Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1912-11-29

partition was signihcant-the ship was never
heard Of again.
The rocky coasts Of New England are haunted
by many ghost ships. The Palatine is the best
known specter. The coasters and fishermen of
Long Island Sound will tell you that when a sight
of her is gotten, disastrous and longIast1ng
storms will follow. The Palatine, a Dutch trader,
mis1ed by false lights shown by wreckers, ran
ashore upon Block Island in the year 1852. The
wreckers, when they had stripped the vessel,
set her on fire in order to conceal their crime.
AS the tide lifted her and carried her flaming
out to sea, agonizing shrieks came from the
blaze, and the figure of a woman who had hid
den herself in the hold in fear Of the wreckers
stood out black amid the roaring blaze. Then
the deck fell in and ship and woman vanished.
The whaling in Nantucket, as YOU will remem-
Der, was in it's palmy days carried on almost en-
tireIy by Quakers. One Sunday evening a meet
ing was in progress; the simple service seemed
as though it might pass, and the spirit moved
none of the company. The elder Friend was just
about to offer his hand to his ~neighbor in the
closing of the meeting, when a stranger rose
and declared that the Lords wrath was upon a
certain whaling ship, and that he had seen her
in a vision descending a huge wave from the
hollow of which she never rose. The meeting
closed hurriedly, but the speaker could not be
found, and the ship was never heard of.
Some of the best ghost stories are those which
the writer has heard from the simple folk Of the
salt marshes. 1t is hardly possible to describe
these dreary districts, for when one has said
they are fiat. stretching for miles, and rather
subject to mists, one has said pretty well all that
is to be said-the rest must be felt. However,
just as there is a call of the sea, so there is a
call Of the marshland. You shall go into the
saltern and feel it's moist breath upon your cheek
and the breath of it's salty winds and the ozone
of it's Gains. You shall be lost in it's vastness,
and, threading it's innumerable twisted narrow
waterways, which lead to nowhere. ye shall
tread it's carpet of scentless flowers. You shall
go to it's very edge where the sea comes often
most. and where the flowers decaying leave their
rust-colored remains. There you shall lIeet mud,
and the cry of the curlew shall mock as you
founder In its filth. The moon shall come up
refracted by the mist into understandable shane.
which shall be blood color. You shall be a gray
shape, differing little from the common things
that are there, for you shall be enshrouded by
fog; nay, it shall sink into your very soul until
you are not flesh and bones, but a particle of
fog yourself. You shall listen to it's silences; you
shall be told things by them, and. strong man
that you are, you shall be afraid.
Is it to be wondered at, then. that these simple
Essex marsh-dwellers remember such tales as
that of the young skipper, home from a long
voyage, whose haste to embrace his wife. and the
babe he had not yet seen, bid him to go the nearer
way of the marshes? The tale has it that in
crossing a narrow gutway. near Pitsea, he sank
in the mud So deeply did he sink that he could
not extricate himself; the more he struggled the
deeper he sank, and with the horror of knowing
that the tide was rising and would come stealing
up the creek, he shouted. As the tide rose higher
the louder were his screams. The saIterns near
Pitsea are lonely; the cries were heard onIv nv
a half-wltted peat-cutter. who often in his less
sane moments heard such screams and thought
no more of the matter. So the shrieks became
gurgIes, and by the time the tide had lifted the
peat-cutters punt they had ceased.
The older folk at this stage Of the story az.
sumo a mysterious air, and. with largeeved
glancings athwart their shoulders. will tell Won
that the shippers shrieks are heard on starIi,
nights as the tide glides up that creek.
So here are my ghost stories, and If soma.
times helleve in them when ! sail all alone on
the midnight deep, you will not laugh at me.