Josphine Dodge Daskam

“ At one o'clock precisely the other should quietly mount a ladder fixed just where the mythical ladder had been and enter the room in that way, thus preventing any mischievous practical jokes from without, and insuring help to the man within, should he need it.
"And Joan agreed to this. He was interested himself, and he'd have been as eager and scornful as Darby if it hadn't occurred to him—for he was a terribly literal fellow—that four tragedies, sad as these had been, and all unexplained, couldn't be accounted for by chance nor made less sad even by a good logician like Darby. ”

“ You see, Darby called him a coward.
"They slipped into the old, dingy mill at dusk, and went over it with the greatest thoroughness. Everything was open and empty. Only the corner bedroom and one of the living rooms were furnished at all. The dust lay thick in the mill proper, but the living rooms were singularly free from it. Darby noticed this and remarked it to Joan. 'It doesn't smell half so musty, either,' he said. 'I'm glad of that. I hate old, musty smells.'
"Then a queer, crawly feeling came over Joan, and he said: 'Darby, let's go home. Life's short enough, heaven knows. ”

“ In a dark corner behind the stove sat a man, hunched over his knees, silent, and apparently unknown to any of the others. At this point he looked up, cleared his throat, and said in a strange, husky voice:
"Do you really suppose that that is anything else than nonsense?" Young Sanford flushed. "Sir"—he began. The other continued in his rough, thick voice:
"Do you suppose they don't try to scream? Do you suppose they don't think they're screaming?" ”

“ The miller's daughter wanted to marry a poor young man, but her father would not let her. And she refused to accept his rich nephew. So he locked her in her room till she should consent. And she stayed there a week. And one night the nephew came home late and saw a tiny light in her window, and presently he saw some one place a ladder and go softly up, and the miller's daughter leaned out and helped him in. So he told her father, who came into her room the next night with a bloodhound, and bound her to the bed and hushed her cries with her sash, and lit the little light. ”

“ And when her lover had climbed the ladder—the dog was there. And that was Christmas eve.
"'Do the people suffer this without complaint—these deaths and convulsions and apostasies?' asked Joan. Well, no. But if they destroyed the mill a liquor saloon would go up immediately. The proprietor was simply waiting. And they didn't want that. So they kept it quiet. And nobody need go there. Nobody had been alarmed or hurt except the meddlers. And in villages the people have less scientific curiosity. But Darby was going immediately. It was December twenty-third now. Joan must come, too ”

“ And the next year a man came up from the city, and his friends were in the next room to help him if he called, and he didn't call, and they were afraid to startle him by knocking, so they got a ladder and peeped into the window at ten minutes to one, and he lay peacefully on the bed with his eyes closed and his hands stretched loosely out, and they thought it was a great joke that he should sleep through it, so they went home, and in the morning they found him in horrible convulsions, and he never recovered. ”

“ They thought of tramps and escaped criminals and everything one suggests till it had occurred too repeatedly for that, and then a young farmer went over one Christmas eve, not telling any one, and they found him roaming about the mill, a hopeless wreck the next day ”

“ He has no police force—not that police could seriously harm the ghosts, but somehow they never appear to the police; he does not arrange with the victim's friend to burst in the door at twelve-thirty, anyhow, whether they are summoned or not ”