 | Sam Lawson's Oldtown fireside stories |  |
THE GHOST IN THE MILL.
COME, Sam, tell us a
story,” said I, as Harry
and I crept to his
knees, in the glow
of the bright evening
firelight; while Aunt
Lois was busily rattling
the tea-things,
and grandmamma, at
the other end of the fireplace, was quietly setting the
heel of a blue-mixed yarn stocking.
In those days we had no magazines and daily papers,
each reeling off a serial story. Once a week,
its slender stock of news and editorial; but all the
multiform devices — pictorial, narrative, and poetical
— which keep the mind of the present generation
ablaze with excitement, had not then even an existence.
There was no theatre, no opera; there were
in Oldtown no parties or balls, except, perhaps, the
annual election, or Thanksgiving festival; and when
winter came, and the sun went down at half-past
four o'clock, and left the long, dark hours of evening
to be provided for, the necessity of amusement became
urgent. Hence, in those days, chimney-corner
story-telling became an art and an accomplishment.
Society then was full of traditions and narratives
which had all the uncertain glow and shifting mystery
of the firelit hearth upon them. They were
told to sympathetic audiences, by the rising and falling
light of the solemn embers, with the hearthcrickets
filling up every pause. Then the aged told
their stories to the young, — tales of early life; tales
of war and adventure, of forest-days, of Indian captivities
and escapes, of bears and wild-cats and panthers,
of rattlesnakes, of witches and wizards, and
“Do, do, tell us a story.”—Page 3.
[Description: 703EAF. Illustration page. Image of two young boys sitting on stools at the feet of a middle aged man. There is an older couple sitting close to the fire in the background.]
providences.
In those days of early Massachusetts, faith and
credence were in the very air. Two-thirds of New
England was then dark, unbroken forests, through
whose tangled paths the mysterious winter wind
groaned and shrieked and howled with weird noises
and unaccountable clamors. Along the iron-bound
shore, the stormful Atlantic raved and thundered,
and dashed its moaning waters, as if to deaden
and deafen any voice that might tell of the settled
life of the old civilized world, and shut us forever
into the wilderness. A good story-teller, in those
days, was always sure of a warm seat at the hearthstone,
and the delighted homage of children; and
in all Oldtown there was no better story-teller than
Sam Lawson.
“Do, do, tell us a story,” said Harry, pressing
upon him, and opening very wide blue eyes, in which
undoubting faith shone as in a mirror; “and let it
be something strange, and different from common.”
“Wal, I know lots o' strange things,” said Sam,
looking mysteriously into the fire. “Why, I know
they wa'n't so; but then they is so for all that.”
“Oh, do, do, tell us!”
“Why, I should scare ye to death, mebbe,” said
Sam doubtingly.
“Oh, pooh! no, you wouldn't,” we both burst out
at once.
But Sam was possessed by a reticent spirit, and
loved dearly to be wooed and importuned; and so
he only took up the great kitchen-tongs, and smote
on the hickory forestick, when it flew apart in the
middle, and scattered a shower of clear bright coals
all over the hearth.
“Mercy on us, Sam Lawson!” said Aunt Lois in
an indignant voice, spinning round from her dishwashing.
“Don't you worry a grain, Miss Lois,” said Sam
composedly. “I see that are stick was e'en a'most
in two, and I thought I'd jest settle it. I'll sweep
up the coals now,” he added, vigorously applying
a turkey-wing to the purpose, as he knelt on the
hearth, his spare, lean figure glowing in the blaze
of the firelight, and getting quite flushed with exertion.
“There, now!” he said, when he had brushed over
and under and between the fire-irons, and pursued
the retreating ashes so far into the red, fiery citadel,
that his finger-ends were burning and tingling, “that
are's done now as well as Hepsy herself could 'a'
done it. I allers sweeps up the haarth: I think it's
part o' the man's bisness when he makes the fire.
But Hepsy's so used to seein' me a-doin' on't, that
she don't see no kind o' merit in't. It's just as
Parson Lothrop said in his sermon, — folks allers
overlook their common marcies” —
“But come, Sam, that story,” said Harry and I
coaxingly, pressing upon him, and pulling him down
into his seat in the corner.
“Lordy massy, these 'ere young uns!” said Sam.
“There's never no contentin' on 'em: ye tell 'em
one story, and they jest swallows it as a dog does
a gob o' meat; and they're all ready for another.
What do ye want to hear now?”
Now, the fact was, that Sam's stories had been told
us so often, that they were all arranged and ticketed
in our minds. We knew every word in them, and
could set him right if he varied a hair from the
Still we shivered, and clung to his knee, at
the mysterious parts, and felt gentle, cold chills run
down our spines at appropriate places. We were
always in the most receptive and sympathetic condition.
To-night, in particular, was one of those
thundering stormy ones, when the winds appeared
to be holding a perfect mad carnival over my grandfather's
house. They yelled and squealed round the
corners; they collected in troops, and came tumbling
and roaring down chimney; they shook and
rattled the buttery-door and the sinkroom-door
and the cellar-door and the chamber-door, with a
constant undertone of squeak and clatter, as if at
every door were a cold, discontented spirit, tired of
the chill outside, and longing for the warmth and
comfort within.
“Wal, boys,” said Sam confidentially, “what'll
ye have?”
“Tell us `Come down, come down!'” we both
shouted with one voice. This was, in our mind, an
“A No. 1” among Sam's stories.
“Ye mus'n't be frightened now,” said Sam paternally.
“Oh, no! we ar'n't frightened ever,” said we both
in one breath.
“Not when ye go down the cellar arter cider?”
said Sam with severe scrutiny. “Ef ye should be
down cellar, and the candle should go out, now?”
“I ain't,” said I: “I ain't afraid of any thing. I
never knew what it was to be afraid in my life.”
“Wal, then,” said Sam, “I'll tell ye. This 'ere's
what Cap'n Eb Sawin told me when I was a boy
about your bigness, I reckon.
“Cap'n Eb Sawin was a most respectable man.
Your gran'ther knew him very well; and he was a
deacon in the church in Dedham afore he died. He
was at Lexington when the fust gun was fired agin
the British. He was a dreffle smart man, Cap'n Eb
was, and driv team a good many years atween here
and Boston. He married Lois Peabody, that was
cousin to your gran'ther then. Lois was a rael
sensible woman; and I've heard her tell the story
as he told her, and it was jest as he told it to me, —
jest exactly; and I shall never forget it if I live to
be nine hundred years old, like Mathuselah.
“Ye see, along back in them times, there used to
fall, a-peddlin' goods, with his pack on his back; and
his name was Jehiel Lommedieu. Nobody rightly
knew where he come from. He wasn't much of a
talker; but the women rather liked him, and kind
o' liked to have him round. Women will like some
fellows, when men can't see no sort o' reason why
they should; and they liked this 'ere Lommedieu,
though he was kind o' mournful and thin and shad-bellied,
and hadn't nothin' to say for himself. But
it got to be so, that the women would count and
calculate so many weeks afore 'twas time for Lommedieu
to be along; and they'd make up gingersnaps
and preserves and pies, and make him stay
to tea at the houses, and feed him up on the best
there was: and the story went round, that he was
a-courtin' Phebe Ann Parker, or Phebe Ann was
a-courtin' him, — folks didn't rightly know which.
Wal, all of a sudden, Lommedieu stopped comin'
round; and nobody knew why, — only jest he didn't
come. It turned out that Phebe Ann Parker had
got a letter from him, sayin' he'd be along afore
Thanksgiving; but he didn't come, neither afore
and finally the women they gin up lookin' for him.
Some said he was dead; some said he was gone to
Canada; and some said he hed gone over to the Old
Country.
“Wal, as to Phebe Ann, she acted like a gal o'
sense, and married 'Bijah Moss, and thought no more
'bout it. She took the right view on't, and said she
was sartin that all things was ordered out for the
best; and it was jest as well folks couldn't always
have their own way. And so, in time, Lommedieu
was gone out o' folks's minds, much as a last year's
apple-blossom.
“It's relly affectin' to think how little these 'ere
folks is missed that's so much sot by. There ain't
nobody, ef they's ever so important, but what the
world gets to goin' on without 'em, pretty much as
it did with 'em, though there's some little flurry
at fust. Wal, the last thing that was in anybody's
mind was, that they ever should hear from Lommedieu
agin. But there ain't nothin' but what has
its time o' turnin' up; and it seems his turn was to
come.
“Wal, ye see, 'twas the 19th o' March, when
Cap'n Eb Sawin started with a team for Boston.
That day, there come on about the biggest
snow-storm that there'd been in them parts sence
the oldest man could remember. 'Twas this 'ere fine,
siftin' snow, that drives in your face like needles,
with a wind to cut your nose off: it made teamin'
pretty tedious work. Cap'n Eb was about the toughest
man in them parts. He'd spent days in the
woods a-loggin', and he'd been up to the deestrict
o' Maine a-lumberin', and was about up to any sort o'
thing a man gen'ally could be up to; but these 'ere
March winds sometimes does set on a fellow so, that
neither natur' nor grace can stan' 'em. The cap'n
used to say he could stan' any wind that blew one
way 't time for five minutes; but come to winds that
blew all four p'ints at the same minit, — why, they
flustered him.
“Wal, that was the sort o' weather it was all day:
and by sundown Cap'n Eb he got clean bewildered,
so that he lost his road; and, when night came on,
he didn't know nothin' where he was. Ye see the
country was all under drift, and the air so thick with
fact was, he got off the Boston road without knowin'
it, and came out at a pair o' bars nigh upon Sherburn,
where old Cack Sparrock's mill is.
“Your gran'ther used to know old Cack, boys.
He was a drefful drinkin' old crittur, that lived there
all alone in the woods by himself a-tendin' saw and
grist mill. He wa'n't allers jest what he was then.
Time was that Cack was a pretty consid'ably likely
young man, and his wife was a very respectable
woman, — Deacon Amos Petengall's dater from
Sherburn.
“But ye see, the year arter his wife died, Cack he
gin up goin' to meetin' Sundays, and, all the tithing-men
and selectmen could do, they couldn't get him
out to meetin'; and, when a man neglects means o'
grace and sanctuary privileges, there ain't no sayin'
what he'll do next. Why, boys, jist think on't! —
an immortal crittur lyin' round loose all day Sunday,
and not puttin' on so much as a clean shirt, when
all 'spectable folks has on their best close, and is to
meetin' worshippin' the Lord! What can you spect
to come' of it, when he lies idlin' round in his old
Devil should be arter him at last, as he was arter
old Cack?”
Here Sam winked impressively to my grandfather
in the opposite corner, to call his attention to the
moral which he was interweaving with his narrative.
“Wal, ye see, Cap'n Eb he told me, that when he
come to them bars and looked up, and saw the dark
a-comin' down, and the storm a-thickenin' up, he felt
that things was gettin' pretty consid'able serious.
There was a dark piece o' woods on ahead of him inside
the bars; and he knew, come to get in there, the
light would give out clean. So he jest thought he'd
take the hoss out o' the team, and go ahead a little,
and see where he was. So he driv his oxen up ag'in
the fence, and took out the hoss, and got on him, and
pushed along through the woods, not rightly knowin'
where he was goin'.
“Wal, afore long he see a light through the trees;
and, sure enough, he come out to Cack Sparrock's old
mill.
“It was a pretty consid'able gloomy sort of a place,
that are old mill was. There was a great fall of water
deep pool; and it sounded sort o' wild and lonesome:
but Cap'n Eb he knocked on the door with his whip-handle,
and got in.
“There, to be sure, sot old Cack beside a great
blazin' fire, with his rum-jug at his elbow. He was a
drefful fellow to drink, Cack was! For all that, there
was some good in him, for he was pleasant-spoken and
'bliging; and he made the cap'n welcome.
“`Ye see, Cack,' said Cap'n Eb, `I 'm off my road,
and got snowed up down by your bars,' says he.
“`Want ter know!' says Cack. `Calculate you'll
jest have to camp down here till mornin',' says he.
“Wal, so old Cack he got out his tin lantern, and
went with Cap'n Eb back to the bars to help him
fetch along his critturs. He told him he could put 'em
under the mill-shed. So they got the critturs up to
the shed, and got the cart under; and by that time
the storm was awful.
“But Cack he made a great roarin' fire, 'cause, ye
see, Cack allers had slab-wood a plenty from his mill;
and a roarin' fire is jest so much company. It sort o'
keeps a fellow's spirits up, a good fire does. So Cack
o' toddy; and he and Cap'n Eb were havin' a tol'able
comfortable time there. Cack was a pretty good
hand to tell stories; and Cap'n Eb warn't no way backward
in that line, and kep' up his end pretty well:
and pretty soon they was a-roarin' and haw-hawin'
inside about as loud as the storm outside; when all of
a sudden, 'bout midnight, there come a loud rap on
the door.
“`Lordy massy! what's that?' says Cack. Folks
is rather startled allers to be checked up sudden when
they are a-carryin' on and laughin'; and it was such
an awful blowy night, it was a little scary to have a
rap on the door.
“Wal, they waited a minit, and didn't hear nothin'
but the wind a-screechin' round the chimbley; and
old Cack was jest goin' on with his story, when the
rap come ag'in, harder'n ever, as if it'd shook the
door open.
“`Wal,' says old Cack, `if 'tis the Devil, we'd
jest as good's open, and have it out with him to onst,'
says he; and so he got up and opened the door, and,
sure enough, there was old Ketury there. Expect
She used to come to meetin's sometimes, and her husband
was one o' the prayin' Indians; but Ketury was
one of the rael wild sort, and you couldn't no more
convert her than you could convert a wild-cat or a
painter [panther]. Lordy massy! Ketury used to
come to meetin', and sit there on them Indian benches;
and when the second bell was a-tollin', and when Parson
Lothrop and his wife was comin' up the broad
aisle, and everybody in the house ris' up and stood,
Ketury would sit there, and look at 'em out o' the corner
o' her eyes; and folks used to say she rattled them
necklaces o' rattlesnakes' tails and wild-cat teeth, and
sich like heathen trumpery, and looked for all the
world as if the spirit of the old Sarpent himself was
in her. I've seen her sit and look at Lady Lothrop
out o' the corner o' her eyes; and her old brown baggy
neck would kind o' twist and work; and her eyes they
looked so, that 'twas enough to scare a body. For
all the world, she looked jest as if she was a-workin'
up to spring at her. Lady Lothrop was jest as kind
to Ketury as she always was to every poor crittur.
She'd bow and smile as gracious to her when meetin'
meetin'; but Ketury never took no notice. Ye see,
Ketury's father was one o' them great powwows down
to Martha's Vineyard; and people used to say she was
set apart, when she was a child, to the sarvice o' the
Devil: any way, she never could be made nothin' of
in a Christian way. She come down to Parson
Lothrop's study once or twice to be catechised; but
he couldn't get a word out o' her, and she kind o'
seemed to sit scornful while he was a-talkin'. Folks
said, if it was in old times, Ketury wouldn't have been
allowed to go on so; but Parson Lothrop's so sort
o' mild, he let her take pretty much her own way.
Everybody thought that Ketury was a witch: at least,
she knew consid'able more'n she ought to know, and
so they was kind o' 'fraid on her. Cap'n Eb says he
never see a fellow seem scareder than Cack did when
he see Ketury a-standin' there.
“Why, ye see, boys, she was as withered and wrinkled
and brown as an old frosted punkin-vine; and her
little snaky eyes sparkled and snapped, and it made
yer head kind o' dizzy to look at 'em; and folks used
to say that anybody that Ketury got mad at was
matter what day or hour Ketury had a mind to rap at
anybody's door, folks gen'lly thought it was best to
let her in; but then, they never thought her coming
was for any good, for she was just like the wind, — she
came when the fit was on her, she staid jest so long
as it pleased her, and went when she got ready, and
not before. Ketury understood English, and could
talk it well enough, but always seemed to scorn it,
and was allers mowin' and mutterin' to herself in Indian,
and winkin' and blinkin' as if she saw more
folks round than you did, so that she wa'n't no way
pleasant company; and yet everybody took good care
to be polite to her.
So old Cack asked her to come in, and didn't make
no question where she come from, or what she come
on; but he knew it was twelve good miles from where
she lived to his hut, and the snow was drifted above
her middle: and Cap'n Eb declared that there wa'n't
no track, nor sign o' a track, of anybody's coming
through that snow next morning.”
“How did she get there, then?” said I.
“Didn't ye never see brown leaves a-ridin' on the
wind,' and I'm sure it was strong enough to fetch her.
But Cack he got her down into the warm corner,
and he poured her out a mug o' hot toddy, and give
her: but ye see her bein' there sort o' stopped the
conversation; for she sot there a-rockin' back'ards and
for'ards, a-sippin her toddy, and a-mutterin', and
lookin' up chimbley.
“Cap'n Eb says in all his born days he never hearn
such screeches and yells as the wind give over that
chimbley; and old Cack got so frightened, you could
fairly hear his teeth chatter.
“But Cap'n Eb he was a putty brave man, and he
wa'n't goin' to have conversation stopped by no woman,
witch or no witch; and so, when he see her mutterin',
and lookin' up chimbley, he spoke up, and says
he, `Well, Ketury, what do you see?' says he.
`Come, out with it; don't keep it to yourself.' Ye see
Cap'n Eb was a hearty fellow, and then he was a
leetle warmed up with the toddy.
“Then he said he see an evil kind o' smile on Ketury's
face, and she rattled her necklace o' bones and
snakes' tails; and her eyes seemed to snap; and she
come down! let 's see who ye be.'
“Then there was a scratchin' and a rumblin' and
a groan; and a pair of feet come down the chimbley,
and stood right in the middle of the haarth, the toes
pi'ntin' out'rds, with shoes and silver buckles a-shinin'
in the firelight. Cap'n Eb says he never come
so near bein' scared in his life; and, as to old Cack,
he jest wilted right down in his chair.
“Then old Ketury got up, and reached her stick up
chimbley, and called out louder, `Come down, come
down! let's see who ye be.' And, sure enough, down
came a pair o' legs, and j'ined right on to the feet:
good fair legs they was, with ribbed stockings and
leather breeches.
“`Wal, we're in for it now,' says Cap'n Eb. `Go
it, Ketury, and let's have the rest on him.'
“Ketury didn't seem to mind him: she stood there
as stiff as a stake, and kep' callin' out, `Come down,
come down! let's see who ye be.' And then come
down the body of a man with a brown coat and yellow
vest, and j'ined right on to the legs; but there wa'n't
no arms to it. Then Ketury shook her stick up chimbley,
came down a pair o' arms, and went on each side o'
the body; and there stood a man all finished, only
there wa'n't no head on him.
“`Wal, Ketury,' says Cap'n Eb, `this 'ere's getting
serious. I 'spec' you must finish him up, and let's
see what he wants of us.'
“Then Ketury called out once more, louder'n ever,
`Come down, come down! let's see who ye be.' And,
sure enough, down comes a man's head, and settled
on the shoulders straight enough; and Cap'n Eb, the
minit he sot eyes on him, knew he was Jehiel Lommedieu.
“Old Cack knew him too; and he fell flat on his face,
and prayed the Lord to have mercy on his soul: but
Cap'n Eb he was for gettin' to the bottom of matters,
and not have his scare for nothin'; so he says to him,
`What do you want, now you hev come?'
“The man he didn't speak; he only sort o' moaned,
and p'inted to the chimbley. He seemed to try to
speak, but couldn't; for ye see it isn't often that his
sort o' folks is permitted to speak: but just then
there came a screechin' blast o' wind, and blowed the
“Old Cack knew him too.”—Page 20.
[Description: 703EAF. Illustration page. Image of a man lying face down on the floor next to an overturned chair and a spilled glass of liquid. Three figure are standing behing him. One is a hunched woman wielding a stick. The second is a man with his arm crossed over his chest and his hair standing straight up. The third is a man looking confused. There is a great deal of billowing smoke in the background.]
into the room, and there seemed to be a whirlwind and
darkness and moans and screeches; and, when it all
cleared up, Ketury and the man was both gone, and
only old Cack lay on the ground, rolling and moaning
as if he'd die.
“Wal, Cap'n Eb he picked him up, and built up
the fire, and sort o' comforted him up, 'cause the crittur
was in distress o' mind that was drefful. The
awful Providence, ye see, had awakened him, and his
sin had been set home to his soul; and he was under
such conviction, that it all had to come out, — how
old Cack's father had murdered poor Lommedieu for
his money, and Cack had been privy to it, and helped
his father build the body up in that very chimbley;
and he said that he hadn't had neither peace nor rest
since then, and that was what had driv' him away
from ordinances; for ye know sinnin' will always
make a man leave prayin'. Wal, Cack didn't live
but a day or two. Cap'n Eb he got the minister o'
Sherburn and one o' the selectmen down to see him;
and they took his deposition. He seemed railly quite
penitent; and Parson Carryl he prayed with him, and
soul: and so, at the eleventh hour, poor old Cack might
have got in; at least it looks a leetle like it. He was
distressed to think he couldn't live to be hung. He
sort o' seemed to think, that if he was fairly tried, and
hung, it would make it all square. He made Parson
Carryl promise to have the old mill pulled down, and
bury the body; and, after he was dead, they did it.
“Cap'n Eb he was one of a party o' eight that
pulled down the chimbley; and there, sure enough,
was the skeleton of poor Lommedieu.
“So there you see, boys, there can't be no iniquity
so hid but what it'll come out. The wild Indians of
the forest, and the stormy winds and tempests, j'ined
together to bring out this 'ere.”
“For my part,” said Aunt Lois sharply, “I never
believed that story.”
“Why, Lois,” said my grandmother, “Cap'n Eb
Sawin was a regular church-member, and a most respectable
man.”
“Law, mother! I don't doubt he thought so. I
suppose he and Cack got drinking toddy together, till
he got asleep, and dreamed it. I wouldn't believe
and eyes. I should only think I was crazy, that's all.”
“Come, Lois, if I was you, I wouldn't talk so like
a Sadducee,” said my grandmother. “What would
become of all the accounts in Dr. Cotton Mather's
`Magnilly' if folks were like you?”
“Wal,” said Sam Lawson, drooping contemplatively
over the coals, and gazing into the fire, “there's a
putty consid'able sight o' things in this world that's
true; and then ag'in there's a sight o' things that
ain't true. Now, my old gran'ther used to say, `Boys,
says he, `if ye want to lead a pleasant and prosperous
life, ye must contrive allers to keep jest the happy
medium between truth and falsehood.' Now, that
are's my doctrine.”
Aunt Lois knit severely.
“Boys,” said Sam, “don't you want ter go down
with me and get a mug o' cider?”
Of course we did, and took down a basket to bring
up some apples to roast.
“Boys,” says Sam mysteriously, while he was
drawing the cider, “you jest ask your Aunt Lois to
tell you what she knows 'bout Ruth Sullivan.”
“Why, what is it?”
“Oh! you must ask her. These 'ere folks that's so
kind o' toppin' about sperits and sich, come sift 'em
down, you gen'lly find they knows one story that kind
o' puzzles 'em. Now you mind, and jist ask your
Aunt Lois about Ruth Sullivan.”
| Sam Lawson's Oldtown fireside stories | |