Rockingham post-dispatch., 1922-11-02
FER STORY
BY MARGARET A. SWEENEY
{ by Mcclure Newspaper syndirate.)

ping cold night in f91S-AIrs Haland
told this story that am about to re-
peat. Phoebe Haland, my husbands
aunt, was then about seventy, a sim
cerely piOus woman who was tempo
rarily making her home with US while
her two sons, both surgeons, were
overseas with the Yankee division.
My husband had Just finished read.
ing aloud a newspaper article about
house in our neighborhood that was
supposed TO be haunted The article
gave the history of the house ant
list of its former owners, who had
found 1t advisable to sell the place
soon after moving in. The last owner
had bought the place for almost
nothing, and after weeks trial
he, too, moved out. and told the world,
through the newspapers, that he
would have the place torn down in the
spring.
THAT ghost talk is all bosh," my
husband declared. "a house gets
NAME for being haunted, and then
everyone that moves into it is on the
lockout for spooks and-and their
imagination does the rest
The newspaper fluttered, and We,
Mrs. Haland and I, continued with our
knitting and waited to hear some
more news. Then Mrs. Haland looked
at me over the top of her steel
trimmed spectacles and said:
"A good deal Of 1t Is both, no doubt,
but there are, l am sure, troubled
souls that for one reason or another
felt"
Mrs. Hafand put down her knitting
and her serious, kindly old eyes mar
rowed and she took long look into
the face of Time before she spoke.
1T will he so years next May-May
10-since was married." she began,
land We started housekeeping in
little house that is still standing in a
small village a mile or two beyond
Hartford, Conn. My nearest neighbor
was a Mrs. Wright, and she called up
ON us almost as soon as we were set
tied.
"She was a tail, thin woman, and
remember well the buff-colored challie
dress with little blue flowers In it that
she wore that day. She had her little
girl with her-a sturdy child of six
or seven, her black hair braided in
two stiff braids that hung down her
little square back.
II was twenty then" She continued,
land I think that Mrs. Wright was
about thirty-eight-she was just forty
when she died, and we had been neigh
b0rs for two years. In that time /
had learned to love Mrs. Wright-she
was like a mother tG me. She was not
we'll woman-some heart affection
and her husband was drinking man.
She shielded him all she cosed. She
Was too proud to let the ncighbors
knew that he had ut times beaten her
and his little daughter.
"She was not long lila few days,
and was in and out all the time, and
not once did she complain. BESSIE, her
little girl, seldom left tine bedside. but
that last day, when the child was out
OF hearing, Mrs. Wright said to me.
II don't mind it al all-only for
Bessie-my poor Bessie!' 1t was hav-
ing TO leave Bessie that troubled her.
~When it was all over the husband
misrepresentation one knew where, so
took BESSIE home with me, and for a
week tried hard to lessen the grief
IN the childish heart. Then one eve
ming, as l was about to send Bessie to
bed, her father came in--swaggered
In without knocking-growling and
wild-eyed. Bessie at my knee, repeat
ing the Lords prayer, buried her face
in my lap and felt her little body
culver. He wanted Bessie to come
right home-he guessed he had a
right TO his own daughter
"Well. he took Bessie-took her
screaming-dragging her along. I
could not reason with him and my
husband had gone on some business to
Hartford. My instinct was to follow
Bessie, but was afraid of this man,
and as I stood there In the kitchen,
near the open door, praying that my
husband would come soon. Mrs.
Wright walked in.
II saw her as plain as I see you
now. She wore her buff-colored dress
with the little blue flowers in 1t, and
she looked neither to the right nor
left, just passed me as If were a
piece of furniture, and walked straight
into my bedroom.
"Something-the mystery. the awe
Of it-overwhelmed me and brought
me to my knees, and then suddenly I
arose and ran out of the house and up
the road toward that man Wright's.
when nearing the house could
hear Bessie still crying. and ! went
,in-I went in as brave as a lioness
defending her cub. and I faced him
and I shouted at him that my husband
and all the men in town were mixing
tar and getting feathers, and that If
he wanted to save himself he had bet.