Copyright (c) 1997

                            ANOTHER TALL TALE
                            by Franchot Lewis

    Now-a-days you don't hear of so many haunted houses. Today's houses,
made of brick, that have good electric lighting, storm windows, gas
furnaces, central heating and no chimneys aren't places where ghosts
prefer to haunt. When I was a little girl every town had a haunted
house, some had two, and in the old neighborhoods, there were at least
three.
    In the years 1923 to 1925 I lived in a haunted house. It was a large,
old frame building where no family lived in for long. The house was owned
by Mr. Sam Flowers, a cotton planter, who owned houses in several towns
in the two counties where he had his farming business. People said that
a murder took place in the house years ago. My parents, like the folks
who were Mr. Flowers tenants before us, mocked people who were
superstitious and who believed in ghosts. My mother was a lady who wasn't
afraid of anybody.  She smoked cigarettes, even out in the street, at a
time when women weren't suppose to smoke. This outraged my grandmother
and my grandmother's friends and it shocked some of my mother's friends.
But she thought nothing of shocking them. She answered my grandmother
with, "You pinch snuff!"
    My grandmother did pinch snuff. She tried not to let anybody know,
especially her grand daughter. I saw her one afternoon when she was
in her house upstairs in her room. I was playing upstairs in the
hall. I saw her carrying a little tin box. She dipped her finger in,
then put her finger to her nose and she sniffed. She looked all funny.
I knew right away that I was seeing something that a child shouldn't
see, so I sneaked away before my grandmother caught me.
    My grandmother looked old when I was a little girl. She was in her
mid-fifties. She was no where near as old as I am now. She had many
wrinkles and much grey hair, but her eyes twinkled and that didn't make
her seem as old as the ladies who were her friends. My mother and father
and I lived in her house until we moved out. Mother said we had to move.
    Mother cut her hair short. My father thought it was alright. I heard
him say that Mother was expressing herself. My grandmother told him: he
was crazy.
    The Saturday afternoon my mother came home with her hair cut short, I
was upstairs playing with my dolls. All of a sudden I heard hollering
coming from downstairs. I jumped. I wondered what was going on. My
grandmother's house usually was so quiet.
    My grandmother! I jumped again. I ran downstairs. I was a little girl
but I thought grandmother was in trouble and I ran to the sound of her
hollering. I got to the middle of the stairs before I stopped. I saw
grandmother standing in the middle of the front room hollering at my
mother. "What have you done to yourself! Lord have mercy! My daughter is
a boy!"
    When I saw my mother's hair I thought she looked hideous, and though
I just knew that grandmother would never let her, I was scared that she
might try to get mine cut too.
    Grandmother continued to holler and to scream so much that neighbors
came to house. Mother looked sick like she didn't know what to do with
herself. She went out of the house and stayed until my father returned
from work.
    It was eight o'clock when my parents returned. Grandmother and I had
eaten our supper and I was having a bath.  When I heard them, I grabbed
a towel, wrapped it around myself and went to the top of the stairs so
that I could listen.
    "To think I should raise a girl who would go around looking like a
man. Never in my life! " I overheard Grandmother shouting.
    Then it came out that my parents resented having to live in my
grandmother's house. My mother said that on the way back from my father's
job,  she and my father met with a real estate agent and that we were
moving out.
    "But what does that matter to you?" Mother said to Grandmother. "You
can live alone in this house of yours. Just think you won't have anyone
to nag and to nag, and to nag."
    "Where are you going? How far away are you going to move?"
Grandmother asked.
    "Oh my god, I'm sorry, mother. You will have to hire a car to drive
you to visit. The fare will be at least a whole fifty cents."
    "That far away," Grandmother said. She didn't say much else. She
started up the stairs for her room. I had to run to mine to keep her
from seeing me.
    That night I did not sleep well. I was awaken by noises, bumps and
groans. My grandmother made weird noises. She threw things around her
room. She mumbled out loud and she moaned.
    The next day we all went to church. Grandmother insisted that we all
ride together. Mother asked why. Normally, Mother, Grandmother and I left
first and Father joined us later for the main service.
    "We are going early to meet with the pastor to ask him to pray with
us. We are going to pray that you don't move out of this house."
    "Mama, why must you involve the pastor in this? You pray well on
your own. You pray for hours --"
    "I prayed all night," Grandmother interrupted Mother's smarty
remarks.
    "I heard you, " Mother said. "If you want something you pray for it.
I remember how hard you prayed that it would not rain on my wedding day,
once you found out that the Old Almanac called for rain. The invitations
had gone out and it was too late to change the date. Oh how you prayed!
You had done so much to make that day a success. You planned the whole
thing right down to the prayer the preacher prayed over me and my groom.
I think there is a catch in the God's promise to answer prayer. I don't
think for a minute that one will get what she wants that way, if what
she wants is for selfish reasons."
    "Are you saying that we shouldn't pray together?" Grandmother asked.
    "Mama, I'm saying, it rained and rained, and it rains."

    We went together to church. Grandmother was relieved that Mother wore
a hat. Still people stared. They could see Mother's short hair, and they
whispered, they mumbled, they talked. Before the services, we met briefly
with the pastor in his study and he said a short prayer with us. After
the services Grandmother went to my father's parents and told them that
my father was about to do something foolish. My grandfather on my
father's side took my father aside and made him promise not to do
anything foolish.
    My father said, "Getting our own place isn't foolish."
    My paternal grandfather asked, "How can you afford your own place?"
    My mother who was listening to them, like I was, went to Grandfather
and said with glee, "We're moving into a haunted house!"
    My grandfather looked cross at my father like he did when he thought
that my father was up to a silly business. My grandfather kept his voice
low. He didn't want to attract attention. As I watched my father and
grandfather talk I recalled an incident that occurred a year or so
before this, when I watched my grandfather yelling and screaming and
even shaking his fist during an argument with my father. I was very
small and was with my other grandmother in another room. I began to cry
and when I did my other grandmother told my grandfather to quit such
carrying-ons. As soon as she did he quit. Then and now, I think that a
lot of the noises and looks my grandfather made were put-ons for effect.
    My grandfather rolled his eyes. "A haunted house?"
    Mother being mother and so full of herself thought Grandfather's looks
were funny. She did a pretty good imitation of Grandfather rolling his
eyes which Grandfather pretended not to notice.
    Father smiled, said to Grandfather,  "The rent's cheap."
    "You are not going to take my grand daughter into a haunted house, "
Grandfather told him.
    "The house is not haunted, pop," Father said.
    Mother giggled.
    Grandfather looked stern. "Don't mock the supernatural, " he said.
    "Poppy!" my mother grinned.
    Grandfather said, "People who mock the supernatural are the first to
flee."
    "From what?" Mother laughed.
    "Just don't laugh!"
    Mother stopped, then she smirked, then she burst into a fit of merry
laughter. Grandfather looked angry. He could not continue to ignore that
she was mocking him. He glared at my father, who despite trying not to,
sunk into laughter. Grandfather stomped off. He walked over to my two
grandmothers and the three of them talked among themselves as to how
really silly my parents were. I tried not to show my true feelings. I
didn't want to take sides or to show favors, so I stood perfectly still
and natural and pleasant. I did what was expected of a little girl in
1923 while her parents and grandparents were talking.
_______________________________________________________________________

    We moved into the haunted house. It had just been renovated from
basement to roof. Old lumber was replaced with new. Floor beams and
joists were strengthen. New doors and windows were installed. The
whole house got two coats of fresh paint.
    Father said, "Aye, we owe so much to the ghosts. Old Man Sam had to
go into his pocket to get a tenant."
    There was no furniture in the house. We sat on the floor. I sat with
my back to the wall. "Ghosts, daddy?"
    Father smiled, put me on his lap, squeezed my arms and said, "You
don't believe in those foggy old tales of spirits?"
    All I heard since I knew that I was going to move into the haunted
house was talk of ghosts and of spiritual happenings. This talk was
scary. I overheard Grandmother talking with her friends about ghosts and
strange things and I was uneasy. The kids I played with easily frightened
me by telling stories of ghosts. In those days many people believed those
stories.
    Father said that he didn't believe in ghosts. "Do you think I
would have brought my baby girl here to live if those tales were true?"
    "I suppose not," I answered him.
    Mother shouted, laughing, "Look around, girl! Does this look like a
haunted house?"
    I mumbled, "Aunty Miller --"
    Mother cut me off, shouting, "Mrs. Miller!"
    I mumbled, "Aunty Miller . . ."
    Mother scowled. "That crow is no relative of yours or mine. She's
just my mother's friend, old 'mill dew' Miller."
    "Dear, I think the lady in question name is Mildrew Miller," Father
laughed.
    "That old sour-face," Mother stopped fussing and started giggling.
"Don't tell me, baby. She says that she knows spirits on a personal
basis!"
    I did not think Mrs. Miller was a joke. I considered her to be a
good and very serious lady. I replied to Mother, " Aunty Miller said --"
    Mother cut me short. She continued fussing and shouting until Father
asked her to stop. "You're upsetting the baby," he said.
    I was hugging onto him and trembling.
    Mother stopped shouting but not fussing. "I ought to go straight to
old lady Miller's house and tell her a thing or two."
    "What would you tell her?" Father asked, trying to calm Mother and
to show her the wisdom of forgetting about Mrs. Miller.
    "Mrs. Miller has no business telling my baby trunk that would
frighten her, " Mother said.
    Father said, "Our baby probably overheard Mrs. Miller talking to your
mother. Confronting Mrs. Miller isn't the thing to do."
    "Right," Mother said, getting calmer. "How can you shame a woman who
believes that she can visit with the spirits when ever she chooses."
                               ***

    The first night we slept on the floor. The three of us together on
the same pallet. No ghosts put in a appearance. I slept with one eye
open, peeping.  I woke several times to noises. In a large empty house
there were bound to be night noises. Every time I woke, my father was
awake too, or he woke-up after I lightly shook his arm. "Go back to
sleep, he said. "If this house was haunted, the ghosts have fled. I
don't think they could stand the smell of fresh paint."
    The second night we slept in beds. I slept with my parents in their
room. I slept with them that whole first month.
_______________________________________________________________________

    Mother furnished the house as nicely as she could. Grandmother
allowed us to take our beds and most of our bedroom furniture to the
house and she lent Mother sheets and pillow cases. Father was able to buy
on credit a kitchen table and chairs, chairs for the sitting room,
cooking and heating stoves, and  window drapes. Mother hung potted plants
in every room of the house and filled the living room with flowers giving
the place a fresh and airy atmosphere.

    One day I went outside, found three boys picking berries from the big
mulberry tree in the back yard. These boys were older than me, the
youngest one by two years. When they saw me they started to run. They
ran out of the yard and over the fence before they stopped. The oldest
boy of the three turned around and said, "She is nothing but a little
girl." They came back into the yard. The middle boy said, "Does she have
a nose bleed?"
    "No," the oldest boy said. I think he was the oldest. He was the
tallest and the leader.
    She lives in the haunted house, " the middle boy said. "The other
kids who lived there all got nose bleeds."
    "Her nose isn't bleeding."
    The boys stared at me.
    "I told you, it's okay," the oldest boy said. "They did something to
the house. It's haunted no more."
    "You sure?" the middle boy asked.
    "Look, this tree has the ripest mulberries in town and nothing messed
with them. You've never even saw a bird fly over here until after they
moved in."
    "The place isn't haunted," the middle boy said.
    Just then Mother came out the back door and the boys ran. "Oh, no,"
she said, "I didn't mean to frighten away your friends." She called to
the boys, "Hello, come back!"
    The three boys didn't come back.
________________________________________________________________________

    Two days later the oldest boy returned for more mulberries. He
brought a bag with him, and when I saw him in the yard, he was picking
berries. He ate most of the berries as soon as he got them off the tree.
I wasn't going to speak to him. I told Mother that one of the boys was
back in the yard, and she made me go outside.
    "Little One, it is unhealthy to be alone. You need to meet and play
with the neighbors' children, " she said.
    "But, he's ..." I protested.
    "I'm sure he has sisters closer to your age and suitable playmates.
Go out and talk with him. After a while I shall invite him in for cake
and soda pop."
    I went. I learned that his name was Bill. He told me that his two
chums names were Charlie and Eddie and that they wouldn't be coming back.
    "Charlie's pop saw him leaving here and threatened him with a
whipping. I told Charlie I would bring him some berries. Eddie don't
want to come back. He's afraid of your mum."
    I told him that my mother wanted to meet him.
    "Meet me? She knows I'm here?"
    "Yes."
    "Jeepers!" he looked like he was going to run, then he sighed
very loudly. "I'm not scared. My peoples don't let things frighten them.
I don't blame Charlie's pop though. Lots of people are afraid because of
what happened here. Charlie's pop's own brother was bitten by a snake
in this yard twenty years ago when the stuff started happening."
    I told him that there were no snakes in my yard. He said, "Not now.
But Charlie's uncle was bitten and every year on that date he was bitten,
his leg swells up and turns blue. I know this because Charlie's uncle
showed Charlie and me his leg a month ago, twenty years to the day he
was bitten. No normal snake's bite makes your leg act like that."
    The back window opened, Mother called to me, "Did you invite your
new friend in for soda pop and cake?"
    Bill jumped. I told him that if he was scared he should run before
she came outside. He said, "I'm not scared!"
    I told him that my mother would make him come inside and sit at the
table. He still said that he wasn't scared.
    "I have cake for you ready," Mother called to me again.
    I told Bill that I had to go. I started for the house without him.
Mother hurried from the window and out the door. She was half-way in
the yard in a brisk second. Bill looked like he rather had been
elsewhere. Looking back on it, I think he was too scared to show that
he was scared.

    A minute later, he was in the house, seated at our kitchen table.
Mother made me wash my hands before sitting down at the table. She
only asked Bill if his hands were clean. When he said they were, she
took his word. She looked at mine. I had just washed mine a little while
ago and I told her they were clean, but she made me wash my hands again
anyway.
    One of the pleasures of my childhood was eating Mother's cakes. I
enjoyed them. Bill enjoyed the cake. After eating half a piece and
washing it down with sips of soda pop, he looked relax. He started
talking. Mother never let me talk while I was chewing. She said a
thousand times that I was not to try to talk while anything was in my
mouth. Well, she didn't mind Bill talking with his mouth half filled. I
kept expecting her to say something to him, but she didn't.
    "You're nice," Bill told her. She smiled. "Thank you, Billy," she
said.
    "People are afraid and superstitious about coming in here, but not
me," he said.
    Mother smiled again, "You are a sensible boy."
    He grinned, he liked Mother's compliment.
    "You are the first neighbor to come for a visit," Mother told
him.
    He said, "Most people around here are just scared. I know because I
heard them talk. They said a couple coats of paint won't change a
thing."
    Mother looked cross. "Mercy, why must they frighten children!"
    "I am not frighten," Bill said.
    Mother smiled. "You are a brave boy."
    "I am," Bill said immodestly.
    Mother smiled, laughed a little.
    Bill said,  "Some people think they are going to get sick and die,
if they come too close to this house. But this house is not like it use
to be. There are nice people living here. The house looks good. There
was an old lady who lived across the street from me. She told everybody
that she had a dream about this house and that she was going to die.
Well, pop said, she was one stupid woman."
    Mother laughed. "I would like to meet your family."
    "Well, the old lady died," Bill said. "But that was before you fixed
up the house and moved in."
    Mother said, "This house had nothing to do with an old lady dying.
Old people die."
    "I know that ma'am. My pop don't believe in superstition, that's why
he's never threatened to tan me for coming over here. But he said he
heard a dog howling in this yard."
    Mother said, "Maybe the previous tenants had a dog."
    "They didn't have a dog," Bill said. "On the night the old lady died,
the wind wailed so loud that it woke me up. I couldn't go back to sleep.
All night long people said they heard owls hooting."
    "Sure, all from this yard?" Mother shook her head.
    "I don't know. People get scare about things like that ..."
    Bill went on talking about spooky stuff. Mother tried to shift Bill's
thinking to something more cheerful and could not. Everytime she asked
him about his family, his answer led him to talking about the neighbors'
superstitions. Finally, she gave up. She let him finish his cake without
interruption.  He left after returning to the yard and filling a brown
bag with berries.
    After he was gone Mother said to me, "I don't like that boy." She
later told me that he looked like a little undertaker.  I told her, he
thought that ghostly spirits had cut her hair short. Mother didn't like
what he said, and she said that she liked him even less.

_______________________________________________________________________

    Every day or two the boy came to the yard and picked a bag of
berries. I told Mother and she told me to leave him alone. I did. He
came and went and neither Mother nor I said anything to him. He was
quiet. He always came alone and he didn't disturb anything. One day,
while Mother and I were in the front of the house, he knocked on the
back door as hard as you pleased. Mother went to the door to tell him to
stop. He came rushing into the house. His face was blue.
    "There's conjuring stuff on your roof!" he said, talking like he was
so scared and nearly out of breath. "Witchcraft! Somebody's out to get
you! You've got to do something about it!"
    Mother laughed. She told him that her family did not believe in
witchcraft and there was no such thing as magic, or ghosts or conjuring.
    "I saw it!" he said. "I climbed the tree to get more berries and
I saw it!"
    Mother wouldn't stand still for him screaming about black magic in
her house. She told him to go home. She took his arm and push him out the
door. Mother just managed to get the door closed without striking his
foot or his arm. He stood in the yard and yelled that he had to warn us.
Mother yelled back, "You've warned us! Now, little boy, go home!" After
that he left. Mother looked at me, I was very quiet. She said, "I hope
that bad boy didn't upset my baby."
    I shook my head. Mother hugged me. "That's my big girl," she said.

    That evening when we sat down at the kitchen table to supper, Mother
and I and Father, we heard a noise in the back of the house on the roof.
Father went to see see what it was. He caught the boy, Bill. He had
climbed on the roof. Father yelled at him and told him to get down. He
climbed down. He looked sick.
    Father yelled at him some more. "What are you, a monkey!?"
    "No, sir," Bill answered respectfully.
    Mother told me to stay in the kitchen. She went into the yard. "It's
that darned boy," she told Father.
    "What were you doing up there?" Father asked Bill. Father stopped
yelling.
    "To take the conjuring stuff down," he said.
    "Conjuring stuff?" Father looked puzzled. Mother explained to Father.
She told him about the boy and what he had said that afternoon. Father
smiled at Bill. "My family doesn't put any stock in conjuring, but you
must like my wife and daughter a lot to risk climbing on a roof without
a ladder."
    "I tried not to think of it, but it troubled me and the more I tried
not to think on it, the worse it troubled me, until I had to come and
take it down," Bill replied.
    Father said, "I guess it wouldn't do any good for me to take you home
to your father, would it?"
    Bill shook his head, "Since he knows I come here, he won't mind, but
I don't think he wants me handing conjuring stuff."
    "He might take a stick to you?" Father asked.
    Bill didn't answer. Father said, "I don't know what started you
coming here, but I think you should stop."
    Bill nodded. "I feel better now that I got the conjuring stuff off
your roof."
    "Then this is the last time we are going to see you here?" Father
asked.
    "Okay, sir. But I think you need somebody to check out the rest of
your house. When you find one bag of conjuring stuff there usually are
other bags hidden around."
    "Listen, if you come here again, I may take a stick to you myself,
 do you hear?"
    "I hear, mister."
    "Good."
    "May I go now, mister?"
    Father told him he could leave. As Bill started to go Mother saw
that he had something in his hand. She made him open it and found a
little brown cloth bag no bigger than a child's palm. He didn't want
to show it. He said that it was full of bad magic. He said, "I'm going
to take it to my old granny so that she can burn it."
    Father said, "You do that, just go. Go!"
    Bill started to go.
    "Run!" Father yelled at him.
    Bill ran.
    Father said to Mother. "Such foolishness."
    Mother agreed and we went back to supper.
________________________________________________________________________

    That night the haunting returned to the house. When I went to bed the
house was very quiet. We lived quietly anyway. My parents never had any
people visiting. We lived too far from Grandmother and from their and my
friends. This night the house was quieter than usual. Normally, before I
fell asleep, I would hear the phonograph playing softly and my parents
laughing. This night everything was so quiet that I didn't hear them. I
thought nothing of this. I went off to sleep.
    I woke up with a jolt. Mother's face was as white as a sheet and
she was screaming at me and carrying on. At first, I didn't understand
her. I thought I was dreaming this. Then she started shaking me and
pulling me out of bed. She picked me up and carried me downstairs -- she
running.
    "Mama!" I cried. I was waking up. She had me scared. She ran with me
to the front door.  "Mama!"
    She yelled at me to keep still. We ran outside in the front yard. We
both only had on our bed clothes. I didn't see Father. I didn't know what
was wrong and I was very frighten.
    A minute later, Father came flying out of the house through the front
door like somebody had thrown him out. You know how people get thrown
out of saloons in cowboy movies. Father came flying out like that. He
fell a yard from where Mother and I stood. His face was all cut up. He
was bleeding. He lay still. He was knocked out, but I think Mother
thought he was dead. She started screaming and crying, and so did I.
Nobody came to help us.  Mother and I stayed on the front yard crying
until the sun came up the next morning. Father started moaning and only
then were we sure that he wasn't dead. Mother and I hugged him. Mother
started to pray. After a while Father came around. His face didn't look
cut up so bad. He had stopped bleeding. He was in his night clothes like
us and after he sat up, he said that we had better get dressed in some
clothes. Mother said that she didn't want any part of going back in the
house and she didn't want Father to go either. Father went, cautiously,
praying, carrying a stick that he broke off a branch from the tree in
the front yard. He went because he said we were all half-naked. We had
to put on some clothes and no one but ourselves were going to help us.
Mother tried to keep him from going even after he had said all of that.
She grabbed and held on to his arm, and only let go after he told her
for the thousandth time that he was doing what he had to do: he was the
grown-up, the man, it was his duty to handle this. I held on to his
leg until Mother told me to let Father do what fathers had to do, and
until she grabbed and held me.
    Father was in the house a long time, a very long time. How long?
Maybe five minutes. To a child five minutes make a long time; to a
frighten child, a minute is forever.  While Father seemed to have been
gone in the house forever, the boy, Bill returned. Mother did not send
him away, because she was glad to see that somebody had come to see
about us and with Bill was his grandmother, who Mother recognized as
one of the ladies Grandmother knew. Mother started at Bill's grandmother
like Mother was in shock.
    "I hope I'm not too late," Bill's grandmother said. She told Bill,
"Quick, honey, put the pouch back!"
    "Yes, ma'am," Bill scampered off around back.
    She smiled at me. "Hello, I'm Aunt Lu."
    "What are you doing here?" Mother asked. Mother finally had found
her voice.
    "You know how mothers are. Yours care so much about you," Bill's
grandmother said. She looked at me and smiled, "She loves you too."
    Mother said, crossly,  "What does my mother have to do with you
being here?"
    "What happened here last night?" Bill's grandmother asked.
    "Oh, I see. I see clearly now. So, my mother hired you to scare us
out? So that we would run back home to mother bear like three scared
little bears? We are making it on our own. We haven't fallen on our
faces. She can't have that! "
    "No."
    "No? I can put things together, you know. My mother and her spooky
friends. She would go to any length to have her way."
    "No, honey, that's not what happened. Now, you know better than to
think that."
    "Why? I grew up calling you, Auntie Lu, and you did this to me?
Scared my baby! I can never forgive you for that. How could you?"
    Just then Bill started to yell for his grandmother. He came running
from around back of the house. Father was chasing him with the stick.
    "Granny!" Bill ran and hid behind his grandmother.
    Father shouted at Bill's grandmother, "Does this monkey belong to
 you!"
    Mother told Father that Grandmother hired Bill's grandmother to scare
us into returning to her house.
    "Darn!" Father cursed. He told Bill's grandmother to get herself and
her grand son off his property.
    Bill said to his grandmother. "We can't go yet. I haven't put the
pouch back. He stopped me before I could."
    "Oh, no!" Bill's grandmother said.
    "You better start get going," Father told them.
    "Wait. Cool your irons and listen to me a second, will you?" Bill's
mother asked Father.
    Father scowled. His scowl was as angry as Mother's, but he held
his temper while Bill's grandmother spoke.
    "I've been teaching my grand baby the things he needs to know. He
thought that somebody was calling bad luck to your house. Not so,
somebody put a wall around your house to keep out the bad." She asked
Bill for the pouch. She showed it to Father. "This was on your back roof.
There are bags of charms like this under your house, around back and
under your front step, and on the top of your window-sills."
    Father interrupted, "Take that and burn it, witch."
    Father's remark upset Bill's grandmother, but it didn't caused her
to be angry with him. She said to Father, "Take this and return it to the
roof. Please."
    "I'm going to get the police on you. You have a bunch of thuggish
boys, don't you? Had them come here and do these tricks?" Father said.
    "No," Bill's grandmother seemed very alarmed.
    Bill did too, he said to Father, "Don't send for the police. If my
pop found out that granny is teaching me conjuring, he will have a fit."
Bill told his granny, "We better go."
    Bill's grandmother said, "Yes." She handed the brown pouch to
Father. Father let the pouch drop to the ground.
    "Please, put it back on your roof," she said.
________________________________________________________________________

    Mother led us back into the house. She and Father talked of having
Bill's grandmother and her sons charged. They talked of having Bill sent
to reform school and of suing Grandmother!
    Mother made breakfast and I started to relax and to feel better after
we sat down at the kitchen table. Mother and Father began to describe a
little of what exactly had happened. As they did I got the feeling that
they really didn't believe that Bill's grandmother and her sons could
have done all that happened. I guess they were too mad with Grandmother
to think clearly.  Of course, they were modern, rational people and could
not believe in the supernatural.
    Father did not go to work. He spent the day nursing the scratches and
bruises on his body and on securing the house. He nailed every window
shut. He made put a bar across the back door and made one for the front.

    I slept in my parents' bed that night. Father stayed up and Mother
sat with him until she started falling asleep and laid down besides me.
I heard Father telling her that she should go on to sleep, he didn't
expect a return visit from Aunt Lu's boys.
    The house was quiet for a while, then I heard this noise. I shot up
in bed. Father was up. He told me to lay back down. I had only heard a
wind. I laid down. Father went to check all the windows in the house.
The house was quiet for a little while, then I heard a noise up on the
roof. It sounded like some one was walking around up there. Father
got up from his chair. Later, I learned that he went to the upstairs
back window. The window was still nailed shut. He saw no one prowling
about outside the window. He checked the back door. It was locked and
secured with a strong bar. Father went to check the front door.
    While Father was downstairs, I heard a squeaking noise in the
ceiling. This noise got louder. Then I saw this ghost. The first ghost
I had ever seen, peeping down from the ceiling at me. I think the
ghost thought I was sleeping. I was laying down and I had my eyes
closed. But I was peeping. I was laying down because when Father
returned from checking the house I didn't want him to think I was
afraid. I didn't expect a ghost. I lay still. I didn't want it to know
that I was wake. The ghost didn't look the way I'd seen ghosts look in
a book, like a person with a sheet thrown over them. This ghost looked
like a lady with a very white face, and she floated in the air. The
funny thing was, I wasn't afraid a bit. Well, while I was peeping at
the ghost, she floated down and sat in Father's chair and then started
to say something to me. She knew I was awake. She said, you can't fool a
ghost no more than you can fool yourself.  Then the ghost floated back
up out of the ceiling. She disappeared. When Father came back upstairs,
I tried to tell him about her, but he told me to be still and not to
wake up Mother. After that he told me to come with him downstairs. When
we got down stairs, he asked what I had seen, and I told him. He said
that I couldn't have seen a ghost because ghosts don't talk, they just
make a lot of noise. He said the ghost I thought I saw was in my head.
Then he unbarred the front door and went out to the front yard and had
me wait close to him while he looked for the "trunk" that  Aunt Lu
dropped. Of course when I got old enough to figure things out for
myself, I  decided that Father had seen the ghost too. When he was
downstairs, the ghost must have said something to him.
    I think Mother would have died if she had known that a ghost had
spoken to me. Father made me promise not to tell Mother any thing about
what he said I thought I'd seen. Father found the little brown pouch and
had me follow him around back. He got the ladder from the shed and
climbed to the roof where he put the pouch back where some conjuring
body had placed it. After that was done, we went in the house and went
to sleep.
    We never had anymore problems with ghosts. We lived in the house
two years. Father invited Bill and his grandmother to the house. At
first, Mother couldn't believe he did such a thing. He told her, Aunt Lu
was a well-meaning old lady and old family friend, and the only person
who lived near us that they knew. Mother accepted this explanation. She
knew Father was a good and a forgiving man. Shortly afterwards,
Grandmother visited. She stayed with us for two days. Before going home,
she told Mother that the house was clean and it smelled fresh. This
pleased Mother very much.
    It seemed that our presence in the house and the fixing-up of it that
was done before we moved in, had rid the house of ghosts, and the house
was no longer seen as a haunted house by the neighbors. I was invited to
children's houses to play and Mother and Father were invited to the
neighbors' homes, but few people came to our house other than Bill and
Aunt Lu.
    After living in the house for two years we had to moved. The owner
either wanted Father to give the house back or to pay a much higher rent,
nearly three times what he was paying. Mother was very disappointed.
Father could not afford to rent another house. We had to move back in
with Grandmother. Mother accused Grandmother of somehow influencing the
house owner. But that wasn't true. Mr. Flowers had fallen on bad times.
His businesses were failing and he needed the higher rents. In fact, Mr.
Flowers' fortunes fell so low, that he moved into the house after we
left. He lived there six months.  After six months, he blew his brains
out with a gun. Most people said he was so depressed over losing his
businesses. Some people said the ghosts returned and got him.

                             END