Humorous Ghost Stories

THE HAUNTED PHOTOGRAPH

By RUTH McENERY STUART

The Haunted Photograph

By RUTH McENERY STUART

To the ordinary observer it was just a common photograph of a cheap summer hotel. It hung sumptuously framed in plush, over the Widow Morris's mantel, the one resplendent note in an otherwise modest home, in a characteristic Queen Anne village.

One had only to see the rapt face of its owner as she sat in her weeds before the picture, which she tearfully pronounced “a strikin' likeness,” to sympathize with the townsfolk who looked askance at the bereaved woman, even while they bore with her delusion, feeling sure that her sudden sorrow had set her mind agog.

When she had received the picture through the mail, some months before the fire which consumed the hotel—a fire through which she had not passed, but out of which she had come a widow—she proudly passed it around among the friends waiting with her at the post-office, replying to their questions as they admired it:

“Oh, yes! That's where he works—if you can call it work. He's the head steward in it. All that row o' winders where you see the awnin's down, they're his—an' them that ain't down, they're his, too—that is to say, it's his jurisdiction.

“You see, he's got the whip hand over the cook an' the sto'eroom, an' that key don't go out o' his belt unless he knows who's gettin' what—an' he's firm. Morris always was. He's like the iron law of the Ephesians.”

“What key?”

It was an old lady who held the picture at arm's length, the more closely to scan it, who asked the question. She asked it partly to know, as neither man nor key appeared in the photograph, and partly to parry the “historic allusion”—a disturbing sort of fire for which Mrs. Morris was rather noted and which made some of her most loyal townsfolk a bit shy of her.

“Oh, I ain't referrin' to the picture,” she hastened to explain. “I mean the keys thet he always carries in his belt. The reg'lar joke there is to call him 'St. Peter,' an' he takes it in good part, for, he declares, if there is such a thing as a similitude to the kingdom o' Heaven in a hotel, why, it's in the providential supply department which, in a manner, hangs to his belt. He always humors a joke—'specially on himself.”

No one will ever know through what painful periods of unrequited longing the Widow Morris had sought solace in this, her only cherished “relic,” after the “half hour of sky-works” which had made her, in her own vernacular, “a lonely, conflagrated widow, with a heart full of ashes,” before the glad moment when it was given her to discern in it an unsuspected and novel value. First had come, as a faint gleam of comfort, the reflection that although her dear lost one was not in evidence in the picture, he had really been inside the building when the photograph was taken, and so, of course, he must be in there yet!

At first she experienced a slight disappointment that her man was not visible, at door or window. But it was only a passing regret. It was really better to feel him surely and broadly within—at large in the great house, free to pass at will from one room to another. To have had him fixed, no matter how effectively, would have been a limitation. As it was, she pressed the picture to her bosom as she wondered if, perchance, he would not some day come out of his hiding to meet her.

It was a muffled pleasure and tremulously entertained at first, but the very whimsicality of it was an appeal to her sensitized imagination, and so, when finally the thing did really happen, it is small wonder that it came somewhat as a shock.

It appears that one day, feeling particularly lonely and forlorn, and having no other comfort, she was pressing her tear-stained face against the row of window-shutters in the room without awnings, this being her nearest approach to the alleged occupant's bosom, when she was suddenly startled by a peculiar swishing sound, as of wind-blown rain, whereupon she lifted her face to perceive that it was indeed raining, and then, glancing back at the photograph, she distinctly saw her husband rushing from one window to another, drawing down the sashes on the side of the house that would have been exposed to the real shower whose music was in her ears.

This was a great discovery, and, naturally enough, it set her weeping, for, she sobbed, it made her feel, for a minute, that she had lost her widowhood and that, after the shower, he'd be coming home.

It might well make any one cry to suddenly lose the pivot upon which his emotions are swung. At any rate, Mrs. Morris cried. She said that she cried all night, first because it seemed so spooky to see him whose remains she had so recently buried on faith, waiving recognition in the débris, dashing about now in so matter-of-fact a way.

And then she wept because, after all, he did not come.

This was the formal beginning of her sense of personal companionship in the picture—companionship, yes, of delight in it, for there is even delight in tears—in some situations in life. Especially is this true of one whose emotions are her only guides, as seems to have been the case with the Widow Morris.

After seeing him draw the window-sashes—and he had drawn them down, ignoring her presence—she sat for hours, waiting for the rain to stop. It seemed to have set in for a long spell, for when she finally fell asleep, “from sheer disappointment, 'long towards morning,” it was still raining, but when she awoke the sun shone and all the windows in the picture were up again.

This was a misleading experience, however, for she soon discovered that she could not count upon any line of conduct by the man in the hotel, as the fact that it had one time rained in the photograph at the same time that it rained outside was but a coincidence and she was soon surprised to perceive all quiet along the hotel piazza, not even an awning flapping, while the earth, on her plane, was torn by storms.

On one memorable occasion when her husband had appeared, flapping the window-panes from within with a towel, she had thought for one brief moment that he was beckoning to her, and that she might have to go to him, and she was beginning to experience terror, with shortness of breath and other premonitions of sudden passing, when she discovered that he was merely killing flies, and she flurriedly fanned herself with the asbestos mat which she had seized from the stove beside her, and staggered out to a seat under the mulberries, as she stammered:

“I do declare, Morris'll be the death of me yet. He's 'most as much care to me dead as he was alive—I made sure—made sure he'd come after me!”

Then, feeling her own fidelity challenged, she hastened to add:

“Not that I hadn't rather go to him than to take any trip in the world, but—but I never did fancy that hotel, and since I've got used to seein' him there so constant, I feel sure that's where we'd put up. My belief is, anyway, that if there's hereafters for some things, there's hereafters for all. From what I can gather, I reckon I'm a kind of a cross between a Swedenborgian and a Gates-ajar—that, of course, engrafted on to a Methodist. Now, that hotel, when it was consumed by fire, which to it was the same as mortal death, why, it either ascended into Heaven, in smoke, or it fell, in ashes—to the other place. If it died worthy, like as not it's undergoin' repairs now for a 'mansion,' jasper cupalos, an'—but, of course, such as that could be run up in a twinklin'.

“Still, from what I've heard, it's more likely gone down to its deserts. It would seem hard for a hotel with so many awned-off corridors an' palmed embrasures with teet-a-teet sofas, to live along without sin.”

She stood on her step-ladder, wiping the face of the picture as she spoke, and as she began to back down she discovered the cat under her elbow, glaring at the picture.

“Yes, Kitty! Spit away!” she exclaimed. “Like as not you see even more than I do!”

And as she slipped the ladder back into the closet, she remarked—this to herself, strictly:

“If it hadn't 'a' been for poor puss, I'd 'a' had a heap more pleasure out o' this picture than what I have had—or will be likely to have again. The way she's taken on, I've almost come to hate it!”

A serpent had entered her poor little Eden—even the green-eyed monster constrictor, who, if given full swing, would not spare a bone of her meager comfort.

A neighbor who chanced to come in at the time, unobserved overheard the last remark, and Mrs. Morris, seeing that she was there, continued in an unchanged tone, while she gave her a chair:

“Of course, Mis' Withers, you can easy guess who I refer to. I mean that combly-featured wench that kep' the books an' answered the telephone at the hotel—when she found the time from her meddlin'. Somehow, I never thought about her bein' burned in with Morris till puss give her away. Puss never did like the girl when she was alive, an' the first time I see her scratch an' spit at the picture, just the way she used to do whenever she come in sight, why, it just struck me like a clap o' thunder out of a clear sky that puss knew who she was a-spittin' at—an' I switched around sudden—an' glanced up sudden—an'——

“Well, what I seen, I seen! There was that beautied-up typewriter settin' in the window-sill o' Morris's butler's pantry—an' if she didn't wink at me malicious, then I don't know malice when I see it. An' she used her fingers against her nose, too, most defiant and impolite. So I says to puss I says, 'Puss,' I says, 'there's goin's on in that hotel, sure as fate. Annabel Bender has got the better o' me, for once!' An', tell the truth, it did spoil the photograph for me for a while, for, of course, after that, if I didn't see him somewheres on the watch for his faithful spouse, I'd say to myself, 'He's inside there with that pink-featured hussy!'

“You know, a man's a man, Mis' Withers—'specially Morris, an' with his lawful wife cut off an' indefinitely divorced by a longevitied family—an' another burned in with him—well, his faithfulness is put to a trial by fire, as you might say. So, as I say, it spoiled the picture for me, for a while.

“An', to make matters worse, it wasn't any time before I recollected that Campbellite preacher thet was burned in with them, an' with that my imagination run riot, an' I'd think to myself, 'If they're inclined, they cert'n'y have things handy!' Then I'd ketch myself an' say, 'Where's your faith in Scripture, Mary Marthy Matthews, named after two Bible women an' born daughter to an apostle? What's the use?' I'd say, an' so, first an' last, I'd get a sort o' alpha an' omega comfort out o' the passage about no givin' in marriage. Still, there'd be times, pray as I would, when them three would loom up, him an' her—an' the Campbellite preacher. I know his license to marry would run out in time, but for eternity, of course we don't know. Seem like everything would last forever—an' then again, if I've got a widow's freedom, Morris must be classed as a widower, if he's anything.

“Then I'd get some relief in thinkin' about his disposition. Good as he was, Morris was fickle-tasted, not in the long run, but day in an' day out, an' even if he'd be taken up with her he'd get a distaste the minute he reelized she'd be there interminable. That's Morris. Why, didn't he used to get nervous just seein' me around, an' me his own selected? An' didn't I use to make some excuse to send him over to Mame Maddern's ma's ma's—so's he'd be harmlessly diverted? She was full o' talk, and she was ninety-odd an' asthmatic, but he'd come home from them visits an' call me his child wife. I've had my happy moments!

“You know a man'll get tired of himself, even, if he's condemned to it too continual, and think of that blondinetted typewriter for a steady diet—to a man like Morris! Imagine her when her hair dye started to give out—green streaks in that pompadour! So, knowin' my man, I'd take courage an' I'd think, 'Seein' me cut off, he'll soon be wantin' me more than ever'—an' so he does. It's got so now that, glance up at that hotel any time I will, I can generally find him on the lookout, an' many's the time I've stole in an' put on a favoryte apron o' his with blue bows on it, when we'd be alone an' nobody to remark about me breakin' my mournin'. Dear me, how full o' b'oyancy he was—a regular boy at thirty-five, when he passed away!”

Was it any wonder that her friends exchanged glances while Mrs. Morris entertained them in so droll a way? Still, as time passed and she not only brightened in the light of her delusion, but proceeded to meet the conditions of her own life by opening a small shop in her home, and when she exhibited a wholesome sense of profit and loss, her neighbors were quite ready to accept her on terms of mental responsibility.

With occupation and a modest success, emotional disturbance was surely giving place to an even calm, when, one day, something happened.

Mrs. Morris sat behind her counter, sorting notions, puss asleep beside her, when she heard the swish of thin silk, with a breath of familiar perfume, and, looking up, whom did she see but the blond lady of her troubled dreams striding bodily up to the counter, smiling as she swished.

At the sight the good woman first rose to her feet, and then as suddenly dropped—flopped—breathless and white—backward—and had to be revived, so that for the space of some minutes things happened very fast—that is, if we may believe the flurried testimony of the blonde, who, in going over it, two hours later, had more than once to stop for breath.

“Well, say!” she panted. “Did you ever! Such a turn as took her! I hadn't no more 'n stepped in the door when she succumbed, green as the Ganges, into her own egg-basket—an' it full! An' she was on the eve o' floppin' back into the prunin' scizzor points up, when I scrambled over the counter, breakin' my straight-front in two, which she's welcome to, poor thing! Then I loaned her my smellin'-salts, which she held her breath against until it got to be a case of smell or die, an' she smelt! Then it was a case of temporary spasms for a minute, the salts spillin' out over her face, but when the accident evaporated, an' she opened her eyes, rational, I thought to myself, 'Maybe she don't know she's keeled an' would be humiliated if she did,' so I acted callous, an' I says, offhand like, I says, pushin' her apron around behind her over its vice versa, so's to cover up the eggs, which I thought had better be broke to her gently, I says. 'I just called in, Mis' Morris, to borry your recipe for angel-cake—or maybe get you to bake one for us' (I knew she baked on orders). An' with that, what does she do but go over again, limp as wet starch, down an' through every egg in that basket, solid an' fluid!

“Well, by this time, a man who had seen her at her first worst an' run for a doctor, he come in with three, an' whilst they were bowin' to each other an' backin', I giv' 'er stimulus an' d'rectly she turned upon me one rememberable gaze, an' she says, 'Doctors,' says she, 'would you think they'd have the gall to try to get me to cook for 'em? They've ordered angel-ca——' An' with that, over she toppled again, no pulse nor nothin', same as the dead!”

While the blonde talked she busied herself with her loosely falling locks, which she tried vainly to entrap.

“An' yet you say she ain't classed as crazy? I'd say it of her, sure! An' so old Morris is dead—burned in that old hotel! Well, well! Poor old fellow! Dear old place! What times I've had!”

She spoke through a mouthful of gilt hairpins and her voice was as an Æolian harp.

“An' he burned in it—an' she's a widow yet! Yes, I did hear there'd been a fire, but you never can tell. I thought the chimney might 'a' burned out—an' I was in the thick of bein' engaged to the night clerk at the Singin' Needles Hotel at Pineville at the time—an' there's no regular mail there. I thought the story might be exaggerated. Oh no, I didn't marry the night clerk. I'm a bride now, married to the head steward, same rank as poor old Morris—an' we're just as happy! I used to pleg Morris about her hair, but I'd have to let up on that now. Mine's as red again as hers. No, not my hair—mine's hair. It's as red as a flannen drawer, every bit an' grain!

“But, say,” she added, presently, “when she gets better, just tell her never mind about that reci-pe. I copied it out of her reci-pe book whilst she was under the weather, an' dropped a dime in her cash-drawer. I recollect how old Morris used to look forward to her angel-cakes week-ends he'd be goin' home, an' you know there's nothin' like havin' ammunition, in marriage, even if you never need it. Mine's in that frame of mind now that transforms my gingerbread into angel-cake, but the time may come when I'll have to beat my eggs to a fluff even for angel-cake, so's not to have it taste like gingerbread to him.

“Oh no, he's not with me this trip. I just run down for a lark to show my folks my ring an' things, an' let 'em see it's really so. He give me considerable jewelry. His First's taste run that way, an' they ain't no children.

“Yes, this amethyst is the weddin'-ring. I selected that on account of him bein' a widower. It's the nearest I'd come to wearin' second mournin' for a woman I can't exactly grieve after. The year not bein' up is why he stayed home this trip. He didn't like to be seen traversin' the same old haunts with Another till it was up. I wouldn't wait because, tell the truth, I was afraid. He ain't like a married man with me about money yet, an' it's liable to seize him any day. He might say that he couldn't afford the trip, or that we couldn't, which would amount to the same thing. I rather liked him bein' a little ticklish about goin' around with me for a while. It's one thing to do a thing an' another to be brazen about it—it——

“But if she don't get better”—the reversion was to the Widow Morris—“if she don't get her mind poor thing! there's a fine insane asylum just out of Pineville, an' I'd like the best in the world to look out for her. It would make an excuse for me to go in. They say they have high old times there. Some days they let the inmates do 'most any old thing that's harmless. They even give 'em unpoisonous paints an' let 'em paint each other up. One man insisted he was a barber-pole an' ringed himself accordingly, an' then another chased him around for a stick of peppermint candy. Think of all that inside a close fence, an' a town so dull an' news-hungry——

“Yes, they say Thursdays is paint days, an', of course, Fridays, they are scrub days. They pass around turpentine an' hide the matches. But, of course, Mis' Morris may get the better of it. 'Tain' every woman that can stand widowin', an' sometimes them that has got the least out of marriage will seem the most deprived to lose it—so they say.”

The blonde was a person of words.

When Mrs. Morris had fully revived and, after a restoring “night's sleep” had got her bearings, and when she realized clearly that her supposed rival had actually shown up in the flesh, she visibly braced up. Her neighbors understood that it must have been a shock “to be suddenly confronted with any souvenir of the hotel fire”—so one had expressed it—and the incident soon passed out of the village mind.

It was not long after this incident that the widow confided to a friend that she was coming to depend upon Morris for advice in her business.

“Standing as he does, in that hotel door—between two worlds, as you might say—why, he sees both ways, and oftentimes he'll detect an event on the way to happening, an' if it don't move too fast, why, I can hustle an' get the better of things.” It was as if she had a private wire for advance information—and she declared herself happy.

Indeed, a certain ineffable light such as we sometimes see in the eyes of those newly in love came to shine from the face of the widow, who did not hesitate to affirm, looking into space as she said it:

“Takin' all things into consideration, I can truly say that I have never been so truly and ideely married as since my widowhood.” And she smiled as she added:

“Marriage, the earthly way, is vicissitudinous, for everybody knows that anything is liable to happen to a man at large.”

There had been a time when she lamented that her picture was not “life-sized” as it would seem so much more natural, but she immediately reflected that that hotel would never have gotten into her little house, and that, after all, the main thing was having “him” under her own roof.

As the months passed Mrs. Morris, albeit she seemed serene and of peaceful mind, grew very white and still. Fire is white in its ultimate intensity. The top, spinning its fastest, is said to “sleep”—and the dancing dervish is “still.” So, misleading signs sometimes mark the danger-line.

“Under-eating and over-thinking” was what the doctor said while he felt her translucent wrist and prescribed nails in her drinking-water. If he secretly knew that kind nature was gently letting down the bars so that a waiting spirit might easily pass—well, he was a doctor, not a minister. His business was with the body, and he ordered repairs.

She was only thirty-seven and “well” when she passed painlessly out of life. It seemed to be simply a case of going.

There were several friends at her bedside the night she went, and to them she turned, feeling the time come:

“I just wanted to give out that the first thing I intend to do when I'm relieved is to call by there for Morris”—she lifted her weary eyes to the picture as she spoke—“for Morris—and I want it understood that it'll be a vacant house from the minute I depart. So, if there's any other woman that's calculatin' to have any carryin's-on from them windows—why, she'll be disappointed—she or they. The one obnoxious person I thought was in it wasn't. My imagination was tempted of Satan an' I was misled. So it must be sold for just what it is—just a photographer's photograph. If it's a picture with a past, why, everybody knows what that past is, and will respect it. I have tried to conquer myself enough to bequeath it to the young lady I suspicioned, but human nature is frail, an' I can't quite do it, although doubtless she would like it as a souvenir. Maybe she'd find it a little too souvenirish to suit my wifely taste, and yet—if a person is going to die——

“I suppose I might legate it to her, partly to recompense her for her discretion in leaving that hotel when she did—an' partly for undue suspicion——

“There's a few debts to be paid, but there's eggs an' things that'll pay them, an' there's no need to have the hen settin' in the window showcase any longer. It was a good advertisement, but I've often thought it might be embarrassin' to her.” She was growing weaker, but she roused herself to amend:

“Better raffle the picture for a dollar a chance an' let the proceeds go to my funeral—an' I want to be buried in the hotel-fire general grave, commingled with him—an' what's left over after the debts are paid, I bequeath to her—to make amends—an' if she don't care to come for it, let every widow in town draw for it. But she'll come. 'Most any woman'll take any trip, if it's paid for—But look!” she raised her eyes excitedly toward the mantel, “Look! What's that he's wavin'? It looks—oh yes, it is—it's our wings—two pairs—mine a little smaller. I s'pose it'll be the same old story—I'll never be able to keep up—to keep up with him—an' I've been so hap——

“Yes, Morris—I'm comin'——”

And she was gone—into a peaceful sleep from which she easily passed just before dawn.

When all was well over, the sitting women rose with one accord and went to the mantel, where one even lighted an extra candle more clearly to scan the mysterious picture.

Finally one said:

“You may think I'm queer, but it does look different to me already!”

“So it does,” said another, taking the candle. “Like a house for rent. I declare, it gives me the cold shivers.”

“I'll pay my dollar gladly, and take a chance for it,” whispered a third, “but I wouldn't let such a thing as that enter my happy home——”

“Neither would I!”

“Nor me, neither. I've had trouble enough. My husband's first wife's portrait has brought me discord enough—an' it was a straight likeness. I don't want any more pictures to put in the hen-house loft.”

So the feeling ran among the wives.

“Well,” said she who was blowing out the candle, “I'll draw for it—an' take it if I win it, an' consider it a sort of inheritance. I never inherited anything but indigestion.”

The last speaker was a maiden lady, and so was she who answered, chuckling:

“That's what I say! Anything for a change. There'd be some excitement in a picture where a man was liable to show up. It's more than I've got now. I do declare it's just scandalous the way we're gigglin', an' the poor soul hardly out o' hearin'. She had a kind heart, Mis' Morris had, an' she made herself happy with a mighty slim chance——”

“Yes, she did—and I only wish there'd been a better man waitin' for her in that hotel.”

THE GHOST THAT GOT THE BUTTON

By WILL ADAMS

The Ghost that Got the Button

By WILL ADAMS

One autumn evening, when the days were shortening and the darkness fell early on Hotchkiss and the frost was beginning to adorn with its fine glistening lace the carbine barrels of the night sentries as they walked post, Sergeants Hansen and Whitney and Corporal Whitehall had come to Stone's room after supper, feeling the need common to all men in the first cold nights of the year for a cozy room, a good smoke, and congenial companionship.

The steam heat, newly turned on, wheezed and whined through the radiator: the air was blue and dense with tobacco smoke; the three sergeants reposed in restful, if inelegant attitudes, and Whitehall, his feet on the window sill and his wooden chair tilted back, was holding forth between puffs at a very battered pipe about an old colored woman who kept a little saloon in town.

“So she got mad at those K troop men,” he said. “An' nex' day when Turner stopped there for a drink she says: 'You git outer yere! You men fum de Arsenic wid de crossbones on you caps, I ain't lettin' you in; but de Medical Corpses an' de Non-efficient Officers, dey may come.'”

The laugh that followed was interrupted by the approach of a raucous, shrieking noise that rose and fell in lugubrious cadence. “What the deuce!” exclaimed Whitehall, starting up.

“That's Bill,” explained Stone. “Bill Sullivan. He thinks he's singin'. Funny you never heard him before, Kid, but then he's not often taken that way, thank the Lord.”

“Come in, Bill,” he called, “an' tell us what's the matter. Feel sick? Where's the pain?” he asked as big Bill appeared in the doorway.

“Come in, hombre, an' rest yo'self,” invited Whitney, and hospitably handed over his tobacco-pouch. “What was that tune yo'all were singin' out yonder?”

“Thanks,” responded Bill, settling down. “That there tune was 'I Wonder Where You Are To-night, My Love.'”

“Sounded like 'Sister's Teeth Are Plugged with Zinc,'” commented Whitney.

“Or 'Lookin' Through the Knot Hole in Papa's Wooden Leg,'” said Whitehall.

“Or 'He Won't Buy the Ashman a Manicure Set,'” added Stone.

“No,” reiterated Bill solemnly. “It was like I told yer; 'I Wonder Where You Are To-night, My Love,' and it's a corker, too! I seen a feller an' a goil sing it in Kelly's Voddyville Palace out ter Cheyenne onct. Foist he'd sing one voise an' then she'd sing the nex'. He was dressed like a soldier, an' while he sang they was showin' tabloids o' what the goil was a-doin' behind him; an' then when she sang her voise he'd be in the tabloid, an' when it got ter the last voise, an' he was dyin' on a stretcher in a ambulance, everybody in the house was a-cryin' so yer could hardly hear her. It was great! My!” continued Bill, spreading out his great paws over the radiator, “ain't this the snappy evenin'? Real cold. Somehow it 'minds me of the cold we had in China that time of the Boxers, after we'd got ter the Legations; the nights was cold just like this is.”

“Why, Bill,” said Whitney, “I never knew yo'all were there then. Why did yo' never tell us befo'? What were yo' with?”

“Fourteenth Infantry,” responded Bill proudly. “It's a great ol' regiment—don't care if they are doughboys.”

“What company was you in?” inquired Hansen, ponderously taking his pipe from his mouth and breaking silence for the first time.

“J Company, same as this.”

At this reply Stone opened his mouth abruptly to say something, but thought better of it and shut up again.

“It was blame cold them nights a week or so after we was camped in the Temple of Agriculture (that's what they called it—I dunno why), but say! the heat comin' up from Tientsin was fryin'! It was jus' boilin', bakin', an' bubblin'—worse a heap than anythin' we'd had in the islands. We chucked away mos' every last thing on that hike but canteens an' rifles. It was a darn fool thing ter do—the chuckin' was, o' course—but it come out all right, 'cause extree supplies follered us up on the Pie-ho in junks. Ain't that a funny name fer a river? Pie-ho? Every time I got homesick I'd say that river, an' then I'd see Hogan's Dairy Lunch fer Ladies an' Gents on the ol' Bowery an' hear the kid Mick Hogan yellin': 'Draw one in the dark! White wings—let her flop! Pie-ho!' an' it helped me a heap.” Bill settled himself and stretched.

“But what I really wanted to tell youse about,” said he, “was somepin' that happened one o' these here cold nights. It gits almighty cold there in September, an' it was sure the spookiest show I ever seen. Even Marm Haggerty's table rappin's in Hester Street never come up to it.

“There was three of us fellers who ran in a bunch them days: me an' Buck Dugan, my bunkie, from the Bowery like me (he was a corporal), an' Ranch Fields—we called him that 'cause he always woiked on a ranch before he come into the Fourteenth. They was great fellers, Buck an' Ranch was. Buck, now—yer couldn't phase him, yer couldn't never phase him, no matter what sort o' job yer put him up against he'd slide through slick as a greased rat. The Cap'n, he knew it, too. Onct when we was fightin' an' hadn't no men to spare, he lef' Buck on guard over about twenty-five Boxer prisoners in a courtyard an' tells him he dassent let one escape. But Buck wants ter git into the fight with the rest of the boys, an' when he finds that if he leaves them Chinos loose in the yard alone they'll git out plenty quick, what does he do but tie 'em tight up by their pigtails to some posts. He knows they can't undo them tight knots backwards, an' no Chink would cut his pigtail if he did have a knife—he'd die foist—an' so Buck skidoos off to the fight, an', sure enough, when the Cap'n wants them Boxers, they're ready, tied up an' waitin'. That was his sort, an', gee, but he was smart!

“We was all right int'rested in them Allies, o' course, an' watched 'em clost; but, 'Bill,' says Buck ter me one night, 'its been woikin in me nut that these here fellers ain't so different from what we know a'ready. Excep' fer their uniform an' outfits, we've met 'em all before but the Japs. Why, look a-here,' says he, 'foist, there's the white men—the English—ain't they jus' like us excep' that they're thicker an' we're longer? An' their Injun niggers—ain't we seen their clothes in the comic op'ras an' them without their clothes in the monkey cage at Central Park? An' their Hong-kong China Regiment an' all the other Chinos is jus' the same as yer meet in the pipe joints in Mott Street. Then,' says he, 'come all the Dagos. These leather necks of Macaroni Dagos we've seen a swarmin' all over Mulberry Bend an' Five Points; the Sauerkraut Dagos looks fer all the woild like they was goin' ter a Schützenfest up by High Bridge; the Froggie Dagos you'll find packed in them Frenchy restaraws in the Thirties—where yer git blue wine—and them Vodki Dagos only needs a pushcart ter make yer think yer in Baxter Street.'

“Buck, he could sure talk, but Ranch, he wasn't much on chin-chin. Little an' dark an' quiet he was, an' jus' crazy fer dogs. Any old mutt'd do fer him—jus' so's it was in the shape of a pup. He was fair wild fer 'em. He picked up a yeller cur out there the day after the Yangtsin fight, an' that there no-account, mangy, flea-bitten mutt had ter stay with us the whole time. If the pup didn't stand in me an' Buck an' Ranch, he swore he'd quit too, so we had to let him come, an' he messed an' bunked with our outfit right along. Ranch named him Daggett, after the Colonel, which was right hard on the C. O., but I bet Ranch thought he was complimentin' him. Why, Ranch considered himself honored if any of the pup's fleas hopped off on him. The pup he kep' along with us right through everything; Ranch watchin' him like the apple of his eye, an' he hardly ever was out of our sight, till one night about a week after we quartered in the temple he didn't turn up fer supper. He was always so reg'lar at his chow that Ranch he begin ter git the squirms an' when come taps an' Daggett hadn't reported, Ranch had the razzle-dazzles.

“Nex' mornin' the foist thing he must go hunt that pup, an' went a scoutin' all day, me an' Buck helpin' him—but nary pup; an' come another supper without that miser'ble mutt, an' Ranch was up an alley all right, all right. He was all wore out, an' I made him hit the bunk early an' try ter sleep; but, Lord! No sooner he'd drop off 'n he git ter twitchin' an' hitchin' an' wake up a-yelpin' fer Daggett. Long about taps, Buck, who's been out on a private reconnoissance, comes back an' whispers ter me: 'Ssst, Bill! The cur's found! Don't tell Ranch; the bloke'd die of heart failure. I struck his trail an' follered it—an' say, Bill, what'n thunder do yer think? Them heathen Chinos has et him!' Lord, now, wouldn't that jolt youse? Them Chinos a-eatin' Daggett! It give me an awful jar, an' Buck he felt it, too. That there mutt had acted right decent, an' we knew Ranch would have bats in the belfry fer fair if he hoid tell o' the pup's finish; so says Buck; 'Let's not tell him, 'cause he's takin' on now like he'd lost mother an' father an' best goil an' all, an' if he knew Daggett was providin' chow fer Chinos he'd go clean bug house an' we'd have ter ship him home ter St. Elizabeth.'

“I says O. K. ter that, an' we made it up not ter let on ter Ranch; an' now here comes the spook part yer been a-waitin' fer.

“Four or five nights later I was on guard, an' my post was the farthest out we had on the north. There was an ol' road out over that way, an' I'd hoid tell it led ter a ol' graveyard, but I hadn't never been there myself an' hadn't thought much about it till 'long between two an' three o'clock, as I was a-hikin' up an down, when somepin' comes a-zizzin' down the road hell-fer-leather on to me, a-yellin' somepin' fierce. Gee, but I was skeered! I made sure it was a spook, an' there wasn't a bit o' breath left in me. I was all to the bad that time fer sure. Before I had time ter think even, that screamin', streakin' thing was on me an a-grabbin' roun' my knees; an' then I see it was one o' them near-Christian Chinos, an' he's skeered more'n me even. His eyes had popped clean out'n their slits, an' his tongue was hangin' out by the roots, he was that locoed. I raised the long yell fer corporal of the guard, which happened, by good luck, ter be Buck, an' when he come a-runnin', thinkin' from the whoops I give we was bein' rushed by the hole push of Boxers, the two of us began proddin' at the Chink ter find out what was doin'. Took us some time, too, with him bein' in such a flutter an' hardly able ter even hand out his darn ol' pigeon English, that sounds like language comin' out of a sausage machine. When we did savvy his line of chop-suey talk, we found out he'd seen a ghost in the graveyard, an' not only seen it but he knew who the spook was an' all about him. We was gittin' some serious ourselves an' made him tell us.

“Seems it was a mandarin—that's a sort o' Chink police-court judge (till I got ter Tientsin I always thought they was little oranges), an' this tangerine's—I mean mandarin's—name was Wu Ti Ming, an' he'd been a high mucky-muckraker in his day, which was two or three hundred years back. But the Emprer caught him deep in some sort o' graft an' took away his button an' all o' his dough.

“'Lord!' says Buck when we come ter this, 'don't that prove what heathens Chinks is? Only one button ter keep on their clothes with, an' the Emprer he kin take it away! What did this here Judge Ming do then, John? Use string or pins?' This here John didn't seem ter savvy, but he said that the mandarin took on so fer his button an' his loss of pull in the ward that it was sure sad ter see, an' by an' by the Emprer got busy again with him an' had him finished up fer keeps; had him die the 'death of a thousand cuts,' says John. It sounded fierce ter me, but Buck he says:

“'Pshaw! Anybody who's been shaved reg'lar by them lady barbers on Fourth Avenyer would 'a' give the Emprer the merry ha-ha——'

“After Ming was cut up they took the remains of his corpse an' planted him in this here graveyard up the road; but he wouldn't stay planted an' began doin' stunts at night, 'topside walkee-walkee' an' a-huntin' fer his lost button. He'd used ter have the whole country scared up, but fer the last twenty years he'd kep' right quiet an' had hardly ever come out; but now sence the foreign devils come (ain't that a sweet name fer us?) he's up an' at it again worse than ever, an' the heathens is on their ear. Fer four nights now they'd seen him, wrapped in a blue robe, waitin' an' a-huntin' behind tombstones an' walkin' round an' round the graveyard lie a six days' race fer the belt at Madison Square. John had jus' seen him on the wall, an' that was why he come chargin' down the road like forty cats.

“'Will Mr. Ming's sperrit walk till he gits that button back?' Buck asts. John says: 'Sure.'

“'Well,' says Buck, 'why don't yer give him one?'

“'No can give. Only Emplor, only Son of Heaven give.'

“'Well, look here,' says Buck, 'we sand rabbits ain't no sons of Heaven, but I'll be darned if we couldn't spare a button ter lay the ghost of a pore busted police-court judge, who's lost his job an' his tin, if that's all he wants back. What time does he come out at, John? Could we see him ter-morrer night?' 'Sure could we,' says John; 'he'll show us the way, but he won't wait with us; he's bad enough fer his.'

“So Buck takes John an' goes back ter the guard shack, as it's most time fer relief, an' after I got back we told John ter git the hook, an' we talked things over, an' Buck he was just wild ter see if he couldn't lay that Chino ghost. His talents was achin' ter git action on him; anythin' like that got up his spunk. Says I:

“'Maybe Ranch kin help. We'll tell him ter-morrer after guard mount. It'll take his mind off Daggett.'

“'No, yer don't,' says Buck. 'Don't yer dare tell him. He's nervous as a cat over the pup as it is, an' this spook business is awful skeery; I'm feelin' woozy over it meself. I'm all off when it comes ter ghosts—that is, if it's a real ghost. And things here in Pekin' is so funny the odds is all in favor of its bein' the sure thing. I ain't afeard o' no kinds o' people, but I sure git cold feet when I'm up against a ghost. Wouldn't that jar youse? An' me a soldier; when it's a soldier's whole business not ter git cold feet. But I'm bound I'll have a show at that ol' spook even if it does skeer me out o' my growth. Only don't yer dare tell Ranch.'

“Nex' night, right after eleven o'clock rounds, me an' Buck slipped outer our blankets, sneaked out past the guard, an' met John, who was waitin' fer us in the road jus' beyond where the last sentry woulder seen him. It was cold as git out. Jus' the same kind o' early cold as to-night, an' John's teeth was chatterin' like peas in a box—he was some loco with skeer, too, you bet.

“'Which way?' says Buck, an' John spouts a lot o' dope-joint lingo an' takes us up a side alley, where there's a whole bunch o' Chinos waitin' fer us, an' they begun a kowtowin' an' goin' on like we was the whole cheese. Turned out that John had jollied 'em that the Melican soldier mans was big medicine an' would make Judge Ming quit the midnight hike an' cut out scarin' 'em blue. That jus' suited Buck; he was all there when it come ter play commander in chief. He swelled up an' give 'em a bundle o' talk that John put in Chino fer 'em, an' then finished up by showin' 'em a button—a ol' United States Army brass button he'd cut off his blue blouse—an' tol' 'em he was goin' ter bury it in Ming's grave so as ter keep him bedded down.

“An' them simple idiots was pleased ter death, an' the whole outfit escorted us over ter the graveyard, but they shied at the gate (Lord, I hated ter see 'em go—even if they was heathens!), an' let John take us in an' show us where ter wait. He put us in behind a pile o' little rocks in about the middle o' the place near where Judge Ming hung out, an' then retired on the main body at the double, leavin' us two in outpost alone there together. I hadn't never been ter a Chino buryin' ground before, an' night time wasn't extree pleasant fer a foist introduce. There was a new moon that night—a little shavin' of a thing that hardly gave no light, an' from where we was there was a twisty pine tree branch that struck out right acrost it like a picture card—two fer five. The graveyard was all dark an' quiet, with little piles o' rocks an' stone tables ter mark the graves, an' a four- or five-foot wall runnin' all round it; an' somehow, without nothin' stirrin' at all, the whole blame place seemed chock full o' movin' shadders. There wasn't a sound neither; not the least little thing; jus' them shadders; an' the harder yous'd look at 'em the more they seemed ter move. It was cold, too, like I told yer—bitin' cold—an' me an' Buck squatted there tight together an' mos' friz. We waited, an' we waited, an' we waited, an' we got skeerder, an' skeerder, an' skeerder, an', gee! how we shivered! Every minute we thought we'd see Judge Ming, but a long time went by an' he didn't come an' he didn't come. There we set, strung up tight an' ready ter snap like a banjo string, but nothin' ter see but the shakin' shadders an' nothin' ter hear—nothin' but jus' dead, dead silence.

“All of a suddent Buck (he kin hear a pin drop a mile away) nearly nips a piece out'n my arm as he grips me. 'Listen!' says he.

“I listened an' listened, but I didn't hear nothin', an' I told him so.

“'Yes, yer do, yer bloke yer,' he whispers, 'Listen. Strain your years.'

“Then way off I did begin ter hear somepin'. It was a long, funny, waily cry, sort o' like the way cats holler at each other at night. 'Oh-oo-oo, oh-oo-oo!' like that, an' it come nearer an' nearer. Then all of a suddent somepin' popped up on the graveyard wall about a hundred yards away—somepin' all blue-gray against the hook o' the moon—an' began walkin' up an' down an' hollerin'. I knew it was sayin' words, but I was so far to the bad I didn't know nothin' an' couldn't make it out. I never thought a feller's heart could bang so hard against his ribs without bustin' out, an' me hair riz so high me campaign hat was three inches off'n me head. I hope ter the Lord I'll never be so frightened again in all my livin' days. I set there in a transom from fear an' friz ter the spot. I don't know nothin' o' what Buck was doin', as my lamps was glued ter the spook. It jumped down from the wall, callin' an' whistlin' an' begin runnin' round the little stone heaps. I seen it was comin' our way, but I couldn't move or make a sound; I jus' set. All of a suddent Buck he jumps up an' makes a dash an' a leap at the spook, an' there's a terrible yellin' an' they both comes down crash at the foot of a rock pile, rollin' on the little pebbles; but Buck is on top an' the spook underneath an' lettin' off the most awful screeches. Gosh, they jus' ripped the air, them spooks' yells did, an' they turned my spell loose an' I howled fer all I was worth. Then Buck, he commenced a-yawpin' too, but me an' the spook we was both raisin' so much noise I didn't savvy what he said fer some time. Then I found he was cussin' me out.

“'Come here, you forsaken —— ——,' he howls. 'Quit yellin'! I say quit yellin'! Don't yer see who this is? Come here an' help me.'

“'You think I'm goin' ter tech that Ming spook?' I shrieks.

“'You miser'ble loony,' he yells back, 'can't yer see it ain't no Ming? It's Ranch!'

“Well, so it was. It was Ranch skeered stiff an' hollerin' fer dear life at bein' jumped on an' waked up in the middle of a graveyard that-a-way. Pore ol' feller had had Daggett on his mind, an' went sleepwalkin' an' huntin' wrapped in his blanket.

“'An',' says Buck ter me, 'if youse hadn't been in such a dope dream with skeer, you'd 'a' sensed what he was a-yellin'. He was callin' “Oh-oo-oo, oh-oo-oo, here Daggett! Here, boy!” an' then he'd whistle an' call again: “Here, Daggett! Here, Daggett!” That's how I knew it was Ranch; an', besides, he told me onct that he sleepwalked when he got worried. But you, you white livered—' an' then he cussed me out some more.

“'Smarty,' I says, 'if yer knew so blame well it was Ranch, why did yer give him the flyin' tackle like yer done an' git him all woiked up like this?'

“'Well,' says Buck sort o' sheepy, 'I was some woiked up meself, an' time he come along I give him the spook's tackle without thinkin'; I was too skeered ter think. Hush, Ranch. Hush, old boy. It's jus' me'n Bill. Nobody shan't hoit yer.'

“We comforted pore ol' Ranch an' fixed him up, an' then when he felt better told him about things—all but how Daggett was et—an' I wrapped his blanket around him an' took him back ter quarters while Buck went a-lookin' fer John an' his gang.

“He found 'em about half a mile off, in front of a Mott Street joss house, all prayin' an' burnin' punk an' huddled together, skeered green from the yellin's they'd heard. Buck, he give 'em a long chin-chin about layin' the ghost, an' how Judge Ming wouldn't never come back no more; an' then he dragged 'em all back (they pullin' at the halter shanks with years laid back an' eyes rollin'), ter him bury his United States button on Ming's rock pile. He dropped it in solemn, an' said what the Chinks took ter be a prayer; but it was really the oath he said. Buck havin' onct been a recruitin' sergeant, knew it by heart all the way from 'I do solemnly swear' ter 'so help me, Gawd.' Buck says I oughter seen them grateful Chinos then: they'd 'a' give him the whole Chino Umpire if they could. They got down an' squirmed an' kissed his hands an' his feet an' his sleeve. They wanted ter escort him back ter camp, but he bucked at that, an' said no, as he was out without pass an' not itchin' fer his arrival ter be noticed none.

“After that we took toins watchin' Ranch at night, an' got him another mutt ter love, an' he didn't wander any more, so Judge Ming seemed satisfied with his United States button, an' kep' quiet. But them Chinks was the gratefullest gang yer ever seen. They brought us presents; things ter eat—fruit, poultry, eggs, an' all sorts of chow, some of it mighty funny lookin', but it tasted all right; we lived high, we three. The other fellers was wild ter know how we woiked it. An' I tell yer I ain't never been skeered o' ghosts sence—that is, not ter speak of—much!”

Bill, paused, drew a long breath, and looked at the clock. “Gee!” said he, “most nine o'clock. I got ter go over ter K troop ter see Sergeant Keefe a minute—I promised him. Adios, fellers. Thanks fer the smokin'.”

“Keep the change, hombre. Thanks for yo' tale,” shouted Whitney after him as he disappeared down the hall.

“Well!!” said Stone, and looked at Hansen.

“Well!!” responded Hansen. The big Swede shook with laughter. “Iss he not the finest liar! Yess? I wass in the Fourteenth myselluf. That wass my company—Chay. He wass not even the army in then—in nineteen hund'erd.”

“Yes,” said Stone, “I knew, but I wasn't goin' to spoil his bloomin' yarn. I happened to see his enlistment card only this mornin', and the only thing he was ever in before was the Twenty-third Infantry after they came back from the Islands. He's never even been out of the States.”

“But where did he get it from?” asked Whitney. “His imagination is equal to most anything but gettin' so many facts straight. Of co'se I noticed things yere an' there—but the most of it was O. K.”

“I tell you,” said Hansen, grinning, “he got it from an old Fourteenth man—Dan Powerss—at practice camp last Chuly. He an' I wass often talking of China. He wuss in my old company an' wass then telling me how he an' the other fellerss all that extra chow got. I tank Bill he hass a goot memory.”

“But the nerve of him!” cried Whitehall, “tryin' ter pass that off on us with Hansen sittin' right there.”

“It iss one thing he may have forgot,” smiled Hansen.

“Well, who cares anyway?” said Stone. “It was a blame good story. An' now clear out, all of you. I want to hit the bunk. Reveille does seem to come so early these cold mornin's. Gee! I wish I knew of some kind of button that would keep me lyin' down when Shorty wants me to get up an' call the roll.”