I
The box-shop was haunted!
Old Jake Richards made the discovery. He based his contention on concrete observation and abstract deduction.
Jake was the father of the Richards girl who had remained at work in the Forge factory during the “strike.” He had three boys and four other girls. The Richards family lived on the northern edge of the “flats” at the end of the road on which the box-shop was situated. It was a hollow-eyed gray house with broken steps, set back in a cluttered yard. It had a French roof and its blinds were missing and family bedding was everlastingly hanging from the second-story windows.
Jake was Caleb Gridley’s “all-around man” at the tannery, a sort of workman-foreman-superintendent. He had held the position for many years. Socially, from the mere location of his domicile, he did not exist. Then there was the nature of his trade, the skinning of carcasses. Lastly his gross prolificality in the matter of children. Openly he bragged of his wife’s versatility at giving birth to offspring in the morning and “doin’ a good week’s wash” in the afternoon. This may or may not have been true. In so far as fastidious Paris was concerned, however, it established Jake as somewhat beyond the pale.
Jake, old Caleb and a gang of steam fitters had worked until three o’clock one Sunday morning installing a new boiler in the tannery. Jake had plodded his weary way homeward just before daylight. Arriving opposite the box-shop office, he raised his eyes to receive the start of his life. There were not many starts in old Jake’s life, by the way. Most of them were stops.
The box-shop was built about fifty feet back from the road. Not back so far, however, but that Jake had an unobstructed view of the office door. There were no lights in the gaunt, ark-like structure. The nearest arc lamp was an eighth of a mile away, across the waving acres of cattails, and rushes. Also the moon was going down.
Nevertheless, outlined quite clearly in the window of that inky black office door was a human torso. Also a very white face.
It was absolutely motionless,—that apparition. As Jake chanced to be in the shadow of the rushes across the road, it appeared to take no note of him or behave as though he had seen.
Jake could not pass onward. He stood rooted to the spot while icy chills played up and down his back. Who could be in an unlighted box-shop at three in the morning, standing grimly behind the door glass, gazing out into the waning night, “like corpses fresh from the grave?”
Jake was too far away to make out the features or gain any idea of identity. He simply remained motionless and watched.
Then as picture films dissolve and fade into gray nothingness, so that apparition dissolved into the blackness behind. The oblong of door window was empty once more.
Jake finally believed a great physical weariness had been responsible for an optical illusion. He went home. But he awoke his wife and told her and Milly and the oldest boy also awoke and heard.
The boy confided to his sister when the house had quieted:
“I seen lots o’ funny lights in the box-shop in the night! This ain’t no news to me! Huh, I thought dad had more brains!”
“Brains? Whatter you mean?” demanded Milly.
The young worldly wiseman laughed, turned over and went back to sleep.