The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1880-03-17
OUR HAUNTED HOUSE.

"Do buy the house, Charlie am not
a all afraid of ghostsw
My husband leans against the worm
eaten fence and looks thoughtfully at
the dull, old fashioned house, with its
shutters Tapping from broken hinges, its
porchrs overgrown with vines. its gar
den full of rank weeds, and the river
singing beyond its garden gate.
1t is very cheap, Amy" he says, at
length. They only charge me for the
land, and hominally nothing for the
house. But can you endure living in
such deserted place, and - the city
all dayP Why, all sorts of noises can
bS heard here day and night, and have
heard good, intelligent people, with con-
sciences. say they had seen the spirit OF
aIoNman, with little child in her arms,
walking all about these grounds at
evening. Nobody else would dare buy
it. Why, it has had no tenants for a
year. fear it will frighten away your
friends, and that you yourself will have
to succumb to the spirit-intluence of the
place"
He stops, seeing the expression on my
face. can bear anything better than
the allusion TO spirit-in1uence or to the
belief of the progressionists. Charlie is
a good business man; but he has read
great many scientific works written by
men who thought they were very wise
on the subject of spiritualism and he
has investigated, or, rather, invested a
great deal in the same. He has pro-
gressed 10 such an extent that he can
sometimes hear raps on the head board,
and feel cold shivers down his back,
and in mosquito-time he often feels
pin ches from unseen soirit-fingers.
do not like to reao scientific books
and during the short time we have been
married, | have employed my time, in
stead, in practicing waltzes, making pies
and embroidering baby-clothes. Still,
Charlie worships me. ! believe it is
Gods unseen law of recompense that
there should always be some one to
adore, even women with freckles, wide
mouth and a figure likes Dutch doll
At all events, my will is always law /;
so Charlie takes his knife and cuts away
the rose brambles that have thrown
their arms across the front door, and to-
gether we enter the vacant echoing
rooms. The ceilings are dim with walls
OF cobwebs, the spiders run up the walls
at our approach. The house has ruin
Gus, moldy smell, but it does not oppress
me as it does Charlie. Already in my
minds eye | see what it will be like,
cleaned and aired, with open windows
and cheerful furniture
/ ran through the house, exclaiming
'What beautiful wide hall!-this
room facing the south shall be our sit
ting room. l will rout all the ghosts
with sunshine. See those ,hollyhocks
smiling over that picket fence, and those
summer pears all rotting on the ground
what shame and all those rose
bushes choked in the long grassn
Charlie shakes his head.
"If you had heard all l have about
this house, you would he in no haste tC
live here. You know the Widow Wool
sons daughter that has been missihs
from town a year, and supposed to bt
murderedP Well, Geoffry Clare wa!
passing here one night, only last week
and you know, whatever else he will do
he won't lie-and he told me he saw
Grace Woolson's face as plain as da,
over that garden fence"
Ichecked him suddenly again hav
never had but this one secret from m,
husband, that three years before l me
him had fallen hopelessly in love wit
handsome Geoffry Glare. He had 500
forgotten me for pretty Grace Woolsor
who had afterward disappeared so mys
teriOusly that no trace of her could b
found, although l.er mother and Geoffr
had searched for her many months.
| think l loved him no longer, an
sometimes shanked God for taking m
future out of my unskillful hands, "
the mention of his name always mao
me vince.