'Things that go bump in the night'

As we approach Halloween, the days getting shorter and the nights longer, I recall a story about the early settlers, told by Silas Dean. Dean was the town clerk in the 1850s, but the event could have occurred a century before that.

As Dean tells it, it happened one night in October in an old house “a few rods to the northeast” of the Matthew’s farm. Although some in the village thought this “ancient house” to be haunted, a family lived there, parents, children, and perhaps grandparents.

This particular evening the father was away, not expected home until late. After supper and chores, the mother and brood gathered around the fireplace. All of a sudden, they were startled by a loud noise.

Before we go any further, consider that in their time nights were dark. We don’t know dark any more, as we are flooded with electrical lights, not only in our homes, but on our streets. Even our cell phones cast a pale light about us.

For this family, a few candles would have sufficed to light their way into the envelope of darkness as they retreated from the hearth. Opening up the door, or shutters, they would have seen only faint light from the sky, or none if it were cloudy or a late moon had not yet risen. In other words, it was a dark as a thief’s pocket.

Back to the mother and her children huddled around the fire, trying hard to dispel whatever rumors they had heard about their house being haunted. Boom, then another boom, then another. As Dean tells the story:

“It came stamp, stamp, down the garret stairs; it then came to the entry stairs, which led to the lower door, and with increased force came pound, pound into the entry below.” Then all was silent.

For what must have seemed like an eternity, the family huddled together, until, late that night, husband and father returned. Opening the entry door, he found sitting on the floor before him “a good lusty pumpkin.”

Earlier that week the farmer, wife and children had harvested their pumpkins, which they had hauled up the stairs to the attic for storage.

Was it a ghost that disturbed the pumpkins in the garret, sending this one crashing down to terrorize the homesteaders? Silas Dean, perhaps with tongue in cheek, remarks simply:

“Whether the house was ever afterwards haunted, is not known.” We can be sure, however, that this little tale of things that go bump in the night was told and retold around fireplaces for years to come.

Copyright by Ben Jacques