The Ghost in the Milk Dairy
Take the story of the milk pans as an example. The people who occupied the milk pan infested residence were an intelligent church going family of the highest standing. They were not superstitious and in fact regarded their spooky experiences as a joke. They had a dairy farm at a period when cream separators were unknown.
The process at that time was to “set” the milk in shallow tin pans and skim off the cream when the milk had become sour. The cream was then made into butter. Where there were quite a number of cows, a considerable stack of these tin pans was required. Such as were not in use would be placed in an orderly pile on a high shelf in the milk room.
Therefore, it can be readily understood that if one of these pans was to slide off the shelf to the floor, it would make a loud noise.
Now, suppose the farmer and his family were sitting around the evening lamp and all at once an unearthly din in the milk room should indicate that a dozen or perhaps two dozen of those six-quart milk pans had rolled from the top shelf to the floor, we would naturally expect one or more members of the family to go at once to investigate.
Well, this highly respectable and truthful family would do nothing of the kind. They would remain quietly reading the weekly paper, or knitting, or popping corn, according to age and disposition; because they knew no milk pans had stirred an inch. It was merely the spook amusing himself.