The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1894-05-23
A TRUE GHOST STORY
THE OLD WOMAN IN THE QUEER
DRESS UNDER AN OAK TREE.

Bho Always Appeared to Announce an APP
proachirg Death In tho Family-she Was
Probably Servant Who Had Been Foul
iy Dealt with In Ancient Days.
Everybody laughs in these days at
tho old story Of tho Irish banshee, - said
O gentleman Of national reputation late
~ as no chattcd with friend or .vo
M the Office Of tho Continental, land l
am not saying but that it was but SUI
perstition after all, though there is
little thing connected with my family
that is strange coincidence, to call it
even that.
"Once, when 1 was a boy, woke up
during the night weeping bitterly, and
when my mother came to my bedside
told her that had dreamed that queer
ly dressed old woman had come to me
under a large oak tree and had warned
me that my brother Leonard, who was my
senior by several years, was going to die
very soon. l noticed then that instead
Of calming my fears my mother listened
to mo without saying word, and pres
emily saw that she, too, was crying as
hard as / was. / asked what was tho
matter, and though she put me off did
not forget the strange effect on her that
my dream had produced.
''It could not have been week after
that that my brother came in one after
noon from school and said he was going
to join party Of young people in a
sleighing excursion to the next town.
NY mother was very unwilling for him
to go and confessed to all sorts Of nerv-
GUS fears very unlike her usual calm
end self reliant self, but my brother
insisted and at last went off, followed
by my mothers anxious eyes. Within
a. three houes we received q telegram say
ing that he had been killed by the horses
attached 10 the sleigh becoming fright
ened, ard running away near railroad
track had thrown my poor brother I'M
der the wheels Of train.
"When his mangled body came home,
my mother met it, saying to her sister,
who was visiting at our house for the
day: j. knew it, Fanny. H here saw
her the other night, and for long
time wondered who the her referred
to could be- was nearly grown when
again saw the old woman of my boy
hood dream | was about to graduate at
our home university and was studying
hard for the final examinations and was
sitting up late one night reading over
some questions in mental philosophy
when dropped Off to sleep in my chair.
Then | dreamed Of standing once
more under large oak tree, which was
particularly marked about the bark by
ring about three feet above the ground.
Here l was, facing an old woman in q
servants dress Of the thirteenth or four
teenth century, should judge, and this
old woman was telling me that would
see my father no more in life was a
good deaf worried over this dream, re-
Numbering my former one and its trag
10 sequence, but had ceased to think of
it in the hurry and anxiety of the ex-
aminations, when one day old Professor
B. called to me as l was passing from
enc classroom to another and asked,
H, isn't your father III Switzerland
81 replied that he was for his health
had failed so alarmingly for months
y past that he had been ordered abroad
and had been rapidly getting we'll in
the mountains Of Switzerland He had
recently joined the English party in an
expedition to Mont Blanc and had writ
ten in fine spirits regarding the trip.
Professor 3. said no more, but l came
across IN few minutes newspaper
containing an account Of an American
who had been killed by falling down a
crevasse in tho Swiss Alps.
''No particulars were known or given
by the paper, but 1 llnew-oh, yes,
knew-that the American was my father,
and so it proved. told my widowed
mother of the strange coincidence of my
second dream, and she replied that the
warning would never fail; that it had
gone with her through her life and that
her mother had told her that this strange
phantom had also given her warming of
every disaster she had experienced. The
old woman, whoever she was, was al
ways accompanied in her missions of
woe by the oak tree marked as l have
said. The whole thing is mystery to
us, but it is true, every word of it.
IF the thing is something supernat
ural, none of us has any idea who the
woman could have been or why she came
like bird of i'll omen to prophesy evil
to plain American family, sans castle,
sans legends, sans romance. And l, for
one, am particularly interested in why
the oak tree should have come down 20
us in connection with the ghost. Iwou,d
somehow hate to think that some
doughty ancestor Of mine had, after the
playful little manner of tho good old
times, put some faithful servant to death
In a way in which an oak tree took o
prominent part, but should not be sur
prised IL he did; indeed / have a sneak
ing belief that ia the truo explana-
rion of tho w aipg, though / am
sorry that Same ~ vent is so unforgiv-
ing as to take it out on me by bringing
me bad news, which. il she'd only wait
long enough, would reach me with pro-
verbal rapidity. philadelphia Times.
Epfortoinad