Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 120, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 May 1912 — A Ghost ann Others. [ARTICLE]

A Ghost ann Others.

Will Livingston Comfort.

'Here was an earnest, sober young man of twenty-five, Tom Cross man with eighty acres of fairly good land scon to become his own. a tidy girl promised to him, a considerable inheritance coming from his, father — having, in short, -every reasonable prospect for a successful life in the quiet way of the tillers. And yet Id one month his world tottered and fell with a sickening crash about him. It began with the alder Crossman marrying again. The father was seventy and Tom’s mother had been dead for a decade, when the countryside was astounded to hear of his union with Eliza Grigsby, a spinster of fifty, whose inclinations both toward shrewishness and avarice were unequivocal. Undoubtedly it was Eliza Grigsby’s closeness and cupidity which incited the old man’s interest in the first place. She appeared valuable to him for the same reason that a burner whioh saves a pint of kerosene in a month becomes an estimable source of profit in twenty years. A man who is bound to the service of the soil for twelve hours a day, six days a week, for fifty years, knowing not, ckrlng nothing for nature save her‘yield, and who begins his career with fixed calculations of thrift, ends either with a complete tarnish of soul or an out-and-out money madness. The elder Cross-L-i&n had bent and withered his body through toil, and diminished his natural limitations of mind through a half century’s concentration upon the onq instinct to hoards until he be-, came, all unobserved, a menace to the community-.

For two years before his marriage he had been unable to work. Sitting upon the porch in summer and before the fire in winter, his brain had revolved steadily in the old and everconcentrating circle. It readily can be seen that his mind, or the brutalized remnant of it, was most arable to a temptation whose fruition meant an Important addition to his fifty years’ savings. Bliza came, listened, speculated, encouraged—and the thing was done. A late afternoon in spring. Lase Hodge drew up his team before the Crossman door and entered good naturedly. “Hello, John,' he said. “I Just called around to tell you that the note for $2,500 which I Indorsed for you is due day after to-morrow.” The old man’s face was grayishwhite, the wrinkles were stretched tightly about his shrunken mouth, and his rheumy eyes the carpet to the hearth. “I can’t pay, Lase," he muttered. “I'Ve lost it—all, and mine,” the old man added. Hodge paled. He thought the farmer crazy and called out to the woman. “What’s Crossman talking about, ’Lize? He says he can’t meet the note I indorsed for him three month’s ago.’’ “I don’t know anything about the old man’s business,’’ she said angrily, and re-entered the kitchen. —...... Hodge drove back to town, deeply hit, enraged and mystified. At the hank the dominating fear which had grown upon him for the past halfhour was realized. Old man Crossman no’longer had an account there. The bank held three other Crossman notes bedides the one Hodge had indorsed, all due in two days. The aggregate Bum was SIO,OOO. The county records showed no transaction of any kind involving an investment in the name of Crossman. The day’s investigation proved that the old man had deliberately raised SIO,OOO, added it to his life’s savings, and turned the whole oyer Into his wife’s name with the atte&npt to defraud. % 7 Such had been the fruits-Sf. the plottings of a disordered mind. '; It was variously estimated, including the stolen SIO,OOO, that the’ old man had given the woman 'from $30,000 to $45,000. In the eyes of the law the money could not be attached. The creditors went in a body to- the Crossman farmhouse. A couple of sentences from Bliza embodied the substance of the satisfaction they received: “You kin talk till you’re black In the face, hut I hain’t got nuthln’ t’ do with the old man’s dealln’s. Ye should know bettr’n to lend money to one in his dotldge!”

The affair dazed young Tom Crossman. A good mother had redeemed him from the tainted Crossman breed, rad he took the dishonor home. His father’s marriage had robbed him of his heritage, rad the culminating dishonesty had robbed him of his sweetheart —for In his eyes the bonds of romance were brokeh, since he was the son of s thief. The young man sat alone on the porch of the farmhouse the third night after the horrid revelation. His father rad the woman were quarreling within the darkness. His pray was at the door; yet he could not make np his mind to go—to Mary. To tell her that their whole little dream was done bore upon him more desperately. He felt the need of her now more than ever in his great loneliness and misery. To those within he had spoken no word since the fall of the house itself. He had been to town several times, rad imagined that the faces of men were turned against him. Mary was the last rad dearest of his attractions tn the land grown desolate. A carriage bore down thp road in the dark and ■topped at the Crossman gate.

“Tom-j—oh, Tom!", was called softly. She had come to him. He gained the seat beside her, and as they drove away the old man’s voice was raised to frenzied pitch within the house. It may have been that the reaction had clutched him and that he peiceived the iron rod with which he had to deal in this woman. “Why that nonsense, Tom?” Mary was saying: “You have done nothing.- You need me all the more. We are still young and can wait. The* 1 faci is, I am not going to let you give me up—that's all there is about.it!’ His Ihroat tightened so that .he could not speak, but be kissed her “Those men must be paid before we can be happy, Mary,” he said finally. ”1 believe still that father could have done no such a thing if bis mind had been right. The debts come home to me.” "Some will turn up, Tom,” she sa#d. cheerfully, and though he could not sef hovf he was to earn i 10,000 In short of a lifetime, the courage of the girl nerved and cheered him. He found that a terrible scene had taken place in the bouse during his absence. His father was lying undiessed upon the bed, moaning and muttering incoherently. His mind had absolutely fprsaken its old course and was peopled with shadows Eliza moved grim and silent In the dark. : "He told me he’d killed me if I didn’t give him back the money.” the woman said sullenly. “That old fool with money! I told him he had given it to me and that I meant to keep it. Then he hollered and tore himself until he got plum* crazy!"

A week later the elder Crossman die I. and from the vague sentences which his lipß mumbled at the last, It was plain he had repented on the night of his struggle with the woman and found that in making her custodian of hia property he had given the same irrevocably away. It was this realization which had crushed the mind and slain the body of the old farmer. • • "• • • • • Eliza Grigßby, shaken and aged somewhat, but still repellant to all and apparently sufficiently unto herself, moved about the old house and garden engaged In commonplace tasks. In four months she had gained wh#t Crossman had given his life and soul to win. The creditors of the late farmer had given up hope. They believed in Tom’s intentions, but doubted his capacity. They promised that Eliza Grigsby would die alone —when her time came — even as she had lived. 'But the inner life of the woman was beseiged. Threats and the hate of man were impotent to move her, but there had* come an Intangible horrible, Investment which lengthened her nights Into long drawn terrors. There was no one In the house but Tom; and yet she had heard her name called In a woman’s voice. Again and again the summons came again and agajn Tom protested that he heard nothing. Once, lying awake, she felt drops of icy water upon her face, and as she leaped ftom bed. the door leading into the kitchen swung shut and locked Itself. Tom was in the front part of the house, and said, the wind- bad wrought the miracle of the kitchen door. ' >

No matter how securely the outer doors were barred, on certain mornings they were found open. One forenoon as she stood in the doorway she beard the passing children say that her house was haunted. The words clutched her with terrible meaning. There was no one to whom she could appeal. She felt a volume of bate from every passerby. For years she bad laughed at these glances, strong *ln her bulwark of worldly possessions. But money could not help her now. The stimulating poison of It had left her veins, but she was a moral leper In the eyes of the world still, . . . She lay tretaibling in the dark one still, hot summer night, conscious of a presence In the kitchen. Plainly ’she heard the breathing of Tom in the, front room, so the sounds came not from hfm. The kitchen door swung open softly and there was a horrible sound, a moaning sigh from the dark. Then all power bereft the limbs of the woman and distended eyes fastened upon a white filmy figure in the aperture. “1 am the wife of John Crossman, whom you murdered! Why will you not let me rest?” The words were long drawn, faintly uttered.. From a woman, dead or alive, they sorely were. The unearthly question was repeated: “Why will you not let me rest?”

Eliza’s hands fluttered before her and there was a rattle from her throat. Inexorably the question came, forth again: “What—can—l—do?” the tortured woman mumbled at last. “Pay John’s Crossman's debts!” \ “Yes, yes!" “To-morrow!" “Yes, yes!” “If you do not I will cotoe with John Crossman to-morrow night!” “I will/ Oh, go away!" Bliza implored. The figure vanished. • • The next day was one or great surprises- In the little country town. First, Eliza Crossman drove down to the bank and took up the notes of her late husband. She seemed very feeble and on the verge of a nervous outbreak. Second, t£e news came out that Tom Crossman and his Mary had been married three months before, a week after the old man had died, in fact Third, it became whispered about that in some mysterious soft atef* f^itaTctossman’^heart! . % i.is -- ■ ’ ' " ■■■■■■■