The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-02-24
Squaring
the Circle
With
THE HOoSTFR EDITOR
THE HOosIER EDITOR

THIS is the twice told tale Of a
Il Rappite ghost who, even after
all these years, should be kept in on
Halloween for having struck stark
terror to the heart of a girl named
Sarah back in the Nineteenth Cen
fury.
Rappite he was, because he was
generally identified as the restless
rattle of all that was left of some
follower of George Rapp, deceased.
And he wes single-footed because
George Rapp, who had led a band
from Germany to New Harmony,
Ind, PoSey County, to escape eco
nomic and religious oppression, had
once received the Angel Gabriel
from Heaven, and Gabriel was
single-footed.
A school of thought, whose theory
was that all ghosts are single
footed, Immediately thereafter took
up class. When Robert Owen sue
ceeded George to leadership in New
Harmony, in 1925, he did some
source work on ghosts and was, until
his death, known as a man who
communed with disembodied spirits
in a social way. His son wrote of
such things, and the citizens were
very spirit
THAT'S why, one autumn night
Il when it was too cold to raise
bedroom windows" Sarah was
fundamentally frightened by a clank
at the bottom of the stairs.
They knew the door was bolted.
Yet there was a metal clank-and
deathly silence, prolonged. She
hoped that was all. But there was
another clank, as though a one
footed ghost, shod in metal, was
coming upstairs.
Up it came, step at time,
deliberately. 1t reached the hall
way and there it appeared to be
wrestling with another ghost. Round
and round they went, these two
disembodied gladiators. And every
once in while there was a metal
clanking, as though a rapier had
touched the wainscoating mad
vertently.
When they had tired wrestling,
these two goodness knows where the
other came from SO faSt) would
stop the shutting, hurly-burly noise
and in its place there would be a
hard breathing, as though of ex-
haustion.
CARAH listened in abject terror
~ that knew its greatest intensity
when, after one of those hard
breathing spells, the ghost ap-
preached The threshold of Ter room
and, with one bound, entered.
Although there was bright har-
vest moonlight streaming on to the
floor through the closed window,
Sarah could not make out any OBJ
ject 1t stayed, apparently on the
very edge of the light and f1uttered,
sort of, in the darkness.
When, after few seconds, it
jumped near her bed, she screamed
with ali the power of her little
lungs and it pierced the night.
The ghost leaped in black
streak frora the floor to the window
ledge and disappeared out into the
moonlight.
Boo!
For hours the family searched
and could find no marks of the
ghost; no other explanation. Sarah
slept no more that night.
Next day ghost-fearing people of
the town gathered to hear the story
and inspect the scene. An old in
habitant listened carefully to the
oral evidence that it was one
footed and told the story of George
Rapp's quaint experience.
The Rappites had come back to
wander, and apparently wrestle, in
their old haunts, of that most
every one was certain. Sarah went
to bed that night with Gas matter
of record this prayer on her lips:
ooh good Rappite ghost, oh good
ghost, Go stay away"
n
A ND 1t did. For three nights.
L n That night Sarah opened her
bedroom window to a warmer moon
lit night and peered over the ledge.
On the cave was small metal piece,
small enough to fit into the hollow
of her hand. On the side of it was a
smear of tar.
In the tar was the print of a
cats paw.
Quickly it was discovered that the
cat had picked up the metal and
was terrified when it could not
shake it loose 1t entered the bolted
door only because whoever had bolt
ed it had locked it open instead OF
shut.
1t bounded from Sarah's room
through an opening in the window
that had contained glass before
it was broken out.
Sarah told the story but the re-
porter for the 1850 paper failed to
get her last name.