The Sociable Ghost 8The Grand Ball, Convention and End of It All
18
Literature · Science Fiction & Fantasy
The Sociable Ghost 8
The Grand Ball, Convention and End of It All
HarperEnglish
After the young man left the reunited friends he strolled along a little, and saw a man whom he had noticed two or three times on account of his height and the gloomy bend of his head. He stood with his arms crossed moodily over his breast and the reporter thought that perhaps there was some new phrase of misery indicated in this morose and gloomy attitude. The newspaper man edged along near him and bowing, said:
“This is a very pleasant reunion, is it not?”
“This is your first visit here, is it not?” answered the ghost somewhat irrelevantly.
“It is,” replied he, thinking at the same time that it should be his last.
“I suppose you are greatly amused,” said the ghost, who, the young man now noticed, was lame and limped painfully as he moved around to keep out of the way of the dancers.
“Well, not exactly amused,” answered the young man doubtfully.
“We will say entertained, then,” said the lame ghost. “You may have noticed that I do not dance, nor can I walk about like others. I do not think I would make a good figure. I have a misfit leg.”
“I—I—beg your pardon,” stammered the young man confused between curiosity and the fear of wounding the sensibilities of the ghost.
“Just so,” resumed the ghost. “A misfit leg. Indeed I think it belongs to that young lady over there. But, as I see that she is provided with another, and I can manage to walk with this, I do not like to mortify her by mentioning it. You must admit that it would be very unpleasant for the young lady in company, now wouldn't it?”
“Would it be considered rude of me to ask how so deplorable an accident occurred?” asked the reporter with much interest.
“Certainly not,” replied the ghost with a Chesterfieldian bow. “It was just this way. I was a Van Der Dam, and I have been dead a long time. First I was buried in a little graveyard away down town, and all the dead were moved from there to make place for the leather trade warehouses, and we were taken to another cemetery that was so far from the business section that we thought we were to stay there forever. But, in a few years we had to get up and go on again. In a short time that land was wanted for building purposes, and I was removed again to another place so far out that it was thought no one would ever require that land, I am sure you have seen that place, for it was where the old and well-liked Metropolitan Hotel was afterwards built. And just to think! The trustees of Trinity Corporation once had the offer of a gift of six acres of land on the corner of Canal Street and Broadway, and refused it, thinking the expense of fencing it too great, and that it was so far from the city that it would cost more for taxes than it was worth. What those six acres are worth now must mount up to millions.
“It was swampy, and we were not so very comfortable in this place, and we were not sorry when the order came to move us so they could build the hotel, which is but a memory now, with a big business house in its place. Many of my friends lie in unsuspected spots about that neighborhood yet.
“When the foundation for the hotel was dug many of us were discovered, and they took the bones and threw them into a cart in one big box, and held an inquest over the lot, and carted them away, and I do not know where they put them. I was moved from there to another place right in the heart of the retail dry goods district. We were put in a Protestant cemetery and right opposite was an old Jewish graveyard. No money consideration had ever been powerful enough to get this spot, nor any other Jewish cemetery, for business. Stores have been built up all around it. A friend of mine lies right under a water butt, for our graves were crowded as much as possible. That is a very unpleasant location. You must admit that.”
The newspaper man did admit it, and condoled with the ghost, who kept his head bent always in sign of hopeless sorrow. He continued:
“When the march of progress reached as high as this place we had to get up again and go further so that a street could be cut through. A half brother of mine lost his head during the confusion resulting from this removal, and has never found it after that exodus. I suppose that head and the other fellow’s body must have got together somehow, for my half brother found a head, but it does not fit, and the mental calibre cannot compare with that of my half brother.”
“I should like to know, if it pleases you to tell me, which portion of a person’s anatomy is the seat of the spirit or soul, or whatever you say when you wish to designate the human intelligence, and the spirit as I see it here to-night? I can scarcely formulate my meaning, but it seems to me that it is all that part of you that I see here to-night, and that seems to have all the intelligence of your living selves. Some of you appear to have all your faculties, can eat and drink and show a certain degree of physical force, and I cannot understand anything about it. Now, you mentioned the misfortune of your brother, and I am at a loss to know which is the most of him, his head that another wears, or the body which bears a head not his own. Which, in short, is your brother? The head without his body or his body without a head?”
“My dear sir, you raise a serious question there, and one very difficult to answer. All I can say is that I think my brother must be leading what you call a double life. His body acts as it always did, but there is a total lack of sequence in his conversation. I fairly hate to hear him speak. He is always declaring that the world is coming to an end. Now, what does he or any one know about the end of the world, when we do not know anything of the beginning of it, not even the scientists.”
“The Bible says—” began the young man.
“Yes; and science says—Life is too short to go into those questions, and we might better talk of the present.”
The young man took the hint and said:
“You were speaking of your several removals.”
“Yes, and in each one I suffered, but it was after my removal from this last-mentioned place that the worst of my misfortunes befell me. We were moved to another burying ground about two miles further out of town. We were all beginning to feel at home and quite sociable, when it became necessary to grade the place and cut streets through. They cut the street through and left my coffin sticking out about two feet, and alas! I have never had two feet to stick out since.
“You see, my coffin was over a hundred years old, and it all crumbled away, and that is how I lost my foot. It was as solid and handsome a leg as you would wish to see, but the rascal who moved us broke up our coffins, and threw me into a dirty cart with a score of fellow sufferers, and were dumped into one hole, all in a heap. Somehow in the transportation my fine leg was lost, from the knee downward, and as if this was not enough, as I was the last one I had to take this and do the best I can with it. And, there sits the young lady, who, I am sure, has my leg, and this is probably hers, as I am sure that this is a woman's leg, it is so very small.”
The newspaper man thought just as the ghost did, for not for worlds would he have dared to disagree with one of the ghosts down here in the bowels of the world. The ghost continued:
“It is impossible to portray the mental agony which one of my size and build experiences as he is obliged to go limping along in disgraceful manner, and I assure you that my everlasting gratitude would be given to the person who could relieve me of this hideous deformity.”
“Why do you not go to the young lady and ask her frankly if she has not got a leg that does not belong to her? If so, she would doubtless be glad to make the exchange, and perhaps you will never have the opportunity again. You would know if it is really your leg, would you not? If her leg is too small for you your leg must be much too large for her, and she would appreciate the exchange.”
“Young sir, I do not know how a young lady of the present day would take such a thing, but I assure you I would rather go through all eternity lame than to so sully the purity of a young girl's mind as to say leg to her, No, no; I must bear it as best I can.”
“Oh, I say! What is the matter with my going to speak to her and see what she says? I will try to get the leg for you to try on, and if it is yours you can give me hers, and I am sure she will be as glad as you. I see she taps her own foot to the music, and I do not doubt that she is as anxious to dance as can be, and she cannot on account of this misfortune.”
“If it could be so arranged that she would not know who it was that asked the change, I would be willing for you to try. That is, on condition that you will be as delicate as you possibly can, and we have not much time to work in for as soon as those who like to dance have enjoyed that pleasure we are to hold a short convention, and after that we go outside. But, it would be a great comfort.”
The young man sauntered toward the young lady and noticed that she tried to hide the long leg and big foot behind her chair, and he felt emboldened, and addressed her:
“Fair lady, I beg your pardon in advance for what I am about to say, and I beg you to believe that I mean no disrespect, but as time presses and there are a few more dances on the programme, I must tell you the story of another's misfortune, so that you may understand the case.”
Then he hastily told her the whole story of the lost leg, and by 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 Master sees that we are sufficiently purified from earthly dross to enter into a higher sphere, where the most of our earthly sins and sorrows are forgotten. We are allowed to forget as fast as we have earned forgiveness. But, as I said, there are no reporters here but you, and it is understood that you are not to waste your time in writing out a report. Nobody would believe it if you did. Gee! I wonder what the editor of the paper up the street would say if you handed in your report of what you have seen to-night?”
The young man gave a short hysterical laugh as he replied:
“He would say, ‘Go to the cashier and get what is coming to you. We publish nothing but facts.’”
Two or three of the ghosts who had heard this began to laugh derisively, and one or two made remarks not altogether to the credit of the editor's perspicacity, and there would doubtless have been more discussion had not the master of ceremonies rapped sharply for order, and said:
“All present are invited to take part in this convention which has been convened for the purpose of endeavoring to right several wrongs and to elect a master of ceremonies for next year. I think I am entitled to some repose. In fact I could not be induced to serve another year in this capacity.”
“I wonder if anyone asked him to?” whispered one ghost to another. The reporter looked around to see the speaker, forgetting that he would not know anyhow. His surprise was great to observe that all the women ghosts were seated in a gallery that he had not noticed before.
The women were talking with animation among themselves and paid scant attention to the proceedings below. They grew so animated once or twice talking of the fashions which women still of the world were wearing, and telling of the clothes they used to have that they had to be called to order twice. The master of ceremonies rapped for order, and said:
“I move that Mr. Alexander Hamilton be invited to act as chairman for this meeting.”
The bishop immediately stood up, saying angrily:
“I object! Mr. Hamilton has been chairman often enough. I move that some one else has a chance this generation. Besides we want new blood, new ideas.”
“That lets you out, then,” said a ghost down the aisle.
The bishop was too angry to answer, and sat down indignantly. Another ghost said:
“What is the matter with the general? I see our fighting general here, and I should like to remark that Mr. Hamilton is not the only peach upon the bough. If the general is too modest I move that the chairman should be some one who has suffered by the wrongs we are trying to have righted. Mr. Hamilton is sure that he will never be removed from here, or if he is it will be with befitting ceremonies, and he cannot be expected to feel as do those who have been moved around until they have no fixed abode, and in consequence are called tramp ghosts. Of course the general will always be honored in death as he was in life, still I think he ought to be our chairman.”
All eyes, or rather, heads were turned toward a medium-sized ghost who stood up, and it was easy to recognize the military bearing as he replied:
“Gentlemen” (for the whole audience had applauded his name), “I am proud to know that you like me well enough to choose me, but I am not used to this kind of fighting. Anything else that I can do I shall be pleased to do.”
Saying this he sat down and so decided was his movement that no one thought of asking him to reconsider.
Everybody cheered him except the women, who were vexed that they had been obliged to go upstairs. The master of ceremonies grew desperate and said:
“We will ask Mr. Van Der Dam to preside, with the approbation of the company.”
The company for the most part appeared satisfied, though one or two said something about not liking to have a tramp ghost put above them. He took his place modestly and began:
“Friends and fellow citizens; I am here before you to see if some way cannot be devised to let the people above ground know our wrongs, and ask them to fix it so that every cemetery shall be made enduring and that no matter what are the demands of grasping people, these places shall be kept inviolate, and devoted sacredly to their purpose, or, if that cannot be done, then let us all be cremated, not only those who may die, but also those who lie in places that may become necessary to the living. What I mean is that when any old cemetery is to be moved, let them cremate the bones instead of throwing them into some filthy old cart all in a heap. We have all known what one can suffer under this sort of treatment. It is time that it was stopped. Of what use is all our boasted civilization if the dead are obliged to wander around without coffins? Yes, and half of them without more than half their bones. No one seems to care if they get mixed up and lost, or what becomes of them. Something ought to be done. I have no more to say.
Saying that he took his seat, and all the ghosts applauded him, though one or two exchanged opinions in whispers, saying that though what he had said was true it wasn’t practical. Another ghost had just risen to his feet and opened his jaws—all the ghosts just wagged their jaws when they spoke—and said Fellow—when there was a sound of a silvery bell in the distance, yet its tones vibrated sweetly through this vast place. In an instant all was changed. The seats were gone, and no vestige of them remained. All the ghosts had changed too, and instead of being gay and festive, they looked sad and downcast, and their heads were bent and their whole air was one of intense dejection.
The young man asked one of the ghosts what the matter was, and he replied simply “penance,” and fell into line as if to go somewhere. The heart of the intrepid reporter sank into his boots as he looked around for the ghost who had invited him down here and failed to see him anywhere. Finally, just as he had lost all hope he felt a light touch on his shoulder, and turned to see who it was, and there he stood, grinning.
“Did you think I had deserted you? Well, you need not have been alarmed, for there is one thing ghosts don’t do, however much they may have deviated in life, and that is, they tell the truth. And I told you I would come in time.
“We are now going outside, and you shall see how some of us have to work to get our passports, and it may be a lesson for your future guidance. And, yes, I have thought out how you may arrange about the rum. It will be more to your interest to go up to the museum, and I never was one to interfere with an appointment with a lady, so go up there by all means, but if you can and will, why you can stop and just tuck the bottle and tobacco and pipe under the stone where I sat when we first made each other's acquaintance. I have heard that there are now to be obtained waterproof matches, and if that is so I would suggest them, for think what a disappointment it would be not to be able to light the pipe after all! I shall think about it the whole year, and I do not know how I could bear such a terrible disappointment.”
The young man felt a glow of shame to think that he had thought more of his own benefit than of his promise, and as he thought the good-natured ghost said:
“My dear boy, do not worry over that. You did quite right, and if you can help that poor princess you will be doing a meritorious action. She may be, and probably is able to do all she asserts. I am sorry that I do not know where there is any treasure, but I will look around and make inquiries, and if you have time to see me at our next anniversary just for a moment I shall be only too glad to tell you.”
“I wish to see you again, not only on the next, but also all other anniversaries, as long as it shall be possible, but I have learned too much since I came down here to-night to ever care for money again save for what good I can do with it. One thing I have had in my mind for a good while, a desire born of things I have seen in and around newspaper offices and among other publishers. There is no room for old writers. The cry is always for new thoughts, fresh ideas and the finish and depth of thought which the elderly writers bring are nothing beside the sensational work of the young man. I have thought sometimes when I saw the reporters rushing off copy under high pressure only intent on getting something so sensational that it would make even the managing editor hold his breath, that that is not the kind of thing that ought to be written. The older men would hesitate to father such stuff, and because they have culture and conscience enough to do better and more worthy work no one will buy it. What I would like to do is to found a weekly paper where every contributor should be at least sixty years old. It might be considered slow by those accustomed to the sensational journals of today, but it would be good mental food, and it would also give the old men a chance to live.”
“In that way we might learn from the wisdom of age, in your paper, and be cheered by the sallies of youth in the others. Is that it?”
“Exactly. But I see no chance of being able to do this, unless something now entirely unexpected happens.”
“I will try and see if I can’t manage to interest some of the ghosts down here and we can possibly find the means to help you, for while we naturally are obliged to leave all wealth behind us, we may be able to locate hidden treasure for you or at least a mine.”
“I may never be able to carry out my plan, but this I can promise you, that if I ever see a body about to be moved I will try to see that it is comfortably fixed. And, I think I shall always be a little more careful what I do, and if you will allow me to say it, I shall always feel grateful to you for bringing me down here to-night. As long as I shall live and am able I shall make it a point to come here every anniversary of this night, bringing with me such creature comforts as I think may prove acceptable.”
“You said that before, but I thank you again,” replied the ghost, at the same time taking his hand and shaking it with a fervor not to be expected in one so long dead, and in the world of spirits.
By this time the assembly had begun to pass out of the underground place, and many of the ghosts—in fact all of the invited guests and tramp ghosts faded away, and the young man rubbed his eyes to see where they had gone. All that he could determine was that they had been there and were gone.
They stood in the graveyard again, and the tramp ghost of Mr. Van Der Dam, the man whose leg the reporter had been the means of restoring, bid him a sorrowful good-bye. He shook his hand until the young man wished in his heart that the ghost were a little less demonstrative. He wished him the best of good fortunes, and saying that disappeared so suddenly and completely that it made him dizzy.
He now became aware of a subdued murmur that passed all over the place. The sociable ghost stood near him by the side of the stone from under which he had exuded, so to speak, earlier in the night. He suddenly dropped to his knees, regardless of the pebbles which might have hurt the fleshless bones, and began rubbing the stone actively, while there were sounds of moaning and sobbing heard all over the place, and in the semi-darkness the young man saw forms crouching down by the different headstones.
There was a sound like scouring and scraping, and then bright, livid lines of light quivered and trembled along the different tombstones in the form of words. At last the young man could not control his curiosity any longer and asked the ghost to tell him what it all meant.
“Why just this. We have to come out of our graves every year and read our own epitaphs. Then we have to write what we deserved in truth. I assure you it is not a pleasant task, and we all wish that our sorrowing friends would only be so very kind as not to put anything but our names upon the stones.
“Nobody cares anyhow what is on another's gravestone, and if any stop to read it it is simply to make fun of it. To read our own epitaphs and know how little we merit the extravagant praise there is one of our sharpest pangs. When we have shown a proper degree of shame and remorse over them, then we are allowed a short time in which we can endeavor to efface the lying records. We are given the privilege of scouring them with sandpaper and holystone. We hope that when the undeserved epitaph is all worn away we may be given our passports.
“I suppose you have noticed how much sooner a gravestone wears away than a building stone? Now, here is a granite monument, and down there, across the street, is a building with the whole front of the same stone, quarried in the same year, some of it the same week. The house is as good as ever, but look at the stone in the monument. That tells the story.
“See that woman down there trying to rub out the lies that her family put there. I wonder why it is that the survivors seem to feel constrained to put all that stuff on the headstone?”
“I was just wondering,” said the young man, “how it would be if any ghost should outlive his or her stone. I heard there was a great fire here once that destroyed many of them. And I know of a baker who took three or four stones from a cemetery to bake his bread on. The names were smoothed off, and I cannot exactly understand how it all is. Is it that the dead are held for the sins of their survivors in putting all the false, if fond, words there?”
“No, not at all. If it were not this it would be something else.”
All this time the ghost was rubbing away at his own headstone with greater vigor than one could have expected, and as the young man looked at it the ghost said:
“Pretty tough work, but I have succeeded in rubbing out nearly half this letter in only sixty years. This word is ‘charitable,’ and I never gave a cent to anybody in charity. I told you I would explain. Well, here is my epitaph, ‘In memory of Captain, a pious and benevolent man, whose noble and upright character, calm demeanor and charitable heart endeared him to all who knew him. He passed away, leaving a sorrowing spouse to whom he was devoted, in the surety of a life above. He was captain of the _____, and engaged in the Liverpool and West India trade.” This is a pretty mess to fix up over your head, now isn’t it? Piety and the West India trade didn’t go together in those days. Calm demeanor! Huh! They called me ‘Old Hurricane.’ And I was worse than a pirate, for I was in the slave trade. It is all over now, and the evil I did can’t be undone, but though it may seem long, there will come a time when I—even I—shall have become fit for my passport.
“But let me tell you, young man, and try and remember what I say, if the living only knew what the dead do there would be a deuced sight less wickedness in the world. You know that the preachers have always told us that no matter what we had done of evil, we would be sure of complete pardon and forgiveness for it all, even murder, if we only could say that we accepted and believed what they told us. So many just went on and played merry hell, and at the last minute sent for a sky pilot and repented, and were assured by the clergy that they were saved and sure of heaven.
“Now, young man, don't you take any stock in that at all. Don’t forget for one minute that when you do a thing that your inner self feels to be wrong, you are going to pay for it, and you won't pay the debt in counterfeit coin, either. If people only knew enough to understand that that very inner sense of what is right and wrong which we call conscience is the law we should follow closer than the laws made by men, they would be coming nearer to obeying the commands of the Master than they do. Unhappily we do not know that until it is too late, but the Master knows our motives, our ignorance, the pressure of outside influence, temptation and environment, and it is safe to trust to Him, for knowing all and being our Creator He knows and pities our weaknesses, and compassionately gives a chance to—and—so—well we can—my dear sir, I can say no more now, for the time is up. Good-bye till next year—good-bye.”
As the Sociable Ghost said this, a bell began to ring somewhere. At this sound all the ghosts sank out of sight so swiftly that all the young man could remember was that the good-natured ghost had waved his bony hand. The change had taken place so rapidly that the young man sat and rubbed his eyes to see if they were open. As the sound of the bell grew louder, night began to fade before the early dawn.
The young man looked around and found that he was seated on the very slab where he had been when he had first seen the Sociable Ghost. He almost convinced himself that he had had a vivid dream. He might have come to believe it fully if he had not found the tobacco paper entirely empty and the matches all burned. And there was not a drop of whiskey left.
And as if these facts were not enough, he noticed that it had rained heavily during the night. There were pools and puddles of water in all the depressed places. The trees dripped water, but his clothes were perfectly dry. He was and is still convinced that this was not the baseless fabric of a dream, but the reality. He fully intends to keep his two unusual appointments next year, and try to fulfill his promises.
One good thing came out of this night’s experience, and that is that his heart has ceased aching in that dreadful way about the marriage of the girl he loved. In the light of all he learned it became a chastened sorrow, and he could even think of it as something that had happened years ago—many of them—and we all know that when a grief reaches that point it is really cured.
But he never found the little cat, nor the dog, and his conscience still twinges whenever he thinks of his wanton cruelty in bestowing that unmerited kick on the dog, and throwing the stone at the cat.
