“I drifted along the lake shore and around in the hills for some time, and one night I was amazed to see what looked like my old tower in Hungary. I promptly decided to haunt this place, after I had investigated it, on account of the old associations it brought to mind. It was impossible for me to go back to my old tower, for things have changed so much in Hungary that I would take no comfort there, so you see I have turned over a new leaf and here I am.
“A little while after you came in you were doubtless surprised, and possibly startled, by certain sounds that it was necessary for me to make in the top of the tower. I was communicating with Kinisi, who at that moment was in the belfry of Trinity, and I have no doubt that he got my message and will be here before long. You see that in the spiritual world we have always used the Hertzian waves. You have only recently found them with your wireless telegraphy and telephony. By certain peculiar sound modulations, properly keyed, we are enabled to utilize the waves in a way that your modern science has not yet discovered. I imagine such communications might properly be called phantograms. Before many years you will be able to talk to friends in New York—if you have any—by simply raising a third story window and pitching your tones into the exact harmonic, as you heard me do tonight. It’s all quite simple when you know how. That heavy thumping in the pipes was just a local manifestation and it had nothing to do with the message to Kinisi.
THE CORNFIELDS IN OCTOBER
“Any spiritual sound or demonstration, in which ghostly noise of any kind is produced, is known among us as a ‘skreek’. Skreeks have a wide range of utility. They may be vibrated over vast distances, as I just exemplified from the tower top, or used in a merely local way, like the expression in the pipes.
“In the summer time you often hear funny squeaky noises and loud thumps in the water pipes that connect with the guest tents on the bluff. Well, that’s me. While I am among the tents a great deal in the summer, I play the pipes from the tower, so whenever you hear these skreeks after this you will understand the cause. I tried the main pipes tonight just to see if they were keeping their tonality in cold weather.
“Since I’ve been here I’ve greatly enjoyed myself. I take much pleasure in wandering about the farm at night. I spend considerable time in our friend’s cornfields during the warm summer nights where I meet many Indian shades. They are among the stalks in the dark, cracking the joints to make them grow faster. In October they stay in the shocks and rustle the dry leaves at night. They used to live all over these bluffs in their little wigwams. Sometimes I spend hours in the farm house between the walls, listening to our friend Jacobs and his guests. A lot of friends come to see him who interest me, and some of them I would like to meet in the way I have met you tonight. Please remember me to Professor Dientsbach, who has charge of the children’s saxophone band, when you see him, and get him up here some Christmas eve if you can. He has had the band in the tower on several occasions, and it afforded me much pleasure. Give my regards to the small boy you call the ‘Hot Spot’, and assure him and his little sister Gertie that there is nothing at all in the tower for them to be afraid of, and I am always glad to have them come up here and play.
“Sometimes I go up to Thunder Knob, the big sand dune north of here. The shades of an Indian hunter and a large sand bear have been fighting inside of this dune off and on for many years. When they are quiet too long I go in and stir them up.
“I often visit the little chapel on the next hill during winter nights, and sit there until early morning—in fact it is one of my favorite haunts when I am outside of the tower. I also find much diversion in drifting about in the dark through the winter woods and along the lake shore when everything is frozen up. This winter I have spent several nights in the deserted pavilion on the beach, amusing myself with the phonograph records in the corner. Sometime they will learn to can heat and cold as they do sound. The winds down there in the winter are very wheezy and I like it.”
