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Show "-WW.. $ f 1FLOYD GIBBONS Adventurers' Club i "A Girl and a Ghost" By FLOYD GIBBONS Famous Headline Huntetr. A ND I'm certainly glad you didn't drop dead Mary Greene, A the night a ghost walk-d right ,nto your bedm- Pull up your chairs a little closer, boys and gnl , urn t light down low and listen to Mary's true ghost story. It is wort 'iSt wtn Mary moved out to a farm she was in Just the sort of a mood that ghosts like'. Her school work had made , he, ' nervous an s.ck y a her parents decided that she needed a rest and fresh packed her off in April, 1025. 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 i bed time stories always told of weird happening, -t rn f . shrouded figures with clanking chains-of fl""41 P"u ' 9 into windows-weird cries, footsteps and unexplained thump onne 7SM Mary says, after a Particularly hair-raising series of horror hor-ror stories, she climbed the wooden stairs to her bedroom , w J mon o less fear and trembling. She was nervous and lay s'Lessly watching the moonbeams throw ghostly patterns ou the floor. The of the family had gone to sleep long since. The Night Was a Deathly Quiet One. The night was one of those intensely quiet ones, peculiar to the coun-try. coun-try. Not a breath of air stirred and the leaves on the trees In the yard might have been painted for all the noise they made. Once In the dls tance, 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 gin) In bed like the mournful peal- Ing of a churchbell 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 aga Inst : 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. And as she did the clock struck TWELVE. Mary says the last notes of midnight In the Moonlight She Saw a Figur In White. had hardly died before she heard other sounds that brought her heart Into her mouth In abject terror. Each sound seemed, to the terror-stricken girl, more horrible than the other. Stealthy footsteps were coming up the stairs. Chains clanked dismally and in the silence of that awful night she heard plainly the thump, thump, thump of a heavy object being dragged through the silent house. And the awful sounds were soon upstairs I She heard them coming toward her room. She sat up stiffly In bed and wet her lips dry from horror resolved to cry out. Finally words came but the weak, squeaky voice sounded strange and unlike her own. "Who's there?" The Intruder Was "Silent as a Ghost." Silence. 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 staring in terror, she waited for the worst! And It was hot 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 faint, the thing approached her bed! Visitor From the Grave Is Too Much for Mary. She took a deep breath as persons 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 ! That was the straw that broke the camel's back. And It Is all that Mary remembers. But she knows she must have screamed because a scream brought the farmer iniq her rocm on the run with a shotgun that hadn't been off the wall since Armistice day. The minute the farmer sniffed the ghost 1 mean the goat he knew what had happened. That pet billy-goat of his had gone and pulled his stake and dragging stake and chain after him, 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 Ma's nice clean bed-sheets 1 ' But that isn't what got Mary's goat. What burned her up was that the farmer seemed more concerned about who left the-back the-back door open than he was about her nearly dying of fright "I don't dislike goats any more," Mary ends her Interesting letter "I hate them." And that goes for me, too, Mary. I'd rather smell a ghost anv dav WNU Service. |