Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1913-10-06
The Home Circle
Thoughts from the Editorial Pen
The Haunted House.

The Haunted House.
They say that the house is haunt
ed, the superstitious folk in the viii
lage maintain retreat where you
spent much of your girlhood, your
early womanhood, and your young
motherhood. And so it is to you,
haunted with sweet memories of
long-gone pleasures, of joyous re-
unions with loved ones, of merriment
and laughter, and of tender associa-
tion.
1t stands aloof from the village,
in, but not of 1.-THE dear old house
of hallowed recollections, and per-
haps, because it stands, a lonely SEN
tinel upon the mountain of bygone
days, the village thinks it is queer,
and naughty, and-different, some
how. And because the village mind
cannot grasp the subtle something
that separates it from the village, it,
the village, pronounces the curse
upon it and says it is a haunted
house.
You sit on it's wide, hosptable
porch, that one time rang with the
laughter of a happy crowd, and your
memory goes back to the first time
you entered this haunted house
Now the boards of the porch are
worn-worn with the passing of
many feet, the dancing foot of the
thoughtless young, the romping feet
of the grandchildren, and the steady
feet of the elders, as they moved
about.
Now the haunted house needs a
coat of paint, and it presents for
lorn exterior to the curious ones who
climb the hill to gaze askance at a
haunted house where people dare to
live.
But then-ah, then it was gay,
irresponsible young thing, bright
with new paint, young and untried,
without past, with its history still
to be made, its future undetermined.
Now it has lived. 1t has looked on
gayety and youth and happiness, and
it has looked on love grown mellow
with the years. 1t has seen festivity
and joy. 1t has witnessed grief un-
| speakable.
Then, when you came, in the pride
of your young girlhood, into the
house that they now called haunted,
the one who had always done his
utmost to indulge you, led you into
two rooms which we're to be your
very own, bedroom and a sitting
room completely and daintily fur
nished. In the sitting room was a
bookcase for your favorite books,
and writing desk, where you might
sit and write all of the silly stuff
that came into your silly young head.
And in the drawer of the desk, as
though you needed one thing more
to complete your happiness, was an
exquisite watch set with jewels.
That was but one day of all the
days of joy that came to you in the
years that followed. AS you sit in
the silence and loneliness of the big
porch, you wonder at the love and
the thought that was lavished upon
you, when this haunted house, like
yourself, was gay young thing,
without responsibility or history!
AS you gaze, with eyes that see
but dimly, through your tears, at
the vast panorama of cloud and
plain and mountain peak, for those
who have eyes to see, you behold the
porch of this haunted house, peopled,
indeed, with those who have thrilled
with the glory of it ALL
There is one who sits with folded
hands, gazing with keen appreciation
at the view, saying little, but ex-
pressing much.
And the one to whom you owed
those summers of ease and comfort
and beauty, with his hat pulled down
to shade his eyes, cigar in his
mouth, looks with the eyes of a
dreamer, a poet, and visionary
upon the grandeur of the view that
is peculiarly his own, because he dis
covered it.
The porch echoes and reechoes to
the sound of voices long since stilled
that die away into silence, as you
realize that you are alone.
You think of day in your ma
turer year when the young of your
own household, and those of your
brothers and sisters, have taken
their places under a hospitable roof.
1t is a gala day, for it marks an
epoch in the lives of those so dear
who have given you all of the pleas
ures in this house of haunting mem
cries. The house has settled down
into middleaged quietude by this
time. 1t is not so young and jaunty
as of yore, and the grounds sur
rounding il are not so green and