New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-07-25
4 GREEN GHOST.

Mrs. Eliza Green, aged 80, ana having lalI
English education, resides in Springfield Ky.
She is in most unsatisfactory and undecided
condition, for she is widow and she Is not
a widow. Mr.. Green, it is true, IS no more.
He appeared at least, 10 die on the 18Th OF
March last; he was properly mourned Tor
and his remains were properly inferred WIN
the usual religious ceremonies, while Mrs.
Green and six little Greens together bewalled
their bereavement. Under these circumstances,
unless Mr.. Green could come back to stay
permanently, it is difficult to see why be
should come back at all. If he could only
return simply to scare Mrs. Green and the
small Greens out of their senses, why didn't
he stay wherever he happened to bel We DO
not like to speak i'll of the dead, but we must
designate the course pursued by Green as
truly reprehensible. 1t is generally IN the
middle of the night that he revisits his old
residence and then he wakes up Mrs. Green
by grooming profoundly, and he frightens all
the pretty half dozen of children-probabiy
into fits-by breathing heavily and moaning
outrageously. Occasionally he goes into the
cellar and initiates "a horse rolling about and
"pawing violently" We do not say that
Green does this badly he may even surpass
any real horse in the excellence of his paw
ing and rolling but we do say, without fear
of contradiction, that it is not the sort OF
thing to do in any widows cellar at midnight,
and with six children trying to sleep in the
house.
But it is not only by his stertorous breath
ing and his absurd equine limitations that Green
makes himself disagreeable. The other night
he came simply as a Head and Shoulders
There is a ghost for you! No abdomen no
legs! Something like RaphaePs much chromoed
cherubs; only he was, though without the usual
pulmonary arrangements, able to blow out all
the lights Then Green, whose passion for
metamorphosis seems to be his prominent trait
of character, appeared as "a little white dog"
and once he came as :" white gauzy cloud"
At last Mr. Green, after all his Incompetent
sible grooming and moaning, began to talk III
the English language. He met Mrs. Green in
the cellar, this time with his legs on for she
was stopping when he arrived, and recognized
him by these well remembered limbs. She
looked up, and there stood Mr.. Green, dressed
in his grave clothes and quite ready for con-
versation. "Dick, my dear, what do you
"want p said she. Well, he wanted to tell her
that the other world was painful, and to ad-
wise her not to neglect her duty; he wanted
prayers offered for his soul; and he left his love
to all his relatives by name, and then. with the
observation that he did not intend to come
any more, either in kit-kat or at full length,
Mr.. Green was good enough to exhale. re-
peating, for some occult reason, the word
"friendn three times. There has been good
deal of unaccountable knocking and grooming
in the house since. but the widow has seen
neither the legs nor the shoulders of her be-
loved since the subterranean Hte-d-t6te. -'---
There is the story, and very pretty ghost
story it is, quite as well authenticated as any
narrative of that impressive description, and
quite as well calculated to electrify the human
hair! Many a reader will scott at it, and
within q week, with his whole soul, believe
something quite as Incredible. However it
may have once been in Denmark, there is
very little in heaven OF earth which is not
dreamed of in our philosophy, or rather in the
mass and maze of conjecture and delusOn to
which we give that respectable name.