The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1898-12-09
SOME GOOD
GHOST STORIES

1 ''O--N
to hear, and one of the hardest to tell, is
| good ghost story. From the witch of Endor
to the publications of the Society for
Psychical Research everything about
| ghosts has been carefully scanned, and
| there are few in the world who do not be-
| lieve in them, some unwillingiy, some
| gladly, but all in some degree. Nowadays,
when there are electric lights to make the
rcmotest corners CLEAN, and all manner
of Roentgen and other rays, which are
pretty good ghosts themselves, and scales
which will weigh the moisture in baby's
breath, and photographs of stars which
have never been beheld by human eyes
through the most powerful telescopes
ghosts are not as commonly to be happened
uopn as they used to be when there was so
much more cold and darkness and so much
less knowledge. But every man who makes
patient investigation will find no difficulty
in finding among his personal acquaintance
men and women who have seen ghosts,
and more than one who has been on terms
of something like intimacy with ghosts.
The writer was in a family less than
month ago where there was almost
ghost-not quite, but within one of 1t.
There was room in the house in which
a poor woman had killed herself by drink
ing carbolic acid--that most horrible of
deaths crowding as 1t does all the agony
of burning at the stake into a moment Of
terrible pain-so short a time before that
the sickly, hospital-like odor had not gone
from the bed. Two nights after the suicide
a good woman undertook to sleep in that
same bed. She was a New England wo-
@l.Ara
was no reason at all why she should not
have slept well. But she did not. On the
contrary, she lay abed and came to think
that the poor dead woman was in bed with
her, clad in a big double gown and mob
cap, and that she was still dead, but alive
enough to have her by the leg and refuse
to let go. The next afternoon another wo-
man, a younger one, lay down on the
lounge in that room for half a moment. In
a few minutes the family heard a scream
and rushed in. The poor dead woman had
been there half a minute before, only this
time she was in dinner dress and held the
tumbler which had contained the fatal
draught out in an insstent way. The next
day the eldest son of the house, healthy
lad 8 years old, came home He was put
to sleep in that same room-and nothing
happened If there had, there would have
been ghost and haunted room. 1t was
not indigestion with the two women but
nervousness. If the boy had had indges
ton and nightmare, there would not only
have been a new ghost and another haunt
ed room, but three credible, respectable
disinterested and wholly sane persons to
prove it-and if that is not proof, nothing
ever Is.
But Mrs Ola w. Poattie has seen much
better ghosts than that-and some of them
have had newspaper affiliations. For there
are ghosts in newspaper Offices too, though
sometimes they call them cats But there
was newspaper man once, SO Mrs. Peattie
says, who was a man of fine culture and at
tainments, who had once had high IDEALS
and had then let everything slide He used
to see a thing, and, after a long time, one
of his intimate friends came to see the
same thing, and 10. 1t was as beautiful
an angel from the high heaven. Yet is was
The Shape of Fear" and gave its name to
this last book of Mrs. Peattie's. But those
who saw it came to learn afterward that
its very beauty and angelic goodness made
it all the more fearful, because it was made
up of all the good deeds that the newspaper
man of lost ideals might have done and
did not.
There is another tale of newspaper man
in the book, and good one. 1t is called by
the alluring title of THE Astral Onion
There is young fellow-to omit all details
not essential-who had lost his benefactress
and his job a reporter in almost the
same breadth. He had always wished 10
write a good story which he had in mind
but had never been given the time So he
set out to do 1t, and he fell sick, and the
little boy who came in to make the fire
FOR him fell sick, too, and did not appear
The story was finished and on it's way to
the Office of magazine which was Offering
huge prize for the best story. The re-
porter was sure he was going to have the
prize. because he knew, being a reporter
how very good story it was that he had
written. But it would have done him little
good If he had died of hunger while he was
waiting, and that was what 1t looked like,
for he was very sick reporter. Just at
that moment he looked Up, and there was
large and most delicious onion, swim
ming in a delicate sauce-exactly such an
onion as his benefactress used to cook for
him when he needed Injuries. Ee ate i;
and lived. The next day the check came
from the ma gazine, just as he expected II
would. These give hint-the merest hint
of two of the stories. There are thirteen Of
them. and they are all good. Thirteen is
a ghostly sort of number Itself. you know
nd this Is Friday