Speaker 1: Mother and child by James Boker. The tenants of Plimpton
Hall had retired to rest somewhat earlier than was their
wont for it was the last night of November. The
old low rooms were in darkness, and all was silent
as a grave. For though the residents, unfortunately for themselves,
were not asleep, they held their breath and awaited in
fear the first stroke of the hour from the old
clock in the kitchen. Suddenly the sound of hurried footsteps
broke the silence. But with sighs of relief, the terrified
listeners found that the noise was made by a belated wayfarer,
almost out of his wits with fright, but who was
unable to avoid passing the hall, and who therefore ran
by the haunted building as quickly as his legs would
carry him. The sensation of escape, however, was of but
short duration, for the hammer commenced to strike, and no
sooner had the last stroke of eleven startled the echoes,
than loud thuds as of a heavy object bumping upon
the stairs were heard. The quaking occupants of the chambers
hid their heads beneath the bed clothes, for they knew
that an old fashioned oak chair was on its way
down the noble staircase, and was sliding from step to step,
as though dragged along by an invisible being who had
only one hand at liberty. If any one had dared
to follow that chair across the wide passage and into
the wainscoted parlor, he would have been startled by the
sight of a blazing in the grate. Whence ere the
servants retired, even the very embers had been removed, and
in the chair, the marvelous movement of which had so
frightened all the inmates of the hall, he would have
seen a beautiful woman seated with an infant at her breast.
Year after year, on wild nights, when the snow was
driven against the diamond panes and the cry of the
spirits of the storm came up from the sea, the
weird firelight shone from the haunted room, and through the
house sounded a mysterious crooning as the unearthly visitor softly
sang a lullaby to her infant. Lads grew into gray
haired men in the old house, and from youth to manhood.
On the last night of each November, they had heard
the notes, but none of them, ever, had caught even
when custom had somewhat deadened the terror which surrounded the
events of the much dreaded anniversary. The words of the
song the ghostly woman sang, The maids too, had always
found the grate as it was left before the visit.
Not a cinder or a speck of dust remained to
tell of the strange fire, and no one had ever
heard the chair ascend the stairs. Chair and fire, and
child and mother, however, were seen by many a weary wayfarer,
drawn to the house by the hospitable look of the window,
through which a genial glow of the burning logs shone
forth into the night, But who, by tapping at the
pane and crying for shelter, could not attract the attention
of the nurse, clad in a quaint old costume with lace,
ruff and ruffles, and singing a mournful and melodious lullaby
to the child resting upon her beautiful bosom. Tradition tells
of one of these wanderers, a footsore and miserable seafaring
man on the tramp, who, attracted by the welcome glare,
crept to the panes, and, seeing the cozy looking fire,
and the madonna faced mother tenderly nursing her infant wrapped
at the glass, and begged for a morsel of food
and permission to sleep in the hayloft, and, finding his
pleadings unanswered, loudly cursed the woman who could sit and
enjoy warmth and comfort and turn a deaf ear to
the prayers of the homeless and hungry, upon which the
seated figure turned the weird light of his war wild
eyes upon him and almost changed him to stone. A
laborer going to his daily toil in the early morn,
finding the poor wretch gazing fixedly through the window against
which his terror stricken face was closely pressed, his hair
turned white by fear, and his fingers convulsively clutching the
casement and of Mother and Child by James Boker