The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-22

the musty bed covers and made himself as comfortable as possible for the night.
 The Midnight Caller.
 He was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of footsteps to find q man standing in the door of his room. To the astonished visitor the new conner finally related a tale, the substance of which was that he was the founder of the village. and that his daughter Nina, a beautiful girl, fell in love with an art ist who formerly visited the place. The father did not approve of her choice, and ordered the lover away He stopped all communication between the two before the artist left. and when letter arrived from him addressed to his daughter the father kept 1t from her. Before long the maiden sickened, and when. as she grew worse, the father sought for the letter to give her, he could not find it.
 The girl died, and the agonized parent from that time on had been doomed to search for the hidden letter With the coming of the morning the city man, moved by the pitful tale, instituted search for the letter, and at last, unwit- tingly thrusting his hand into a hole in the wall, found it at the bottom of a cat birds nest. That night he placed 1t on the center table in the house where he had passed the night before. Again his midnight caller came. and the sleeper was awakened by a great cry of joy. When he finally reached the table where the letter had been it was gone.
 The Devil-fungus.
 The devil-fungus. mysterious plant growth supposed ohave had it's exist ence in caverns on the mountain side in the vicinity of Loke Placid. is the sub- iect of another legend in which MT. Van Hoevenburg has interested himself The story told In connection with this weird bit of plant life is that a party coming into the Adirondacks from the city for the summer included maid and two men who loved her. One of these men, much older than the girl. was not deserving of her, but their engagement had been dn- nounced. Features of the devil-fungus, according to this story, were its power to initiate the charms of a beautiful wo- man and the intoxicating scent which 1t was capable of emitting. The story runs that the elder man, falling beneath the spell of the devilsh plant. was reseded by the younger man, who was an expert botanist, and that the former immediate ly left the woods and the youthful lovers to themselves.
 Another interesting legend of Essex county is one concerning Discovery Noun tain, near Elizabethtown, which has been investigated by John A. Carlstrom. Ac- cording to this, an eccentric old hermit who made his home for years on the mountainside was killed by an explosion resulting from mysterious experiments in an attempt to get electricity fro mcoal direct Before he died he conf1ded to the head of a party of engineers who foun1 him suffering from the effects of the cX- plosion a portion of his secret and precious bit of stone, which he directed be placed at the head of his grave where after four years it would begin to flash forth messages to the world. Doing as he was bid the engineer returned after four years to find the messages being flashed from the mountain side as the hermit had predicted.
 Read the Stones Message.
 In an attempt to get to the spot on the mountain side where the wonderful stone was buried, he was captured and ae- cused of the murder of the hermit by the excited townspeople, who attributed the mysterious light appearing nightly to the wanderings of the old hermit ghost. Managing to break jail the en- gineer succeeded in getting the stone Tn time to read it's mysterious message De- fore its light went out forever. Acting on the old hermits instructions, he sealed it up, to remain thus for a period of ten years. at the end of which time the se- cret could be given to the world. But again he was hauled to court
 The packet containing the precious stone was taken from him. Scarceiy nad 1t been broken open before the mysterious stone exploded with resounding crash filling the court room with wonderful electric flame. The engineer and the man who had captured him, who, by the way, was killed. were, according to the legend. turned peculiar copper color their skins resembling that of an lh-