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Page 63
"Well, there was this house shut up, and the man and woman missing
and the child. Then all of a sudden one of the women that lived
the nearest remembered something. She remembered that she had
waked up three nights running, thinking she heard a child crying
somewhere, and once she waked up her husband, but he said it must
be the Bisbees' little girl, and she thought it must be. The child
wasn't well and was always crying. It used to have colic spells,
especially at night. So she didn't think any more about it until
this came up, then all of a sudden she did think of it. She told
what she had heard, and finally folks began to think they had
better enter that house and see if there was anything wrong.
"Well, they did enter it, and they found that child dead, locked in
one of the rooms. (Mrs. Dennison and Mrs. Bird never used that
room; it was a back bedroom on the second floor.)
"Yes, they found that poor child there, starved to death, and
frozen, though they weren't sure she had frozen to death, for she
was in bed with clothes enough to keep her pretty warm when she was
alive. But she had been there a week, and she was nothing but skin
and bone. It looked as if the mother had locked her into the house
when she went away, and told her not to make any noise for fear the
neighbours would hear her and find out that she herself had gone.
"Mrs. Dennison said she couldn't really believe that the woman had
meant to have her own child starved to death. Probably she thought
the little thing would raise somebody, or folks would try to get in
the house and find her. Well, whatever she thought, there the
child was, dead.
"But that wasn't all. The father came home, right in the midst of
it; the child was just buried, and he was beside himself. And--he
went on the track of his wife, and he found her, and he shot her
dead; it was in all the papers at the time; then he disappeared.
Nothing had been seen of him since. Mrs. Dennison said that she
thought he had either made way with himself or got out of the
country, nobody knew, but they did know there was something wrong
with the house.
"'I knew folks acted queer when they asked me how I liked it when
we first came here,' says Mrs. Dennison, 'but I never dreamed why
till we saw the child that night.'
"I never heard anything like it in my life," said Mrs. Emerson,
staring at the other woman with awestruck eyes.
"I thought you'd say so," said Mrs. Meserve. "You don't wonder
that I ain't disposed to speak light when I hear there is anything
queer about a house, do you?"
"No, I don't, after that," Mrs. Emerson said.
"But that ain't all," said Mrs. Meserve.
"Did you see it again?" Mrs. Emerson asked.
"Yes, I saw it a number of times before the last time. It was
lucky I wasn't nervous, or I never could have stayed there, much as
I liked the place and much as I thought of those two women; they
were beautiful women, and no mistake. I loved those women. I hope
Mrs. Dennison will come and see me sometime.
"Well, I stayed, and I never knew when I'd see that child. I got
so I was very careful to bring everything of mine upstairs, and not
leave any little thing in my room that needed doing, for fear she
would come lugging up my coat or hat or gloves or I'd find things
done when there'd been no live being in the room to do them. I
can't tell you how I dreaded seeing her; and worse than the seeing
her was the hearing her say, 'I can't find my mother.' It was
enough to make your blood run cold. I never heard a living child
cry for its mother that was anything so pitiful as that dead one.
It was enough to break your heart.
"She used to come and say that to Mrs. Bird oftener than to any one
else. Once I heard Mrs. Bird say she wondered if it was possible
that the poor little thing couldn't really find her mother in the
other world, she had been such a wicked woman.
"But Mrs. Dennison told her she didn't think she ought to speak so
nor even think so, and Mrs. Bird said she shouldn't wonder if she
was right. Mrs. Bird was always very easy to put in the wrong.
She was a good woman, and one that couldn't do things enough for
other folks. It seemed as if that was what she lived on. I don't
think she was ever so scared by that poor little ghost, as much as
she pitied it, and she was 'most heartbroken because she couldn't
do anything for it, as she could have done for a live child.
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