The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1874-04-25
GHOSTS.
BY T. DEWITT TALMADGE.

man of common sense; and yet you cannot
| shake them off You heard fifty years ago
that Friday was an unlucky day. You
know better. You recollect that on Friday
Luther and William Penn were born, and
the Stamp Act was repealed, and the Hud-
son river discovered, and jamestown set
tied, and the first book printed. Yet you
have steered clear of Friday. You did not
commence business on Friday. You did
not get married on Friday. You would
not like it if the Governor of the State
proclaimed Thanksgiving for Friday. The
owners of steamships are intelligent men,
but their vessels do not start on Friday
If early superstitions were implanted in
your mind, you do not like to return to
the house to get anything when you have
once started on journey. Perhaps you
are careful how you count the carriages at
funeral. You prefer to see the new moon
over the right shoulder. Though you know
there is nothing in the story of ghosts
which your nurse or some one about the
old place used to tell you, yet you would a
little rather not rent house that has the
reputation of being haunted; and when
called to 60 by country graveyard after
twelve o'clock at night, you start an argu-
ment to prove that you are not afraid.
We never met but one ghost in all our
life. 1t was very dark night and we were
seven years of age. There was German
cooper, who, on the outskirts of the village
had shop. 1t was an interesting spot,
and we frequented it. There was a con
gregation of barrels, kegs, casks, and fir
kins, that excited our boyish admiration.
There the old man stood day after day,
hammering away at his trade. He was
fond of talk, and had his head full of all
that was weird, mysterious and tragic
During the course of his life he had seen
almost as many ghosts as firkins; had seen
them in Germany, on the ocean, and in
America.
One Summer afternoon perhaps having
made an unusually lucrative bargain in
hoop poles, the tide of his discourse bore
everything before it. We hung on his lips
entranced. We noticed not that the shad-
ows of evening were gathering, nor re-
membered that we were a mile from home.
He had wrought up our boyish magma
ton to the tip toe pitch. He had told us
how doors opened when there was no hand
on the latch, and the eyes of face in a
picture winked one windy night; and how
intangible objects in white would glide
across the room, and headless trunks rode
past on phantom horses, and how boys on
the way home at night were met by a sheet
ed form that picked them up and carried
them off, so that they were never heard of,
their mothers going around as disconsolate
as the woman in the "Lost Her," crying:
"Where's Billy?'
This last story reused US up to our where
abouts, and we felt we must go home.
Our hair, that usually stood ON end, took
the strictly perpendicular. Our esh crept
with horror of the expedition homew ard.
Our faith in everything solid had been
shaken. We believed only in the subtitle
and in the intangible. What coul d a boy
of seven years old depend upon if one of
these headless horsemen might at any
moment ride him down, or one of those
sheeted creatures pick him up?
We started up the road. We were bare
foot. We were not impeded by any useless
apparel. 1t took US no time to get under
way. We felt that if we must perish, it
would be we'll to get as near the door sill
of home as possible. We vowed that, if
we were only spared this once to get home,
we would never again allow the night to
catch us at the cooper's. The ground flew
under our feet. No headless horseman
could have kept up. Not star was out.
1t was the blackneSs of darkness. We had
made half the distance, and were i'll " the
hollow the most lonely and dangerous
part of the way-and felt that in a minute
more we might abate our speed and take
fuller breath. But, alas ! no such good
fortune awaited us. Suddenly our feet
struck monster-whether beastly, human,
internal, or supernal, witch, ghost, demon,
or headless horseman, we could not i'm
mediately tell. We fell PROSTATE, our
hands passed over a hairy creature; and,
as our head struck the ground, the monster
rose up, throwing our feet into the air.
To this day it would have been mystery,
had not a fearful below revealed it as
Der in the road, not anticipating the terri
bic collision. She wasted no time, but
started up the road. We, having by ex-
pertinent discovered which end of us was
up, joined her in the race. We knew not
but what it was the first instalment of dis
asters. And, therefore, away We went,
COW and boy, but the cow beat. She came
into town hundred yards ahead. l have
not got over it yet, that let that COW beat.
That was the first and last ghost we ever
met. We have made up our minds for all
time to come that the obstacles in life do
not walk on the wind, but have either two
legs or four. The only ghosts that glide
across the room are those of the murdered
hours of the past. When the door swings
open without any hand, we send for the
locksmith to put on better latch. Sheet
ing has been SO high since the war, that
apparitions will never wear it again. Fri
day is an unlucky day only when On it we
behave i'll. If a salt-cellar upset, it means
no misfortune, unless you have not paid
for the salt. Spirits Of the departed have
enough employment in the next world to
keep them from cutting up monkey shines
in this. Better look out for cows than for
spooks.
Here is a man who starts out in a good
enterprise. He makes rapid strides. He
will establish a school. He will reform
inebriates. He will establish an asylum for
the destitute. The enterprise is under
Roadway. But some lazy, stupid man,
holding large place in the community,
defeats the project. With his wealth and
influence he opposes the movement. He
says the thing cannot be done. He does
not want it done. He will trip it up; and
so the great hulk of obesity lies down
across the way. His stupidity and beastli
ness succeed. The cow beat
A church would start out on grand
career of usefulness. They are tired of
husks, and chips and fossils. The wasted
hands of distress are stretched up for help.
The harvest begins to ledge for lack of a
sickle. A pillar of fire with baton of light
marshals the host. But some church otfi-
cal, priding himself ON aristocratic associa-
ton, and holding prominent pew, says:
&" BE careful preserve your dignity. |
am opposed to such a democratic religion !!
Heaven save our patent feathers y And,
with mind stuffed with conceit, and body
stuffed with high living, he lies down across
the road. The enterprise stumbles and |
falls over him. He chews the cud of salts
faction. The COW beat.
l know communities where there are