Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1900-08-23
many pauses. but choking and pure,ino

many pauses, but choking and gurgling
always. Once she thought it might be
some sort of animal, but as it passed
near the moonlight at the windows she
saw that it was not. It had rather a
horribly grotesque resemblance to a
man. Having reached the second cor
ner it began to move along the third
wall straight toward the foot of the
bed. The young girl stumbled out at
the head to the floor. The thing pulled
itself over upon the footboard and be-
gan to search through the bedclothes.
Finding nothing it tore the clothes
with teeth and hands furiously. The
young woman watched the process
from half way down the wall. She tried
to think what would have happened to
her had she failed to awake when she
did.
by degrees It seemed to grow calm
er, and finally in turn crawled down
from the head of the bed. The young
woman could not tell whether it saw
her or whether it could see. AS it ap-
preached, she moved softly along the
wall. When she reached the corner
she proceeded down the next wall, the
thing following, until, with many
pauses, they had made the circuit of
the room. Then the circuit was re-
peated. On this time round she heard
a, clock in some distant part of the
house strike IL. The housekeeper ex-
pected to call her about seven. Later
she heard the same clock strike one.
Once she shuddered at the thought of
fainting in the things path, but she
knew that she should not faint. She
thought of its leaving the wall and
making for her directly across the
room, but it stuck closely to the base
board, feeling. its way along. The dis
tant clock struck two. Then it seemed
to the young woman that the journeys
around the room were being made at
slower rate. The thing paused often
er, and longer at a time. Finally it
must have stopped for quarter of an
hour, only to creep on a yard. or two
and stop again. After that it moved
no more. The young woman stood
watching half dozen yards further
along the wall.
,. In the morning the housekeeper IN
locked the door, looked in, and prompt
~ tainted across the threshold. The
young woman still stood with her
hands against the wall. She tiptoed
across to the housekeeper, dragged her
into the hall, locked the door behind
her, and went swiftly downstairs. In
the sitting-room she came upon her
aunts. When they saw her one of them
tainted as promptly as had the house
keeper upstairs. The other ran up to
her screaming:
Mildred, what has happened?' e.
"Then the young woman smiled and
began. talking foolishness. They called
me in to see her within an2hour. It
happened that had seen her on her
arrival the afternoon before, a brown
eyed, dark-haired,. beautiful girl 1t
was small wonder, therefore, that I
was a bit shaky when I had been
brought into the presence of my pa
tient. In one night her face had been
scared and furrowed as with the cares
and sorrows of three-qtarters of CEN
fury, and her hair was as white as
snow. incidentally she was suffering
from an ugly-looking case of brain
fever, and for two months reason, and
life itself, hung in a balance that would
have turned for a hair. But four
months later, when she went back
no -
her mind was as good as it had ever
been, and the lines and burrows had
been rubbed out of her face, and the
plumpness and color of youth was re-
turning fast. But her hair was never
anything else but white as snow.
''What was the thing in her room?
Nothing in the world but a horrible
example of public savagery and official
carelessness. There was a poor-farm
some eight miles from our town, and a
miserable pauper, having gone violent
ly insane, they knew nothing better to
do with him than chain him in an out
house and treat him like dangerous
animal. You can imagine, or rather,
you can't imagine, the effect on both
his personal appearance and on his dis
ease. One afternoon he escaped, carry
ing part of his chain with him, and in
his wanderings reached the elderly
aunt's house, which stood open in the
midst of house cleaning Attracted by
the GOODNESS inside he had crept up
into the old wing, where he had en-
tered one of the chambers and hid
den in the great fireplace, and gone
to sleep. The light of the young wom-
ans candle that night had reused him,
and his journeys round the wall were
mere animal instinct searching for an
exit. .~-...
''They called for him the same morn
ing, and I saw the poor devil when they
found him lying up there in the room.
It is a solemn fact that his CANNES
projected an inch below his upper lip
He didn't have on enough rags to cover
the backs of a mans two hands, and
his hair and beard and skin had been
.indescribably misused, and the poor
wretch was in the last stages of con-
sumption. But his nights adventure
proved not such bad thing for him.