The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-04-18
It was there at an early evening hour.

As 7 opened the door, 1 found the
room in darkness. I had left a bright
light on the table, and there was not
draught enough to flare candle I
stood for moment undecided, having
no feeling but of surprise, and of a
sudden / heard soft footsteps retreat
Ing into the sitting-rOOm. 1t was the
echo of slippered feet or one walking
on tiD-tOe. and I traced their prog
ress for a distance of twenty feet.
When 1 could no longer hear them
1 struck a match and relighted the
lamp, noticing that the chimney was
still little warm and that the wick
had not been turned down. Although
my heart was beating like a hammer
and my hair curling, 1 took up the
lamp and went through every room in
the house, finding nothing, of course.
AFTER returning to the kitchen I
lighted two of the candles and placed
them in the lower rooms and then
forced myself to sit down.
was trying to argue things out
when p noise like the humming of a
telegraph wire came from the hall
and was speedily followed by a wall
and sobbing. It was like a child
crying out in distress, and it lasted
fully thirty seconds. AS 1 rose up I
shook so that I. feared To fIr0Trs he
lamp, and my throat was so dry that I
could not have made a loud sound
but passed through the rooms into
the hall and upstairs again. So up
set was I that in descending the stairs
and my feet dragged after me as 1
walked through the lower hall.
1 could not have been mistaken as
to the noises and from whence thew
proceeded, and yet 1 had searched
with the closest possible scrutiny and
found nothing whatever Had came
across some sort of nightbird or
found even one single rat Scampering
around I could have invented the
rest, but there was absolutely nothing
must declare the noises made by
supernatural agency or admit that I
was the victim of nerves and defective
hearing.
However. after dragging myself
back to the kitchen and taking seat
began calling myself q fool and a
coward. and to try to whistle, and I
determined to pay no more attention
to the mysterious noises.
Ten minutes went by, and I was
trying to smile at my own fears when
a pat, pat. pat of footsteps caught nv.
ear. They began in room over my
head and descended the stairs and
came along the hall and through the
sitting-rOOm. 1 sat looking into the
open door OF this room, which was
lighted by a candle, but though heard
the footsteps / saw nothing. They
crossed the room-they entered the
kitchen-they advanced to the table,
and as my hair stood up and my heart
choked me the lamp was blown out
and I was left in. serni-darkness. If
tell you that I yelled out and jumped
for the door and fed across the fields.
you viii not call me cowardly.
1t was eight o'clock next morning
when I returned to the house. The
candles 1 had left burning had not
burned out, but had been blown out.
! told my story to a number of people,
and d hard-headed man, who claimed
never to have known what fear was,
volunteered to pass night IN the
house, claiming that all the noises
had heard were made by the wind or
rats. He had changed his mind sew
eral hours before daylight came, how
ever.
At o'clock he aroused me, and in all
my LIE never saw a man more broken
up. He had heard the Wailing and Sob
lighted lamp. Soon after i0 midnight. as as
he sat by the kitchen table, he had
Ssl1ghI t9e SOUNDS, OF footsteps on the
steps take every stair in rotation until
the top, only few feet to his left, was
swung softly open. He was looking full
at 1t when it did So There was a minute
of deepest silence, and then the lamp
at his elbow was suddenly turned out
For few seconds the man could not
move a hnger, and though he had seen
no one he fully expected to be struck or
stabbed. Then he made a rush for the
ran for his life.
After breakfast went over to the
house with him. There was the lamp
there the open cellar door-there his over
turned chair. What hand had opened the
door and turned down the light? What
voice had cried out in that wailing, sob
bing way? Had the living or the dead
walked about Though halls and rooms2
A third and even a fourth man insisted
on trying to solve the mystery The
third one was frightened away as the
pair of us had been before him, but the
fourth was found at daylight lying sense
less in the lower hall, and it was weeks
before he got over his fever and could
move about again. What he saw ne
would never tell; he couldn't bear the
matter referred to without a shudder
I wanted nothing more to do with the
house and at once gave orders to have il
razed to the foundations. Was the mys-
terv solved in the tearing down2 No
The workmen found nothing whatever
which could in the remOtest degree ac-
count for the noises, and the affair is
Just as much Of a mystery today as ii
was then. Neither of US were towards
nor given to superstition. and yet the
noises caused any way you please, had
driven US from the house in something
like a fit OF terror.