Editor of The Cauldron: There are those who are as firmly convinced in
the existence of ghosts as they are that day follows night. I have heard
intelligent men and women discuss ghosts seriously and tell of this
and that spiritualistic seance that they attended where, before their
very eyes, misty forms of long departed dead have been materialized
before their very eyes. To me all this appears more or less ridiculous.
During the past fifteen years I have made a very thorough study of the
“phenomena” of spiritualism, and my findings have resulted in my becoming
skeptical on this subject. It is because of my emphatic disbelief in the
supernatural, as far as its direct relation to human man is concerned,
that I submit the following as one of the most inexplicable and
terrifying things that has ever occurred to me:
During the summer of 1906, my wife and I were residing in the township
of North Lamoine, Maine, a fishing village situated on Frenchman’s Bay,
an arm of the Atlantic which extends some miles inland. Our first born,
then twenty months old, had not been well for some time, and we thought
perhaps a summer in the open country close to the sea would be beneficial.
For a time the little one appeared to rally, but failed to put on the
weight or to assume the healthy look that a normal baby of her age
should. Then came a day when my wife struck terror to my heart by telling
me that she had a premonition that something would happen—that the child
would not live.
I scoffed at the notion and cheered her as best I could, but there was a
great weight on my heart. I had begun to feel the same way, and the fact
that my wife mentioned it only intensified my grief.
Just two days after this conversation there occurred the manifestation
of which I write. My work kept me up later than usual, and it was not
until after midnight that I finally retired. Worn out as I was from the
activities of the day, and though late the hour, it was some time before
I could compose myself to sleep.
The baby, who slept with my wife at the other end of the room, moaned. A
heavy electrical storm raged outside—the wind lashing the rain against
the window panes in unabating fury—and my thoughts were in a turmoil.
Finally I began to doze and, I believe, was about to fall asleep when,
with a start, I found myself staring wide eyed at the ceiling. No one had
spoken, and, save for the baby’s moans and the storm, there had been no
sound, but something had impelled me to open my eyes. A moment later a
cold perspiration broke out over my body.
At first, nothing was visible and then, even in the almost pitch darkness
of the room, a filmy though strangely luminous grayish white object began
to take form close to the ceiling just above my wife’s bed. It became
clearer and clearer until finally it moved.
As rigid as a marble statue I lay. Though not exactly afraid, to have
saved my life I don’t believe I could have moved at that moment.
Gradually this indescribable object began to settle over the other bed.
Just as it seemed to merge itself with the faint whiteness of the covers,
the baby cried out, to be followed an instant later by a piercing scream
from my wife.
“Back! back!” she gasped. “No! no! you shall not! For God’s sake _back_!”
I remained motionless but an instant, long enough, however, to see the
specter gather itself into a compact form, flash upward and disappear.
Then, with a mighty effort, I pulled myself together and bounded out of
bed.
“Oh,” my wife cried, sitting up, “did you see it?”
“See what, dear?” I asked.
“Just now something white seemed to come down, with arms outstretched, as
if to take little Helen away. I am sure I was not asleep.”
“You must have been,” I answered. “I was wide awake all along and did not
see anything. The room is quite empty.”
“Ugh,” she shuddered, “what a terrible dream!”
There was no sleep for me the rest of that night. For hours I sat in the
living-room, trying to fathom the mystery that I had beheld. I knew it
could not have been imagination, for my wife had seen it also. There was
no accounting for it.
And I am just as much in the dark now as I was then. God only knows what
it was that my wife and I saw that night! Perhaps it was a matriculated
spirit from the Valley of Death, after all.
In any event, Baby Helen died the next day.