The Hawaiian gazette., 1908-09-29

before which you were combing your
tresses persisted in turning its face to
the WALTZ Wouldn't 1t Jar YOU if
roast of beef and a humble soup bone
took it into their heads to bounce
around the kitchen floor all of their
own accordf Wouldn't your hair creep
up II you had stick of kindling wood
in your hand and II was suddenly
snatched away from you by unseen
fingers and disappeari How would You
like to watch another pile of kindling
hopping stick by stick up on to your
lanai, without anyone in sight to make
it hop, or have a chunk of rock come
into your dining-room through closed
window without smashing the glass, or
be hammered in the ribs by an unseen
fistf Wouldn't it make you feel ner-
vousi And yet these are the sort Of
things that have been geing on in a
house on Puncbbowl for the past three
days. Plenty of sober, reliable people
have seen some of them, and priest
with holy water couldn't stop it.
This is not fairy tale nor night
mare, but the truth as testified to by
scores of those living on Luso street
and Punchbowl street, who thronged
the "haunted house, yesterday and
waited for ghostly manifestations.
Concerned are a beautiful young
Spanish girl, Polish man and his
Spanish wife. three priests from the
Roman Catholic fraternity and some
hundreds of Portuguese. All Punch
bowl is excited, and there were many
faint hearts beneath the shadows Of
the grape-vines last night.
Do you believe in ghosts, anyway,
because nearly all the residents of
Punchbowl have arrived at the belief
that there are ghosts that are real, even
though unseen, and that the old Boyd
house on Punchbowl street, beyond the
Mormon church, is their present abode?
The fact that two priests of the
Roman Catholic church were called by
the family to the house yesterday
morning to bless the house and drive
the unseen visitors from the vicinity
gave official standing to the spooks,
who withstood the priestly presence
and performed elfish antics in their
very faces. Not one visit only did the
priests make, but last evening another
priest, who is rather skeptic about
ghosts, went there again to camp out
and ascertain whether someone was
playing tricks or whether there was a
really real ghost playing pranks.
The story of what has been taking
place up there in that big green house
reads like a ghost story narrated in
the dark of the moon, when the flesh
becomes goosey and every sound makes
the heart leap into the throat. The
tale from that house, moreover, is not
altogether of strange things occurring
in the night only, but there are
many eyewitnesses who say they saw
queer things take place in the broad
daylight of yesterday forenoon and
continue at regular intervals all day.
These stories concern the movements
through space of saucepans, shoe horns
stoyelid-lifters, knives, forks, stones
benches, pictures, punches of keys,
crockery, stove.wood, and even chunks
of meat. The inmates of the house,
Stephen Pecarick, who works for the
Inter-Island company, his wife and a
young Spanish girl residing with the
family, who appears to be the special
object of ghostly attention, tell of
mighty queer things happening around
the house for couple of nights and
yesterday, while many of the neighbors
corroborate the doings of yesterday.
Yesterday forenoon, after an excit-
ing night, the neighbors focked to the
residence and listened to the tales.
They were told how during the night
strange noises were heard, how the
head of the house called ont and went
outside while the noises continued; how
he took lantern to investigate and
found the stove-wood he had chopped
the evening before pile itself up on q
landing of the steps leading to the
veranda; how he called out and then
got revolver, while the wood con
tinued to leave one pile and build W
another. Then how stones few around
the rooms, the clock fell over two OF
three times, and picture of st. An
thony, hanging in the clothes closet
strangely left its place on the wall
and was found lying on the floor and
after being replaced, was again found
lying on table and third time on
the bed, with a bunch of keys that
had left the bureau, alongside it. Then
shoe-horn whizzed through space
from a bedroom, through various open
doorways, until it fell against the wife
standing by the dining-room table
Then pans left their places on the tot
of the cupboard and fell to the floor, {
cup appeared to leap from another cup
board and broke into pieces on tn,
| floor several feet away. A knife cam,
through the air from the kitchen tt
| the dining-room and stuck in the toI
of the table, and corkscrew did like
wise, while all the time the house stood
steady on the underpinning and Their
was no way to account for the phe
nomena.
The bureau mirror swung back slow
~, and the wife set it Alright; then il
moved back again, as did also small
mirror standing on the bureau. Three
times this took place before her eyes
| then she threw holy water ON the fac,
of the mirrors and nothing more hap
| pened to the bureau.
Then the benches began doing aero
batic stunts. They overturned while
standing in the middle of rooms, ant
even while Father Reginald was in tn,
house, bench which he was looking
at but moment before was heard t.
fall over, and on rushing to the doc
the bench was seen by the priest to b.
lying on its side, with nobody in thu
room.
stove-wood came mysteriously into