Humorous Ghost Stories - Dorothy Scarborough (i can read book club .TXT) 📗

mind began to wander off on other things, decidedly unghostly and material things, such as my wife's shopping and how on earth I was going to cure her of her alarming tendency to take every new fad that came along and work it to death. But I realized that would never get me any place, so I went back to staring at the ceiling.

“This writing business is delightful, isn't it?” I said sarcastically at last, out loud, too. You see, I had reached the stage of imbecility when I was talking to myself.

“Yes,” said a voice at the other end of the room, “I should say it is!”

I admit I jumped. Then I looked around.

It was twilight by this time and I had forgotten to turn on the lamp. The other end of the room was full of shadows and furniture. I sat staring at it and presently noticed something just taking shape. It was exactly like watching one of these moving picture cartoons being put together. First an arm came out, then a bit of sleeve of a stiff white shirtwaist, then a leg and a plaid skirt, until at last there she was complete,—whoever she was.

She was long and angular, with enormous fishy eyes behind big bone-rimmed spectacles, and her hair in a tight wad at the back of her head (yes, I seemed able to see right through her head) and a jaw—well, it looked so solid that for the moment I began to doubt my very own senses and believe she was real after all.

She came over and stood in front of me and glared—yes, positively glared down at me, although (to my knowledge) I had never laid eyes on the woman before, to say nothing of giving her cause to look at me like that.

I sat still, feeling pretty helpless I can tell you, and at last she barked:

“What are you gaping at?”

I swallowed, though I hadn't been chewing anything.

“Nothing,” I said. “Absolutely nothing. My dear lady, I was merely waiting for you to tell me why you had come. And excuse me, but do you always come in sections like this? I should think your parts might get mixed up sometimes.”

“Didn't you send for me?” she crisped.

Imagine how I felt at that!

“Why, no. I—I don't seem to remember——”

“Look here. Haven't you been calling on heaven and earth all afternoon to help you write a story?”

I nodded, and then a possible explanation occurred to me and my spine got cold. Suppose this was the ghost of a stenographer applying for a job! I had had an advertisement in the paper recently. I opened my mouth to explain that the position was filled, and permanently so, but she stopped me.

“And when I got back to the office from my last case and was ready for you, didn't you switch off to something else and sit there driveling so I couldn't attract your attention until just now?”

“I—I'm very sorry, really.”

“Well, you needn't be, because I just came to tell you to stop bothering us for assistance; you ain't going to get it. We're going on Strike!”

“What!”

“You don't have to yell at me.”

“I—I didn't mean to yell,” I said humbly. “But I'm afraid I didn't quite understand you. You said you were——”

“Going on strike. Don't you know what a strike is? Not another plot do you get from us!”

I stared at her and wet my lips.

“Is—is that where they've been coming from?”

“Of course. Where else?”

“But my ghosts aren't a bit like you——”

“If they were people wouldn't believe in them.” She draped herself on the top of my desk among the pens and ink bottles and leaned towards me. “In the other life I used to write.”

“You did!”

She nodded.

“But that has nothing to do with my present form. It might have, but I gave it up at last for that very reason, and went to work as a reader on a magazine.” She sighed, and rubbed the end of her long eagle nose with a reminiscent finger. “Those were terrible days; the memory of them made me mistake purgatory for paradise, and at last when I attained my present state of being, I made up my mind that something should be done. I found others who had suffered similarly, and between us we organized 'The Writer's Inspiration Bureau.' We scout around until we find a writer without ideas and with a mind soft enough to accept impression. The case is brought to the attention of the main office, and one of us assigned to it. When that case is finished we bring in a report.”

“But I never saw you before——”

“And you wouldn't have this time if I hadn't come to announce the strike. Many a time I've leaned on your shoulder when you've thought you were thinking hard—” I groaned, and clutched my hair. The very idea of that horrible scarecrow so much as touching me! and wouldn't my wife be shocked! I shivered. “But,” she continued, “that's at an end. We've been called out of our beds a little too often in recent years, and now we're through.”

“But my dear madam, I assure you I have had nothing to do with that. I hope I'm properly grateful and all that, you see.”

“Oh, it isn't you,” she explained patronizingly. “It's those Ouija board fanatics. There was a time when we had nothing much to occupy us and used to haunt a little on the side, purely for amusement, but not any more. We've had to give up haunting almost entirely. We sit at a desk and answer questions now. And such questions!”

She shook her head hopelessly, and taking off her glasses wiped them, and put them back on her nose again.

“But what have I got to do with this?”

She gave me a pitying look and rose.

“You're to exert your influence. Get all your friends and acquaintances to stop using the Ouija board, and then we'll start helping you to write.”

“But——”

There was a footstep outside my door.

“John! Oh, John!” called the voice of my wife.

I waved my arms at the ghost with something of the motion of a beginner when learning to swim.

“Madam, I must ask you to leave, and at once. Consider the impression if you were seen here——”

The ghost nodded, and began, very sensibly, I thought, to demobilize and evaporate. First the brogans on her feet grew misty until I could see the floor through them, then the affection spread to her knees and gradually extended upward. By this time my wife was opening the door.

“Don't forget the strike,” she repeated, while her lower jaw began to disintegrate, and as my Lavinia crossed the room to me the last vestige of her ear faded into space.

“John, why in the world are you sitting in the dark?”

“Just—thinking, my dear.”

“Thinking, rubbish! You were talking out loud.”

I remained silent while she lit the lamps, thankful that her back was turned to me. When I am nervous or excited there is a muscle in my face that starts to twitch, and this pulls up one corner of my mouth and gives the appearance of an idiotic grin. So far I had managed to conceal this affliction from Lavinia.

“You know I bought the loveliest thing this afternoon. Everybody's wild over them!”

I remembered her craze for taking up new fads and a premonitory chill crept up the back of my neck.

“It—it isn't——” I began and stopped. I simply couldn't ask; the possibility was too horrible.

“You'd never guess in the world. It's the duckiest, darlingest Ouija board, and so cheap! I got it at a bargain sale. Why, what's the matter, John?”

I felt things slipping.

“Nothing,” I said, and looked around for the ghost. Suppose she had lingered, and upon hearing what my wife had said should suddenly appear——Like all sensitive women, Lavinia was subject to hysterics.

“But you looked so funny——”

“I—I always do when I'm interested,” I gulped. “But don't you think that was a foolish thing to buy?”

“Foolish! Oh, John! Foolish! And after me getting it for you!”

“For me! What do you mean?”

“To help you write your stories. Why, for instance, suppose you wanted to write an historical novel. You wouldn't have to wear your eyes out over those musty old books in the public library. All you'd have to do would be to get out your Ouija and talk to Napoleon, or William the Conqueror, or Helen of Troy—well, maybe not Helen—anyhow you'd have all the local color you'd need, and without a speck of trouble. And think how easy writing your short stories will be now.”

“But Lavinia, you surely don't believe in Ouija boards.”

“I don't know, John—they are awfully thrilling.”

She had seated herself on the arm of my chair and was looking dreamily across the room. I started and turned around. There was nothing there, and I sank back with relief. So far so good.

“Oh, certainly, they're thrilling all right. That's just it, they're a darn sight too thrilling. They're positively devilish. Now, Lavinia, you have plenty of sense, and I want you to get rid of that thing just as soon as you can. Take it back and get something else.”

My wife crossed her knees and stared at me through narrowed lids.

“John Hallock,” she said distinctly. “I don't propose to do anything of the kind. In the first place they won't exchange things bought at a bargain sale, and in the second, if you aren't interested in the other world I am. So there!” and she slid down and walked from the room before I could think of a single thing to say. She walked very huffily.

Well, it was like that all the rest of the evening. Just as soon as I mentioned Ouija boards I felt things begin to cloud up; so I decided to let it go for the present, in the hope that she might be more reasonable later.

After supper I had another try at the writing, but as my mind continued a perfect blank I gave it up and went off to bed.

The next day was Saturday, and it being near the end of the month and a particularly busy day, I left home early without seeing Lavinia. Understand, I haven't quite reached the point where I can give my whole time to writing, and being bookkeeper for a lumber company does help with the grocery bills and pay for Lavinia's fancy shopping. Friday had been a half holiday, and of course when I got back the work was piled up pretty high; so high, in fact, that ghosts and stories and everything else vanished in a perfect tangle of figures.

When I got off the street car that evening my mind was still churning. I remember now that I noticed, even from the corner, how brightly the house was illuminated, but at the time that didn't mean anything to me. I recall as I went up the steps and opened the door I murmured:

“Nine times nine is eighty-one!”

And then Gladolia met me in the hall.

“Misto Hallock, de Missus sho t'inks you's lost! She say she done 'phone you dis mawnin' to be home early, but fo' de lawd's sake not to stop to argify now, but get ready fo' de company an' come on down.”

Some memory of a message given me by one of the clerks filtered back through my brain, but I had been hunting three lost receipts at the time, and had completely forgotten it.

“Company?” I said stupidly. “What company?”

“De Missus's Ouija boahrd pahrty,” said Gladolia, and rolling her eyes she disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

I must have gone upstairs and dressed and come down again, for I presently found myself standing in the dimly lighted lower hall wearing my second best suit and a fresh shirt and collar. But I have no recollections of the process.

There was a great chattering coming from our little parlor and I went over