Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-12-03
SECOND CHAPTER
OF GHOST STORIES FROM RECORD
UNION CORRESPONDENTS.
Old Phillis' Reappearance = The DY.
ing Wife and Her Absent
Husband.

EDS. RECORD UNION: In response to your
1 inquiries for instances of the supernatural
| (real or supposedly permit me to relate the
following: 1 was born and raised on farm
in the extreme Southern part of Pennsyl.
varia. Nearly all the farm hands and house
servants in that region were negroes. My
! father had, among other employees, an old
negro woman named Phillis, who had been
| in early life q slave. She had been in the
/ family for several generations. No one knew
her age; but she was certainly over hun
drea years. She was queer person and
the ether negroes about the farm looked upon
her as a kind of witch. They half believed
that she would never die. snd used to say
that the Lord had forgotten that she was still
alive. But when / was a boy in my teens,
she finally did die, and was buried like other
people. For awhile the other negroes were
very much alarmed through fear that sold
Philiis would appear to them as ghost
Nothing OF the kind occurred, however, and
their fear gradually vanished.
That was great country for making apple
butter and in order that the process might
be completed in ore day the cider was put to
boiling before Daylight. My father always
attended to that part of the business himself.
One morning, about six months after Phillis'
death, he arose about o'clock, started the
log fire in the great old fashioned kitchen
fireplace. put on two large copper
kettles full of cider, and then sat
down for a moment on a bench. He had
scarcely been seated when the door opened
and old Phillis, clad as when alive, entered
the kitchen. She hummed little dit.y
which she used to sing, walked up to the fire.
place and looked into the kettles, then went
to cupboard 10 the corner of the room, took
down q clay pipe and filed it with tobacco,
went back to the fireplace, and then, with
piece of kindling. wood. lighted the pipe. She
then went back to the door, and saying
John lshe had always called my father
john, don't let the cider boil over" she
opened the door aud went out. My father,
who so far had been stunned with amazement,
then jumped up hurriedly and followed her
out, but could see or find no traces of her.
He told the story to the family at breakfast
and 1 have heard him tell it dozens of
times, just about as [ have related it. He
was not OF all a superstitious map, but he
never could be persuaded that he did not see
old Phillis that morning. Men sometimes
fall asleep and dream that they are in the
exact place when they actually are and
that kind OF dream accounts, L think, for
many ghost stories. In such case it is i'm
possible for person to tell when the sleeping
ends and the waking begins. But my father
would accept no such an explanation. He
said that ne was never mora wide awake in
his life, and that he had barely seated him.
self on the bench when the apparition came.
Unfortunately, it was impossible to tell if
pipe had disappeared from the cupboard
There were a number of pipes there belong
ing to the negroes-some of them old and
broken, and out of use, and the majority of
the negroes stated that pipe had been taken.
NJ.