Spectral Sounds: Unquiet Tales of Acoustic Weird by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: haunted houses, traditional ghost stories, urban legends, American ghost stories, pulp fiction, classical horror, soundscapes
Publisher: British Library Publishing
Published: 2022-09-22T06:00:00+00:00

Poor little feller! I jest ached for him, an’ my throat felt all swelled up ’s if I had the quinsy. I made up my mind that minute to give up the rest o’ my days, if it took that long, to savin’ that little soul o’ Norvle’s. An’ he shouldn’t never feel, if I could help it, that I didn’t exackly approve o’ ghosts, or thought a mite less o’ him for bein’ one. Then I begun my religious teachin’. As I said afore, my startin’-p’int was the fall. But o’ course I had to allude to the creation fust, Adam an’ Eve, an’ all that. Then I larnt him the verse out o’ the New England Primer about “In Adam’s fall,” an’ that led right up, you see, to ’riginal sin, nat’ral depravity, an’ all that relates to them doctrines. I had to begin jest as you would with a baby, you see, right at the el’mentary things. Then I took the Westminster Shorter, an’ learnt him from “man’s chief end” to the decrees. ’Twas a short lesson, but I didn’t want to tire him the fust time. He seemed real int’rested, an’ I forgot for a minute he was a ghost, an’ I says, “Norvle, s’pose you take this cat’chism home, an’—” I stopped right off short, for I rec’lected he hadn’t got any home, but was jest a wand’rin’, ramblin’, uneasy ghost. An’ oh, where did he sleep nights? Thinkin’ o’ that made the tears come agin, an’ I turned away to sop ’em up. When I looked round, it was gone.

You see I say “it” sometimes, an’ then agin I say “him.” I know I’d oughter say “it” all the time; but—well, ’way down in my old heart it’s “him” an’ “he” allers, an’ he’s no diff’nt from my other three boys.

I was a mite nervous next time. I wasn’t quite certin I’d gone to work right with my lessons. I’d had some exper’ence teachin’, what with my own boys an’ a Sabbath-school class. But how did I know but a ghost’s mind was all diff’ent, an’ couldn’t take in the same things in the same way? Then he didn’t have no books, an’ couldn’t look over the lesson at home. So mebbe—I kep’ sayin’ to myself—he don’t remember a single word about Adam, or his sin, an’ the terr’ble consequences. But I needn’t ’a’ worried; for I hadn’t hardly time to answer that same old question, “Don’t you want to hear me speak my piece?” afore he started off:

“Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen!

Then me an’ you an’ all on us fell down.”

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