Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1890-08-02
FROsTBURG, Md, SATURDAY. AUGUST 2, 1890.

hours long. Then at length she saw
hand-nothing but shapely ghostly
hand and wrist-hash from the dark op
the left hand side of the fire place, seize
the black kitten by the neck, and catch
it away; an instant after the same hand
flashed down upon the child; the child
fell forward against the fire, and with a
piercing scream of agony disappeared!
Ny wife started forward with
scream; so that to this day it is impossi-
BILE for me to decide for myself which I
heard-the scream of my wife or the
cry of the child-the sound of this world
or of the other
My wife had tainted; carried her out
Of that room and locked the door. l
thought it was not worth while to dis
turb the house; but when | had brought
her to and heard all she had seen, she in
sisted that she could not rest that night
till an attempt had been made to solve
the mystery, and to lay the ghost.
l returned down stairs, found Clyde
and old Vansittart. and told them what
we had done. Clyde seemed good
deal put out; he believed nothing but
trouble would come of this nlcddling;
however, since we had gone so far, he
was prepared to see us through with it.
So we all went to the haunted room
women and all.
We all agreed that the ghostly hand
was the center and origin of the whole
machinery, so to say, of the appartion;
and my wife and Mrs. Vansittart declared
that the hand came from the left hand
side of the fireplace. Now there (as all
over the walls of the room) Clyde had
fastened some greenish colored material
of canvas texture as background for
his pictures, which were here as every
where. Receiving his permission to undo
that part of it, l drew the pins. and dis
closed an old fashioned flock paper. He
swore and declared he had instructed
the workmen to strip the walls before
putting his stuff up. Stripping away a
piece of the flock paper, l disclosed first
one common wall paper and then another,
till | came to fiat sound woodwork
Stripping everything freely away from
that, | saw on close examination small
tight fitting cupboard door.
That discovered, paused, and we all
looked at each other What strange
secret of the house might be exposed by
the opening of that door!
Prise away" said Clyde to me, hand
ing ii chisel with ii malignant ferocity
which startled me.
With some effort the door was forced
open-and 10. a grisly sight that made
the women scream! A skeleton hand-a
right hand-with precious flashing rings
slipping over the joint of one of the
fingers hung by loose silken cord from
hook, while below it on the floor of the
cupboard lay a small complete skeleton
of a four footed creature which we de-
termined could be none other than a
kitten.
Strange and horrible! And what did it
mean: | gave my guess then, as give it
now. The hand was the hand of the
foreign woman who had hated her own
child and hated cats. who had in that
very room struck at her chlid through
her child's kitten-had probably (as the
vision seemed to signify seized the cat,
and in her passion had killed it and in
her fear had hid it-and then had struck
at her child, not with intent to kill, prob
ably, but so rashly and violently that the
child had fallen against the fire and had
died of her injuries. The buccaneering
husband with the rose of health in his
check, but with the evil of hell in his
eye, had somehow found out all that,
and in a passion for revenge had cut off
his wife's cruel right hand, and hung it
up there in memorial of her cruelty.
If that be not the explanation there is
none.
Il think you must be right, said Clyde,
land in cOrroboratiol of your view |
point to that portrait of the lady over
there in the corner, in which, you will
see, the right hand is as if hid under the
mantle.
There are two or three curious points
in the story which my attempted expo
eition of the original mystery does not
eXplain-as, for instance, why the in iured
child and not the cruel mother appeared
in complete ghostly guise, and why it ap-
peared only to women, and among wo-
men only to mothers-but | have never
yet seen or heard the theory that COM
pletely met and rolted all difficulties in
any set of supernatural events
These things. however, I know: that
we buried the bones found in the cup
board, that the phantom child ceased to
climb the stairs at Silveradies, and that
our baby is alive at this hour. u. NJ.
Cobban.