The sociable ghost Being the adventures of a reporter who was invited by the sociable ghost to a grand banquet, ball, and convention under the ground of old Trinity churchyard. A true tale of the things he saw and did not see while he was not there.
again. I don’t care if she has to take in washing to support him. Now,
wouldn't that make your hair curl?"
"I certainly think it would," replied the newspaper man earnestly. Just
then a small sized ghost stepped forward timidly and in a very polite
manner bowing and signifying that he did not wish to intrude, yet had
something to say. Several were gathered there and each evidently intended
to tell the story of his own taking off.
"Sir," said the little man as soon as he saw that the reporter noticed
him, "perhaps you might feel interested in the singular way in which I
came to die. I may almost say that I did another man’s dying for him."
"It would be very interesting, I am sure," replied the young man with a
bow. This ghost had a heavy manzanita cane with abundant evidence of the
hard knotty roots at the knob, and they were so very sharp that the
simple appearance of it was quite enough to provoke interest in the
story, so the little ghost heaved a deep sigh and began:
"I will make my story as short as possible, as time presses. I was a
young man in the best of health, when some forty-five years ago I started
to California to make my fortune. I intended to start a jewelry store in
one of the mining towns, in fact Murphy's Camp, a place well known then
as it is now. Some of the story I did not know myself at the time of my
death, though I learned it since and will incorporate it in this.
"The people of that part of the country liked to play practical jokes on
strangers—I was a stranger—and they took me in. The stage driver and all
the passengers set out to frighten me with the most blood-curdling tales
of the way travelers were robbed and murdered for their money or
belongings. As I had all my stock with me I felt very nervous. I did not
know that all this was what they called 'Joshing green horns.' So by the
time we reached Murphy's I was scared all the way through.
"We reached there just at sundown, and as soon as supper was over I went
to my room and to bed. I was very tired. This room was partitioned off
with redwood boards and was not even papered. There was just room for a
narrow bed, a small stand and one chair. I put all my things under the
bed, but I lay awake a long time, on account of strange mutterings and
moans and cries in one of the rooms. But at last I fell asleep.
"I must now tell you what I learned afterward regarding the affair. I was
an Englishman, small in size, and my hair was red and very curly. There
was in this town another English jeweler, small and with curling red
hair. He had had typhoid fever for several days and it was his delirious
moans I heard.
"All the miners of this place gathered every evening at the barroom of
this hotel, at the time of which I speak, to pass the time and play
cards. Sometimes they remained until morning. The driver of the coach was
an enormous man, strong as an ox, and as good-natured. He was a regular
fanatic about the game they call poker, and they say he would play
forty-eight hours on a stretch. They tell a story about how he and
another poker fiend kept on playing once till their cards began to smoke
before they knew the place was on fire.
"Seeing that this driver was settled for the night the hotel keeper asked
him if he would do something for him. 'Certainly, what is it?' The other
replied that the little English jeweler was very sick, and that he was
worn out taking care of him. So he asked the driver to give the sick man
his medicine at exactly three o'clock. The driver was always willing to
do anyone a good turn, and asked about the dose, and how to prepare it,
saying at the same time that the little Englishman must have been taken
very suddenly. The landlord replied that he had indeed and was scarcely
expected to pull through, and that all depended on his getting his
medicine regularly. 'And, he will tell you that he isn’t sick, and don't
want any medicine, and all that, but you must make him take it.'
"'All right,' replied the driver, 'I'll see that he takes it. You go to
bed.' They played and smoked until three o'clock, and then the big driver
mixed up the draught in a big spoon, and taking a candle he came up the
stairs. He forgot about the other Englishman, and asked the porter where
the little Englishman was that had come up that day. The sleepy porter
told him where my room was. Now I can tell the rest from my own
knowledge. I was suddenly aroused from my sleep to see an enormous form
standing beside my bed, outlined by the flickering candle on the stand,
and naturally my first thought was that I was about to be robbed and
murdered, perhaps murdered first. I called out to know who it was and the
big figure said:
"'You keep still now, and don’t get excited. No one is going to hurt you,
so just take this now, and then lie down and go to sleep. It won't hurt
you.'
"I was sure now that I was going to be drugged into insensibility and I
told him that I would take nothing. He said:
"'Now don't you fash yourself, but take this medicine, It will do you
good and is not bad to take, all stirred up with molasses.'
"'But I won't touch it,' I cried; 'you want to drug me and rob me. Get
out of here.' As I said that I pushed him away with all my strength, but
he just put his great hand around my neck and jerked me up in bed,
saying:
"'Ah, I knew you would say that. Now come on and no more nonsense.' With
that he jammed the spoon down my throat and choked me with the other hand
so that I had to swallow or strangle. So I took his dose, and he let me
go, and laid me down in bed again like a baby, but I think I fainted, for
I knew nothing more until the daylight was streaming in the window. I
found all my things untouched, but I felt awfully ill, and could scarcely
get up. But I determined to leave, if they would let me, as soon as I
could get away. When I did get down stairs everybody had heard of the
affair and they began to make fun of me. I took passage back to Stockton,
but I felt very queer. I took cold and died in about six weeks, and the
other Englishman got well. The shock and the awful dose combined with the
cold I took finished me up. What made me the maddest of all was that the
doctor I had in Stockton was some kind of a foreigner, and he could not
write English. So, my death was written down as having been caused by
'Gallumpin consumpsin'."
The whole assemblage of ghosts who were listening to this tale of woe
agreed that death sometimes has sharper stings than we know. The ghosts
with whom the newspaper man had been talking before this interruption
now gathered around him again and he thought that probably now was his
chance to learn something of the question so often mentioned of "getting
the passports." That there was to be a move onward toward some desired
goal he felt sure and at the risk of seeming importunate he asked of the
nearest one:
"Sir, is it permitted you to give me any information regarding the next
move onward, or upward, or whatever you call it, or what you mean when
you speak of your passports? I need not tell you how much I desire to
understand this."
"My dear sir, you know as much about it as we do. We all dread it while
we still desire it sincerely. We dread it because we do not know what it
will be, but on the other hand we wish the change, hoping that it will be
a step toward better things. There are some reasons of which we prefer
not to speak, why we would welcome a change. Anyone who pretends to know
more than this is a liar. You see we use strong words down here, for
truth is a fundamental principle of life after death, and we are trying
to practice it."
"And you might add," said one of the ghosts who had been talking when the
man told of his sudden taking off and his grievance against the
undertaker. "You might add that no spirit would or could harm anyone,
for in the first place he has not the power, and secondly he thinks more
of trying to undo the evil he did in lifetime than to do more,"
"Just one thing more I should like to ask, and that is if there is ever
any kind of religious service or observance down here?"
The newspaper man was growing bolder as he became better acquainted with
the ghosts, and had the welcome assurance that they would not harm him.
"There is no religion as you have been taught to consider it in any of
the underground places," replied the ghost. "It will surprise some of the
preachers when they come down to learn even the little we know. They
preach one thing, but when they get here they will find that truth in
all things, love to your neighbor, and charity to all is all that is
required of us, and I believe all that is essential to give us a chance
to work out our own salvation."
"And for punishment? Is there a hell as we have been taught? And, what
must we do to be saved? Must we join some church, and if so what one?"
They had evidently found the buffet.
"All churches lead to one goal. As it is, the One who created us has
given us all a chance to work out our own salvation after we are dead. We
can go on being ghosts, which means unredeemed souls for a few million
years and redeem ourselves. But it is hard—very hard—to overcome our
sins and weaknesses. As near as I can make it out there is a constant
advance toward perfection in everything. It began uncounted millions of
years ago, and will continue to all eternity. Evolution, the survival of
the fittest, and all those things have truth for foundation, though the
men who have been the ones to advance those theories have but the
faintest glimmering of the truth. But I think from all I have seen and
heard that Hell is that period of our existence while we are still
chained to existence, obliged to know all that goes on without power to
hinder or help. I used to preach other theology when I was a bishop, but
I see things now with my spiritual instead of earthly eyes. I think I
may say that this short life as men and women, is fraught with more
meaning than any of our previous existences in different forms—for in
this life we have been pretty nearly free agents—and a pretty mess we
have made of it all. We shall have a chance to progress to
higher—meaning better—conditions when we shall be sufficiently purified,
or at least I hope so."
"And, is there no special punishment, like frying in a cauldron of
boiling pitch and things like that?" asked the young man somewhat
anxiously, thinking at the same time of Dante's Inferno, which he had
just been reading.
"No, but there are such things as moral suffering, and one thing came to
my knowledge to-day. This is what one might call poetic justice, and it
would be comic if it were not so tragic. It is this; all the women who
have deliberately and with intention shirked the cares of maternity while
alive, are obliged to take care of the children of the poor overworked
women whose quivers were full of them on earth. There is a kind of
heavenly kindergarten, but the labors of these nurses and teachers are
quite as hard as were those of the poor mothers, and the unaccustomed and
often unpleasant labor is enough to make any poor rich woman shed tears
of rage and worry—that is, if it were a possible thing for a ghost to
cry—for the source of their tears is dried up forever. I heard one woman
say that she would give one million years of heaven if she could only have
one good cry."
"So then there is none of that weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth
that we read about and have dinned into our ears ever since we could hear,
and long before we could understood?"
"No; but don’t think that you can do wrong with impunity. Ex fatoris, is
the law, and it is always enforced in one way or another. But, we are here
to-night to enjoy ourselves as well as the nature of the occasion will