The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1898-12-23

know it for saw the hand thin and
bony, plain and distinct upon the failitttEs....'
! nwoks ms ffiehd HID been tugging
ht MY elbow for some minutes. and his
blAnched face spoke Of the holy terror he
Its i pgar3asesssaome place this to take shell
ter in. Listen, don't you hear footballs
up the far end of the aisle. yoi,deAY''' I
did--the measured treai 81 the Heshly bf
snieitual visitor whisped along at Il slow
aud ghostly walk, and steeled as was
to any superstitiOus nonsense, the pres
me with the creeps. We waited awhile
crouched we'll down III the high-baeked
pew, and gEl4ally the sound pnr4Rached.
MY friepd,s henft betttlhs lnertAsed as,
thu nNctufnNl walker came nearer, and
l thought he would sutfocate in his en-
deavor to live the few moments of sus-
pense without breathing. Yes, sure
enough there was the skinny hand on the
rail, lightly falling, lightly vanishing, and
the rustic of the spirit struck our excited
fancies much the same as a chill blast.
1t was gone, and we heard the foot
steps die away in the distance. 4 creak-
ing sound as of some one ascending rick
ETY. stairs. and then the mystery was eN-
planned when the. church ball rang 6ut Its
Dealing hefAld to the settlement of am
6ther christmas ushered in.
of the door turn in the lock, and oil again
was silence.
When we awoke next it was not until
the bright light of Christmas day shOne
aslant through the frosted windows-n0t
until approaching footsteps warned us
that we had slept until the morning serv-
ice brought the worshipers from far and
To the good fylk Of that neighborhood,
the bresehee Of two such palpable desecra-
tors as my friend and 1 appeared, must
have come as shock The Willy
Verger attracted by the discovery the
owner of the pew had made, was soon
on the scene. and sooner than this caught
sight of my brier which had neglected to
restore to my pocket, but explanations
were readily Forthcoming we had
been caught in the. blizzard, how we had
found the church door open, and partOok
of its hospitable shelter. enough. to sny
that we were held as q living walking ex-
emplihcation of Wise Fathers protec-
ton, ahd were looked upon as little less
than a pair of Daniels who had come
through the furnace.
The ghostly visitor turned out to be
the SEXTON, whose custom it was to usher
in the birthday of Christ with ringing
Of the church bell. He had firmly locked
the door in the early evening, but as he
said the hand of God which created the
blizzard had opened the door Of the church
that we might find comfort-and perhaps
he was right.
That Christmas day ranks among the
brightest of my, whole experience. l and
my friend Spent the day with the min.
lister and his family, and the only cloud
lowering between us was the fact that
the tobacco cloud left in tine church, ac-
cording to his own showing, tickled his
ncstrils during the sermon, and diverted
his thoughts to lower level than the
theme of his discourse-the tobacco was
bad-it was satanic, and admitted the
Impeachment. but we got lighter-hearted
OH the strength of some good cigars, and
forgot the blizzard and the ghostly SEX
ton in our host'e fine port.
Towards evening l and lily friend
started 6ff for Delphos and arrived there
all right. He got there too late to play
Santa Claus. I myself just put the ar
engagements through for the concert on
the next day in the nick Of time.
We have met since-and never fail to
recount our experience, which ended so
happily. but which might have ended so
fatally but for the proximity of that lit
tie whitewashed settlement church.