I went with mother to visit my sister, Mrs. Osterhout, who lived in Canada West, near where my father had formerly resided. A bad accident occurred to a young man named Charlie, whose leg was so crushed by a heavy log rolling upon it that it had to be amputated above the knee. As we sympathized with the family, mother and I went over on the first night after the amputation to watch with him and help take care of him, while supporting his mother with our company. The limb had of course been buried. During the night he moaned and cried incessantly, and begged us to turn his foot over. We did not understand him until he said, “Tell Joe (the hired man) to turn my foot over; they have buried it with the toes downward.” We went and told Joe about it, who made no account of it, regarding Charlie as not in his right mind; but the latter continued so long with the same cries which proved such severe actual suffering, whatever might be the illusion possessing his mind in regard to his buried limb, that we were compelled to satisfy him by directing Joe to reopen the hole, which could scarcely be called a grave. It was a fact; the leg was found exactly as Charlie had insisted it was, with the toes downward. It was accordingly turned over in the box in which it had been buried, so as to rest in its natural position on the heel, and poor Charlie immediately dropped to sleep, nor did he make any further complaint. The reader has probably heard or read of analogous stories about pain being felt in the extremities of limbs which had been amputated; continuing in some cases long after the amputation. The Apostle says: “There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.”
DISTURBANCES IN THE TROUP STREET COTTAGE.
One Sunday night, at Rochester, in that pleasant house on Troup Street, there was one of those tremendous snow-storms which no longer appear to fall there as often or so deep as they did at that time. Margaretta and I were alone in the house. Alfie, our housekeeper, had gone out for the day, and we had no expectation of her being able to return through such a snow-storm. The house was built on ground which sloped down to the rear from the front level of the street. We were sitting in the dining-room, which was a sort of rear addition to the cottage, and had a veranda from which a door opened into the room, while another door led by a few steps to the cellar in which was a well—though we never used the water from it, as I mistrusted its healthfulness; indeed I had a strange feeling about that well, as though it might have been the scene of a crime. The wind coming furiously from that direction piled up the snow-drift all the height of the lower sashes of the windows, and of course blocked access to the door from without. There were often so much knocking and other sounds about that cottage that I believed it, like the others, to be haunted.
Margaretta and I were making ourselves comfortable. We had drawn the table near to the stove, and upon it was one of the country mince pies, such as New York does not know, and she had just lifted the teapot when knocks of the most fearful character thundered directly under her feet. The blows implied a heavy mallet and a powerful arm, which so startled her as to cause her to let fall the teapot. Neither of us could stir from the spot. There was no cellar under this rear addition to the cottage, but the door from the cellar, which was under the main building, opened into the tea-room very near to where I sat. Tremendous pounding commenced against the cellar-door, causing it to fly open and close again several times as by the same hand. Immediately after came from outside groans as from some one apparently perishing in the storm, seeming to indicate extreme suffering and anguish.
As we huddled together and sat paralyzed, we heard the cheerful voice of our good Quaker friend, Mr. Willets, and a knocking at the door of a character not mysterious, and as soon as we were able to get the door open, Mr. Willets, a gust of wind, and no small drift of snow, entered together. “Well, girls, I got anxious about you, and, as Alfie is away, my wife and I thought you might have no water and wood for to-morrow morning, and it would be harder to get at you then; for this snow is going to last all night.” He stayed a little while, when he found we were sufficiently provided, and then this good man and friend made his brave way out again.
Before Mr. Willets had left, Calvin also came to us under the same alarm, and to cheer us with his presence, and he stayed all night. And although there was no more moaning outside, yet the same heavy pounding on the floor continued through the night. Though we at least went to our bed, the agitation and excitement prevented our having anything more than a disturbed sleep; and whenever we would awake, there were still the sounds, which lasted till morning; and the neighbors too told us the next day how they had also heard and wondered at them. I have forgotten to mention that Mr. Willets and Calvin went out into the storm to see if they could find anybody or any signs of anybody outside the house, but they found nothing but the undisturbed levels of the snow.
Nor was this the only occasion of such violent and protracted knockings both there and elsewhere. At my house in Ludlow Place, New York, we sometimes could not help believing that there were burglars in the house, and utterly reckless in their noises. We sometimes called in the policeman to search the house as some of our friends must remember. For the sake of male protection, I had (their friends being ours and ours theirs) invited Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Johnson to occupy rooms in my third story, and to share our table (for which we had to permit them to contribute the small sum estimated to cover the additional cost of the latter), and several times had Mr. Johnson come down during the night and insisted that there must be burglars in the house:—and this, notwithstanding all his past observations. There were some reasons for suspicions of crime having been committed in that house also. Now what sort of Spirits were they who thus disturbed our nights? And why? Of course I, many a time, interrogated them, but never got any satisfaction from their answers. They would never give any special motive or reason for their thus coming, and would only say that they could do it, and that they would.
They never did any mischief beyond the fright and causing us to go up and down stairs and all over the house: perhaps they were not allowed to do so, by other spirits, who nevertheless had no power to prevent their coming.
Was it their purpose to keep us up to the task that had been imposed on us, and in a state of submission from a sense of our powerlessness against them? I could not answer these questions then, nor can I now. A friend has suggested that they were perhaps miserable and earth-bound, and unprogressed spirits whom our mediumship gave access to us and certain limited means of action on material objects in our atmosphere, and they may have found a diversion from the poor life they are as yet living, and some amusement in frightening us, somewhat as children enjoy the mere making of noise and startling people, without attaining or seeking any other object. There are plenty of people daily passing into the Spirit condition, where they undergo no speedy change, of whom this is very supposable.
A predecessor (daughter of Mr. Calhoun) in the occupation of this house, some years before, told me that they had heard similar noises, and Mr. Calhoun told me that he and friends had sat up in the night with pistols to catch the burglars presumed to cause them.