The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-05-27
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. glTaE55lEElE l5E1Ei@515Gl%
g G5l
81 LIFE IN A HAUNTED HOUSE. S
Gil mi
Observation-Disclosures sI5Eli5ElEl


burial places, the house in which I
( live, and a gentle creature with the
face and the soul of a saint, whose
benignity and virtues have, for more
| than fifty years, like the trickling of a
pure spring. obliterated, atom by atom,
the stony memories of her mother.
I very we'll knew it was a haunted
house when 1 first decided to live in il.
For years it had been the dreadful
pride of the folk among whom it is
situate. At the distance of twenty
miles from New York tradition is as
constant as it is in rural England-aS
ii is in the province of Quebec. For
years no Sunday drive was altogether
satisfactory that did not include
J glimpse of that scene of an insoluble
mystery-the house in which 1 live.
And when, with a complete under
standing of the facts in the case,
resolved to become its inmate, the
neighbors were full Of warning. If L
had believed half the dire prognOstica-
| lions with which I was favored,
should have turned gray with cOntem-
! plating the consequences of my folly.
! The house was peopled by all conceiv-
able varieties of disembodied spirits.
At various hours after midnight, so
ran the marvellous tales of local sageS,
the spectres of women with ashen
! faces had peered out of the windows.
Sudden lights would flash up in the
| darkness and illuminate the weird,
! quaint visions of phantoms. One
vision was especially commended to
me-that of a woman with features
wrung by anguish, who sat often on
! stormy nights at an open window, with
| her staring eyes upturned TO the
| lightning. And there was another
wrath whose fantastic company was
guaranteed to me, if ever l should be-
come lonely and demand the society of
an apparition. This Urbane and ac-'
commodating night rider would be
bearded pirate fresh from the Span
! ish Main who, disturbed forever by
| his inability to recollect where he had
! stored his spoils, would necessarily re-
! turn from ParadiSe-or its antipodes-
to dig up the cellar for traces OF his
| cache.
But the most significant phantom,
! so said the gossips, with which l was
| bound to become acquainted would be
/ that of a little lonely child, that would
come astray of bleak nights, on the
vine-shadowed piazza, and wiring its
! baby hands piteously and beg TO be
! taken in out of the tempest. And when,
moved by the plight of the tiny cast
away, 1 should open the door and bid
/ it enter, why, then, with a CHASTITY
smile and a hooking laugh, the I'M
grateful little spectre would vanish
! into the storm.
/ To abbreviate the horrible suspense
| of those who read this true story, l
may as well say at once and for all
! that, keenly as 1 have looked for these
! incongruant visitants / have so far
! seen none of them. The women who
roatsf uwedad fad far frat rafafaafa
were pledged by their sponsors to sit
I'D all night at my bedroom win
/ dows and weep have, IN
/ the politest manner, waived their dis
NAL privileges. The phantoms, with
weird, gaunt visages, discouraged be-
/ yond doubt by the unaccoun!able fail-
/ ure of the flashlights, have obstinate
! ~ postponed their appearance and
/ given no explanation whatever. The
/ lady addicted, unlike most of her sex,
to sitting up all night to watch rap
! turously the vagaries of thunder
storm, has up TO the present found no
! storm sufficiently attractive TO draw
/ her from her anonymous tomb-and
we have been visited by some nne
! thunder-stormS, too, during the per-
/ Tod of my residence in the haunted
house. The bearded gentleman, too,
| from the Spanish Mamie has, TO
nv unspeakable satisfaction, evident
/ " remembered at last the numbers or
his combination. Him least of ALL
fancy. should I have relished, for
nothing more unpleasant could be inn
agiued than the never-finished up
! turning of ones cellar in a search for
the undiscovered le-an operation suf-
fciently adumbrated in the neighbor-
hood in which 1 live by the incessant
construction and reconstruction OF
the local sewerage.
At all events. the night-rider pirate
has so far obligingly forborne TO dis
| turb the repose of my potatoes and
nv milk cans According TO those who
knew. persons who had enjoyed the ac-
ouaintance of the Original, he must
have been a fearsome man-one who
reeled in gore and thought his booty
an unearned increment unless he had
extracted it from his victims with lire
and torture. He had wife, TOO, who
shared his habits and love TO STAY
her fellow-creatures with her own fair
hand. 1t is true that, so far as can
learn. she kept to her last bed like
respectable and deformed defunct
after having once taken TO it. But the
legends of her participation In the
crimes-the anti<mortem ones-of
her husband made him all the more
undesirable as a nightly visitor, so II
seemed to me. Happily, TO this very
day he has never come back.
Last Of all, this strange, uneveHtful
history of a haunted house, no weep
ing, shiverlng child has come to my
door in storm at midnight and de-
manded shelter only 10 spurn it con-
| temptuously when it has been offered.
IN fact, have so obviously brought
down upon me by my indifference the
i'll will Of the resident ghosts that they