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A ghost story called AT OLD MAN ECKERT's

By: philip loud

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Philip Eckert lived for many years in an old, weather-stained timber dwelling about three miles from the little town of Marion, in Vermont. There must be quite a number of persons living who remember him, not unkindly, I trust, and know something of the story that I am about to enlighten. "Old Man Eckert," as he was continuously called, was not of a sociable disposition and lived alone.

As he was never known to speak of his own affairs not a soul thereabout knew anything of his past, nor of his associations if he had any. Without being particularly ungracious or repellent in manner or speech, he managed somehow to be immune to impertinent curiosity, yet exempt from the malicious repute with which it commonly revenges itself when mystified; so far as I know, Mr. Eckert's renown as a reformed assassin or a retired pirate of the Spanish Main had not reached any ear in Marion. He got his livelihood cultivating a small and not very fertile farm. One day of the week he departed and a prolonged search by his neighbors failed to turn him up or throw any light upon his position or whyabouts.

Zilch indicated preparation to disappear: all was as he might have left it to go to the spring for a bucket of water. For few weeks little else was talked of in that region; then "old man Eckert" became a village tale for the ear of the stranger. I do not know what was done as regards his home--the correct legal thing, doubtless. The dwelling was standing, still available and clearly unfit, when I last heard of it, some 20 years afterward.

Of course it came to be thought as "haunted," and the customary tales were told of moving illumination, dolorous sounds and surprising apparitions. At one time, about five years after the disappearance, these stories of the supernatural became so rife, or through some attesting situation seemed so important, that some of Marion's most major citizens deemed it well to probe, and to that end arranged for a night session on the premises. The gatherings to this undertaking were John Holcomb, an apothecary; Wilson Merle, a lawyer, and Andrus C. Palmer, the teacher of the public school, all men of concern and repute.

They were to meet at Holcomb's house at eight o'clock in the evening of the selected day and go together to the scene of their vigil, where certain arrangements for their comfort, a provision of fuel and the like, for the time of year was winter, had been already made. Palmer did not keep the appointment, and after waiting a half-hour for him the others went to the Eckert home without him. They established themselves in the principal area, before a shimmering fire, and without other glow than it gave, expected events. It had been decided to speak as little as possible: they did not even renew the exchange of views regarding the defection of Palmer, which had dominated their minds on the way.

Probably an hour had gone by without event when they heard (not without emotion, doubtless) the sound of an opening door in the stern of the house, followed by footfalls in the room next-door that in which they sat. The watchers rose to their feet, but stood hard, prepared for whatever might ensue. A long calm followed--how long neither would afterward undertake to say.

Then the door sandwiched between the two rooms opened and a guy entered. It was Palmer. He was pale, as if from exhilaration--as pale as the others felt themselves to be. His manner, in addition, was singularly distrait: he neither responded to their salutations nor so much as looked at them, but walked leisurely across the room in the glow of the failing fire and opening the front door proceded out into the night. It seems to have been the first contemplation of both men that Palmer was suffering from anxiety--that something glanced at, heard or imagined in the back room had deprived him of his wits. Acting on the same friendly impulse both ran after him through the open door. But neither they nor anybody ever again saw or heard of Andrus Palmer! This much was ascertained the next daybreak.

During the session of Messrs. Holcomb and Merle at the "haunted abode" a new snow had fallen to a depth of quite a lot of inches upon the old. In this snow Palmer's trail from his lodging in the village to the back door of the Eckert abode was clear. But there it ended: from the front door nothing led away but the tracks of the two men who swore that he preceded them. Palmer's evaporation was as complete as that of "old man Eckert" himself--whom, in reality, the editor of the local paper somewhat graphically accused of having "reached out and pulled him in."

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