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.
watching her intently he felt sure that he was right, and finally he
asked:
“What would you suggest in order that those misplaced members might be
restored to their rightful owners?"
“Oh, sir, it is a terrible thing, and I really do not know what should be
done, other than that you should take the one I have and turn your back
and take it from behind you, and carry it so, covered with your coat,
and bring back mine in the same way, and manage so that no one shall see
the transfer.”
“Young lady, you are as sensible as you are lovely, and it shall be done
as you say.”
Saying that the young man threw off his coat and in a moment more had
lifted it with something in it and made his way to the ghost in the
corner waiting for him. He lost no time in dropping the offending leg as
crabs drop theirs when they like, and tried the other. As he did so he
cried joyfully:
“My friend, accept the thanks of a man who has nothing else to offer,
but please go back to that young lady and when she is settled please
offer her my thanks and hopes that she has suffered no inconvenience.”
“I think it would be the fair thing if you asked her to dance with you
since she has been so long deprived on your account.”
“I couldn’t, I really couldn’t! I will wait here until you come back, and
I beg you not to be long.”
The young man hastened away on his important errand, and soon had the
satisfaction of knowing that the young lady was very grateful to have
her own long lost limb restored. She expressed herself so gracefully
that the young man thought what a pity it was that she was dead. On plea
of important business he left her, for he was afraid that she would
expect him to offer to dance with her, but almost before he reached the
ghost who was gleefully stamping his recovered leg, he saw her being led
out for a polka. And she showed as keen a gusto as the good-natured
ghost had with the pipe and the rest.
As soon as the young man returned the ghost who had now become quite
cheerful said:
“My dear young friend, what a burden you have lifted from my heart! You
have restored me my fine leg. What an outrage to permit any one to be so
maimed.”
“Had you no friends to protect you against such treatment?”
“No, for they are all dead, too, and so could not help me. They all
lie in this churchyard, and probably will be left in peace, but if it
is in human power to get this land where they lie they like the rest
of us will have to make place for the living. The city will want the
ground, and then it will be, ‘Come along old bones, get up and travel,
We need that ground to build on, and the dead have no rights beside the
living.’”
“It is a great wrong,” said a ghost who up to now had not joined in the
conversation. “I will tell you a little of my experience, and that will
show how little we weigh in the balance with dollars. In early days I
lived in what was then the nucleus of Oakland, Cal. I had a little
sister, and she died and was buried in the first cemetery laid out in
that place. It was beautifully located on the banks of the estuary
leading to Merrit’s Lake, and under the great and evergreen old oaks,
and there we left her to sleep. Scarcely a year had passed when a rich
man came and the only place in all that county to please him was that
little graveyard. He managed to get it for a residence, and all our dead
had to be moved. Another place was chosen at the head of the lake, and
they were all put there. I had married, and when my sister was removed
my first-born was laid there too. About ten years later that place had
grown too valuable to be given to the dead, and our dead were carried
off to the foot hills, and now I am told that the time is not far distant
when they will be taken on to the eternal Sierras. Now, my mother and
father and other members of my family all lie there, but there is no one
left to see that they are moved in a proper manner. I wish with all my
heart we had all been cremated. We should all have been just haunts and
not been obliged to drag old bones around, and run the risk of getting
them scattered from Dan to Beersheba.”
“I don’t mind my bones at all,” said the gloomy ghost who was now quite
chipper, and he braced up and threw out his chest and smoothed his chin
and looked grand—as grand as the nature of the circumstances would
permit. “I used to be called a fine figure of a man.”
The young man hastened to say that anybody with half an eye could see
that he was still, for no one else took the slightest notice of him, and
the young reporter was anxious to maintain the friendliest relations
with all the ghosts. Then the ghost whose peace of mind he had been
instrumental in saving, walked along with a stately stride in front of
the young lady whose small foot had caused him so much anguish of mind.
She had finished her dance by this time and had been sitting still. By
some occult wave of sympathy she sent a sentiment of gratefulness to
him, and in next to no time they were talking like old friends, but the
painful subject of the exchange of bones was carefully ignored.
The ghost who had spoken in favor of cremation sat down beside the young
man and seemed to wish to enter into conversation, and as the
good-natured ghost had gone off again and was talking at a lively rate
with some men who all had a sort of air about them which signaled them
as seafaring men, he thought it best to let the ghost talk. To that end
he listened intently. He continued his complaint:
“There are many more old and almost forgotten graveyards in this city,
just as there are in every place of any age at all, and as there are
still some relatives left alive they fight against allowing the places
to be sold, but time flies, and some day these men will be dead too, and
there will remain no one to defend them and the old bones will be carted
off, and the worst is that we do get so mixed in these removals. See
that man over there? He belongs to St. Paul’s. I think this and that
place will probably be kept inviolate, but who knows? But they are both
so awfully crowded, and they kick like anything about letting any one be
buried in either place now, and in fact no one can be buried there
unless the family owns a vault.
“Now, I suppose that the families all think it is a great thing to have
a vault, and go down a step ladder every time they want to pray and weep
over their dead, but I tell you it matters little where we lie if we can
only be left in peace. If we could all be cremated it would be better
for all concerned, but the ashes should be scattered to the four winds,
for, my young friend, time works many changes, and the needs of the
living are greater than those of the dead. Right here in the vaults of
St. Paul's that man over there in some changing about of bodies, lost
one of his legs, and another was chucked into his coffin, so if you will
notice, he has two right legs, and consequently the other man must have
the two left ones.”
The reporter did not exactly know how to take this, and looked at the
bony face for something to show whether this was meant as a pun, or in
simple earnest, but there was nothing to show that this was the
melancholy remains of some humorist who had passed onward, so he said:
“Our lame friend said something about haunts. I did not quite understand
it. I rather infer that they are something ethereal, having no bodies—or—bones,”
he added hesitatingly.
“Haunts, sir; just haunts. Invisible unrealities. There is nothing to
them, and they just hover around. You may have heard of what some men
say who are trying to show you that there is an odic force loose in the
air, and they wish to prove that disembodied spirits can make use of
this force to render themselves visible to experts.”
“Meaning mediums?” questioned the young man hastily in his desire to
have that question solved to his entire satisfaction, for he had a
strong leaning to the belief in the occult powers of one medium in
particular who had told him something he thought no one knew but
himself.
“My dear boy, if anybody has told you that mediums or anyone else can
materialize a spirit, that person is seeking to deceive you—possibly
himself also. How is it possible to make something out of nothing?
Unless it is that they make money out of the deception they practice?
When I see the swindling wretches trying to make a fortune out of the
grief of one who has lost a dear one, and who naturally turns to
anything that promises to renew the tie that death has severed, I feel
that I would willingly sacrifice all that I have gained toward my final
release to proclaim the truth. No, friend, there is no means of
communication between the living and the dead. I would there were!”
“Here to-night I have heard that the spirit can leave the body and go
floating around. I see you here now, and suppose it means just the body
as it is—as yours all are. Will you tell me how it is done.”
“We can for a time drop off all material parts of ourselves, and then
there is but the spiritual part and that is invisible, and can go
anywhere by a thought. I might explain by asking if you ever saw a flock
of winged ants settle down on the ground and lift off their wings and
leave them there. When I want to leave my body, or what is left of it, I
just give a little and somehow I then leave the body behind and soar
away. Soar after all is not the word to use, for the movement is more
like a flash, and the movement is swift as thought, and nothing is so
swift as that, not even lightning.”
“Oh, tell me one other thing, Is there any truth in the theory that
animals have souls, and live again after they have died? I loved a dog,
and he was so faithful, so loving and above all, so intelligent that I
have often wondered what became of my dog after he died. He was born as
we are and died as we do, and in life he showed all the best qualities,
such as honor, devotion, truthfulness and fidelity, and I could somehow
never feel reconciled to think that a creature so good and so noble
could be lost forever. Tell me, shall I ever see my dog again?”
“Rest assured that nothing good and true is ever lost to those who loved
it because of its truth and goodness. I shall expect to find my own dog,
and I am sure that dogs would not have to wait for their passports as we
do, for they are not filled with evil of every kind on earth, and
besides their suffering when in life must count for something.”
At this moment there was a grand fanfare of trumpets, and the master of
ceremonies stood on a chair and said in a loud voice:
“All present are invited to be seated as the convention is about to
open.”
The young newspaper man noticed all at once that while he had been
talking with the man whose words about dogs had filled his heart with
comfort, for he had loved that dog profoundly, and felt a great void
left in his life when that of his dog went out—there had been a great
change made in the room. The whole great hall had been fitted up with
chairs and there was a platform. In front of the platform were chairs
arranged for special guests, but it was but too evident that no
provision had been made for reporters. This rather surprised him, and he
asked the man next him how it was that the Press was not represented.
The man looked at him a moment as we regard those that ask fool
questions, and then he seemed to relent and answered:
“Sir, there are no newspaper men in this place. The Master who knows all
things knows their sufferings on earth, and it must be that they get
their passports right away, for there are none here. I had a chance to
become a newspaper man, to get into newspaper work, but my family
thought law more respectable, so here I am and may stay ten million
years yet. Oh, yes, it is understood that we must remain here until the