Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-11-26
GHOSTS.
a Humorous sketch by One Who Is Not
Afraid of Spirits.


have ghost come to me in the dead
waste and middle of the night and lay
one of its cold. clammy hands upon my
brow and beckon with the other for me
to get up and follow it without being
scared; but now would not mind a lit
tie thing like that.
I have been close reader of ghost
stories, and / have noticed that no per-
SON has been hurt by ghost up to the
time of going to press. 1t would seem,
therefore, that ghost is about the most
harmless sort of thing that is in the
habit of running about loose in the night
time.
If YOU have ever met a ghost, You
know, of course. that it does not come
out of its hole and 60 fooling about in
the damp night air to do you bodily
harm 1t comes out and steals softly to
you merely because it can not rest until
it has gotten something off its mind,
and it wants YOU to help 1t.
Sometimes it has lot of money buried
down in the cellar or underneath the
kitchen hearth, and it wants you to
dig it up and have it for your own. Now
it seems to me hard indeed that any per-
son should turn away from ghost when
it is in that sort of distress. If there lisa
ghost about my premises and it has
money buried in the cellar or under the
kitchen hearth or elsewhere, and it can
not lie as comfortably as | can until [
have that money, and the ghost will
come to me any night when am not too
savings, and will awake me, and beckon
<rhp II mill rrlo
follow where it leads and dig in any spot
it may select
am an obliging sort of man in many
ways, and will get out of bed almost
any night and dig up money and put it
in my pocket if in that way can give a
ghost eternal peace. Ghosts that have
money buried viii please make anote of
the fact that | am at home to ghosts
from twelve o'clock midnight till a.
M, and that cold, clammy hand on my
brow will generally awake me. If not,
a gentle tug at my left ear will bring the
answer.
There is another class of restless
ghosts who go about in the night want
ing folks to avenge their wrongs. They
are usually the ghosts of murdered peo-
pie, and they can't enjoy their rest until
their murderer is punished. Then they
can turn over on the other side and be
comfortable. That sort of ghost will
oblige me by going to some other shop.
l am not in the ayenging business this
season. / am perfectly willing to oblige
ghost by getting up in the middle of
the night to dig up its money if can
thus give it rest and contentment, but if
it has any wrongs it wants to have
avenged must respectfully ask it to
call up some other man who is better
avenger than am. My health is not
robust enough for good reliable
avenger, and when have any avenging
of my own to do always hire a practi-
cal avenger rather than attempt to do
my own avenging. Ghosts who intend
| to call on me for assistance will please
bear this fact in mind and govern them
| selves accordingly.
Owing to the popular impression, a
| very erroneous one, however, that
| ghosts are troublesome in the family, a
| thoroughly well haunted house is about
the worst piece of investment property
| person can own. 1t is hard to keep a
| prompt paying tenant in a haunted
houses and have heard of beautiful
twenty-thousand-do home being sold
for a mere song because it contained
!
of these lines has twenty-thousand-
dollar haunted house, and he will sell
| it for song, will take it and hire
some sweet singer to sing the song.
Nobody would want to give even
a haunted house to hear me sing.
| Those who hear me sing are willing
| to pay almost any price I ask to have
me quit. Some of my MARBLE will
break up congregation quicker than
| the announcement of a collection to put
new roof on the church.
When 1 was boy thought would
be somewhat shy in the presence of a
| ghost. 1 did not think / could feel per-
/, fectly at ease at lonely haunted spot
or in my chamber with a pale, unhap-
py ghost that wanted favor done, and
! didn't want money bad enough then
to dig for ghosts savings. There
was one spot commonly reported to be
haunted which I was required to often
pass in the nighttime, and l usually
held my hat on at such times and passed
| the haunted spot in a sort of hurry.
And, besides, I went armed. l carried
/ on those occasions in my trousers
pocket one of those old-time, self
| cooking revolvers, commonly called a
.'pepper-box. One of them was no
fool of burden for small boy
to carry, and every person who has
carried revolving ..pepper-box' knows
| how hard it is to hit barn with one of
them at twenty PAGES.
How / ever expected to hit ghost
, and hurt it with my .pepper-box' while
was at dead run, is a mystery to me
now: but many difficulties that are so
apparent to age escape the budding mind
of small boy. Of course I might have
had sense enough to know that | could
not hurt ghost anyway; that ghost
might be shot as full of holes as cul-
lender without adding to its customary
| load of unhappiness. But that fact
never entered MY then young head.
After had carried that heavy pepper
box past that haunted spot fifty or
sixty nights without seeing a ghost, or
waiting to learn whether there was a
ghost there which wanted to see me, I
tried to shoot it off one day at stray
dog, and then discovered that it hadn' t
been able to explode cap in five years.
That is why l was allowed to have it.
When I realized how basely I had
been deceived by that old revolver,
which had worn out my pockets and
stunted me, and which wouldn't have
shot ghost if had met field full of
them, was mad. / have not since car
| ried a revolver of any sort, and when
walk by night a ghost may come into my
presence with perfect freedom and with
out fear.-Scon Way, TN Philadelphia
| Press.
| William d. Hall, of Waterbury,