Coffin Hollow and Other Ghost Tales by Ruth Ann Musick Read Free Book Online Page A

which had been grown up in weeds for as long as I could remember. As I walked through the tall grass, I stumbled on a rock; I examined it more closely and saw it was a rough, handmade tomb-stone.
    â€œYes,” grandfather answered my questioning look, “this meadow’s full of them; that’s why we don’t plow it, although one person — my father — tried.”
    I wanted to know more, so we sat on a fence half the afternoon while grandfather told me about the haunted field.
    Long ago a slave trader had made his home on this property. He was a cruel man, and his neighbors gave him a wide berth. He had built a rough sort of barracks against the hillside where the slaves were kept chained to the walls, and in the field below he buried the bodies of those who tried to escape, or were disobedient, as a warning to the others. This man enjoyed torturing his victims before killing them, however, and when it got so bad that the good people of Green Valley drove him out, no one would buy his land because of the evil name attached to it.
    After several years, my great-grandfather bought it, against the advice of his neighbors, and tried to remove all the taint from it. He burned the decaying slavehouse and after about thirty years of living on the property, decided to use the meadow where the slaves had been buried.
    Grandfather was a little boy then, but he could remember his father saying that he had had a strange sense of foreboding all during the plowing and that the horses had shied and given him a great deal of trouble all afternoon.
    The family all went to bed with the sun that night, because there was so much to do the next morning. Grandfather was awakened by his father’s terrified screams. His father had seen something — or maybe dreamed it, but it was real to him. He had heard chains clanking, moans and screams of tortured slaves, and had heard their quiet cries of despair. “Let us have peace, at least in our graves,” they begged, crawling on their knees, their chains clanking.
    Grandfather stopped there and lit his pipe, but after a time he went on.
    â€œWell, my pa heard that carrying on for about a week; then he decided he didn’t really need that field. He let it grow back up, and he didn’t hear any more strange noises. I left that meadow alone too, and so did your Uncle Roy.”
    â€œThe screams and chain-clanking,” I said, “all this was just your father’s conscience bothering him in the form of a dream.”
    Grandfather took another puff; then he said quietly, “But all us kids, we heard it too!”

    18: The Misty Ghost
    Many years ago, a young woman from Rowlesburg was working in the city of Pittsburgh as a domestic. While there, she happened to meet a young man from Manheim, a small community across the river from Rowlesburg.
    They both were lonely, and before long they became good friends. They spent many a long evening talking of their families and their mutual friends. This relationship blossomed into love — at least on the girl’s part. But in spite of his avowed sentiments the young man refused to marry her. All too soon she lost her position, and there was nothing left for her but to return home.
    As she rode back on the train, all she could think of was the disgrace she would bring to her family. She was not even sure that they would let her in.
    Each mile bringing her closer home seemed to make her burn deeper and deeper with shame, and with the excuse that she needed air, she went out to the platform between the cars.
    The night was beautiful, with a full moon, and she noticed that the train was now on a high winding trail, following Cheat River. Just as the train passed over the caverns, she jumped.
    The young man, hearing of her death, hurried home. Filled with shame and remorse, he went to the caves on the anniversary of her death. He never came back. Two days later, he was found on the bottom of the river,