The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1883-03-21
AllA1oae.

When the house rs alone Dy llsell
Inexperienced persons may believe
that it behaves exactly as it does
when there are peoplein IT; but this
i; a delusion. as YOU will discover If
YOU are ever lett alone at midn.g ht
sitting up for the rest of the family;
at this hour Its true disposition vii.
reveal itself.
To catch it at its best pretend to
retire, put out the gas or lamp, and
90 ND stairs. Afterward come down
softly, lightn no more than one lamp,
GO into the empty parlor and seat
yourself at a table with something
TO read.
No sooner than you have done so
then YOU will hear a little chip,
chip, chip, along the top Of the
room-a small sound, but persistent.
1t is evidently the wall paper COM
ING of, aud you decide, after much
tribuiation, that if it does come off
you can't help it, and 20 on with
your book.
As you sit with your book in your
hand you begin TO be quite sure that
some one is coming down stairs.
Squeak, squeak, squeak What
folly? There is nobody there 20
come down; but there-no, it is on
the kitchen stairs. Somebody is
coming up.
Squeak, shapi Well, il it's a rob-
Der you might as well face him.
You get the poker and stand with
your back against the wall. Nobody
comes UP. Finally you decide that
you are a goose, putthe poker down,
get a magazine and try TO read.
There, that's the door. You heard
the lock turn. They are coming
home. You run 10 the back door,
unlock and unoolt it and peep oct.
Nobody is there; bat as you linger
the door gives a click that makes
you jump.
By daylight neither lock mol stairs
make any of these noises unless they
are touched or trodden on.
You go back to the parlor 10 a
hurry, with a feeling that the next
thing you know something may
catch you by the back hair, and try
to remember where you LETT off.
Now it is the table that snaps and
cracks as if The spiritualistic knocks
were hidden in It's m~ahogony. You
do not lean heavily on it without
this result, but it fidgets you, and
YOU take an easy chair and put the
book on your knee. Your eyes wan
der up and down the page, and you
grow dreamy, when, apparently, the
book case fires off a pistol.
At least a loud, fierce crack comes
from that piece OF furniture, SO loud,
so fierce, that you jump to your feet
trembling.
You cannot stand the parlor any
more. You go up stairs.
No sooner do you get there than
it seems to you that somebody is
walking on the roof. If the house
is a detached one and the thing is
impossible that makes tall the more
mysterious.
Nothing ever moaned in the Chin
ney before, but something means
now. There is a ghostly step in the
bath room. You find out afterward
that it is the tap dripping, but you
do not dare to look at the time.
And it is evident that there is
something up the chimney-you
would not like to ask what.
If you have gas it hobs up and
down in a phantom dance. If you
have a ! lamp it goes Quit in a blue ex-
plosion. If you have a candle a
shroud plainly enwraps the wick
and falls toward you.
The blinds shake as if a hand
clutched them, and finally a doleful
cat begins to moan in the cellar.
You do not keep a cat, and this
finishes you.
You pretend to read no longer,
and sitting with a towel over your
head and face, and hearing some
thing below go "shew, shew, shew,',
like a little saw, you believe in the
old ghost stories.
Ten minutes afterward the bells
ring; the belated ones come home (;
the lights are lit; perhaps something
must be got out to eat. People talk
and tell where they have been and
ask if you are lonesome.
And not a stair creaks. No step
is heard on the roof; no click in the
front door. The house has on its
company manners-only you have
found out how it behaves when it is
alone.