The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1876-11-01
THE HAUNTED MAN.


the most signing of Whispers tell
you this. In fear and trembling, too,
all the time, for it might hear me-.
You observe. I say it; for I cannot
apply actual distinction to the weird
little entity that torments me. AT the
same time, though, I find that have
often called it ''him,'' and, in a misty,
wandering way. associated the thing
with the tricl1sy-looking sprite who
stands with his hands upon his hips in
the Landseer picture of ''Midsummer
Nights dream.''
The fact is, I have been haunted for
the past FIVE years., the simple
minded, calmly living, seventh-rate.
literary man who pens those lines;
and my innocent bachelor life has
been made torment to me by some-
thing, of which, as you see, I only
dare speak in a whisper.
You are shaking your head! Don't
say YOU are not, for ] feel it mentally:
and my perceptions are now those of
the most acute. Let me hasten, then
to reassure yov-to enlighten you up
on the point you are quietly discuss
ing.
No: there has not been the slightest
manifestation Of insanity in my fam
lily. wa =. .~. Pc.
Again: my pulse gives with calm
regularity the proper number OF beats
to the minute.
My blood is Of the normal temper
allure.
It IS not inclpient delirillm tremens,
for I was never inebriated but once in
my life, and then I was SO dreadfully
ill the next day that I made a VOW,
which have religiously kept, and am
always considered an abstemious man.
So: once more, in a calm whisper, [
declare to you that I am haunted-be.
Observation-Disclosures
looked-or in some way suffering from
a spell. In fact, there must be some
thing in the matter not hitherto
dreamed of in my philosophy, and l
tremble lest i'll should come of it.
But let me explain me give you
a sample of the kind Of annoyance to
which I am subjected, and during
which it always seems to me that l
can hear the silvery tinkle Of very
small kind Of laughter floating about
the room.
It was only yesterday that required
my daily remembrancer-the diary in
which record the trifles of my life
and note my engagements. 1t was
gone.
That book lies on my study table, and
was put out by it's loss. [ searched
bookcase, drawers, in folios, among
papers, turned out my desk, got into a
violent perspiration, went and bullied
the servant, rose into towering rage;
and at last, quite exhausted sand fun
ing with annoyance, I threw myself
into my chair-and found that diary
Where did find it
I'll tell you: that little book lay in
it's usual place upon the study table.
Now, you may argue for week, and
you will not convince me that some
sprite had not hidden that book away
until it was tired of laughing at me,
when the book was replaced.
Another specimen.
have custom, drilled into me in
childhood, of carefully folding my
clothes before retiring to rest. new
er kick one thing here and another
there, after the habitude of the reck-
less, but place each garment ready to
be donned in the morning. Now, lam
ready to make affidavit that those
things are all right at night but when
I have left rising till the last moment,
just leaving myself sufficient time to
dress and catch the train by which I
am going with a friend, there is inva-
riably something wrong. Now it is
button off my trousers. If I get them
f,,1 oil r1r ~
is gone from my brace buckle. Or it
may be a stud dropped from my shirt
the 5utton-hole split off my collar; or,
more likely, a button grown over ripe
and ready TO drop, swinging only by
one thread from the most prominent
portion of my coat.
At another time I hear the servant
come up with my boots, as lie in bed.
She bumps them down, as servants will
bump boots down, and, in that pleas
ant, semi-unconscious way in which
one lies Of a morning before rising, I
seem to see those boots, and wonder
whether they have been carefully
dried, for the previous day was wet,
and I have had horror of damp boots
ever since | read somewhere that they
were prolific cause of. catarrh. Then
I wonder, too, why it is that servants
have such peculiar notions respecting
the anatomy of the human foot mas.
culine, and credit it with abnormally
turned-out toes, from the Way in which
they always reverse male boots-the
right Oh the left side,, the left upon
the right. They never do so with
boots feminine. I lie, then, seeing
those misplaced boots there; and
when I have made my plunge out, done