Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1896 — THE FACE . AT THE WINDOW [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE FACE . AT THE WINDOW

During the last two years that I was ■t boarding school, taking art as an extra, I paid all my expenses by the ■ale of the familiar cyanotypes, of “blue prints." They were very popular among the girls, and the use of them In friezes or in other wall decorations became quite a fashion, so that I sometimes sold hundreds for a single room. Of course the choice of subjects was largely determined by my prospective purchasers, but there was a steady detnand for local landscapes, and a pleasant afternoon usually saw me trudging •mmtryward, hunting the picturesque u a hungry sportsman hunts game. On a certain day, whep I had farther into the rural districts than usual, an obliging farmer’s wife, (whom I had just “taken” in the act of working a wcllsweep, observed: “You ougfht to go up to the old Tarkington Place, miss, if it’s a real sightly ■pot you’re after; there ain’t another ■ueb lookout for miles around. You keep right on past the bridge/’ and she proceeded with directions of a bewildering prolixity. “Who lives there?” I asked. “Nobody lives there, and hasn’t for ten years. Old man Tarkington, he Uvea.” and here followed still more puzzling directions. “Come to think, you’d better get leave of him before you go; lie’s dreadful queer. They do •ay the house is haunted," she called out as I closed the gate. Now, next to a “view,” I ioved an adventure, and this queer Mr. Tarkington ■nd the hypothetical ghost seemed a combination too good to be lost. In half an hour I had found the old man ■nd obtained the desired permission, tinder promise of sending him two of the photographs, if they proved good, a matter that he, and not I, treated as •pen to doubt. Shouldering my tripod, 1 climbed the long hiU by a road evidently little disturbed by travel, and in due time came in sight of an overgrown yard and a large solitary mansion. Whose air of chilly desertion told me immediately that it was the Turkington Place. The house was a peculiar one, of painted brick, with a hopper roof, and there tfas something indefinably gloomy and weird in its aspect, although the front received the full rays of the western sun. Everything spoke of neglect and abandonment; there

■were no blinds or even I wards at the windows, and the side pillass of the oldfashioned porch were held up only by the folds of a gigantic honeysuckle. Hastily choosing a favorable point •f view and adjusting my camera. I secured a negative on one of my finest plates, and, overcome by a mysterious feeling of awe, .Mithout waiting for further exploratwri, made the best of my way home. That evening I developed my pictures. Probably many of you know what it is to sit in the faint glow of the ruby lantern and watch some coveted image as it starts out bit by bit from a surface as blank as an egg. For tuy part, 1 confess it excites me, and J felt a thrill of more than ordinary eagerriess as I poured the chemicals over the Turkington plate. First the sky “came up,” as we say, a dark shadow; then the house, the porch and a bit of foreground and foliage, the various details showing niore and more vividly as I rocked the tray from side to side. I was just congratulating myself on haring captured a prize, when my attention was fixed by a peculiar appearance alxiut one of the upper windows. It looked like a sac surely—n woman's face, and my heart began to beat suffocatingly as an unmistakable. though shadowy, figure deflned Itself behind the fincurtalned panes. Somehow, at the moment; I did not think of a natural explanation; it was the picture of a ghost, an Intangible being, invisible to a normal eye. but mysteriously patent to the sensitized Ihb. I recalled exactly how that window had looked, glassy and lifeless, .■without n sign of occupancy. Was it Cssible that the plate had been used fore.? Certain forfuer experiences made the suggestion pertinent; but no, the negative was a brilliant one, perfect In ewery particular; there was clearly nothing wrong on the technical •ide. ' Observing the Image carefully, I ■otod that the eyes were not turned to the spot where I had stood, but were gazing out on the landscape, while the whole attitude, I fancied, was that of a troubled sjjlrit revisiting earthly > denies. 1 thought 'D f old Mr. Turkington, and jtow be was’Vepated “questshould I •bow him what I had unwittingly hroiufht to light? Agltgted bud be

wlldered by an occurrence so strange, I finally put up my apparatus and went to'bed. ———: The nexAday, fortunately, was Saturday, and as soon after sunrise as possible I had my wonderful negative in the printing frame. The character of the face Came out clearly in the resulting impression, especially when I studied it qnder a pocket microscope. It was a face that might have belonged to a woman of 30, handsome but emaciated, with melancholy dark eyes. In short. It was just the head that a painter would have chosen for the casement of a haunted house. A night’s rest, however, had steadied my norvies and revived my adventurpus spirit, and I determined that the least I could do was to submit the enigma to the owner of Turkington Place. Mr. Turkington, when I found him. was at Work in his yard. He greeted me pleasantly, but with obvious surprise at my early appearance, and by this time my unmanageable heart was beating so hard that I could only stammer. “I brought your photograph, sir,” and stretch forth the blue print. tie took it, very slowlyadjusting his held it off, and began vague-, ly to scrutinize it, after the’manner of one unaccustomed to pictures. Suddenly the color rushed into his face.

He raised a long shaking forefinger and pointed close to the telltale win-" dow, saying with awful deliberatness: ..‘‘What does that mean?” “I do not know, sir,” I responded, firmly, meeting his eye and finding my voice again. “I understood that the house was empty and I saw no one there, but when I developed—that is—when I looked at my picture, you know, after I got home, I noticed that there seemed to be a woman inside.” He remained like one stunned for some time. At last he asked: “Do you know who it is?” “No. sir: do you?” I rejoined, quickly, with Involuntary curiosity. “Yes. it’s my darter Esthei’ - , who—” I thought he was going to say died? but instead he said —“left me more than ten years ago. “ I didn't even know whether she was alive,” he murmured, still gazing as if he expected the little wraith-like picture face to open its lips and speak. "Bat are you sure that this is not an itlusion of some kind?” 1 ventured, after another pause. "Illusion!” answered the old man. with an angry start. “How do you mean illusiori? Isn’t it as plain as day?” "It seems so there, certainly, but I assure you, str, that I was as near to the house as we are to the garden' yonder. and looked at it most particularly, and there wasn’t a soul there, at least there wasn’t anybody to be seen.” "Did' you keep you eye on the hous« while you were taking the picter?” he asked. I considered, and now remembered that after uncapping the lens I had kept my eye on the my watch during the exposure—a matter of four or live seconds. I said so.

"Then she must have come to the window about that time,” replied Mr. Turkington, quietly. “Caught sight of you, mebbe, and started back.;- Tire figger's faintish, you sec.” A light broke in on me, and I began to fear that I was to be balked of my ghost. “I must go up there, of course,” said ho. “There's no time to be lost." “O, may I go with you?" I cried. “Please let me—l’m so much interested!” “Yes—yes, come along. I kin make you useful, perhaps,. But j'tut them foolish notions out o' your mind.” By degrees, as we climbed the hill, the little tragic history of discord and, a long-standing grievance came out. "She was a fiery, high-spirited girl, was Esther, though so pretty-looking, aud always gay in her ways; and after her mother died we had words, and site left home. I was fiery myself, and mebbe unreasonable at times. She went amongst friends, and I kept thinking we’d make it up. aud I’d get her back again; but I put it off and two years went by. “Well, one day there camo a letter from her saying she was going to be married next week to an Italian as liad a shop to sell Aggers. That was just a little too much, expecting all along to

do well by her, as I was. I writ aud said she could choose betwixt him and me; I didn’t wish no son-in-law. least of all an Italian, and if she wa'n't back in less'n a fortnight, she needn’t ever show herself here again.” Sorrow and obstinacy, resentment and tenderness, struggled in the old man’s face; I understood now why the neighbor considered him “queer.” » “She didn’t come I —of course; and I won’t say I haven’t made some inquiries since I cooled down, but they moved and moved again, till I lost track o’ them altogether—lt’s eight years come May.” By this time we had reached the house, and Mr. Turkington took out a rusty key and let me In at the front door. There was some little furniture, a few carpets aud a kitchen stove; but

these signs of farmer comfort seemed to increase the dreariness of the t'omh-dike-alr and the-echoing. damp-stained walls. An eerie feeling crept me as I peeped Int® one room after another, untebanted except by spiders- dnd wasps. ' 1 We mounted the stairs„tind a look of Irrepressible\disappointment deepened the- lines in the old man’s face as be entered'“Estlier’s chamber” and found it quite empty,: forsaken and mournful like all the rest. “I am afraid, sir, that you will have to give up the search,” I said. But the old man crossed to the window, and looking down, uttOred a sudden exclamination. In the'thick dust that covered the window-sill lay the unmistakable prints of a woman’s fingertips. “Call that a ghost, do you?” he asked, with an odd, tremulous elation; and his eye kindled. Descending to the kitchen, he opened the stove and thrust in his hand. The as lies there were still warm—there' were live sparks among them. “Depend upon it She was here no later than this morning—got in through the back kitchen window, most likely, and spent the night here. She-can’t .have gone far, and I’ll be up with her within twenty-four hours. She must ha’ felt a hankerin’ to have a sight o* the old place. Toor girl, if she looks like that picter o’ yours she’s had trouble enough.” At the fobt of the hill we parted—he to make a house-to-house pilgrimage in search of his daughter, I to hasten back to the school with my head full of romance. As I entered the yard, one of the girls came dying out .to meet me. „ , • . “Quick, Lu,” she cried, “get your camera! We have such a picturesque subject for you, around by the servants' entrance. We inveigled herein, and have all been wasting our pocket money on shoestrings and .impossible letter paper, on purpose to keep her for you. Quick! Don’t wait to take off your hat!” A woman with a little gay-colored shawl’pinned over her head, after the fashion of Italian street-venders, sdt patiently on ; while .tire kindhearted girls were fast emptying the two valises that lay open beside her. The black braids were hidden now; exposure and weariness were stamped on the features. But I recognized the face in an instant—it was Mr. Tarkington’s Esther. —Utica Globe.

THEY DO SAY THE HOUSE IS HAUNTED.

LIKE ONE STUNNED FOR A TIME.

RECOGNIZED THE FACE IN AN INSTAN