Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1889-03-15
TALE OF AN OLD HOUSE.

an old, old house where the pink stucco is
falling from its wall, and where the beauti-
full iron balconies are fast being eaten away
by the hungry red rust gnawing csaselessly
at its exquisite hand wrought scrolls and ara
besques. The doors and windows are guard
ed by heavy batten shutters, so long
closed that the hinges have become SO set
one could not, if one chose, open them to
the blessed light of day.
Beyond the house and facing the street is q
deep, narrow garden, shut in by high brick
wall, over whose top spray OF jessamine or
riotous rose occasionally filings out a banner
and faunts it in the wind in the bravado Of
beauty, but beyond that one can only see that
the tall orange trees within are white with
bloom or yellow with fruit, as the season
may be.
Ii is a house that has evidently ''come down
In the world, ~ and that bears unmistakabe
evidence of having seen better days. Society
and fashion that once tripped up its broad
steps, and smiled and smirked at itself in the
ornate gilded mirrors in the long saloon, has
found its way to the broad boulevard Esplan
ade beyond, and left 1t stranded in a side
street where no one wants to live. Somehow
the leaky cutters and pent roof seem miser-
ably conscious of all this and weep and frown
down upon the placards nailed on either door
post, in which the public is informed that
this house is to rent, and that one is to apply
TO Messrs. Blank & Blank, who have in charge
the succession of the d'Avril estate. No one
wants to rent it, however, and when the adj
vertsements grow faded by the sun or sod
den by the rain, fall dejectedly off on the
steps Blank - Blank send round their office
boy, who nails on a fresh poster, which, in
turn, shares the fate Of its predecessors
Nine. Charpentier who lives just across
the street, and who leans comfortably out of
the window to have chat with the baker
about her own house, says to him for the
hundredth time:
"Ah, M'sieu Gragnou, it will be to some
one else you bring the bread soon. 1t is not
who will live in house not fit for pig. 1t
Is yesterday M'sieu Paul comes for the rent
Mon Dieu, Msieu say, and is it rent you
ask for this coop, this styi Look at the roof!
Like sieve! When it rains fish would be
drownedrn
MATS, oui, b" interrupts the baker, ma
dame pauses for breath, but where will you
gol Over there. perhaps" and he flourshed
a twisted loaf of bread toward the d'Avril
house across the way, where the red and blue
posters were distinctly visible.
Mime, Charpentier gave gasp and threw
out her hands in gesture of amazement and
depreciation.
mon Dieu no, 3" she cried; 81 am not super
stitious, no; go to mass and make my con-
fession as good Christian should, but one
has ones little prejudices, and one knows
quite well that If that house is not haunted
items, it was always strange, that house; no
one coming or going, no fetes, no anything
but silence, and now7-and Nine. Charpen-
tier threw out her hands in gesture that in
cluded every possibility.
1t was a favorite topic with her, this
d'Avril house, and she would dearly have
liked to tell the baker the latest story about
1t. That Titine and L,Iisette and Francois
had heard some one within moving, moving,
moving with muffled steps across the rooms
But the baker had taken advantage of the
very first pause in the story to deposit her two
loaves of twisted bread on the window sill,
and now he was far down the street, whist
ling as he went. Nine. Carpenter was
naturally incensed. She tossed the loaves
contemptuously on the table
"Bah' she said, heavy as lead. 1t is
what one might expect from man with no
sympathy and no Imagination
Mime. Carpenter voiced the belief of tho
neighborhood when she said that the d'Avril
house was uncanny. 1t might not be haunted,
but what were the strange noises one heardf
Had not Toinette, items, if not Toinette
then Luisette, perhaps Jean-well, mon
Dieu, it was all one and not worth breath's
difference-had not some one heard as they
were coming home late at night, deep sobs
from behind the closed shutters! If one
stood on tip toe one was just level with
the window
1t was the talk Of the neighborhood When
Nine Charpentier and Nine Blanc met at
the little cafe, where they went to fetch
pint of WIN ordinair, they stopped and talked
it over with their fat hands resting on their
ample hips. When woman went to tho
priests to buy a scapular to hang around tho
babys neck to help it through teething, and
stopped for a moment at a friends for a bit
Of gossip, she was sure to hear some fresh
story about the haunted house that would
send her home making tho sign of the cross,
and tightly clasping the bit of prayer or holy
relic sewed up in the Strap Of silk
1t had been many years since the report
that the house was haunted gained currency,
but It was only within the last few months
that Blank q Blank had displayed on its door
post their alluring assortment of posters
only indeed, since Mime. d'Avril died Dur
ing the many years in which the house was
shut so securely against prying curiosity, and
In which the rumor gained strength, no ono
had ever been permitted to penetrate behind
those closed doors save only tho priest and
physician
The neighborhood, which never suffered
anything to happen unseen or unheard,
would have told you if you would have
stopped for a moment and leaned over tho
little counter in Nine CharpeHter's shop,
and if you had eviuced the falntest curiosity
in the subject, that no one was ever seen
about the house across the street but quad
room.
almost white, tall and thin-like ghost.
It is she who always answers the ring at the
garden gate, not that that is often Ma fol!
The butcher with a bit Of meat, tho baker,
the milkinan, for, just heaven, ono must 1.-Two
even in n house ike that! For the rest every
Saturday, as regular as clock work, as
n.sieur may see for himself if he chooses,
just as the clock strikes ten, one may SEQ tho
priest and the ply stefan meet at tho little
garden gate. 1t il opened for thcm-a little
way-no more-they dissnnear. In an hour.
perhaps more, perhaps less. thew come out.
That is all could tell nn'sieur no more ifI
was at confession and he was the fatherc con-
fessor himself" and Nine. Charpentier
shrugged her shoulders up to where the
great gold hoops dangled in her big ears. and
made a gesture that said, plainly as words.
that she washed her hands Of all that went
on behind the closed doors Of the d'Avril
house