Jeremiah Hubbard toiled with a team of horses in a piece of ground some
distance down the road from his dwelling. When it neared five o’clock in
the autumn afternoon, he unwound the lines from his waist, unhooked the
traces and started home with his horses.
He was a heavy man, a bit under middle age, with a dish-shaped face and
narrow-set eyes. He walked with vigor. One of the horses lagged a trifle,
and he struck it savagely with a short whip.
They came presently to the Eldridge dwelling, abandoned and tumbled down,
on the opposite side of the road. The farm was being worked on shares by
a man named Simpson, who lived five miles away and drove a “tin Lizzie.”
An ancient oak tree, the tremendous circumference of its trunk marred by
signs of decay, reared splendid gnarled branches skyward.
These branches shaded a disused well—a well that had been the first
one in Nicholas County, having been dug in the early fifties by the
pioneering Eldridge family. It went forty feet straight down into the
residual soil characteristic of the _locale_, but, owing to improved
drainage, it had become dry. Nothing remained of the old pump-house, save
the crumbling circle of stonework around the mouth, to give evidence of
its one-time majesty.
A child of eight ran from the rear of the premises. Hubbard frowned and
stopped his team.
“You better keep away from there,” he growled, “or you’ll fall into the
well.”
The girl glanced at him impishly.
“You an’ Missus Hubbard don’t speak to each other, do you?”
Hubbard’s face went black. His whip sprang out and caught the girl about
the legs. She yelped and ran.
An eighth of a mile farther along the road Hubbard turned in and drove
his team to a big barn. He fed his stock. It was after six when he
entered the house. This was a structure that, by comparison with the
gigantic barn in the rear, seemed pigmy-like.
A sallow, flat-chested woman, with a wisp of hair twisted into a knot,
took from Hubbard the two pails of milk he carried. She set them in the
kitchen. The two exchanged no words.
Hubbard strode to the washstand, his boots thumping the floor, and
performed his ablutions. He rumpled his hair and beard, using much soap
and water and blowing stertorously. In the dining-room a girl of twelve
sat with a book. As her father came in she glanced at him timorously.
He gave no heed to her as he slumped down into a chair standing before
a desk. The desk was littered with papers, among which were typewritten
sheets of the sort referred to as “pleadings”; there was a title-search
much bethumbed and black along the edges, where the “set-outs” had been
scanned with obvious care.
The man adjusted a pair of antiquated spectacles to his dish-face. To do
this he was compelled to pull the ends of the bows tight back over the
ears as his nose afforded practically no bridge to support the glasses.
Presently he spoke to the girl:
“Tell your mother to bring on the supper.”
The girl hastened out, and shortly thereafter the mother appeared
carrying dishes. Food was disposed about the table in silence. The farmer
ate gustily and in ten minutes finished his meal. Then he addressed his
daughter, keeping his eyes averted from his wife. “Tell your mother,” he
said, “that I’ll want breakfast at five o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“Where you goin’, Pa?” asked the girl.
“I’m goin’ to drive to the county seat to see Lawyer Simmons.”
Hubbard’s gaze followed the girl as she helped clear the table.
“Look-a here,” he said. “You been a-talkin’ to that Harper child?”
“No,” returned the daughter, with a trace of spirit. “But I jest saw her
father over by the fence.”
“What was he a-doin’ there?”
“I didn’t stay. I was afeard he’d catch me watchin’ him.”
Hubbard glowered and reached for his hat.
“I’ll find out,” he snarled.
Walking rapidly, he crossed a field of wheat stubble, keeping his
eyes fixed sharply ahead. It was dusk, but presently, at the northern
extremity of his premises, he made out the figure of a man.
“Hey, Harper!” he shouted. “You let that fence be.”
He ran forward swiftly.
The men were now separated by two wire-strand fences that paralleled
each other only three feet apart. These fences, matching one another for
a distance of about two hundred yards—each farmer claiming title to the
fence on the side farthest from his own—represented the basis of the
litigation over the boundary claim that had gone on between them for four
years.
The odd spectacle of the twin fences had come to be one of the show
places in the county. It had been photographed and shown in agricultural
journals.
“I don’t trust ye, Harper,” announced Hubbard, breathing hard. “You got
the inside track with Jedge Bissell, an’ the two of you are a-schemin’ to
beat me.”
A laugh broke from the other.
“I’ll beat you, all right,” he said coolly. “But it won’t be because
Judge Bissell is unfair.”
His manner enraged Hubbard, who rushed swiftly at the first fence and
threw himself over. With equal celerity, he clambered over the second
fence.
Startled at the sudden outburst of temper, Harper had drawn back. He held
aloft a spade. Hubbard leaped at him. The spade descended.
Harper was slightly-built, however, and the force of the blow did not
halt the infuriated man, now swinging at him with all his might. They
clinched. Hubbard’s fingers caught at the throat of the smaller man, and
the two stumbled to the ground, Hubbard atop. The fall broke his grip.
With his huge fists he began to hammer the body. He continued until it
was limp.
Then, his rage suddenly appeased, he drew back and stared at the inert
figure lying strangely quiet.
“So!” he gasped.
There came the sound of someone singing, the voice floating distinctly
through the night air. Hubbard recognized it for that of an itinerant
Free Methodist minister, whose church in Ovid he and his family
occasionally attended.
The song rolling forth, as the Man of God drove along the highway in his
rig, was _Jesus, Lover of My Soul_.
* * * * *
For the moment Hubbard shielded his face with an arm as if to ward off an
invisible thing.
Then, bending over the prostrate form, he ran his hand inside the
clothing to test the action of the heart. He performed the act
mechanically, because he knew he had killed his man.
He discovered the handbag. Evidently Harper was on his way to Ovid to
catch the train to the county seat for the trial on the morrow. This
meant that he would not be missed by his wife for at least twenty-four
hours.
The murderer studied his next move. Where to secrete the body? A piece of
wood lay back of him, but he was aware that it was constantly combed by
squirrel hunters. He thought of the railroad. Why not an accident? Killed
by the very train he was bound for?
He started to lug the body toward the track which passed half a mile to
the north. Realizing, however, that for the time at hand the distance was
too great, he let the body slide to the ground. Next he stole along the
twin fences to the highway and peered both ways. No one seemed abroad.
He came back on the dead run, and in twenty minutes he had carried the
body to the Eldridge premises and flung it down the ancient well.
When he returned he found his wife and daughter together in the parlor,
where with the itinerant preacher, all three were kneeling on the floor
in prayer. Hubbard unceremoniously nudged the clergymen.
“That’ll do,” he said.
The minister rose, his tall, lanky figure towering over Hubbard.
“Brother,” he began, in an orotund voice, “come with the Lord—”
“Yes. I know,” returned Hubbard, with a patience that surprised his wife.
“But I’ve got something to talk over with my family.” He paused. “Here,”
he added, feeling in his pocket and producing a small coin, “take this
and go along.”
When the preacher had left, Hubbard called to his daughter.
“Harper was gone when I got over to the fence.”
“What kept you so long?”
“I walked over to the woods. There’s a nest of coons. They’re a-goin’ to
play havoc with the corn.” He smiled unnaturally. “Look-a here! If we
can catch ’em, I’ll give you the money their pelts bring.”
Hubbard divined that his acting was poor. Both the girl and his wife were
frankly regarding him.
“Well!” he shouted. “What’s the matter with ye?”
“Oh, nuthin’, Pa, nuthin’,” whimpered the girl.
“Then go to bed, the two of ye.”
Next morning Hubbard started for the county seat, a ten mile drive. He
returned that evening and complained that the case had been adjourned
because Harper had failed to appear in court.
The following day he went back to his field far down the road for more
ploughing. Twice he was called to the roadside by passersby to discuss
the disappearance of Harper.
One morning a week later, when he came along the road with his team, he
discovered the Harper child on the Eldridge premises. She was sitting at
the edge of the well.
With a suppressed oath, he dropped the lines and half-walked, half-ran,
to where the little girl sat.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay away from there!” he exploded.
The girl stared at him, but made no move, though her lips quivered.
Hubbard glanced back to observe the road. Then he caught her arm.
“Go home!” he shouted.
He spun her roughly. She continued to stare at him as she retreated
homeward.
All that morning Hubbard worked his horses hard. He realized that he was
eager to go back by the Eldridge dwelling. Promptly at twelve o’clock,
therefore, he tied his team and started up the road. A flash of relief
came to him when he did not observe the little girl. It left him cold,
however.
“Eatin’ dinner,” he mumbled.
He moved off, without looking into the well. Until four o’clock that
afternoon he labored. On his way home he discovered the girl again seated
by the well. She was bending over and acting queerly.
Hurrying his horses to the roadside, he looped the lines over one of the
posts in the old “snake” fence. As he approached, he saw her toss a piece
of stone down the hole.
Hubbard waited until he was sure of his voice.
“Come with me,” he said.
Gripping the girl he started with her toward her home but a short
distance away. When they arrived the front door was ajar. A woman, with
eyes red from weeping, looked at Hubbard in silence.
“Here!” he said gruffly. “This child ought to be kept to home. She’ll
fall into the well.”
Mrs. Harper merely reached out her arms for her daughter. Hubbard
remained standing awkwardly.
“Have you heard anything of Harper yet?” he asked.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” replied the woman.
Hubbard turned on his heel. Waiting for him by his horses, was the deputy
sheriff. The two further discussed the disappearance.
“If you yourself wasn’t so well known, Jeremiah,” finally declared the
official, “they’d sure be thinkin’ you was in it some way.”
“Why?” grunted the farmer, as he untied the lines.
“Well, everybody knows you an’ Harper been lawin’ it for years over that
boundary line.”
Hubbard achieved a laugh.
“I’ll tell ye where Harper is. He’s cleared out, that’s what I
think—deserted his family.”
That night, and many following nights, Hubbard did not sleep. Some weeks
later a tremendous electric storm broke in the night. One particularly
heavy clap so startled the wakeful Hubbard that he leaped from his bed
and dressed. In the pouring rain he started out.
Inevitably his steps took him toward the well. It was black, and he could
not see at first. But another flash came, and he observed a strange thing:
The huge oak, standing at the side of the well, had been split in two by
lightning, and one portion of the tree had fallen over the mouth of the
hole.
* * * * *
Next morning Simpson, the man with the “tin Lizzie,” stopped at Hubbard’s
place. He was a blunt-spoken, red-faced man whom Hubbard hated.
“That was a bad storm last night,” he said. “The lightning struck the big
oak tree by the well.”
“What of it?” snapped Hubbard.
“There was a skeleton in the center of that tree,” explained Simpson. “I
was talking this morning with the sheriff over the telephone. He said
seventy-five years ago a man was murdered in Ovid, and they never found
his body. This skeleton must be his.”
Hubbard cleared his throat sharply.
“What did you do with it?”
“The skull and one of the leg bones fell down into the well when I tried
to gather them up. I want to borrow some rope so I can get down in there.”
For a bare second Hubbard was silent.
“What you ought to do,” he said, gathering himself, “is to fill up that
hole. It’s dangerous.”
“Yes. That’s so. But I’m goin’ to get that skull first. It’ll be a good
exhibit. I’m wonderin’ whether we’ll ever find Harper’s skeleton.”
“Wait a moment,” said Hubbard huskily, starting for the barn. “I’ll get
some rope and help you.”
The two returned to the Eldridge farm. They found there the dead man’s
child. She had perched herself on the fallen tree.
“Damn fool!” muttered Hubbard. “Her mother lettin’ her play around here!”
A pulley was rigged over the branch and the rope inserted with a board
for a rest.
“I’ll go down,” vouchsafed Hubbard.
Simpson looked his surprise as he assented.
It took Hubbard five minutes or so to retrieve the missing skeleton
parts. He brought them up, the leg bone and the grinning skull. He was
pale when he hauled himself over the edge.
“I’m a-goin’ to fill up that hole myself,” he said.
“All right,” retorted Simpson, handling the skull curiously. “Go to it.”
Word traveled of the finding of the ancient skeleton, and the inhabitants
began driving thither to see the sight. Simpson, a man of some ingenuity,
had wired the bleached white bones together and suspended them from one
of the branches of the fallen tree. The skeleton dangled and swung in the
wind.
Hubbard, maddened by the delay and publicity, felt himself wearing away.
He had become obsessed with conviction that if the hole were filled his
mind would be at rest.
The nights of continued sleeplessness were ragging his nerves, and he was
by this time unable to remain in bed. He would throw himself down, fully
dressed, waiting until the others were asleep. Then he would steal out.
At first he had merely walked the roads, swinging his arms and mumbling.
But as the night progressed his stride would quicken, and frequently he
would take to running. He would run until his lungs were bursting and
a slaver fed from his mouth. Late travelers began to catch glimpses of
the fleeting figure, and the rumor grew that a ghost was haunting the
locality of the well—that the skeleton walked.
Hubbard grew haggard. But he found himself unable to discontinue his
nocturnal prowls, some of which took him miles, but all of which
invariably wound up at one place—the well.
Here, fagged and exhausted, he would sit until the approach of dawn,
staring at the swinging skeleton, mouthing incoherencies, praying,
singing hymns beneath his breath, laughing. At the approach of dawn he
would steal home.
At last, after interest in the skeleton had subsided and Simpson had
consented to its removal, Hubbard loaded his wagon with stones and small
boulders and started for the well. That first forenoon he made three
trips, dumping each time a considerable quantity of stones.
Next morning he worked in an additional trip. He began to experience
surcease. But on the afternoon of the second day, when he made another
trip, Simpson came over from his work in an adjoining field.
“I wanted to see you yesterday,” he said, quizzically regarding Hubbard.
“Mrs. Harper was here. She said her little girl was playin’ around here
and dropped a pair of andirons down the well.”
“What of it?” Hubbard jerked out.
“You got to get ’em out.”
“Why?”
“Because them andirons is relics.”
“But you gave me permission to fill the hole.”
“I was kiddin’ you,” laughed Simpson. “I’m only rentin’ the farm. I ain’t
got nothin’ to do with the house and yard.”
Without a word Hubbard turned to his wagon. He got onto the seat and
drove off. In an hour he came back with the same rope that had been used
to recover the missing portions of the skeleton. Also, he brought with
him a farm laborer who did occasional work for him.
Simpson regarded Hubbard amusedly as the latter adjusted once more the
pulley, arranged a bucket and then hitched his team to the end of the
rope.
Patiently, bucketful by bucketful, the stones were elevated and dumped.
Down below in the black interior, Hubbard labored for an hour. At six
o’clock he had not found the andirons. Twice he had been compelled to
come up for fresh air.
His last trip up left him so white-faced and weak that he was forced to
go home.
That night he resorted to sleeping powders. But he lay and tossed,
wide-eyed, through the dark hours. Sometime after midnight he got up.
A light was still burning in his wife’s room, and, tiptoeing down the
hall, he paused at her door. In low voices the mother and daughter were
conversing. To his heated imagination it seemed certain they were talking
of Harper’s disappearance.
Mumbling to himself he left the house. He ran down the lane to the
highway and along this until he came to the Eldridge place. He determined
not to stop, and succeeded in running by, like a frightened animal.
His gait accelerated. It was one best described as scurrying, as he ran
crouched and low. He thought he saw some one approaching. This turned
him. Back he fled with the speed of the wind.
Drawn by an irresistible force, he made straight for the Eldridge
pathway. He came to the well, the entrance of which gaped at him. For a
moment he stood, with eyes wide open, staring into the black depths.
Then, screaming, he plunged in head-first.
His cry, long-drawn and eerie, hung quivering on the night air.
In the Hubbard home, a quarter of a mile away, the mother and daughter
heard it. The two listened with palpitating hearts. They caught one
another’s hands.
In a hoarse whisper the mother exclaimed:
“_What’s that?_”
[Illustration]
_Otis Adelbert Kline, Author of “The Thing of a Thousand Shapes,” Spins
Another “Spooky” Yarn for the Readers of WEIRD TALES_