Jasper Weekly Courier, Volume 14, Number 11, Jasper, Dubois County, 19 April 1872 — Page 2

The Jasper Courier.

C. DOANE, PUBLISHER.

All

Afraid. BY ROVill) (ILYNnoN.

built

After tinging, iUnoe; after roneu thorn;

Macke! uiiduiKhlK

o'er golden

the

morn; Aftrr flowirin. fadin : hitter after eweet. Yellow, withered Mubble, after waving- wheat.

the shriveled leaf.

Like the fluiden loppm of mime dear belief;

Atter irurit tnjc wa'er. dry. unsightly beds ; After exultation, lowly-hanging heads.

After creen, the riroppiBg of

80 I shrink and ihiTer at your proffered Vis. Knowing p;tin niu't follow on the heel of bliss : Knowing los niu.t find me Meeting on your breast : Leave me while you love me-this is surely best! Like a klufhlei-s flower left upon its stem. Sweetening the thickness of trie forest's hem : Like hidden fountain, never touehed ot lips: Like an unknown ocean, never sailed by ships Thus I shall be fairer to your untried thought. Than if all my living into yours were wrought. Hearts' dreams are the sweetrst in a loacly nest ; Leave me while you love me--this is surely best!

M No," she said, and shuddered a little

speaking slowly; "it was a nervous fever. I am just recovering from it my self, having had the most lengthened attack of the three." And then I remembered that Mr. Evans hsd mentioned it a nervous fever. " What caused it ?" I asked. Hut to this question Mrs. Addis made no answer. An unmistakable shiver passed over her frame, and for the mo ment 1 thought she wan going to faiut. ' 1 beg your pardon." she said " I have been much shaken in the nerves jarred and worried. I do hope I do trust that we shall all get well in time, now we are in this pleasant and peaceful house." " Perhaps the house you lived in before was damp." "No, I don't think it was damp; it was not that." she said; "it was on Bussiso Hill."

THE GHOST OF RUSSIAN HILL. A great deal has been written about tke large trees, the magnificent scenery, and the vast gold fields of Californii. Even its mammoth vegetables and delicious mutton have had their honorable mention. In short, I do not know of mu?h connected with the country that we are uuacquainted with. There's one thing, however, that has not been told of within ray knowledge and that is a Californian ghost. The subject has at leaist the recommendation of rarity; und perhaps it may be found to possess some interest. For myself, I give no opinion upon the point: I could not at the time: but I will truthfully and faithfully record the story as it was said to happen, and was related to me by the poor woman whose belief at I 'it could not be shaken in it, and over a portion of whose lite it had exercised so strange an influence. It was in the year 1854, and I was living at .San Francisco. Chancing to need some one to assist me in doing some plain sewing, Mr. Evans, one of the merchants of the town, and a man whose character for benevolence wa

known far and wide, gave me the address of a Mrs. Addis. She was a superior person quite a lady, who had come to California from the Eastern States, and was reduced to live by her own exertions. He added that she had been recently very ill with nervous fever, was hardly strong enough yet for the harder work of washing which she had before been taking in and no doubt she would be glad of the lighter employment of sewing. "Washing!" I exclaimed. "A superior persoD, qnite a lady, and reduced to take in washing?" "Av," replied Mr. Evans, "and thankful to get it." So, one morning, away I started for Mrs. Addis's. climbing over the intervening sand hilis that lay between St. Ann; Valley and my more centrallysituated home. The streets were not then cut through or paved as they are now, so the expedition was quite a pilgrimage, and I was tired before I reached the cottage of Mrs. Addis. I recognized it by the description Mr. Evans had

given ; a pretty, white dwelling, with green blinds, standing in a garden surrounded Ly a picket fence, with an ornamental porch, over which a green vine was beginning to trail. All looked fresh and new, and it appeared she had not long got into it. A little girl of nine was playing outside with a boy of three; another child, a gill of perhaps six or so, sat wrapped in a shawl, watching them. She looked ill, and, indeed, there was a delicacy about them all. The moment they caught sight of me all three evinced considerable alarm, and ran in-doors. In a minute the eldest came out again, sent by her mother. Blushing very much, ehe said I must please excuse her for running away, but she and her little sister and brother were shy, and not used to visitors. She was a gentle, pleasant looking child, but in her face there lingered an expression as of some su Iden fright, and I thought it must have been at me. Mrs. Addis came to the door then. A pale, delicate-looking woman, with a sweet face of suffering, and a refinement of manner that surprised me. It

was next to impossible to believe that she could be doing the work of a common washerwoman. Alas, I had not then the experience I have acquired since, of what well-reared women maybe reduced to by distress, when exiles in a foreign country. The porch door opened into the parlor, and we went in. It was tidily, nay, tastily furnished, with such articles as sojourners in San Francisco would most readily procure. A fresh matting covered the floor. Some cane-seated chairs, and a round table, stood about the room. Beside, there was a set of hanging shelves, trimmed with fringe, and plenty of little ornaments and souvenirs, bespeaking home friendship and loving parting gitts from the other side of the continent. All this, and the woman's gentle manner, and really pretty lace, seemed more and more at variance with her hard calling, but one sees these anomalies in a new country, as California was then. I came to the conclusion that, whatevercircumatances had rendered it necessary for

Mrs. Addis to work in the way she did.

Bad no power to dkatsw h er nntn.

" Unhealthy, perhaps, in other ways." "Yes. Unhealthy for us." and there ensued the shiver again. "About the work, ma'am, what is it you wish me 10 do?" I sat and told her. I partook of some retreshment that they öftere i me a mouthful of lunch and some to 1. And I came away strangely interested in Mrs. Addis and her gentle children, and quite determined that that first visit should not be the lust. " What is the mystery connected witli her illness ?" I asked Mr. Evans when I next saw him. M There seems to be

one.

" It certainly does seem to be a mystery ; one, I believe, that nobody can explain, or account tor," was the reply of Mr. Evans. M I dare say she will give you the history if you request it." And In due time I obtained that history, and transcribe it as it was told to me. neither adding to it nor taking from it. In early times the means of transit across the continent were so very dangerous and comfortless that, like the man who had choice of two roads, km Velen were sure to wish they had taken the contrary one. The lengthened horrors of Cape Horn, the Indian perils on the plains, and the fearful fever on the Isthmus, gave ample themes for sympathy, curiosity, and endless surmise. Mrs. Addis had com' by the Isthmus, and her voyage was marked by an all-absorbing sorrow, that swallowed up every smaller consideration of discomfort and annoyance the death of her husband. Mr. Addis had been a teacher all his life. Breaking down in health and spirits, as those who have much to do with the young sometimes do, he had undertaken the journey to California to recruit hit. strength, and also in the

hope that he might find there some

could have given that shuddering chill ? The children, however, made amend for her silence 1 tor they were loud in their delighted comments on the new house, and their surprise at it odd furniture. The room was a small square apartment, with an open grate and a front and back window. Its floor was covered with checked matting, and there wentwo or three curiously-colored rugs laid over it. Besides a scarlet sofa and two large chairs, much worn and faded, were some tiny Chinese tables, and a little cabinet Mated on one of them. To the right a door opened into a smaller room, containing only a bed and an old walnut clothes-press. Out of that was a larger room built sideways and in the shape of

a tetter I. ; it .had two French wiudows and a cheerful look out citywards. A small kitchen completed the house. 'Being night, it looks a little dull," observed Mr. Evans, as they went

tly ough the room, "and smells earthy ; hut that's owing to its having been shin up so long." It did smell earthy. The very air seemed close and heavy, and Mis. Addis thought it might be that which caused her strange oppression of spirit. Every

thing nee. led for their OOttlfolt was at hand, and the gentlemen departed, leaving giateful hearts behind them. The days went on, and the feeling of oppression, as Mrs. Addis expressed it, Wore filter by degrees; but she ah. ays had a sense of it more or less. Only when she was at work she did not so much feel it. Her kind friends had exerted themselves to get her plenty of work. It was hard at first, but she had help, and got reconciled to it. The little room leading oft' the parlor was

made a playroom for her children ; it was lined with scarlet chintz. The large, curiously-shaped room wa made the bed-chamber. So she worked, and prospered, and beuan to put by a nice little sum every month toward repaying Mr. Evans and the other gentleman what thev had ad

vanced her. Her expenses were not large. The rent of the house was remarkably low, and she sometimes wondered at it, hoping that Mr. Evans was not paying parted it hiruseli in secret. He said he was not, but she could not help fearing it. They had no near neighbors, but farther down toward the Laguna was a settlement of Spanish people, whose children would come up and peep curiously through the garden rails. That their house had been inhabited by Spaniards, who must have quitted it in a hurry, was evident, for the furniture was all Spanish. When it first was, Mrs. Addis couid

never distinctly trace or recollect, that she heard her children allude to some one they called "the lady." She grew accu tomed to hear them talk of

those days, she sent Nancy on to the younger children. When she rehired, carrying her few lit tie parcels, twilight had set in, and the great misty columns of fog that -omeliine sweep 111 (nun the sea were making the landscape very dreary. Still as she climbed the hill from the city side, she could see her own door quite plainly, and in it the three children at play. Not thev only. There was n fourth figure standing with t hem a fffonith girl of slender form. She had it sera pa thrown over her shoulders, and was watching them with a slightly drooping head. "That must be the lady!' exclaimed Mrs. Addis to herself with Hidden conviction. "How young she looks? quite a girl." In her excitement, Mrs. Addis stumbled over a stone and dropped her paper of sugar. Stoppitig to pick it up, her eyes were withdrawn from the lady for an instant, and when she looked up she could not see her anywhere. The children were playing on in the porch, as before. In her haste to gain the house, she lost her breath. " Where's the lady?" she inquired of her children. 44 In the parlor?" The little ones looked aroond, as if searching for the lady to answer the

question. " The lady is not here, minima," snid Nancy. " But hhe was with you minute ago." They seemed surprised. One and all declared the lady had not been there that evening. Minnie, the second child, said she had not played as much as the others, and must have seen her had she

come. Hut Mrs. Addis had the evidence of her own eyesight and went to look ; a vague feeling of something strange wa beginning to dawn upon

feeling sadly desolate, was at Work in her M room by the light of the 1RIU the three children abed and around her. She sat there for coin pany. The wind sighed drearily with out, and the dull tolling of the fog-hell on the beach sounded in euch risin

timosi imperceptible at firs

f.... "iiiiwt min-n i-;m uue at Itrst a soft low moan began to mingle, with the hell, ard it caught by slow degrees Mrs. Addis's ear. She looked oft' her work to listen, her very blood feclim, suddenly chilled. It came froIU (u, little room the children played in. Sh9 was convinced of that as she listened with hushed breath. Taking the him,, she moved to the door, impelled U lear, impelled with that strange im pulse that forbids you to remain Ita lionary in a dread such as this. Optm ingthe door of the red room she looked in, and saw well, saw what well nij;h turned her brain. She stood in a sort of dream, not knowing whether he was asleep or awake. The room seenied to be filled with furniture furniture that it had not in reality a bed and chairs, and matting on the floor, 0 the bod lay the lady she had before Man, the Spanish girl, her features distorted with what seemed to bo a death struggle. A man, whose face was not dieoerttiblo to Mrs. Addis, stood before the bed. The Spanish girl made a frantic effort to spring up, as if to heat him oft, and then sank back and moved

in uiuif. 1 ue man tor- nn 1 ,..

her

more profitable and less mentally labori- her, but when she at length asked an ex-

tnev

f'.l mÜnAmAnt f I . la 1 .

.... 1. .Miruiv,u 1 mum wiiu its oiu associations. "You must excuse my little people, if you please," she went on to say. "They are like frightened hares, and fly for shelter at the sight of strange face; indeed, we are none of us strong just now, though we are gaining health daily. All, except Nancy, my eldest, have had a long, weakening fever." "Pannma?" I suggested.

ous occupation. He died just as they

I came in view of Acapulco, and lay I buried there, far from home and ! j kindred. Poor Mrs. Addis came asho:e I with an aching heart, but a strong spirit. 1 resolved to labor for the living of her :

I children, the youngest of them nearly 1 an infant, rather than undertake the voyage home again. Her father had been a poor clergyman; she had no friends in her native land capable of assisting her, and would not go back to be a burthen on them. When one has to lose caste and work for a living, it is les- hard to the mind to do it in a strange place. She did not know the work would be quite so menial, but she had put her shoulder to the wheel and took what came. At first nothing offered ; perhaps her visions were too high. She could onlv clap her three children to her heart and pray to be helped to provide for them, not to die of starvation. Mr. Evans, who had been one of her fellowpassengers on board the Sierra Nevada, that had brought them up from the Pacific, and who had seen her husband laid to rest in Mexican soil, was very kind to her in her desolation. Washing was paid for well in the place, for washer-women ni.ro enam.

and the notion came to her that she should set up in the calling. It no doubt caused her pride a cruel blow, herself a bitter heartache; perhaps a struggle, yes or no, with her spirit. But she resolved on it. She thought she would get day help for the hardest of the labor. Mr. Evans and one or in

other gentlemen who had been witnesses to her misfortunes, clubbed together to set her going. They found a cheap, pretty house, furni hed, on Russian Hill, and placed her in it. It overlooked the entrance to the bay, and had a nice sweep of smooth ground around it, enclosed by a high paling, on which the linen could dry. They went with her to take possession of it; Mr. Evans and a Mr. Harley, the latter carrying the baby, Willy. What with one busy preparation and another, the day had waned, and evening Was drawing on when they started. It was along, toiling walk up Pacific street: and then, taking a winding path over the brow of the hill, and descending a little on the side that fronts the Oolden (.ate, they stood before the cottage. It was a little one story place, with a garden in front full of rank, overgrown geraniums and trailing Australian vines straggling on either side the straight and 1 eedy path.

planat onal of who the lady was. there

seemed to be some mystery in the answers. The children only saw the lady "at nimens," they said; they would look up from their play and see her by them, and when they looked again she'd bl gone, they did not know where. " Does she come into the garden, Nancy ?" asked Mrs. Addis of her eldest girl, a most intelligent child. " She conn - indoors as well, mamma." "Comes indoors as well ! What does she say ?" "She never speaks at all," was Nancy's answer. " Mamma, she just comes and goes like the shadow in the garden."

I his was very strange. That some person from the Spanish ment at the Laguna who came

I 1 . . . ! I. -w . 1,

umuige ner cuuosiiv. .ir. Audis

it was to

felt

M This can all be done up nicely, you know,-' said Mr. Harley, cheerfully.

was no time for it heftm vmi

It has been empty and neg-

long hum it looks rather

so

Fhere

came in

lee ted for wild."

Mrs. Addis answered in the same cheerful spirits; she was so grateful to them that she would not show any regret. But as she was crossing the porch to enter the doorway, a shivering chill trank her that it was impossible to describe or account for. The house was not dark. Those kind friends had had it lighted; a lamp burned on the table; a fire blazed in the open grate; what

sure of. The nert lei-ure hour she had she walked out that way, taking Nancy, and bidding her point out the lady if she saw her. Mrs. Addis did not altogether like the idea of a stranger's entering her home at will without asking leave. It was a bright sunshiny afternoon, and all the Spanish people seemed to be outside their cluster of huts enjoying it. The women were sewina. th chil.

dren playing. Mrs. Addis walked along, exchanging pleasant looks and nods with these people, as is the custom in an unsophisticated place like San Francisco, and they nodded and smiled back again. " Do you see the lady, Nancv ?" she

asked in a low tone. " No, mamma, I can't see her anywhere." All at once, as it were, Mrs. Addis became aware of a certain curiosity in the manner and looks of these people as they regarded her, far beyound the natural curiosity excited by strangers. It was, as she afterward expressed it, an awstruck curiosity ; they gazed at her as though she were a rare, wild animal. " JRttjf malo casa," she distinctly heard, and the speaker had her eyes directed to her home on Russian Hill. Mrs. Addis had caught up enough of California Spanish to know that it meant, " Verv nasi lir.iiL "

Very b id house

A small bright-eyed "senora," with two chi ldren at her side, leaned against her little gate, looking both curious and excited. Mrs. Addis stopped and asked, in a mixture of tongues that might have made any one laugh to hear her, why they all stared at her so, and what was amiss with her or with the house. The senora took a little time to gather in the meaning, and said she was mistaken about herself, for they all thought well and kindly of her; but as for the house I Here she shook her head and gesticulated with her hands, and became quite unintelligible. Mrs. Addis begged her to repeat what she had said, which she did in precisely the same manner, but beyond the words, bad man and bad house, she could gather nothing. It MOXM her feel uncomfortable, and as she went up hill again she regarded her neat little abode with a puzzled wonder. Having an errHnd to do at the nearer-t store, wbicfa was kent bv nn

I tal

lan, in a tent on Pacific street in

The iady was not in the garden, back or front, as might be seen at a glance. Mrs. Addis went into the different rooms indoor-, and she was not there. Where lav the my.-tery? In what did it consist ? From th it right a conviction of something dreadful-something to be avoided and feorod sat apOO her. Day by day

11 deepened, like a darkening cloud. It was extremely painful to acknowledge to herself that this curious and inexplicable thing bäd greater power over her, in depressing her heart and paralyzing her spirits, than the severe sorrow that had passed over her life, leaving her alone in the world with its troubles. A vague fear of some ill to come haunted her and yet she hud not the courage to confess her weakness, and beg Mr. Evans to find them another home. Whenever the children named " the lady," she shuddered, and yet she could not reason clearly on the subject, or deckte sensibly what foundation she had for misgiving. She be

came daily more Oppressed by brooding over this very uncertainty and tinshadowy dread that haunted her. One thing she observed; that the children never now spoke of seeing the lady but in the little red play room. Whenever she appeared to them (if ajpea she did, and it was not all deration on their part) it was always there. The singular circumstance was, that they had no fear ; and whether thev Msdlw

believed that they saw the lady, one of real flesh and blood. Mrs. Addis did not know. She would not talk to them about it. Thus the time went on, and October came in. One day she had been down in St. Annis Valley, and was toiling

uacK upward alter ner long journey over the sand-hills. Glancing to t hehouse when she came in view of it, she saw one of their good friends, Mr. Brown, in the porch with the children. He had Willy in his arms, and the two girls were jumping and talking by his side.. , 'There'e mamma!" they cried. " Mamma's come back." In that moment tho strange and painful doubts were lost sight "of by Mrs. Addis : she laughed and nodded in her turn, and quickened her weary steps. . 1 .i 1 1 , . ....

ouuuemy uer neari stood still as though it were turned to stone. Passing lightly out at the door behind the group already there, came the figure of

the Spanish girl, and stood among them so close that their garments seemed to touch ; but no one noticed her or appeared to mark her pre-ence. She leaned forward anxiously and shaded her face with her hand as she watched, looking earnestly down toward and be

yond the hui. ror an instant Mrs. Addis seemed to lose sigl t and sense, and when she looked again the figure had gone. "Was any one with you here a minute ago?" she asked Mr. Brown. " There's no one here but me, Mrs. Addis; me and the children. How ill you look. Your long walk has fatigued you." She said no more. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him all, but she did not. Perhaps a drea I o' being secretly laughed at prevented it. How she dreaded the staying on in that house on Russian Hill, only herself knew.

The rainy season commenced early ; there was a great deal of it mite a flood so that the children played indoor. Mrs. Addis never heard them talk of the lady now, and feit convinced she was not appearing to them. Only twice had Mrs. Addis beheld her ; yet she seemed to remember her face as clearly, every feature of it, a though she had known her for years. And before attempting to relate what followed, a hope must be expressed as Mrs. Addis expressed it that she should not be charged with insanity. It was on the I St h of October, almost midnight, and about a fortnight after the walk to St. Annis' Valley. Mr-. Addis, very busy over sonic sewing, and

Uli tili. 111.1

ting and some of the floor, and a great

uoie seemed suddenly to yawn there Then, by the side of the bed appeared a long box, and Mrs. Addis felt sure that

11 was noi mere a minute before. Into this the man pushed the insensible girl and lifted it into the great hole. This was all. Terrified n -.rly to death, the poor woman ot In , senses and fell. As she exp , .-..d it after ward, a cold, dull, awful blank seemed to stretch it.-elf like a black curtain between her sight and the world. The children found her h ing there insensible, and help was called in. In vain her friend strove to impress apon her that this strange scene she Siemen to have Witnessed me nothing but a dream or M nightmare) she replied by asking whether the appearance of the Spanish girl to her children helbr..!. ,..,t

had been a dream. The night was succeeded by a dangerous fever, and she lay for many days in delirium. Mr. Evans caused the floor to be taken up in the scarlet room. Underneath it lay such a box as Mrs. Addis bad described; the lady within it was unrecognized from the action of slaked lime. Then the poor people in the Spani h settlement were (questioned, and they related what they knew. The house on Russian Hill had been the

abode of a young girl, belonging to their people ; she thought herself the wife of an American merchant, whom she loved with intense devotion; and she used to watch for his coming with anxious fondness. Hi real wile, meantime, saiied from the eastern home and came to join him, sad he poisoned the pOOf girl, as 'twas thought : though none could prove it, and nothing positive was known beyond her disappearance on that night, tho 10th of October, two years before. The A mot loin merchant abandoned the house and furniture, just a it stood ; giving an agent charge to let it tor an almost nominal sum. After remaining empty some time Mr. Evans took it for Mrs. Addis, its low rent being the inducement, and he knowing nothing of the story. After the discovery Mrs. Addis was removed, and lay long ill at the house of a kind Spanish woman who received

her. Strange to say, her children also became ill, as if (people said) the curse of the house was working itself out. A better home was provided for her the one in which she has been introduced to the reader and she removed to it. She was only then recovering from the long illness, and was verv weak. Mr. Evans substantiated this story in every particular that he could, as did others. The suspected man had gone with his wife to Australia; and no one had held the Spanish wife in sufficient

interest to follow him there, and charge him with the crime. He lives in immunity from it, so far as it is known, to this d.'.v. I make no remarks upon the story myself. I give it as it was given to me. That it was strangely singular, none can deny. And if the reader should be curious on the subject of Mrs. Addis herself. I may mention that she prospered well,

ana regained her own position in life. Hut she never alluded to the house on Russian Hill with the least abatement of horror. Nothing in this world will ever shake her belief in the ghost that haunted it. The Arqosy.

By Hook or Crook. There appears to be no want of an origin for this proverb. In the first fire of London many boundary marks were destroyed. This in eons oqnenc.e of many disputes as to the sites of different proportion) hod a tendency to hinder the rebuilding of the city. In order to escape from the delay, it was decided to appoint two arbitrators, whose decision should be final in all cases. The surveyers appointed were a Mr. Hook and Mr. Crook, who gave so much satisfaction in their decisions that the building proceeded rapidly. From this circumstance comes the saying, " By hook or by crook." The contractors of Morgan's Louisiana

and Texas railroad will not uive em

ployment, to any negro who has engaged to work on plantations, unless he, ha the written consent of the planter; but employment for both teams and hands will be tarnished) whenever d( sired, to

those having employes and teams not engaged in cultivating their crops.