while going to Washing
ton TO take out a patent for the aforesaid coffin
every ybody in the village, excepting Alice
believed l was a crazy old man. Even the Rev.
Lester Mayerick-this is Ahces husband now
used to look upon me as little better than
poor MAJ lac, harmless, out still maniac.
have not been a sexton for fifty years with
out seeing some strange sights, out of grave
yards as well as i'll them. The people used to
look at me in church when Mr.. Maverick read
in the lesson for the day that passage in the
Bible which speaks about him that hath fami
liar spirit; and some OF the neighbors used to
say that the "spooks" used to come tapping, in
the middle OF the night, at the shutter of my
workshop window overlooking Bleaberry grave.
yard, and ask to help me in my saving and
chiseling, and that used to make cups out OF
deaths. heads and knife and fork handles out OF
the cross.bones.
l think it must have been the sight of my old
wrinkled face, only six ieet above her as she
lay In her coffin underground, that gave her
strength to recover from her first fright, and
use the rope and ladder which line the chimney.
ike Arrangement attached to the head of the
coffin, And this brings. me back to my invea-
tion again, that the villagers made so much fuss
about because they understood moth ing at all
about it.
! SAID that during the fifty years 1 had been
sexton I had seen mauy strange sights outside
gravsyards as well as inside Perhaps the
cruellist and most dreadful sights are those
have seen inside them, though | cannot dwell
much upon them here. When portions of the
large Bea berry graveyard have been bought by
men who wanted to become property owners
have seen graves that have been closed for years
opened, and poor people coming in twos aud
threes to carry in baskets and butterketLles the
mouldering bones Of long-dea relatives. When
a person has been buried under suspicious
circumstances, l have seen the corpse disinterred
two or three days after the burial and
discovered, on Opening the coffin, with the face
torn and bleeding the lips maugled, tue hair
torn out by the roots, and the position Of the
body reversed, asglhough the person had been
buried alive, and, coming out OF his trance, had
had a short but desperate struggle IN the tomb.
1t was such things as this, more particularly,
which set me thinking. May be my mind acts
slowly may be / am older aud weaker than
think, and may be was little bit afraid OF
being laughed at. Be that as it may, 1t was
only when arrived within few years of my
present age that l began to put in practice
long matured plan. I'm afraid Mrs, Scrannel,
housekeeper to the Mavericks, was harder against
me than any of the other neighbors. But, think
now that she's seen it's turned out all orgood, she
thinks well OF me, for the last time she saw me
she said, "Alr. BleaDerry, your years are three
score years and ten, and If, by reason OF always
tskin' care Of yourself, they be longer OF