The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-31


 l know a little city that stands on the bank of the Ohio river, in Indiana, that has more haunted houses to the square mile, dare say, than any place of it's size in the country. and every one of the spook joints has it's grewsome story of blood and horror, too"
 Andrew Hobson. connected with a we'll known insurance agency, on a short trip to New Orleans several days ago was | talking with a few acquaintances. be , tween times" and making himself com fortable, prepared to tell story. "The ghost business has always been puzzler, MT Hobson went on, and while lots of people 'pooh-pooh' the idea of visitants from the other side of the grave there are a few indeed, who care to investigate haunted house proposition from a point of vantage other than on the outside of the spirit roost.
 And in very truth there is something , strange about the question, and no mat ter how ncredulous man pretends to be when that man Is passing a haunted house at night, all alone, he can't put aside entirely creepy feeling that in- sists upon coursing through his bosom. Now in this little town I referred to moment ago there is a cottage, pretty place, that stands retired from the sidewalk on rear street. that you couldn't pay anybody to live in-and why? Just because it's haunted. hap py family lived in the place some five or six years ago, but woe came when the husband and father was suddenly l stricken with fatal Illness. The wife did everything she could. but death claimed her lord, and left his widow with three orphans all but penniless. The woman got along as best she could for time, but everything seemed against her, and one day in fit of despair. she gave her children strychnine in large quanti- ties and took a great big dose of the drug herself. The neighbors didn't the mother and her little ones about the house as usual, and in two or three days, i becoming suspicious, entered the place to investigate. They found the woman 1 lying on the floor dead, and near her, stretched out with their hands neatly folded on their breasts were the bodies of the children. A note on the center table explained 1t all.
 Well. it was several months before the landlord of the house managed to secure tenant No ghost yarns had as yet got abroad, but the people about to change their modiciles, of course, consid-
  1t.
 '"rhe family finally moving in was com posed of a husband. his wife and their little boy The worked in a ship yard. and was a good, honest fellow, above telling lies or circulating false ru- mors. and everybody liked him. A week passed and nothing happened, but one night neighbor living close to the house of death was awakened by violent i, knocking on his front door. He got up and went out to see what was the | matter and his surprise was great when 1 he found the shpyard man and the lat ter's wife and child standing on the side
 walk, half clad and shivering violently. "Without waiting to be questioned, the man on the sidewalk said: My God, 1 Tom, we couldn't stay in that house; we l just saw the most awful thing eyes ever rested on, and we haven't recovered from our fright yet
 "The neighbor invited the family in, and then the shpyard man made a statement about to the following effect: He and his wife and boy went to bed about o'clock, | all occupying the same room and one l just adjoining the apartment where the mother had murdered her babies and shielded. The father was awakened sev- eral hours later by hearing his boy cry out Oh please. mann, take your cold 1 hands off my neck?
 '"The father sat up in bed and looked over toward the cot where his son lay, but as there no light in the room l his gaze encountered at first only black void. Whats the matter. MalcOlm?' he called, and a weak, trembling voice from ] the direction of the cot answered: Oh, pa, there's tall woman over here by 1 my bed crying and rubbing her cold hands on my face The father was astonished and was about to order Malcom to keep 1 quiet, when from the blackness at the l side of the bed where he and his wife lay came long drawn sigh-such a sigh as could only we'll up from the depths of a soul in agony.
 l ' My God, what was that?' the boat | builder asked. and as though in reply to his question from the heavy darkness a hand as white as chalk appeared, and long, slender fingers moved over his face. The ghostly touch felt like ice and the air seemed charged with the smell of the grave, and the man, with the cry of hor ror sprang from the bed and. reaching for the lamp and box of matches which stood on table close by. struck light. As the flame fiared up and ignited the oily wick there was the futter of white something over near the door leading into the other room, and the faint out lines of tall, gaunt woman began to thin and fade into nothingness. The wife was sitting up in bed by this time, and With a scream SHe crleu, pointing lOWdTu the door: Look there. Look there! My God. that dead woman and her three childrenv The door was fast closed, but the panels of the plastered walls on either side for the moment had disappeared and in their stead appeared the pitchy interior of the apartment of death.
 -Four shadowy forms were plainly to be seen, the tall gaunt woman and three children. The little ones were stretched out, with their hands folded, as though asleep, but the woman was tearing her hair and gesticuating wildly. From the pallid lips came soft, hissing sound like the intake of sigh and then the weird picture vanished.
 "The man and his family found refuge with their neighbor for the rest of that awful night and the next day, when the sunlight strong enough to dispel whole army of specters, they moved their things out and rented the house in the next street.
 "One other family had a similar ex- perience. and then the house was Jonahed, nobody would live in it. and. like all haunted houses, it was allowed to go to wreck and ruin.
 'In the same town, about three squares away from the cottage, stands two-story brick house fronting a broad. open com mon. This house has been empty for years, and legend has 1t that the ghost of an old man is occasionally seen there
 'sThe old man cut his throat with