A vine on a house by Ambrose Bierce. About three miles from the little
town of Norton in Missouri, on the road leading to Maysville, stands an
old house that was last occupied by a family named Harding. Since eighteen eighty
six, no one has lived in it, nor is any one likely to
live in it again. Time and the disfavor of persons dwelling thereabouts are converting
it into a rather picturesque ruin. An observer unacquainted with its history would hardly
put it into the category of haunted houses. Yet in all the regioned round,
such is its evil reputation. Its windows are without glass, its doorways
without doors. There are wide breeches in the shingle roof, and for lack
of paint, the weather boarding is dune gray. But these unfailing suns vines
of the supernatural are partly concealed and greatly softened by the abundant foliage of a
large vine overrunning the entire structure. This vine, of a species which no
botanist has ever been able to name, has an important part in the story
of the house. The Harding family consisted of Robert Harding, his wife Matilda,
Miss Julia Wint, who was her sister and two young children. Robert
Harding was a silent, cold mattered man who made no friends in the neighborhood
and apparently cared to make none. He was about forty years old, frugal
and industrious, and made a living from the little farm, which is now
overgrown with brush and brambles. He and his sister in law were rather tabooed
by their neighbors, who seemed to think that they were seen too frequently together,
not entirely their fault, for at these times they evidently did not challenge
observation. The moral code of rural Missouri is stern and exacting. Missus Harding
was a gentle, sad eyed woman, lacking a left foot. At some
time in eighteen eighty four, it became known that she had gone to visit
her mother in Iowa. That was what her husband said in reply to inquiries,
and his manner of saying it did not encourage further questioning. She never
came back, and two years later, without selling his farm or anything that
was his, or appointing an agent to look after his interests, or removing
his household goods, Harding, with the rest of the family left the country.
Nobody knows whither he went. Nobody at that time cared naturally. What
never was movable about the place soon disappeared, and the deserted house became haunted
in the manner of its kind. One summer evening four or five years later,
the Reverend J. Gruber of Norton and the Marysville attorney named Hyatt,
met on horseback in front of the harding place. Having business matters to discuss.
They hitched their animals, and, going to the house, sat on
the porch to talk. Some humorous reference to the sober reputation of the place
was made and forgotten as soon as uttered, and they talked of their business
affairs until it grew almost dark. The evening was oppressively warm, the air
stagnant. Presently, both men started from their seats in surprise. A long
vine that covered half the front of the house and dangled its branches from the
edge of the porch above them, was visibly and audibly agitated, shaking violently
in every stem and leaf. We shall have a storm, Hyatt exclaimed.
Gruber said nothing, but silently directed the other's attention to the foliage of adjacent
trees, which showed no movement. Even the delicate tips of the boughs,
silhouetted against the clear sky, were motionless. They hastily passed down the steps
to what had been a lawn, and looked upward at the vine, whose
entire length was now visible. It continued in violent agitation. Yet they could
discern no disturbing cause. Let us leave, said the minister, And leave
they did, forgetting that they had been traveling in opposite directions, they rode
away. Together. They went to Norton, where they related this strange experience
to several discreet friends. The next evening, at about the same accompanied by
two others whose names are not recalled, they were again on the porch of
the Harding house, and again the mysterious phenomenon occurred. The vine was violently
agitated while under the closest scrutiny from root to tip. Nor did their combined
strength applied to the trunk serve to still it. After an hour's observation,
they retreated, no less wise, it is thought, than when they had
come. No great time was required for these singular facts to rouse the curiosity
of the entire neighborhood. By day and by night, crowds of persons assembled
at the Harding house seeking a sign. It does not appear that any found
it. Yet so creditable were the witnesses mentioned, that none doubted the reality
of the manifestations to which they testified, by either a happy inspiration or some
destructive sign. It was one day proposed. Nobody appeared to know from whom
the suggestion came to dig up the vine, and after a good deal of
debate, this was done. Nothing was found but the root. Yet nothing
could have been more strange. For five or six feet from the trunk,
which had at the surface of the ground a diameter of several inches, it
ran downward, single and straight, into a loose, friable earth. Then
it divided and subdivided into rootlets, fibers, and filaments, most curiously interwoven.
When carefully freed from the soil, they showed a singular formation in their
ramifications and doublings back upon themselves. They made a compact network, having in
size and shape an amazing resemblance to a human figure head. Trunk and limbs
were there, even the fingers and toes were distinctly defined, and many professed
to see in the distribution and arrangement of the fibers in the globular mass representing
the head a grotesque suggestion of a face. The figure was horizontal. The
smaller roots had begun to unite at the breast in point of resemblance to the
human form. This image was imperfect. At about ten inches from one of
the knees, the scilia forming that leg had abruptly doubled backward and inward upon
their course of growth. The figure lacked a left foot. There was but
one inference, the obvious one. But in the ensuing excitement, as many
courses of action were proposed, as there were incapable counselors, the matter was
settled by the sheriff of the county, who, as the lawful custodian of
the abandoned estate, ordered the route replaced and the excavation filled with the earth
that had been removed. Later inquiry brought out only one fact of relevance and
significance. Missus Hardin had never visited her relatives in Iowa, nor did they
know that she was supposed to have done so. Of Robert Harding and the
rest of his family, nothing is known. The house retains its evil reputation,
but the replanted vine is as orderly and well behaved a vegetable as a
nervous person could wish to sit under. Of a pleasant night, when the
katy DIDs grate out their immemorial revelation, and the distant whipperwill signifies his notion
of what ought to be done about it. The End of a Vine on
a House by Ambrose Bierce