San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-04-13
TALE OF AN OLD HOUSE,


falling from its wall, and where the beauti-
full iron balconies are fast being eaten away
by the hungry red rust gnawing ceaselessly
at its exquisite hand wrought scrolls and ara
besuues 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
deep, narrow garden, shut in by high brick
wall, over whose top spray of jessamine or
riotous rose occasionally filings out banner
and flaunts 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-
1t is house that has evidently ''come down
in the world" and that bears unmstakable
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 it 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
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
wantsfo rent it, however, and when the adj
vertisements grow faded by the sun or sod
den by the rain, fall dejectedly off on the
steps, Blank g. Blank send round their office
boy, who nails ON q fresh poster, which, in
10, 81, Cot ,y,F,+.
Nine. Charpentier, who lives just across
the street, and who leans comfortably out of
the window to have a chat with the baker
about her own house, says to him for the
hundTedth time
"Ah, M'sieu Gragnou, it will be to some
one else you bring the bread soon. 1t is not
l who will live in house not fit for pig. 1t
is yesterday Msieu Paul comes for the rent
Mon Dieu M'sieu,' say, and is it rent you
ask for this coop, this sty9 Look at the roof!
Like a seve When it rains fish would be
drownedr"
MATS, Oui, interrupts the baker, as ma
dame pauses for breath, "but where will you
go3 Over there, perhaps" and he fOuriShed
u twisted loaf of bread toward the d'Avril
house across the way, where the red and blue
posters were distinctly visible
Nine. Charpentier gave gasp and threw
out her hands in a gesture of amaZement and
depreciation.
Mon Dieu! no, she cried; Il am not super
stitiOus no; 80 to mass and make my CON
fessiOn, as a 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 OF going, no fetes, no anything
but silence, and nOw'-and Nine. Charpen-
tier threw out her hands i'll a gesture that in
cluded every possibility.
1t was a favoritc topic with her, this
dAvTil house, and She would dearly have
liked to tell the baker the latest story about
it. That Titinc and Luisette and Francois
had heard some one within moving, moving,
moving with mutiied steps acros, the rooms.
But the baker had taken advantage of the
very first pause III the story to deposit her two
! kOaves Of twisted broad on the window sill,
and now"hc was far down the street. whist
| ling as he went. Nine. Charpenticr was
naturally iuccnscd She tossed the loavcs
| contcmptliously on the table.
Bah" she said, heavy as lead! 1t is
what one might expect from a man with no
| sympathy and no Imagination"
Nine Charponticr voiced the belief Of the
! neighborhOod when she said that the d'Avril
house was uncanny. 1t might not be haunted
| but what wcro the strange noises one heard
Had not TOncttc, items, if not Toinette
then Luisctte, or perhaps Jean-well, mon
| Dcu, it was all one and not worth q breath s
| dillcrence-had not some one heard, as they
wero coming home late at night, deep sobs
from behind the closed shutters2 If one
stood on tip toe one was just on 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 a
pint of vim ordinair, they stopped and talked
it over with their fat hands resting on their
ample hips. When a woman went to the
priests to buy scapular TO hang around the
babys neck to help it through teething, and
stopped for moment at friends for bit
Of gossip, she was sure to hear some fresh
story about the haunted house that would
send her home making the sign Of the cross,
and tightly claspng the bit of prayer or holy
relic sewed up in the scrap 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 month:
that Blank & Blank had displayed on its door
post their alIuring assortment of posters
only, indeed, since Nine. d'Avril died. Dur.
ing the many years in which the house was
shut 50 securely against prying curiosity, ant
in which the rlImor gained strength, no one
had ever been permitted TO penetrate behinc
those closed doors save only the priest anC
Dhygicisn
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