Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1887 — IN THE NORTH ROOM. [ARTICLE]

IN THE NORTH ROOM.

BY CLARA MERWIN.

I am an old bachelor. If there is a human being whose nerves are made of steel, I am that individual. I have never once lost my presence of mind. I don’t believe in ghosts, of course. I’m not a sentimental man, and have never been in love. Once, when I was a young man, I thought that I was in love with a pair of brown eyes ■ and ahead of golden hair, long, dark lashes, i and a skin like peach bicorn. I lost my usual good sense for a while and proposed i to Polly Bashfield, and was accepted. But I soon grew tired of my pretty toy, and I began to see that “a young man married would be a young man marred;” the girls had lost all interest in me, and the married ladies took to snubbing me. I had not half the nice invitations I used to have, and, besides, old Mr. Bashfield failed, and Polly’s fifty thousand vanished into thin air. She would have nothing on marriage instead of being an heiress; and so one day I told her we had both made a mistake, and she said probably I was the best judge, and gave me bock her ring. It had a nice diamond in it, and I had it set for a shirt-stud at once. And, of course, I sent her back her letters, and she returned mine; and after that we never met again. I got out of the affair more easily than most fellows do, and I’ve never got into such a one again. Perhaps, when I’m old and begin to break down a little, I shall marry some nice young girl and settle down comfortably. It’s a pretty good thing to do then, but not before one is past fifty. Well, as I said, I saw no more of Polly, and I forgot all about her in a few years. I stand before you a practical man, untrammeled by any sort of superstition, with a good income, good health, and enjoying my life; and in this condition I walked in at the door of Mrs. Regan’s confounded little old house at exactly half-past ten on the 24th day of August, 1886. We had started for the Mountain House, I and Bradley, and his trap had broken down, and here we were on a rough road, with our journey not half way over, Catskill as far behind us as the Mountain House was before us; both of us as hungry as hunters; both of us dead tired. “We can’t go on,” said Bradley. “We can’t go back,” said I. Then over the stone fence popped a sun-bonnet, and some one cried, “lour wheel has come off, han’t it?” And on my answering that it had, and that I should like to know what we were going to do that night, the sunbonnet replied, “Why, do tell, to be sure. Well, now, and everybody is chock full of summer boarders, and se be I. But I guess I can Agger it if I do a little headwork. I’ll put them Jackson boys to sleep with our Sam, and 1 11 make the help go on to the settee, and one of you shall have the kitchen chamber and one the north room if you want. And my old man, he’s a wheelright by trade, and he’ll jigger your wheel for you in two shakes of a sheep’s tad.” We looked at each other. I did not. know how long it took a sheep to shake its tail, nor whether “jigger” was technical or local. I don’t know yet; but I smelt coffee and ham and eggs somewhere, and doubtless so did Bradley. “We shall be only too glad to accept your hospitality,” said he.

“Dollar a day,” said she; “that's cheap enough.” “So it is,” said Bradley. “Come, Hamilton.” I came. What would I have done to a waiter who presented me with such a supper at the club? But starvation does not discriminate. I ate heartily. And afterward, being asked to choose between the kitchen chamber and the north room, I said the north room, by all means. I had a vague idea that it would be farthest removed from the rest of the establishment. It was a queer-looking place, with a chimney in the center, the roof running from a peak in the middle «f the floor on either side. One square window and one sloping one, and bags, hams, ropes of onions, and suspended dresses adorned it in every direction. Tho bed was apparently stuffed with corn-cobs. The pillow was of hay, and the sheets smelled of camphor, and I had a kerosene lamp by way of illumination. Remembering my spring mattress and silk quilts lined with down at home, my velvet carpet, the pink and white shade for my gas, I wondered how I could endure it so calmly. But what should I have gained by making a fuss? Nothing, surely. Never trouble yourself about the inevitable; simply shut your eyes to it. 1 shut mine. Having puffed the kerosene lamp out, after a blue explosion of some kind, which made me wonder if I were to be a subject of a paragraph headed “Awful Accident” in the next morning’s papers, I adjusted myself as well as possible between the softest corn-cobs. “When one sleeps one forgets one’s bed” said I. “Let me sleep.” And totallyrefusing to hear the droning of a hideous insect with a broken back, who could walk, fly, climb, leap, wiggle, crawl—in short, who possessed every means of locomotion known to animated nature—l went to sleep. I awoke just as the moon was rising—about one o’clock. The light fell through the one straight window of my room and made a white square on the brown painted floor, and lit up a queer little green rocking-chair with a rush bottom. For one moment I saw the chair standing empty; the next a figure occupied it —the figure of a young girl. Her hair, which seemed to be golden, fell over her shoulders. Her back was toward me, but I saw that her figure was slight and pretty. Two white hands were clasped together, and she was rocking to and fro; and moaning in a strange, desolate sort of way. “This-is odd,” said I. “Some one has come into the room by mistake, doubtless, not knowing I was here.” I coughed. The young lady did not hear me. I spoke: “Madam,” said I, “I presume you are not aware—in fact, that lam here.” Then the figure arose. It turned toward me, but again I could not see its face. Its back was to the moon. The outlines, strangely familiar, was all I could discern. The white robe that lodked like a shroud trailed after it. The long hair floated over it. I said to myself very calmly, “Were I a superstitious person I should consider this a ghost.” And.still it came nearer, nearer. It was very embarrassing. “Madam,” I said again, more loudly, “I presume you are aware that I am here?” And a voice answered me—a voice I seemed to have heard before: “Yes, lam aware of it. I came because I knew it—l came because I knew it!”

Then she began to moan again. She stood beside the bed now, only a few inches from me. She stretched out her cold hands. It was time to do something. Whoever she was, I saw that she was dangerous. A maniac, perhaps. I put my hand under my pillow, where my pistol lay. I seized it. “Whoever you are,” said I, “I presume you are a thief, playing at ghost. Leave the room. I give three seconds to do it in. I count them; at the third count I fire. One—two—three. ” QAs I said one she retreated, pointing at me. As I counted two she drew still further off. As I cried three she was gone! I lit that kerosene lamp and examined the room. The door was shut and locked on the inside; the windows fastened down with nails, as all windows are in rural houses. I looked behind the boxes and barrels and gowns. I felt the floor; there was no trapdoor. Yet she was gone. If I had been a superstitions idiot I should have said that I had seen a spirit. As it was, being a practical man, I at once argued with myself. Tough fried ham and something called “Injun puddin,” whatever it may have been, had given me a nightmare; a nightmare in an unusual former, doubtless—a fair young girl in white, instead of Othello or a black dog. There were exceptions to every rule. I had a white nightmare in place of a black one, that was all. Again I put out my kerosene lamp. Again I fitted myself between the corncobs. Again I slept. Again I woke, to find a figure—the same figure—-bending over me. It was moaning still; but this time it was doing more. Two hands, as cold as ice, were about my throat, pressing hard upon it. I was being choked to death. “What are you doing?” cried I, catching at my pistol again. The cold hands dropped away. The figure retreated, vanished, as before. I made a new search, and I argued with myself again. “Nightmares always choke me,” said I. “My white nightmare only did as others do.” But this time, though I fitted myself in among the corn-cobs again, I found it harder to sleep, and though I slept at last, I awakened very soon—again with a hand at my throat, and a voice moaning softly: “Let me rest in my grave. Ido not want to kill him. Let me rest.” My pistol once more drove the white figure away. But a nightmare was a more serious thing than I had imagined. Had I ever been fool enough to drink too much, I should have fancied myself the victim of delirium tremens. But a ghost! Bah! I gave no admittance to that thought for a moment. If the voice, the figure, the falling hair, the touch of the little hands, cold as they were, reminded me of some one J had known long ago—that was part of my disordered condition. “Never again,” said I, “will I partake of that awful dish, ‘lnjun puddin’,’ with m’lasses. Never.” I sat up after that and saw the sun rise for the first time in my existence. It was a chilly operation, as uncomfortable as most things are that are considered meritorious; cold baths and- a Graham diet, for instance. I’ve never done it since. An awful horn tooted us down to breakfast, which was principally fat pork. When I came down the good woman of the house, already invisible at the end of a sun-bonnet, was talking to Bradley, who is— did I tell you? —an author, a writer of frightful stories in newspapers. She had found him out. “To think it should be you,” she said. “You don't look a bit like I thought. I guessed you had big black eyes and an elegant figger, but, lor, you can’t help that — and how I did look out for the next number, while ‘Elgira, or Fortune’s Victim,’ was being published. I read it every word, and when she died of love I cried. I didn’t use to believe folks died of love once—but—lemme see—l guess it was fifteen years ago, I knew a case in actual life. Yes, sir. You could have made a story of it, no doubt, She died in this house, in the north room—as pretty a creature as ever you saw. Her eyes were, oh! how brown, and such lovely golden hair! Her father brought her out here one summer.” “ ‘Mrs. Regan,’ says he, ‘l’m afraid my girl is in a decline, but we hope something from country air.’ “Says I, ‘We’ll do what we can, and mountain air is best of any, sir.’ “But pretty soon I saw that there was more than sickness to deal with. The night she died she told me. Yes, sir; it was a love affair. He had jilted her because her father lost his money. He’d failed, the old gentleman had. ‘I loved hiin so much,’ said she. ‘I thought him so brave and true, and so fond of me, and it was all a mockery—every look a lie, every kiss an in nit, since it did not come from his heart.’ “ ‘But you should forget such a rascal. You should not go on loving a fellow like that,’ said I. Then she sat up m bed; I shall never forget it. ‘Oh, Mrs. Regan!’ she said, ‘it is just that—it is that I have grown to bate him so that I lie all night wishing that I could kill him, bating him as I never hated anything before. Sometimes I think I shall come back from the other woild to do it. Ghosts are permit ed to kill their murderers, they say, and he has murdered me. Yes. 1 e has killed me; not only my body, but all the good, sweet, beautiful feelings I once had. They all died long ago. Hate, hate, hate—that is killing me. Hate of the man I once loved.” “ ’Oh, let me send for the minister, my dear,’ says I. “But she made no answer. She never spoke again. She died that night. Poor child, she was very young. *. •'» : POLLY BASHFIELD, : AGED EIGHTEEN. ; * * “That is what is on her grave-stone in the burying-ground, if you’d like to look at it.” I don’t know whether she said anything more. Bradley says I tainted. I dont admit it, but if I did, I vow it was that abominable supper. A ghost—bah! But I wouldn't sleep in that “north room” again for any fortune— practical man as I am.

It is related that in England a schoci inspector wno delighted in “common sense questions,” propounded this: "If I met you coming down the village street and said ‘Animal I animalwha,, would you say ?” The right answer remains a mystery; the real one ran: “Saa! I shud saa yeow -was a fule.' Undaunted, the examiner next asked why the sea is salt? Be got three an swers: One, “J ecause of the Yarmouth bio iters;” one, “To keep the drowned folk sweet,” and one from a pious little maiden, “Because God made it so.”