Ghost Stories

Halloween meant nothing to the children in the house on the hill. I can't remember even hearing the word until I started to school. That doesn't mean our house was void of ghosts and goblins.

A good ghost story has screeches and howls and things that go bump in the night. The house on the hill had all that built in. On a windy night, you could hear creaks and groans as the house bowed to the wind. Loose boards and shingles would bump and slap, defying the wind. And the wind literally whistled under the doors and around the windows.

On such a night, Daddy would go to bed early. The single coal-oil lamp flickered with the wind and cast moving shadows on the walls. Mama would pull her rocker a little closer to the pot-bellied stove. Bobbie and I would sit in the corner behind the stove at Mama's feet and beg her to tell us a ghost story. Not made up ones, but those she'd experienced and swore were true.

"Well, she'd say, "Not long after Glen was born there was that light that came in the house. It was a hot sultry night. The bed we slept in was in a front open window. We had gone to bed and I had made a pallet for Glen in the floor at the foot of the bed. He was just a month or two old and a little sickly. I was laying there listening to Glen breathe when I glanced out the window and saw this light coming toward the house. This ball of light kept coming, came through the window and danced for just a moment over my sleeping baby and then went back out the window and into the woods. I could see it disappearing behind the trees."

"Did it hurt the baby?"

"No, just came in and then left."

"Tell us another one."

"Well, there was the time I saw your Grandmother McCoy."

"Was she a ghost?"

"She had been dead about a year. The twins, RD and Rrean, were just about a week old. I had been in bed most of the time since they'd been born. I was laying there one day looking out the window. and saw a woman coming up the path to the door. I told Winnie to open the door for Mrs Hornbeck, our neighbor. She opened the door but noone was there. I knew I had seen someone! After thinking a minute I knew it was Grandma McCoy. I recognized her dress and bonet. I had promised her before she died, that I would name the next girl after her. Her name was Rachel. I believe she had come back to remind me that I had not kept my promise."

"Then there was the time we lived over around Elbridge in a house that had a dog trot. A dog trot was an open hallway down the middle of the house. There were two big rooms on one side of the hallway and two big rooms on the other side. Occasionally at night you could hear a horse gallop up the road and stop at the gate. You could hear the gate open, and in a minute hear heavy footsteps walking all the way to the end of the dog trot. They would wait a bit and then the heavy footsteps would come back down the dog trot and out to the gate. You could hear the gate close."

"Did they leave?"

"Can't remember them leaving."

"Did you see anything?"

"Nothing."

Gone are the days of wide-eyed wonder. No blood or gore, just enough of the inexplicable to stimulate the imagination. What could have happened there at the end of the dog trot? Did the dancing light mean anything? Was it a fore warning to Mama that little Glen was a precious gift, lent for a short time? Was it an angel checking on heaven's treasure? Did Grandma McCoy really visit or was Mama delirious? Perhaps Grandma just want to see the new babies. We don't know.

My Place

At the top of the stairs was a large window facing west. As I passed from childhood into my teen years that window became my favorite spot. From there I looked through the dancing leaves of a big mulberry tree to the road leading to the rest of the world. Outside that window I could see the rock pile beside the gravel road that led to highway 61 and routes beyond. I could see the little brick-siding house where my brother, Horace and his wife Marie lived. It was small and neat and cosy. Marie had a real living room.There were no beds in her front room. The pump was in the kitchen. How unique! Something not even considered at the house on the hill. I dreamed of someday having such a cosy, convenient home.

My place by the window was perfect during the hot summer days. I could count on an occasional gentle breeze through the window. It cooled my moist face and twisted and turned the big mulberry leaves, showing their white fuzzy side. The gentle whisper of the leaves brought peace to my heart and life. How perfect were those hours spent sitting in the window.

My seat by the window was a box of old clothes and rags, crushed and torn to fit the shape of a young slim teenage girl. Many dreams and plans were fashioned there. Someday, I'd be a wife and mother. I'd read and play with my children. I'd tell them stories and we'd sing and plan and wait together for Christmas. I'd sew little girls' dresses and little boy's shirts. I'd take them to church and teach them about Jesus. I'd cook and then gather my family together at the end of day.

I spent many rainy hours sitting in the window. I could hear the rain on the roof and it's gentle patter on the leaves of the mulberry tree. The dim light from the window fell on forgotten stories from the pages of old magazines and newspapers. I reread the comics and scanned articles with intreging head lines. If the day was cool, I would pull an old skirt tail from my seat of rags to wrap my arms. With a damp breeze in my face I'd visit faraway places and live a life of vicarious wonder from the discarded papers and books on the landing at the top of the stairs.

The subdued light faded into the shadows behind me, lost in the boxes of junk and clothing and dusty pieces of broken things, even the small unopened box at the top of the stairs.

The Stair Way

The Stair Way

As a child, I was intrigued with the stairway leading upstairs. It was not fancy at all, just a simple stairway of roughhewn boards nailed in place on a saw toothed frame ascending to the second floor. It was boxed in by the inside wall of the dining room and the outside wall of the house. There was not even a banister. Kids just bounded up and down and adults steadied themselves by grabbing the thin strip of wood nailed to the outside wall.

Things without a home were often found in the corners of the steps; a coffee can of nails, a chipped pitcher, a doll left to wait for its young mother, tools, a broom, rags. The landing at the top of the stairs was a depository for hurriedly left items. The empty fruit jars would rest there until we emptied a box to put them in. The heavy pressure cooker was shoved onto the landing after the summer canning. A ripped box bulged with old newspapers and magazines, the latest editions having been thrown on top. Nothing was thrown away, the thin pages of outdated catalogs and newspapers served as bathroom tissue in the outdoor toilet. Then there was the mysterious small closed box sitting undisturbed against the wall.

We loved to play on the steps. This was a place on which we could comfortably sit. The steps just fit the short legs of a child. The steps were also a stage for our paper dolls. We would play for hours; walking, talking, and visiting. We mocked life as we knew it and played it out as we hoped it to become.

Most of our paper dolls were cut from the slick pages of the Sears and Roebuck catalog. The slick, stiffer pages also made wonderful furniture. The page was carefully cut, folded, and glued with spit to make beds, chairs, and couches. We even made an occasional truck to transport our families from one household to another.

Our favorite paper doll was Ruth. She was our only “bought” paper doll. I can’t remember how she came to be ours. Perhaps a “found” treasure when we moved into the house on the hill. She had no clothes except those we drew, colored and cut out for her. But, she was beautiful and cherished.

The stairs were by no means professionally made or finished. Each step was made by the conjunction of two unfinished boards coming together. At the back of each step was a crack. The cracks varied, some wide, some narrow. We paid little attention to the construction of the stairway until the fateful day that Ruth fell through a crack.

That was a sad day. We would peer through the crack and there she lay, flat on her back, face up, gone forever. It never occurred to us to ask for help to retrieve her. We just visited her occasionally, peeking through the crack in the steps. As I grow older, I find myself peeking through the cracks of the past, reliving for a moment the joys and carefree days of my childhood.

Upstairs

The house on the hill had a second story, "up stairs" we kids called it. One of my first memories of life on the hill had to do with upstairs. Just barely three, I remember climbing up and down, up and down the stairs. The stair way ran up one side of the dining room on the outside wall. At the foot of the stairs was a wonderful big window looking out into the side yard.

Upstairs was a mysterious place authenticated by the admonition of a fun loving brother who told me that a ghost lived up there. He had proof of it, the ghost had written his name on the wall. And there it was, "Casper", in large sloppy letters painted at an angle across roughly sawn boards at the top of the stairs. Not only had Casper left his signature, but we were convinced he lived in the crawl space above the kitchen. A wide board had been removed from that side of the large room, giving access to this slanted crawl space. But to us kids, it was just a large rectangular black hole, an opening into dark and mysterious places.

Upstairs was one big room that went from one end of the house to the other. Big uncovered windows at each end gave light to the huge room. On the front wall of upstairs was a line of small windows. The branches of the majestic elm in the front yard reached toward the windows across the roof of the front porch.

Upstairs was an enchanting place. It was filled with treasures and mystery. There was a library table, a bed piled with clothes. There were boxes of clothes and other treasures, old books and magazines, a big stack of St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspapers that Jim had brought. There was also an old hump backed trunk. Mama gave us strict instructions to stay out of there, giving it all the more mystery. Among all the boxes and junk was a small closed cardboard box. It was almost sacred. Mama said we were to leave it alone, not to open it. Somehow we knew that was one request from Mama that we could not violate.

Upstairs was the ideal place to play. It was most fun to play up there when my nieces came. Being number eleven of twelve children, these nieces were around my age. Peggy, Nancy, Patsy, Norma, and my sister Bobbie were in this consort. Peggy was the most adventurous and fearless.

The large room was big enough for each of us girls to make our own "house". The boxes of old clothes were perfect for dressing up. We all had our favorites. A long three tiered skirt and a thin soft fluffy blouse were mine.

Mama kept the mysterious black hole covered by stacking boxes of various things in front of it. But, occasionally, it was open, giving my suspicious and believing heart a quickened beat should I have to pass too closely. However nothing, especially the black hole, could scare Peggy. She was five months older than I. That was explanation enough for me of her prowess.

This particular Sunday afternoon, things were going well. We were trying to get houses set up at various places to play house. This was something of no particular interest to Peggy.

"You go ahead and set up our house." She said to me. " I will just live with you."

Not getting the gist behind it, I thought the idea was great. That gave her the freedom to ramble and explore.
Eventually, she was drawn to the black hole in the wall. Pushing a box aside, she climbed upon another, putting herself directly in front of the black hole. With her hands on either side of the hole, she poked her head way in to look around. All this time, I thought she would pull back out of that hole headless. After what seemed like five minutes, she pulled her head out of the hole.

I'll never forget those big brown eyes, widened for emphasis, looking at us. Then in a very mysterious voice she said, " I saw two big, round, (here she brought those long skinny fingers together to indicate size) white eyes in there."

The next thing heard was a stampede down the stairs. We didn't stop until we were outside, exactly where Peggy wanted to be.

The Last Outing

Mrs. Shouppe died yesterday, closing an interesting chapter in my life. She was 94, old enough to be my mother, but we were more like good friends.

I cannot forget the last time I took her to see the opthalmologist. We had already cancelled and rescheduled at least once. It was time for a complete eye exam. She tried to talk herself out of going, but I talked her into keeping the appointment.

We arrived at the doctor's office to find they had moved the waiting room. This didn't sit well with her but the girls at the desk were kind and helpful and directed us to the end of a long hallway. Long, because by now every step for Mrs. Shouppe was painful and slow. I looked around for a wheelchair. None was available so I borrowed a desk chair on rollers.

Here we go, she is in the desk chair, feet dangling and with her enormous purse, which she used as a filing/medicine cabinet, and my big purse, which would easily serve as an overnight bag, piled in her lap. I held her cane under my arm and tried to manipulate the wobbly chair that wanted to dart back and forth across the hall. Just before we got to the waiting room, a sweet technician directed us to an examination room.

Suddenly, Mrs Shouppe is cold, so I take off my shirt and cover her shivering shoulders. It's a good thing I wore this top shirt to cover my fluff which is now fully exposed by my slightly too snug knitted top. Now we face the task of getting her in the examination chair. The step is too high. After a couple of tries, the technician and I drag her backwards into the chair. The technician leaves us alone in the exam room. Mrs. Shouppe's little feet are dangling and going to sleep so she sends me to search for telephone books to slip under them.

All fixed now, Mrs. Shouppe has to use the restroom. She slides easily out of the exam chair into the rolling desk chair and down the hall we go, she with the purses, I with the cane, under my arm, trying to guide the wobbly chair. The restrooms are back up the long hall, across the length of the original waiting room into a confined hallway. The restroom has a heavy door opening out into the hall.

We arrive at the restroom just in time. I hold the heavy door open for her. She goes in and I'm left to guard the purses. At last she comes out. I try to hold the door open, retrieve the cane she forgot, grab the purses from the desk chair while keeping it from rolling out from under her. Having so much to synchronize, I accidently let the door go prematurely and it slaps her on the bottom. She screams and here comes a nurse and a young man with a wheelchair.

Back in the exam room and back in the chair, the technician begins the exam. Suddenly Mrs. Shouppe becomes faint and begins to gag. A nurse rushes in with cool wet clothes, and I retrieve a throw up bag from her purse.

"I just want to go home!" she says.

I try to tell her this will not take long and we can be on our way.

"I just want to go home!! she repeats several times.

The doctor arrives early, ready to dialate her eyes.

"No! No!" she shouts, "I've told you I don't want that done again".

I try to explain that that it is necessary for her exam.

"I just want to go home!!" she says a little louder this time.

The exam is terminated and we prepare to go.

Wrapped in my oversized shirt, still shaking, Mrs. Shouppe is pushed to the car by a nurse while I settle things at the check out desk.

When I get to the car, Mrs. Shouppe is lying back in the seat, moaning and gagging with a wet cloth on her head and throw up bag in hand. The nurse is soothing and comforting her. I finally get myself, purses, and cane into the car. After fastening our seat belts, I put the car in reverse and we are on our way.

Before we are out of the parking lot she says, "You think we could stop at the Discount Bread Store?"

"Of course." I answer.

It is three blocks from the doctor's office. We are soon there. Before I can get out of the car, she is already out and on her way to the door!

I will miss her.

Wash Day

Washday at our house was always on Monday unless canceled by rain, in which case it happened the next available day. Washday itself dawned with vigor. Mama was up earlier than usual and expected the whole family to follow.

I pull the sheet and blanket up over my head and enjoy the cool breeze coming in the large open window.

"Get up from there, girls," Mama calls from the kitchen.

Awake, but with my eyes still closed, I realize with dread that it is washday. Peeking out of one eye in the direction of the open window and noting the cool breeze, I try to make myself believe that it is going to rain. I pull up the covers a little tighter and drift off to sleep. Sounds from the kitchen drift in and out of my dreams. Mama's steps have a quickened beat this morning. I'm just not in tune with them.

"Out of there, girls, we've got work to do."

Why does Mama sound so close? Suddenly I know. With one sudden jerk, I'm lying on the featherbed ticking, the top and bottom sheets are on their way to the wash pot and I'm wadded up in a knot under my gown.

"I need that gown too," she says, "Get dressed and eat your breakfast. I need you to scrub a few clothes for me."

Certain pieces of the laundry had to be scrubbed before being placed in the wash pot.That could be anything that was especially soiled. Dish rags, and work clothes topped the list. The scrub board was a very effective piece of equipment. It worked very effectively to humble the proud young trainee in laundry. It's appearance was innocent enough. It is a board with legs long enough to reach the bottom of the wash tub. The top is a cornice of sorts that rests against the operators stomach and holds a bar of soap. The working surface, however, is rough, ribbed metal, designed to force out dirt if used properly. If it is not used correctly, it can ruin a young girl's nuckles in a manner of minutes and a hole in the garment as well. This fact alone will speed up the learning process.

The tub for this first step in the laundry process was placed on the back porch. This placed the scrub board just the right height for an adult standing on the ground. I stood on a bucket. Mama added hot boiling water to the half tub of cold water. A bar of P&Gj soap completed the supplies needed and the washday began.

The soiled garment was pulled from the warm soapy water, up over the scrub board, generously soothed with P&G soap, flipped to the soaped side down and gently rubbed, gathering the garment in your hands as you rubbed up and down the ribbed board. This was a slow gentle scrub without too much pressure to the garment to avoid rubbing al hole in it. Continue rubbing and gathering to the end of the garment, then flip the garment and repeat the process. Scrubbing done, the piece was then wrung out by hand and ready for the steaming wash pot.

The black wash pots stood behind the scrubbing board. Mama often used two. She had mountains of laundry to do. A fire was built under them from scraps of wood. The wood smoke driffed through the air. Soon the water in the wash pots was bubbling. Mama boiled all the clothes ten or fifteen minutes depending on how dirty they were. Sunday clothes and school clothes alone escaped the scalding. A long stick, most often the handle of a worn out broom, was used to lift the steaming clothes into a tub. Mama would call one of us to help carry the tub to the wonderfully cool shade of the mulberry tree where the washing began in earnest.

Mama scrubbed the clothes again when needed, and rinsed them twice. Only then were they ready to be hung on the line. All this time she was keeping a watchful eye on the steaming wash pots. Snowy white sheets were first. These were too big to be trusted to children. Mama couldn't risk them being dropped on the sandy soil beneath the clothes line. Mama hang these out with remarkable speed.

When the older girls were at home, Bobbie and I were free to play around the bench holding the wash tubs under that big mulberry tree. Hanging in the dense shade of the mulberry tree was a wonderful swing. It was a long rope with both ends tied to a large branch in the tree. Someone had fashioned a seat from a piece of wood. The rope cut into the sides.

"Ah, at last! My turn in the swing." First I pull back as far as the rope will let me, then I lift my feet and swing forward. On each return, I give a push with my bare feet, getting higher and higher. Then I stretch, pulling back on the rope to get as far back as I can. Then I push forward with my bottom as hard as I can, flinging my bare dusty feet forward, stretching and stretching for the stark white sheets hanging on the line in front of me.

"Betty! Don't touch your dirty feet to the sheets!" Mama warns.

"It's my turn," Bobbie yells.

Only then do I relax and let the swing carry me back and forth and the breeze cools my face and blows the hair that has escaped the single long braid down my back.

As the day progresses, the lines are filled with fresh clean clothes. The work clothes and rags are hanging on the garden fence. The fire is dying under the wash pots. Ashes and half-burned sticks remain. The water in the pots still steams, but is cloudy and brown. One by one the tubs of water are emptied. Some on flower beds, others in the pig lot. Finally one wash tub is carried to the back porch. Mama's apron and dress are wet and she looks tired but pleased.

"Betty, go pump a fresh bucket of water," Mama calls as she reaches for the mop. "Now be sure to pump it off good," she says.

Mama mops the kitchen from the tub of wash water, then with a broom she lifts the water from the tub and scrubs the porch. By now I have returned with the bucket of cool fresh water. Mama lifts a dipper of water from the bucket and drinks it all.


"Ah, that's good," she says and she is on her way to the front porch to rest a bit before she starts supper.

Pre-wash Day

Washday at the house on the hill was always on Monday unless canceled by rain, in which case it happened the very next available day. It was preceded by certain almost ritualistic preparations; water was pumped, beds changed, clothes sorted, and Daddy tricked into changing clothes. To Daddy, changing clothes was an inconvenience and an unnecessary nuisance. Mama always put his clean clothes out on Sunday morning and took his dirty ones to the closet in the back room.

The back room played an important part in the lives of folks when I was growing up. It took the place of utility rooms, guest rooms and closets. It most often served as a bedroom for those needing less privacy, and more often the latest out of Mama and Daddy's room. It also served as a repository for the dirty clothes, canned goods, rags and broken things. The dirty clothes were in baskets or on the floor in the make shift closet in a corner of the back room.

The closet was a corner in the back room. In the summer time the outside door and the door leading to the kitchen opened back to make a triangular closet. A flimsy sheet hung on a string from one door facing to the other hiding the dirty clothes and the slop jar in the winter. The closet itself was a favorite place for kids. It would have made a perfect hiding place had it not been the only place to hide. It did, however, serve as an occasional place of solitude until you were discovered.

The evening before wash day, Mama would pull a cane bottom chair into the back room from the kitchen, throw the sheet concealing the closet over its string, and take her seat. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, and began a task she thoroughly enjoyed, sorting the clothes. She did this just before going to bed the night before wash day.

Sorting the clothes was a job much too important to be trusted to amateures. Mama sorted the clothes by color and importance. School clothes were important. Work clothes were not. The clothes were sorted and washed in this order; whites, colors, towels, work clothes and rags. But this was not a simple task. Washday was an all day thing. When I refer to whites, I mean all three loads of them, sheets, underwear, white blouses and shirts. The colors were the dresses, the everyday clothes, the boy's shirts and pants, and then Mama's aprons. The work clothes were washed next and last of all, the rags.

Towels had not been a problem until one of the married kids gave Mama some. Until then we had always used the skirts of dresses whose waist had worn out. These easily fit into the everyday colors. Real towels presented a problem for Mama. The lint lingered in the water and clung to the rest of the wash.

Bobbie and I filled huge tubs with water the afternoon before washday. This meant endless trips from the pump to the washtubs already in place on the bench under the mulberry trees at the west end of the house. After the tubs were filled, we filled the black wash pots sittin;g on an incline directly in front of the back door. I'm sure the wash pots were positioned so that Mama could keep a watchful eye from the kitchen. The pump and the black pots were in the blazing summer sun. Between them a path of burning sand toughened the bare feet of the young carriers.

The wash pot was a large cast iron black pot with short legs. This was a very valuable container. Its primary use was to heat water for laundry. However, it was also used for making soap, rendering lard, frying fish and other tasks that were best done outdoors. A fire could be built under its round belly.

How wonderful are the predawn hours on the farm. The rooster is the first to summon the new day. A distant crowing lightens my sleep and I lie there expecting the rooster from the henhouse to answer. He doesn't disappoint me. Soon there is a chorus of neighboring roosters punctuated by the resident rooster. This was music to my ears. The long sultry night had become cool, almost too cool. I pull the sheet and blanket up under my chin even over my head and drink in the cool, damp morning air. I can hear Mama in the kitchen. Soon the smell of bacon and coffee drifts in. I can hear their quiet voices as she cooks and Daddy drinks his coffee. All is well with the world.