CHAPTER VI.
THE GHOSTS TELL STORIES, AND COMPARE NOTES
At this moment another ghost came up and joined in the conversation and said impressively: "Young gentleman, you are having the most remarkable experience of your life. You want to see all you can, for probably never before did man come down and see the dead as they really are—before they get their passports. Certainly some live persons do come down occasionally, but they do not count, for they are only those who are buried alive, and they do not get out, as they do not as a rule live long. All these ghosts are dead of body, but are not sufficiently purified in soul to go free from the hindrance of bones. So they all, men and women alike, are burdened with many of their old characteristics, and in many ways they act much as they did during life. Indeed, it has seemed to me that it may be quite possible that the repetition of their least pleasant characteristics here is a sort of punishment, and—well, all this will doubtless strike you as different from what you had imagined. It shall be my pleasant task to tell you anything you may wish to know so far as it lies in my power."
"I should like to know very much whether you ever want to see your families, and how you manage to see them, and how it is that you seem to know everything that goes on above ground."
"We lie here in the dark alone, for except for this one night in the year our bones are imprisoned in our coffins, or wherever we lie, if, as many of us have no coffins to lie in. That silence and isolation naturally creates a necessity for thought, concentrated and intense. This thought is most often connected with those whom we have left, and with whom we have been the most closely associated in life, and so the thought becomes desire. Thoughts are things, and they crystallize into a vehicle for our transportation to wherever we wish to go. We then become in a measure disassociated from the material part of ourselves, and the freed spirit can go where it will, and as it retains its ego, it is as a general rule anything but pleasant to go and hover around places and persons we have left. Sometimes it has occurred to me that some of our punishment was thus intended.
"In my life I was one of that kind of men that thought the world could not go on without me, and I was sure that my death would leave a void that never could be filled. And, above all, I thought that all my well-laid plans for the benefit of my family would be allowed to relapse into confusion. All I ever did for my family was to advise them, and the only real benefit I ever conferred upon them was by dying, so that they could collect the insurance I had placed on my life. Well, I have since been obliged to float around in space, unnoticed and unheard, and probably unremembered, while things were being done which would have had no approbation from me, and they came out right after all. I am obliged to admit that my family and the world at large have gained by my death. Yet I was a very religious man and was class leader in church, and always had prayers every morning before breakfast. I am ashamed to tell you the epitaph they put on my stone, but I must admit in the light of what I know now I deserved much worse."
"I should like very much to know what it was," said the reporter eagerly.
"Very well; I will repeat it, leaving out the 'here lies,' etc.: 'He gave Each day to Almighty God, advice of considerable worth; But his wife Took in sewing to keep him going, While he superintended the earth.'"
"But it is much when you get to such a point that you see what were your shortcomings in the upper world." "How much of it is out?" said another ghost who was standing by interested in this recital.
"Oh, you know that is truth and so is easy."
"I suppose we all have shortcomings against our record when it comes to count all the things we did and didn’t do to our wives. We seemed to think that when we had married a woman there was nothing further to do to make her happy, and the better and more willing she was the more we imposed upon her. I was rather bossy myself, and I thought as you did that this world could not get along without me, and I guess I must have carried my bossiness a little too far. One morning Marinthy was tired of it and fixed a plan that made me a little ashamed, for the time. She slipped out of bed before daylight and set all the clocks ahead four hours and then rang the dinner bell and when the family had all gathered she told them that she did not know what was going to happen now, for their father had forgotten to tell the Lord that it was time for the sun to rise."
“I found her sitting at the piano”
"You are not the only one to have a rise taken out of you, for I had a little of that sort of experience myself," said another ghost with a very long under jaw. "I, too, liked to lay down the law for all my family to obey. My wife was generally a meek little soul, and never questioned my right to order even the most trifling things. But, at last she revolted and one day during protracted meetings when two clergymen and the vestryman of our church were at my house to dinner and we were all in the parlor waiting for it to be ready, she opened the door half way and crept timidly into the parlor, with a meek and browbeaten air, and asked permission of me to breathe through her mouth as her nose was stopped up."
Everybody within hearing laughed at this, but the ghost who had told it, and he glared at the first speaker, but they happened to think of something else and calmed down. One of them turned to the reporter, saying: "Is there anything that you would like to know more than we have told you?"
"Yes; you said that you could float around and see all that is going on. I should like to know if any one of your friends feels or in any way recognizes your presence?"
"They do not. We are intangible and invisible, and there is nothing to show them that we are there, and the most ridiculous side of it is that every one would be scared nearly to death if he or she knew that there was a spirit in the room. Then is the time that they need have the least fear, for there is nothing of us that could do the least possible harm."
"Are there no persons whose natures are so attuned to the spiritual life that they can see you or feel your presence, and keep silent?"
"If there is one I do not know him or her, and frankly, I do not think that any one ever saw a spirit. There is nothing to see. As to the return of disembodied spirits to their old habitations, that is certainly true, but no one knows it or can know it, and so it does no harm and no special good."
Here the first speaker took up the question and said: "I believe that we can influence some dreams by entering into the mind of one who sleeps and is therefore in a measure free from all earthly thrall save life itself. I know that three times I have been able to enter into the mind of my daughter in her sleep, and I have impressed her so that she has shown clearly that she recognizes my direction. But her case is a peculiar one, as she is one whose mind is absorbed to a degree by her work so that every waking thought is occupied with it and she elects to be alone as much as she can. Being thus removed from most outside influences and having no distractions aside from her own thoughts, and having what one might define as an indwelling nature, as well as a highly sensitive organization, she has become almost like a sensitized photographic plate, only it is in her brain that she receives these unconscious impressions in her sleep. When she awakens she believes she has dreamed, but the impression is so strong that she obeys the line of conduct laid out for her in this way. She feels somehow that it is from me that the direction comes, and acts on it. But, from all that I have heard this is an exceptional case."
"I think so, too," said the other ghost, "and now you know as much about that as we do. We are but the bones and a few ligaments, and we are waiting until such time as may suit the Master to give us release, and move us to whatever sphere of existence He may choose."
At this moment a ghost stepped up and said in a brisk way, as though he belonged to a newer and more active age: "Gentlemen," here he bowed to the newspaper man, and then right and left, "what these gentlemen have said is quite true, as my own experience will show, and if this gentleman wishes I will tell my own story." The young man bowed and said that he certainly should like to hear it, so the ghost said:
"That we can come out of our mouldering bodies and hover unseen about our own homes is so. About six months after I was dead I was seized with the most intense longing to go to my house. I have been dead but a comparatively short time. I had been married but about two years and naturally hated to leave my young wife. But—well—we are not always free agents in these cases and must die when our time comes. I was run over by a cable car," he added as he saw that all near by seemed to be interested, and particularly the young man. "I was killed soon after the Spanish war broke out. I did not want to go as a volunteer and risk being shot and killed. I had a good business all my own and a nice little home all paid for, and I had every reason to wish to live. My wife thought I ought to leave all that and strike for glory. I tried to make her see that glory does not go to the unit, but to the officers in command, but it was no use, she kept it up. I could not go anywhere without hearing bands of music and seeing soldiers, and at last it annoyed me so that I would take any chance to avoid it. And, that is just how I came to be killed. I started to cross a street when one car was coming up and another going down, I never did know just how it happened, but the wheels went over my neck. You may notice how loose it is."
"What did you do? How did you feel? When did you know that you were dead? Or did you know nothing until they got you out?" began the reporter breathlessly, for somehow this accident appealed to him in an unusually strong way.
"I knew as soon as I was out of my body. I watched them lift the car with jacks to get me out. I felt so mad that anger swallowed up every other sensation to think I had let myself be killed in this senseless way. But it was no use. I followed along and was in the house ahead of my body, and found Mary sitting there surrounded with half a dozen scarehead newspapers around her reading about the war. They brought my body in, and you never saw such heartrending grief. I felt sorry for her, but I could do nothing. She sobbed and moaned and screamed with hysterics, and it took four persons to hold her. Of course it was a shock, I admit that, but it need not have made her such an idiot."
"I think her grief quite natural," said the reporter.
"Of course, of course. But wait till I tell you the rest. They sent for an undertaker, one of the swell ones. Common funerals are out of date now, or you would have thought so had you heard him talk. Honey from Hymettus was not sweeter than his sympathy, and oil from the olive groves of Italy was not so smooth as his tongue. He was so gentle and suggestive in his consolatory words that before the poor girl understood she had given him carte blanche to have a funeral such as should show the proper amount of respect for the dead and her uncontrollable grief. Oh, yes; everything must be such as would pour balm into that broken heart. She had never wanted anything during my life, and she knew absolutely nothing about business, so that glib fellow just turned her around his finger. The funeral must be in church. That meant the music and preacher to pay besides all the other things. There must be palms all down the aisle, and floral pieces. I must be embalmed. Well—I hope he may be obliged to float helplessly around and see some other fellow embalm him. And I hope it may be a business rival! My coffin was the finest, copper-lined, with silver handles and plate-glass top. And she agreed to it all without asking the price. She did not know enough.
"Well, I suppose I ought to feel flattered about it, but I don't. No, sir! And then the grave. The highest priced lot was chosen by that wily undertaker, and the grave dug. An awning was stretched over it, and all the earth that came out was sifted so that it should fall lightly without that sickening thud that we hear when the clods strike the coffin. Folding chairs were there for the mourners, and iced vichy for those who were thirsty. Carriages were provided for every Tom, Dick and Harry that wanted to have a free ride. My wife was the only mourner, for we neither had any relatives. But, my employees were there, and every comfort was provided for them. I am telling you this to show how women are imposed upon. Why the crape upon the door was a yard wide and twice as long. The undertaker made his strong point always saying that nothing less would be showing the proper respect. And my own dress suit that I hadn't worn but three times was not good enough, and so he went and put another on and charged her a hundred dollars extra.
"While he was doing this my wife had let her friends go to the swellest store in the city and order her mourning. They did not have to pay for it themselves, and it felt important to be ordering the best. Nothing short of the finest and richest Eudora cloth was good enough for the dress, and this had to be almost covered with the heaviest Courtauld crape, like those worn for court mourning abroad, and among the smart set here. Her bonnet had a little roll of white in front to show that she was a widow, and there was veil of the crape over the bonnet that reached the feet back and front, and was reefed up in a deep fold or hem or whatever they call it. Then there were gloves and black bordered handkerchiefs, and dull black jewelry, and to top off with a long sealskin coat. They told her that was the fashionable fur, for mourning, and it was better to get a good one while she was about it, as it would always be useful. They paid eight hundred dollars for that!
"What is the use talking any more about it. She paid her respects to the dead in the same kind of clothes the millionaires wear, but it took the house and lot to pay for them, and crippled the business besides. That undertaker soaked her for three thousand dollars, and took a mortgage on the house and furniture to pay, and the business went to the dogs in less than six months. I used to go up and hover around and try to infuse a little sense into her head, but it was no use. I don’t go there any more."
This last was said with such evident dejection that the reporter asked sympathetically why he had ceased his visits.
"Well, it is this way. One evening about six months after my death, as I was saying, I went there and found her sitting at the piano and playing softly and talking between bars to a young woman whom I had never liked. She was really the principal one to lead Mary on in her fatal extravagance.
"From her conversation I found that the mortgage was to be foreclosed the next week. The business was at its last gasp, and I thought she seemed more cheerful than circumstances warranted. Well, to make a long story short she was telling her friend that she was engaged to marry a captain in the army and that as soon as her year and day was finished they would be married and go to Porto Rico where he was to be stationed. Well, sir, I was so mad that I did not know what to do. All I could do was to stand there behind the piano and listen to their gabble. I never went back again. I don’t care if she has to take in washing to support him. Now, wouldn't that make your hair curl?"
"I certainly think it would," replied the newspaper man earnestly. Just then a small sized ghost stepped forward timidly and in a very polite manner bowing and signifying that he did not wish to intrude, yet had something to say. Several were gathered there and each evidently intended to tell the story of his own taking off.
"Sir," said the little man as soon as he saw that the reporter noticed him, "perhaps you might feel interested in the singular way in which I came to die. I may almost say that I did another man’s dying for him."
"It would be very interesting, I am sure," replied the young man with a bow. This ghost had a heavy manzanita cane with abundant evidence of the hard knotty roots at the knob, and they were so very sharp that the simple appearance of it was quite enough to provoke interest in the story, so the little ghost heaved a deep sigh and began:
"I will make my story as short as possible, as time presses. I was a young man in the best of health, when some forty-five years ago I started to California to make my fortune. I intended to start a jewelry store in one of the mining towns, in fact Murphy's Camp, a place well known then as it is now. Some of the story I did not know myself at the time of my death, though I learned it since and will incorporate it in this.
"The people of that part of the country liked to play practical jokes on strangers—I was a stranger—and they took me in. The stage driver and all the passengers set out to frighten me with the most blood-curdling tales of the way travelers were robbed and murdered for their money or belongings. As I had all my stock with me I felt very nervous. I did not know that all this was what they called 'Joshing green horns.' So by the time we reached Murphy's I was scared all the way through.
"We reached there just at sundown, and as soon as supper was over I went to my room and to bed. I was very tired. This room was partitioned off with redwood boards and was not even papered. There was just room for a narrow bed, a small stand and one chair. I put all my things under the bed, but I lay awake a long time, on account of strange mutterings and moans and cries in one of the rooms. But at last I fell asleep.
"I must now tell you what I learned afterward regarding the affair. I was an Englishman, small in size, and my hair was red and very curly. There was in this town another English jeweler, small and with curling red hair. He had had typhoid fever for several days and it was his delirious moans I heard.
"All the miners of this place gathered every evening at the barroom of this hotel, at the time of which I speak, to pass the time and play cards. Sometimes they remained until morning. The driver of the coach was an enormous man, strong as an ox, and as good-natured. He was a regular fanatic about the game they call poker, and they say he would play forty-eight hours on a stretch. They tell a story about how he and another poker fiend kept on playing once till their cards began to smoke before they knew the place was on fire.
"Seeing that this driver was settled for the night the hotel keeper asked him if he would do something for him. 'Certainly, what is it?' The other replied that the little English jeweler was very sick, and that he was worn out taking care of him. So he asked the driver to give the sick man his medicine at exactly three o'clock. The driver was always willing to do anyone a good turn, and asked about the dose, and how to prepare it, saying at the same time that the little Englishman must have been taken very suddenly. The landlord replied that he had indeed and was scarcely expected to pull through, and that all depended on his getting his medicine regularly. 'And, he will tell you that he isn’t sick, and don't want any medicine, and all that, but you must make him take it.'
"'All right,' replied the driver, 'I'll see that he takes it. You go to bed.' They played and smoked until three o'clock, and then the big driver mixed up the draught in a big spoon, and taking a candle he came up the stairs. He forgot about the other Englishman, and asked the porter where the little Englishman was that had come up that day. The sleepy porter told him where my room was. Now I can tell the rest from my own knowledge. I was suddenly aroused from my sleep to see an enormous form standing beside my bed, outlined by the flickering candle on the stand, and naturally my first thought was that I was about to be robbed and murdered, perhaps murdered first. I called out to know who it was and the big figure said:
"'You keep still now, and don’t get excited. No one is going to hurt you, so just take this now, and then lie down and go to sleep. It won't hurt you.'
"I was sure now that I was going to be drugged into insensibility and I told him that I would take nothing. He said:
"'Now don't you fash yourself, but take this medicine, It will do you good and is not bad to take, all stirred up with molasses.'
"'But I won't touch it,' I cried; 'you want to drug me and rob me. Get out of here.' As I said that I pushed him away with all my strength, but he just put his great hand around my neck and jerked me up in bed, saying:
"'Ah, I knew you would say that. Now come on and no more nonsense.' With that he jammed the spoon down my throat and choked me with the other hand so that I had to swallow or strangle. So I took his dose, and he let me go, and laid me down in bed again like a baby, but I think I fainted, for I knew nothing more until the daylight was streaming in the window. I found all my things untouched, but I felt awfully ill, and could scarcely get up. But I determined to leave, if they would let me, as soon as I could get away. When I did get down stairs everybody had heard of the affair and they began to make fun of me. I took passage back to Stockton, but I felt very queer. I took cold and died in about six weeks, and the other Englishman got well. The shock and the awful dose combined with the cold I took finished me up. What made me the maddest of all was that the doctor I had in Stockton was some kind of a foreigner, and he could not write English. So, my death was written down as having been caused by 'Gallumpin consumpsin'."
The whole assemblage of ghosts who were listening to this tale of woe agreed that death sometimes has sharper stings than we know. The ghosts with whom the newspaper man had been talking before this interruption now gathered around him again and he thought that probably now was his chance to learn something of the question so often mentioned of "getting the passports." That there was to be a move onward toward some desired goal he felt sure and at the risk of seeming importunate he asked of the nearest one:
"Sir, is it permitted you to give me any information regarding the next move onward, or upward, or whatever you call it, or what you mean when you speak of your passports? I need not tell you how much I desire to understand this."
"My dear sir, you know as much about it as we do. We all dread it while we still desire it sincerely. We dread it because we do not know what it will be, but on the other hand we wish the change, hoping that it will be a step toward better things. There are some reasons of which we prefer not to speak, why we would welcome a change. Anyone who pretends to know more than this is a liar. You see we use strong words down here, for truth is a fundamental principle of life after death, and we are trying to practice it."
"And you might add," said one of the ghosts who had been talking when the man told of his sudden taking off and his grievance against the undertaker. "You might add that no spirit would or could harm anyone, for in the first place he has not the power, and secondly he thinks more of trying to undo the evil he did in lifetime than to do more,"
"Just one thing more I should like to ask, and that is if there is ever any kind of religious service or observance down here?"
The newspaper man was growing bolder as he became better acquainted with the ghosts, and had the welcome assurance that they would not harm him.
"There is no religion as you have been taught to consider it in any of the underground places," replied the ghost. "It will surprise some of the preachers when they come down to learn even the little we know. They preach one thing, but when they get here they will find that truth in all things, love to your neighbor, and charity to all is all that is required of us, and I believe all that is essential to give us a chance to work out our own salvation."
"And for punishment? Is there a hell as we have been taught? And, what must we do to be saved? Must we join some church, and if so what one?"
They had evidently found the buffet.
"All churches lead to one goal. As it is, the One who created us has given us all a chance to work out our own salvation after we are dead. We can go on being ghosts, which means unredeemed souls for a few million years and redeem ourselves. But it is hard—very hard—to overcome our sins and weaknesses. As near as I can make it out there is a constant advance toward perfection in everything. It began uncounted millions of years ago, and will continue to all eternity. Evolution, the survival of the fittest, and all those things have truth for foundation, though the men who have been the ones to advance those theories have but the faintest glimmering of the truth. But I think from all I have seen and heard that Hell is that period of our existence while we are still chained to existence, obliged to know all that goes on without power to hinder or help. I used to preach other theology when I was a bishop, but I see things now with my spiritual instead of earthly eyes. I think I may say that this short life as men and women, is fraught with more meaning than any of our previous existences in different forms—for in this life we have been pretty nearly free agents—and a pretty mess we have made of it all. We shall have a chance to progress to higher—meaning better—conditions when we shall be sufficiently purified, or at least I hope so."
"And, is there no special punishment, like frying in a cauldron of boiling pitch and things like that?" asked the young man somewhat anxiously, thinking at the same time of Dante's Inferno, which he had just been reading.
"No, but there are such things as moral suffering, and one thing came to my knowledge to-day. This is what one might call poetic justice, and it would be comic if it were not so tragic. It is this; all the women who have deliberately and with intention shirked the cares of maternity while alive, are obliged to take care of the children of the poor overworked women whose quivers were full of them on earth. There is a kind of heavenly kindergarten, but the labors of these nurses and teachers are quite as hard as were those of the poor mothers, and the unaccustomed and often unpleasant labor is enough to make any poor rich woman shed tears of rage and worry—that is, if it were a possible thing for a ghost to cry—for the source of their tears is dried up forever. I heard one woman say that she would give one million years of heaven if she could only have one good cry."
"So then there is none of that weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth that we read about and have dinned into our ears ever since we could hear, and long before we could understood?"
"No; but don’t think that you can do wrong with impunity. Ex fatoris, is the law, and it is always enforced in one way or another. But, we are here to-night to enjoy ourselves as well as the nature of the occasion will permit. Each has full permission to follow his or her own inclinations, and—well—some of them seem to forget that they are adding to their own term of detention. We have been talking on subjects usually avoided by people on pleasure bent, and I should not have said so much only that I hope it may do some good directly or indirectly. The music will soon begin to play for those who wish to dance, and after that we shall have a short convention, where some important questions will be discussed with a view to interest the living public in our needs and complaints."
"Before you leave me," said the young man hurriedly, "I beg you to tell me where the children are. I have not seen one, and I know that there are many buried right here and others in St. Paul's, and in all other cemeteries in the city."
"Children are never put under the same conditions as ours, and they are taken at once to an intermediate place and classed off, according to their ages, and they are happy in their own way. They are not allowed to remember anything about their previous existence. They are never enlightened as to the world and its miseries, and no one knows that it had parents or pain. They are all equal, and all are ignorant of sin or its punishment. They always remain little children. In short, all and every one who has not yet reached a state of sinlessness must pass through a period of purification, which I may say is purely mental, and only the Master knows how long or short it will be. Some that we thought would have to stay millions of years underground have all gone on long ago. Others who bore the very odor of sanctity are here yet. The Master has given every one a chance to save himself, each after his kind. I could never understand, even when I was officiating as bishop, how it was that such a comparatively small number of persons were to be saved from perdition, and I could not feel that a loving Father and our Creator could have left countless billions to die unredeemed, and then send them to that terrible hell for not knowing something which He had made it impossible for them to know. I used to wonder then, I do not now."
"Will you tell me? I suppose you mean the Heathen."
"Yes; I mean the Heathen, at home and in far lands. Ah, my young friend, we all try to find a short cut to heaven. I can only say love your neighbor, tell the truth, think only pure thoughts, and trust the rest to the Master. He created us all, the Jew and the Gentile, the Heathen and these calling themselves Christians. They are all alike to Him.
"Do you not see that a merciful Father, loving his own creation could not condemn them to everlasting tortures for not believing something that he himself had made it impossible for them to know? You must follow the same road, and work for your passport to the next place or phase of existence, which we all hope will be better, but of which we are as ignorant as you."
At this moment there was a faint and tremulous sound, indescribably sweet, and no one could have told from whence it came, but it grew in volume, and in a few minutes it had swelled louder and began to throb with the strange thrill that makes dance music so enlivening. As soon as the music was well under way it seemed to be the signal for every one to begin to talk. The noise was deafening, and the young man wondered how just ghosts could make so much confusion. He noticed three men who had evidently found the buffet, and they had evidently made the most of their find, for they would have been considered drunk in any other place. They were inclined to be noisy and quarrelsome, and the young visitor feared they would pick him out for punishment, but they seemed to ignore his presence. The bishop who had been talking to him said:
"You see that we are still full of the leaven of unrighteousness. Ah; there goes the most unsociable ghost I ever saw. He will never get away from here at that rate. He thinks he is just the biggest frog in the pond. Nobody likes him. That tall man over near him is next to him the most disagreeable ghost here. He is so swelled up with his own importance that he is looking with a candle for insults to his dignity. But, deary me! Here am I, a bishop too, gossiping like an old woman. I could be in better business, but some folks think they are the whole bunch. I heard that expression once—in fact, recently—and it struck me as being so forcible that—ah, me; I am forced to admit that a bishop is no more when he gets before the Master than any other man. And if he has not been better than the most of them he gets the same treatment. I used to think I was some value to the world, but bishops are nothing more or less than men down here. It has taken over two hundred years to make me admit that much. I used to stand among other men and take their reverential words as my just due, and when we were at the banqueting board I took the best of everything as my right indisputable and just. Now I take what I can get and must be content, for, as I said, all that has passed away. You see, we have outgrown preachers down here, and I often wonder why we ever had them. To change the subject, what are your impressions of what you see here to-night?
“It would be impossible to define them, for I see so much that put all my preconceived notions to flight that it will take long before I can really understand them myself. I am sure that I shall profit by your discourse,” answered the reporter, earnestly, for the bishop’s conversation did give him food for reflection.
Very opportunely one of the ghosts who had visited the buffet too often got into a wrangle, and no one knew how it happened but the young stranger, and he kept a discreet silence, for it was not his quarrel anyhow, but he had heard one ghost say to another:
“I notice that your name is obliterated—”
He got no further, for the other doubled up his fists and cried indignantly:
“You're a liar! My name is Jones, and don’t you forget it.”
The first speaker was ready for a fight, but the other ghosts surrounded them and tried to persuade Jones that the offending word was intended for a compliment, and begged him to overlook it, so finally they shook hands and sat down in a corner and promptly went to sleep.
The music now struck up a grand march and the ghosts formed in couples and marched to the music, and in perfect unison. The procession appeared interminable. The ghosts floated rather than walked. It seemed as if millions passed along.
The people in the procession were about as well assorted as one finds them in all marches, some being tall with short partners, and vice versa. Some walked smoothly and with a certain degree of dignity while others tried to take fancy steps reminding him of a cake walk. Four persons there were who did not join in the march, a young lady ghost, a tall man, the Egyptian princess and the newspaper man.
The young lady referred to had a timid and bashful air, and the man a gloomy bend of the head and a morose crossing of the arms over his bony chest, while the Egyptian was so enveloped in her wrappings that she would have found locomotion difficult. Besides she was seated to watch the proceedings. She rather liked being set up there, as something more and better than the rest, and she was not blind to the fact that all the other women were as jealous of her as they could be.
The newspaper man resumed his interrupted journey toward her, keeping carefully out of the way of the dancers, until he approached the princess, and with a profound bow began a conversation with her. He was not quite sure of the proper way to address her, as she was a princess, of no one knew what dynasty. And, a ghost besides. So, he naturally felt a little timid, but as she seemed to smile affably he began, at the same time taking out his note book and pencil from force of habit. Then he remembered where he was and hastily hid them again, and thanked his stars that no one had seen them, and recklessly said:
“Oh, most noble and highly exalted princess,” here he stuck fast and did not know how to continue, but she deigned to smile on him. Indeed she had to smile for the embalmer who had made a mummy of her had fixed that charming smile on her lips with coal tar or whatever it was that they used for the purpose. But, whatever it was it served its purpose, and the princess smiled.
“Approach, young man” she said gently. He drew near and took hold of the bony but small and well shaped hand and was about to give it a hearty shake, but he remembered in time that it was the custom to kiss the hands of sovereigns, and he was not sure enough of her rank to take any chances, so he thought it better to make the mistake on the right side. So he knelt and kissed the hand held out to him, while his hair stood on end at that cold and stony contact. He wondered if in some occult way he had not bound himself to her through eternity. She broke the charm by saying in a voice as sweet as any one could wish to hear:
“Sir, be good enough to tell me in what way I can serve you, for I see question in your eyes and desire in your heart?”
This did not reassure him, for he did not half like the idea that all his thoughts were so evident, but he tried to do the best he could under the circumstance by saying lamely:
“Most noble of princesses, I will not try to disguise from your highness that I should be most grateful if you would tell me something about your illustrious self and how you came to this country and anything you may have seen in your long pilgrimage. Your highness must have seen many things that the world would like to know. The master of ceremonies said that you are more than five thousand years old, yet I find you young and beautiful—” Here the reporter stopped and strangled, for he happened to remember that she could read his thoughts, and he had said in his mind, ‘Now we shall see how long a woman remains susceptible to flattery,” and the cold sweat broke out on his forehead, but she only smiled more graciously than before, and said:
“I now perceive that you are not one of those vulgar curiosity seekers like those who tore me from my tomb, where I had hoped to sleep until my summons came. There is very little to tell. I have seen but about four thousand and nine hundred and fifty years, so I am not so old by considerable as that gentleman said, and doubtless in good faith. But, I have seen nations, races and armies melt away so that no trace of their existence remains, no stone of their habitations is seen above ground, and I have seen lands change their boundaries and the new rise up out of the old. Kings and queens have become dust and buried so deep in it that no one can tell where they were. Yes; I have seen so much that it would require a lifetime to tell you the half.”
“Ah, did your highness ever see Cleopatra? She has always been a prominent figure in Egyptian history—and—she has been much discussed. I should like to know something of her from a contemporary.”
“Oh,” she replied stiffly, “I scarcely know to which Cleopatra you refer. There were several of them, but I suppose you refer to she who reigned last and was the cause of the overthrow of the nation, and who killed herself with an asp.”
“Yes, your highness, that is the one,” replied the young man eagerly.
“Well, in the first place, that queen is entirely too modern, and she reigned something like three or four hundred years before the Christian era, while I came from the family of one of the first of the real Egyptian sovereigns. She was not even Egyptian, being only of Greek origin. We did not recognize her when she died and she was not even mummified, for the Romans would not have allowed it, and so no one ever knew what ever really became of her body. It did not interest us, as she was an upstart who had brought all sorts of evils upon my country. She is doubtless dust and ashes two thousand years ago. She was greatly overrated, and was nowhere near so beautiful as she has been considered. I belonged to the first dynasty, though there had been many kings and queens before me. My tomb was like those of the first royal ladies of my line. I had never been married—nor had I reigned, so according to usage, my tomb and sarcophagus were plain, save for the paintings on them to tell who I was. One day some vandals came and rifled my tomb and took my mummy case, and brought it to this country and put me in the museum in a glass case, and you have no idea how angry it makes me to have to squeeze out. May the jackals eat their bones, and leave no two of them together, so they will never find them in this world or the other and may wild beasts tear their children, and leave the mothers desolate, and raze their dwellings, and may their babes starve to death, and may they all die crying for water—”
How much longer this would have continued the newspaper man did not know, but he began to feel most uncomfortable, for one of these very collectors of mummies was his own father, and if he had not brought his particular one he had brought two others. He began to want to go home, but he tried to look sympathetic, and as if he had never heard of such terrible things as stealing mummies before. She continued:
“Yes; I am lady Shep, and when I was mummified these lines were put upon my case. Not everybody knows about them, but I will tell you. First, there was a line of text, and this is what it says:
“Royal offering of Osiris Unifer (the good being), great lord god of Abydos, may he give every good thing, libations to the Ka (Double) of the Osiris, the lady of the house, the honorable Shep (justified).’ This means that I lay a day and a night in the underground temple in the arms of Memnon, and all the good deeds I had done were weighed, and when they were found to be more than the evil ones I was justified. On the other side was this inscription: “The worthy mistress and daughter of Ru-ru, Justified; her mother was the lady of the house, Tarerust, Justified, and worthy.’ On the left is another with the goddess Maat, and there are other gods and goddesses, all saying that Shep, the lady of the house, is justified and worthy of a place among the illustrious dead. We did not have to go under the same peculiar conditions as do you who have a different way of burial and belief. Perhaps because our bodies are made imperishable we come under another division. I cannot tell, but this I know, I slept peacefully when I should and did no harm when I came out at the command, and then the explorers as they call them, came and took me from my country so far away that I shall never see it more.”
“Is there no way by which you could go back?” asked the young man, touched by her sorrow.
“No: for the scientific men would never let me go. Because my mummy case is the best one they have, and I am told that men of science have no honor and no feeling where it concerns the despoiling of tombs, whether they be of our people, or the red Indians who have built mounds or the Mexicans, or the old Peruvians. And, besides, we ghosts cannot cross the ocean in spirit form unless our bones go too.”
“May I ask why?” questioned the young man, really distressed by what he heard, and now understood as he could not have done a day, even a few hours before.
“Because the spirit is an essence, and the cold of the water chills it, and renders it powerless to float, and so I can never behold the dear country of my birth again.”
“What if I stole your mummy from the museum and took it back to Egypt?” said the young man, carried away by sympathy.
“We have often talked of just such a contingency nights up there, and we all agreed that if ever we did find any one who was willing to try, he might be beheaded after unheard-of tortures by the authorities of the museum, but if one could succeed we would make him the richest man in the world. We know many secrets. What if I told you that I know where the kings of the first and second dynasties got their gold and precious stones? I know where kings of the second dynasty got emeralds in such profusion that we scarcely cared for them. I was dead then, but I suppose that a woman never quite loses her interest in gems. I could take you to a place where you could get all the finest emeralds that you could carry.”
This particularly appealed to him as the emerald was his birth stone, according to the astrologers, and besides he liked them better than any other. He remembered also that emeralds were the fashionable stones for the time, and that a fine emerald was worth more than a diamond of the same size. Therefore he was impressed.
He asked her when he could see her again and she answered that it must be just one whole year before she could come out of her sarcophagus in visible form, and when he wanted to try to communicate with her spirit she told him that such a thing was impossible, and had never been done by any spirit that ever floated. But he could come to the museum a year from then and manage somehow to stay in the building over night, and they could then discuss the situation, and see if some way could not be found by which she could be returned to her country. The young man thought if he could manage to get enough of this wealth of jewels to handle he could find some way to buy up the attendants. But he felt delicate about speaking of such a plan, for fear she would not understand that he didn’t dare anything so dangerous without having money enough to silence all scruples of the night watchmen. He also thought to himself that probably no other man living had ever made two appointments like the two he had made this night; one to bring the good natured ghost a bottle of rum and a package of tobacco, and another with a mummy in a museum to make arrangements to steal her and carry her back to Egypt. It was enough to make one’s hair stand on end. He thought he might be able to fix it with the ghost so that he could deposit the things in some safe place, because he felt that the affair with the princess was the more important. He was about to discuss the plan more fully when the grand march ended and the floor manager shouted:
The dance and cake walk
“There will now be given a selection of the newest songs, such as are sung in the theaters above ground. You are requested to listen quietly, or if you must talk let it be in whispers, for it is very disconcerting for a singer to be interrupted by conversation during the time he is trying to amuse you.”
The invisible band began to play and a man stepped out in the middle of the floor, while all the others formed a circle around him. They were so many that no one could have counted them, and all kept an expectant attitude, so that the words just uttered seemed quite unnecessary. As the music continued he was astonished to find that it was a rag-time dance and “coon song” combined just as he had seen only a few days ago in one of the theaters. As the man sang this the whole assembly took it quite seriously and applauded him with the rhythmic regularity of a theatrical claque, and then the same ghost bowed with a certain grace and to a persistent encore he stepped forward and began a cake walk, accompanied by a song about kissing your baby. The whole thing was so ludicrous that he nearly had a fit in trying not to laugh. He dared not give way to mirth, for they all seemed to take the matter so seriously that he was not sure as to what might happen to him. The princess was quite amused by this song and dance, and after the applause was over he asked her if she would like to dance, and she replied that none but slaves danced in her country, and they did so simply to amuse their owners. He was still under the stimulus of suppressed laughter and regarded the invitation as a good joke, but he would have changed his mind if she had not said sweetly:
“Of course you could not know it, but princesses could not so demean themselves.”
“I beg your most noble highness to pardon my ignorance. I will not offend again.” Then to change the subject he said hastily: “I saw some Egyptians dance at Chicago, at the exposition, and also at Buffalo, and I suppose the slaves danced much like that in your day. They say that customs change little in those old places—that is—ah—in regard to such pastimes—” stammered the young man suddenly conscious that her painted eyes were flashing fire. She said haughtily:
“Do you refer to the dance called couchee-couchee? If you do, I will say that any slave that tried that on us of the old times would be short on heads so soon that she would not know what had happened to her.” Then in a tone of disgust, she continued as if to herself:
“Now wouldn't that rock you to sleep?”
The manner in which this was said left no doubt in the mind of the young man that he had made a mistake, and he tried to pull himself together and said lamely:
“How did your illustrious highness learn to speak English so well? Why, you even seem to have learned our idioms.”
“I have not lain in that museum so long for nothing, and all day and everyday there are men and women sitting around and snooping into things that do not concern them in the least. I cannot help hearing them, and their English is more remarkable for force than elegance, as you doubtless know. Now, in my time there was no difference between the language of the people and the slaves. We had a shorter vocabulary, and its very simplicity has made it possible for those who like to study into these things to read it.
“We were satisfied with what we had, but it seems to me that you are always seeking after new expressions, and I must say that I think our way was best. Yet, I find myself contaminated by the ungrammatical conversation of the throngs who frequent the place where I must stay. But unpleasant as that is, it is as nothing beside the conversation of the people who think they know it all, and their ignorance about things only six or seven thousand years ago is awful. To hear them flounder along and try to learn from what they see is bad enough, but nothing beside hearing those who think they know it all try to enlighten others. We can excuse one who is really ignorant and makes no secret of it, but the glib fellows who go on and talk of dynasties and Pharaohs—why they don’t know the difference between a Pharaoh and a Sardanapalus. And, they, like everybody else, think that Cleopatra was the only queen in Egypt, and she was, as I said, so painfully modern. It is now too late to talk much and so I will say good-bye until next year. And do not forget that my mummy case is in the main aisle, near the archway leading to the second room. You cannot miss it, besides I will be there waiting for you. We can talk at our ease, and I do hope that some way can be devised by which I can be taken back to Egypt. Ah, dear Egypt, where rain and thunder come not and snow and ice are unknown.”
“I will certainly be there if I am alive, and—beshrew me—(this sounded like the sort of thing one ought to say to a princess)—if I don’t find some way to get you back to Egypt once more.”
Then bowing to the princess he withdrew to make place for a man who had been standing there some time waiting to approach her.
“I wonder what has become of the Sociable Ghost?” thought the young man. He looked around, and seeing so many ghosts, and no sign of his friend, he suddenly felt himself grow very uneasy. What if he could not find his way out of this place? But his heart beat a little more regularly as the floor manager shouted loudly:
“Ladies and Gentlemen: We are about to be specially favored by hearing a song composed and sung by our friend, Capt. ———. He assures us that no one else has ever heard it, as he used to sing it only at night when at sea during storms. I have the honor—Captain ———.”
Here the floor manager bowed and retired. The Captain proved to be the ghost who had brought the young man down here, and he took his place while the invisible music burst forth with a strong rush of sound that reminded the young man of the winds and waves in a storm at sea. The ghost began in a deep bass voice:
“With a hey and a ho for the white sea horses, Plunging and tossing on ocean's crest; With a hey and a ho for the warning they give us, The sailor's heart sinks low in his breast. They fight fierce battles there in the water, Till the surface is covered white with foam, The waters toss and are churned to lather That touches the edge of heaven's dome. Deep in the depths the shadows thicken, As gather the sharks from down below, And high in the heavens the storm clouds hover, As prancing fiercely the white horses go. Then in the black darkness we hark to the breakers, Dashing upon the bleak rocks their foam, Beaten to froth by the white sea horses, And none of the sailors reaches his home.”
As this song was finished there was a regular salvo of applause, and in more ways than one, for the clapping of the fleshless hands was like the cracking of musketry. The ghost seemed to be pleased by the evident appreciation of his efforts, and sauntered over to the young man who expressed his pleasure so warmly that even an opera singer would have felt satisfied with such approbation and he requested permission to copy down the song, for sung in a grand and sonorous basso it had seemed to be a fine one.
When the last few desultory claps of applause at this song had died away the floor manager called out:
“Take your partners for a quadrille.”
In a minute there was such a bustle that the newspaper man could scarcely hear himself think, but soon the sets were formed, and the whole immense place was filled with dancers, all in sets for quadrille. The music changed at the right moment, and the floor manager called out in stentorian tones:
“Salute your partners.” And they all bowed in the regulation manner. Considering the almost universal poverty of wearing apparel, the ghosts danced and made a graceful appearance. There was scarcely enough cloth in good condition to have made a dress, but that fact did not seem to strike them as worth consideration. The manager cried:
“First two forward and back, cross over, balance to your partner, back to your place, all promenade.” Continuing he led them through all the mazes of what he called allemand right, allemand left, all sashay, and so on until the whole was finished.
All the ghosts appeared to enjoy the free movement of the dance and to them it mattered little if the usual attire for such functions was conspicuous by its absence. The young man thought that as they had ghostly food and drink, furniture and decorations, perhaps they imagined their clothes as well. Then he suddenly remembered those tables. It struck him as curious that they had come and disappeared like things in some fairy tale.
As he watched the dancers, who were now waltzing, he thought of a curious experience that had happened to him a year ago. He had a ticket to go to Albany on the day boat, and he thought it would be a pleasant trip and a rest, for he had been working unusually hard for a fortnight. He had never made this trip and thought he would enjoy the beauties of the scenery, and incidentally, repose his mind.
The night before he was to make this trip he had a most vivid dream. He thought he was in a primeval forest and saw huge misshapen monsters, great prehistoric creatures, whose bones only now tell of their existence. Among them he saw a monstrous elephant covered with hair, and with immense tusks curved like those found among the eternal glaciers in far off lands. There were other strange animals and giants. As he went along he heard in one place a swishing like that of silks swirling in the dance, and a soft rhythmic sound, but nothing could he see until he suddenly turned a corner, and there was a room with hundreds of men and women dancing, but they all seemed to him to be dead. He turned to find some one who could explain this strange thing, but no one was near, and when he turned to look at them again they had all disappeared and an enormous gorilla stood in the place where they had been.
Then he awoke, and attended to his business of getting ready, and at the last moment hurried down to the boat. After the manner of busy men he reached there just as the bell was ringing, and when he went to hand in his ticket, he remembered that he had left it on the bureau, safely folded in a clean handkerchief. He said a word or two in appreciation of the situation, and then said to himself that since he could not go to Albany he would go to Rockaway. He had never been there, though it was so near by. The boat was just ready to start and the price for a round trip ticket but fifty cents.
The sail down was uneventful, and as it was a week day and near the close of the season, he found very little to interest him there, so when he came to a museum, such as flourish at places like that, he decided to enter there to while away the time until the boat was ready to sail. As he entered the door, he saw the primeval forest of his dream, and every monster he found in just the same position. He thought he was living in the days long before man had entered into the history of the world. Wondering at this dream which had so curiously “come out,” he suddenly found himself at the same place of which he had dreamed, where he had seen the dead folks dancing. He heard the same soft swish of silk, and the same subdued murmur and there were marionettes, hundreds of them all strung on invisible wires, and all dancing around in a mad revel that had something uncanny about it, particularly when taken in with the singular dream as a background.
Now he was down under Trinity Church looking at a revel far stranger, and he began to wonder if he were not a medium in spite of what the ghosts told him. He knew that the first experience was true, and he did not doubt that this one was equally so, and he thought that from now on he would take up the study of the unknowable and make an exhaustive research into all things relative to ghosts. Once before he had had a serious intention of writing a book on the subject of ghosts, authentic ones, but when he tried to get the matter together he found that the nearest he could come to what he wished to find was, that no one person not an avowed spiritualist, would admit having seen a real ghost, but nearly all knew of some one whose aunt or grandmother had heard of some one whose friends had thought they did see one. So he gave up that plan, but now he thought he might get notes enough to make a book on the subject, but then he might be injuring his plans regarding the princess. He compromised with himself by saying that if his plan for her deliverance failed he could then give the necessary time to the book. He regretted that he had not got his kodak along. What a chance it would have been to get that line of ghosts as they marched by, and what would he not have given for a snap shot at that “coon dance.”
After the waltz the company broke up into groups and talked or promenaded around in couples, and it was a sight to remember forever to see the young lady ghosts as they walked or hung their heads and tried to look conscious at some tender compliment. The ghosts really had something of the semblance of life about them, for though they had no features left, nor eyes, there was some kind of inner light and a radiance which took the place of flesh. It was as though the soul had shed a soft light of its own over the fleshless skull and lent it something of its former appearance, and the thought came to him that perhaps these ghosts only saw the spiritual part of each other and just as he decided that such must be the case, as nothing else would account for so much that was otherwise unaccountable, there happened something to put all such ideas to flight, for the three ghosts who had looked upon the wine when it was red, seemed to have awakened under the impression that they were being neglected, and started a row, and began hitting out at any one in reach, be it man or woman, and so unexpected was the assault that the skeletons went down in heaps and lay there like so much new mown wheat.
The whole thing was so ludicrous that the newspaper man thought he must laugh or die. But he had been schooled not to laugh at the foolishness of others. That training stood him in good stead now, and he did keep his face straight by promising himself the luxury of a laugh the next day.
This control over his risibilities saved him from disaster when interviewing a great society woman one day. She told him that she could never bear to have any publicity, and really felt that the privacy of her home was sacred to her, and nothing about it ought ever to be put into any paper, while at that very moment he had her letter to his chief in his pocket, asking that a reporter should be sent to write a description of her house, which was one of the finest on Fifth Avenue. Her very virtuous indignation under the circumstances was so refreshing that the young man had found it a great and severe task to control his amusement, and ever since that experience he had been practicing self-control. If there is one thing more than another calculated to afford abundant practice in this line it is being a society reporter.
So now he even refrained from clapping his hands when the Sociable Ghost appeared with a bound, in spite of his sore toe, which the young man noticed was held up rigidly, notwithstanding the activity of the rest of the bony body. He laid the three flat with three well directed blows, and set the beholder to wondering what he could have done had he not been hampered by his troublesome foot.
When the three lay flat in a heap, he pushed them over into a corner with his well foot and told them to lie there and not to dare to move again until he gave them leave. One of them had lost one of his legs in the fracas, and began to howl that he was all broken up. He begged some one to pull him out and get his leg for him. The Sociable Ghost said, as he rubbed his bony hands together:
“Say, oh, I say! This is fine! I have not had so much fun since I died. It brings back old times, and for one ineffable moment I thought I was back on my ship again and fighting out with a belaying pin at the mutineers. Oh, yes; I had a mutiny to deal with about every six months. It was fun. Danger? No, for the Captain always holds all the trump cards, and I was always ready to play them. By George, I was! And this brings it all back to me. Oh, I say; I must show you something a little out of the usual order. It is my wife’s second husband. He is among the ghosts invited here from Derby, and I think it was a little cheeky for him to come here, don’t you?”
“What are you going to do to him?” asked the young man with some natural curiosity.
“I am going to do just nothing to him. The poor chap has had troubles of his own with her—enough to balance any ill will I might have had. Now, my wife was, or rather is, for she is not dead yet, the kind of woman that what she wants goes, whether you want it to go or not. I was captain on board my ship, but she was the captain at home, and I was crew and cabin boy combined. Maybe I was a bit breezy toward my men when I got to sea again after a month or so on shore. Well: my wife had a portrait of me, and about every half hour she used to hale my successor up before it and tell the poor devil to look at it and see a man and, what one looked like. She dinned my virtues into his ears so much that at last the poor wretch died in self-defense.”
“And where is the lady now?” asked the young man with interest.
“Somewhere in Boston, I believe. The last I heard of her she was giving my money away to the missionaries. I never had any use for missionaries, dead or alive. They come on board your ship, and the best you have is not too good for them, and they want to hold service every Sunday. I know a missionary as soon as I hear him speak. They always say Sabbath for Sunday, and babe for baby. There's lots of them down here.”
For once the newspaper man forgot his tact, and said:
“I should think that you would have been glad to have them hold service for the sailors. I have heard that they are mostly amenable to religious instruction and guidance.”
“Yah! Just stow that. The sailors don't want any of their salvation any more than the Chinamen, and it don’t do any more good. You can't make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear, and sailors are nothing more than living machines when they are on board ship. They are all right aboard ship, but they are no good on land, and whoever wants to do a good turn to a sailor wants to see that he gets a ship as soon as the voyage is done. They need knocking down every day with a marlinspike, and to get a taste of the rope’s end every ten minutes, to give them a good appetite so they won't be forever grumbling about their grub.”
The Captain might have continued indefinitely had not a polka struck up, and all the ghosts began to dance again. The dance of the marionettes came back to the young man’s mind with insistent force, but he tried to hide his amusement.
To keep out of the way of the dancers the young man drew back and walked along close to the wall, and as he did so he was suddenly struck by the sight of a man stooping down so that he could eat out of a dish on the buffet without touching it with his hands. It was such a strange sight that he could not help making a mental note of it, and he really thought that he had not let the ghost see his curiosity. But it was not so, for the ghost turned and faced him and said sadly:
“Sir, I hope you will not think that my disgusting action is done through ignorance, nor even a lack of decency. I simply cannot eat any other way and I am very hungry. Owing to my affliction I could not present myself at the table with the others, and I thought that while all the others are dancing, I could satisfy my hunger without being noticed.”
The newspaper man felt that here was another case of misery out of the ordinary, and he asked the ghost to tell him his trouble, and if it was anything that he could be of assistance in he would be glad to do all in his power. The ghost came to his rescue in a most unexpected manner, by suddenly holding up two mutilated stumps of arms. They had evidently been splintered off between the elbows and shoulders. By no effort could the poor fellow have been able to reach his mouth with either stump had he tried.
The reporter understood at once and felt so sorry for him that his usually ready tongue refused to form a word. He thought that it was more than probable that this accident had taken place in the Revolutionary war, and then he thought that that was too far away, and doubtless he must be one of the heroes of the Civil War. But the ghost as if answering a question, said:
“No, it was not in any war that my arms were smashed like that. If you would be so good as to help me get something to eat, I will tell you about it later. You can cut up some bread and meat and I must eat them right off the dish, and drink the best I can. It is very humiliating but I must bear it.”
The young man took of the different viands and cut them into convenient pieces and then offered to hand them on a fork. If ghosts could shed tears of gratitude from their hollow eyes this one would surely have wept, so much was he touched by the action. He ate and drank with an excellent appetite, and when he had all that he desired, he said:
“Now, sir, I am at your disposal. I will tell you why it is that I am reduced to this condition and am obliged to eat like an animal. The story began in life, and it was not until I had been down here two years that this happened. I found an enemy and he it was who made me this pitiable object. The reason? Oh, I lived in New York in a handsome house of my own in Sixty-fourth Street, near the park on the East Side. I mention this, as the proximity has something to do with the story. That is, the big reservoir is there and that causes a higher pressure of water in the houses there than in almost any other part of the city. I lived there in peace and contentment, and was something of a savant. So you can see that I am not altogether to blame for what follows. You know how all the houses are built, one beside the other. On the West side of my house was that of a man—well—we will call him Dinklespiel. That was not his real name—but it is good enough for him after the way he has treated me. Yes; I will call him Dinklespiel. Well; his front door was right beside mine. You could reach into his hall way over the low stone division. The next house on the East side was the whole width of the house away. Now, if Mr. Dinklespiel had lived in that house this would not have occurred.
“It so happened that our man who attended to all these things for me was out in the country getting the place in readiness for our annual flitting, and there was no one to clean the sidewalk and we had had coal in the day before. I admit that it would have been better to hire a man as my wife suggested, but somehow I felt like doing it myself, and that is how the trouble began.”
Here the ghost appeared lost in reflection so the young man asked what would have been better left to a hired man. The ghost shook off his distraction and resumed.
“Why, I got the garden hose—well—I got the hose and washed down the sidewalk. I told you about the high pressure, and that was the cause of it all. I got the hose,—the hose—and dragged it up from the cellar, and told the girl to go down and turn the water on, when I whistled. This hose was bought to protect us from fire as well as to wash the sidewalk and water the grass in the back yard, and it had a nozzle one inch in diameter. It was a big hose, and when James took hold of it I always noticed that his face grew red as though he found it hard to hold. But I always thought that it was his ignorance that made him so afraid of it, and I was sure that I could manage it all right and I even rather prided myself on the showing I should make of the triumph of mind over matter. I had never tried to manage a hose before, and even now I should not, I think, have had any trouble if there had been no hole in the hose.
“I drew the hose up into the area way, and then whistled, and the girl turned on the water. Why, my dear sir, it nearly jerked me off my feet before I knew what had happened to me, and I held the nozzle straight up with both hands with all my strength, and pointed the stream upward so that I could get a little accustomed to it, and at the same time wash down the front of the house. Suddenly I heard a strange sound in the dining room where my little boy was looking at me, and saw that I had in some way for which I could not account nearly drowned him. I heard him run screaming up stairs to his mother, and then I thought I would go up the front steps and play on the second story windows, for it was summer and everything was dusty. Once I had learned to manipulate the hose, it was a delight. I had partially overcome my fear of it. Why, the violent stream rushed out like steam from an overheated boiler. It fairly screamed, the force was so great. Well, I played on the windows and then on the whole front of the house, and was enjoying my labor when I became aware that the servant was calling me from the area, and I bent over to hear her, keeping firm hands on the powerful nozzle that was twisting and trying to wriggle out of my hands all the time. Just as she opened her mouth—well—somehow she got very wet, and sat down in the middle of the area, and I turned around so that she should not think I was laughing at her miserable plight. Anyhow I had done enough up there and I intended to attack the dusty sidewalk, when my wife came to the front door and opened it unexpectedly just as I was in the act of turning, and somehow she received the full force of the stream right in the face and she went down like a shot. No one could blame me if in the face of this disaster I forgot and left the squirming hose to work its will and tried to raise her.
“She did not wait for me, however, but told me with a withering look to take that thing down cellar at once. I tried to explain, but she shut the door, and I started to obey her, but, sir, you could scarcely believe me, but I had lost control of the thing, and the more I tried to manage it the worse it got, and at last I found that there was a hole in the hose about a foot from the nozzle and that was running in opposition to the nozzle. I was wet to the skin, and the more I tried to get down the steps the worse it wriggled and twisted until I was at my wits’ end to know what to do.
“At last I seemed to obtain a little command of it and was in the act of turning around to come down when I became conscious that there was a hearse and two carriages drawn up in front of my next neighbor's house, and before I could move the door opened and six men came out bearing a large coffin. I was struck dumb and almost blind, and did not know what I was doing, and—well—before I came to my senses every one of those pall-bearers was wet through, and the force of the water threw the flowers in every direction, and as if this were not enough the vicious stream hit the clergyman directly between the eyes and made him fall backward, and that was the reason that a number of people who had gathered to see a funeral at that unusual hour laughed. I was actually paralyzed with the whole thing and stood there helpless, trying to hold up the nozzle, not knowing that it was pouring floods into the vestibule of the dead man’s house. Finally some one came up the steps and took the wretched thing away from me, and dragged it down to the area, and I scarcely knew enough to go after it.
“I have often thought that scientific men are not quite so well adapted to cope with the small things of daily life as those more in touch with mundane affairs. I was so distressed at my complete failure to master so simple a thing as a hose, and above all at the terrible disaster which had befallen me in the involuntary disrespect to my neighbor, that I was like a man dead.
“He had been away and died and was brought home for burial, and that was why the funeral was private and so early, for he was to be taken quite a distance for interment.
“So you can conceive of my distress, particularly as my wife did not feel willing to console me. On the contrary, she said quite a number of things which I am sure she would have left unsaid had she reflected. And I had to get her a new frock and one for the servant. After a while the neighbors stopped asking me impertinent things about my garden hose, and I was beginning to feel a little better about it when I fell ill and died.
“My funeral was marked by decorum, and everything passed off well. I was not sorry to come here for I had studied a little of everything else, and this being the unknowable held certain charms for me. I am of a philosophic nature, and very adaptable, and soon became quite content here, for if there are some drawbacks, there are some compensations too.”
“What are they?” asked the reporter hastily, and not remembering that he was departing from his usual custom.
“Well, the greatest is—speaking generally, you know—that you can do no more wrong, and that you must progress, for nothing in nature can retrograde. We feel that we may advance in the scale of the great plan, and that our powers of evil are null, so we can hope. We do not know what we can hope for, but we are not hindered from hoping that there is something to hope for. But, the old desires, old frailties die hard and slow. But, all that is not the story of my misery. I came down here, and for a long time had no special trouble, and met in convention twice. I tried to study out all I saw, until one night I saw my neighbor whose funeral I had so unintentionally desecrated. He had been removed to another cemetery nearer and so was here as a guest.
“As soon as he saw me he acted as if he had been suddenly restored to all the vigor of life, and its animosity, for he followed me around all the evening until he found me in a corner studying the sculpture on one of the pillars. He knocked me down and jumped on me and kicked me until it is a wonder how I have a whole bone left. I could have tied any other bones on, but how could I tie without hands? I am sure that if he had given me the opportunity to explain how this unhappy affair had come about he would feel sorry that he was so rough. But he wouldn't listen and so he will never know.”
“Yes, he will,” said a voice right behind them, and as the reporter and the armless ghost turned together they saw another ghost, and he continued his unexpected conversation.
“I have heard your story, sir; and regret that I was so violent. I was exasperated beyond measure, as I was always a great stickler for strict decorum, and I was not to blame if I thought you did that on purpose.”
The armless ghost was so affected that he would have fallen had not the other put his arms around him, and the chances for a complete reconciliation were so good that the reporter felt himself de trop and silently slipped away.