Show FLOYD GIBBONS adventurers 7 club A girl and a ghost by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline Hunte tr A AND ND im certaine certainly tainI y gl glad a d y you 0 u d i d nt t d drop ro p dead mary greene t the h e n night ight a gho ghost st w walked a lk e d ri right g h t i into nt 0 y your ou r bedroom P pull U 1 1 up your chairs a little closer boys and girls turn the light down low and listen to marys true ghost story it is worth listening to when mary moved out to a farm she was in just the sort of a abod that ghosts chests like her school work had made her nervous and sickly and her parents decided that she needed a rest and fresh air so ao they packed her off la in april 1025 1925 to a farm owned by friends now mary always has had a horror of ghost stories and it was ghost stories that this farmer doted on mary says his bedtime stories always told of weird happenings at midnight of shrouded figures with clanking chains of ghostly faces peering into windows weird cries footsteps and unexplained thump ings inge on an walls one night mary says after a particularly hair calr raising series of horror stories she climbed the wooden stairs to her bedroom with more or less fear and trembling she was nervous and lay sleeplessly in bed watching the moonbeams moon beams throw ghostly patterns on the floor the rest of the family had bad gone to sleep long since the night was a deathly quiet one the night was one of those intensely quiet ones peculiar to the country not a breath of sir air stirred and the leaves on the trees in the yard might have been painted tor for all the noise they made once la in the distance a far off train whistled and the screaming note as it died down made the silence all the more impressive the grandfather clock downstairs began to strike its slow sonorous notes sounded to the girl in bed like the mournful pealing of a churchwell church bell tolling the service for the dead she counted the strokes carefully at eleven she held her breath and hoped it would be the last and as she listened hoping against hope that the hour she dreaded would not strike a dog howled in the distance the witching hour brings horror to mary she shivered and drew the bedclothes over her head bead and as she did the clock struck TWELVE mary says saya the last notes of midnight ga 7 k ise in the moonlight she saw a figure in white had bad hardly died before she heard other sounds that brought her heart into her mouth in abject terror each sound seemed to the terror strick en girl more horrible than the other stealthy footsteps were coming up the stairs stair chains chain clanked dismally dif mally and in the silence of that awful night the she heard plainly the thump thump thump of a heavy object being dragged through the silent house and the awful sounds were soon upstairs sl 1 she heard them coming toward her room she sat up stiffly in bed and wet berlins her ber lips dry from horror borror resolved to cry out finally words came but the weak squeaky voice sounded strange and unlike her own khos there the intruder was silent as a ghost silence Sj lence the noises stopped but as the terror stricken girl listened she was sure she could hear something breathing just outside her door the door was closed but unlocked and as she stared her heart almost stopped beating the door moved mary now beside herself tried to scream she opened wide her mouth but no sound came from her parched throat stiff and rigid her bulging eyes eye staring in terror she waited for the dorsti and it was not long in coming her door slowly opened in the bright moonlight she saw a figure shrouded in white and as she sat there too tense even to taint faint the thing approached her bedl bed visitor from the grave Is too much for mary she took a deep breath as persons persona in great danger often do and horrible as it Is to relate into her nostrils came the overpowering odor of the grave the sickening stench of death wow I 1 that was the straw that broke the camels back and it la Is all that mary remembers but she che knows she must have hava screamed because a scream brought the farmer into her room on the run with a shotgun that been off the wall since armistice day the minute the farmer sniffed the ghost I 1 mean the goat geathe he knew what had happened that pet billy goat of his had gone and pulled hla stake and dragging stake and chain after him elm had come right into the house mary says ghosts still get her goat and not only that billy had pulled one of his old tricks robbing the clothes line and there on his soiled back trailed one of mas mai nice clean bed sheets I 1 but that what got marys goat what burned her up was that the farmer seemed more concerned about who left the back door open than he was about her nearly dying of fright 1 I dont dislike goats any more mary ends her interesting letter 17 1 I bate them and that goes tor for me too wary mary id rather smell a ghost any day C service lc |