Yolande seemed to remain for a space of about ten minutes, then passed through the alcove into the room where the children were sleeping and stood by their bedside. The next night she was back again, repeating the same performance, the next night, and the next, and still the next, each night remaining longer, until at last she stayed until daybreak. In the morning as the hired men were coming up the boardwalk which led to the kitchen door, they would meet Yolande, in her shroud coming from the house, and passing out of the back gate. On one occasion Alvira was pumping water on the porch, but made no move as she passed, being evidently like so many persons, spiritually blind. The hired men had known Yolande all their lives, and were surprised to see her spooking in daylight, but refrained from saying anything to the new wife.
Every day for a week after that she appeared on the kitchen porch, or on the boardwalk, in the yard, on the road, and was seen by her former husband many times, and also her night prowling went on as of yore. The hired men began to complain; it might make them sick if a ghost was around too much; these spooks were supposed to exhale a poison much as copperhead snakes do, and also draw their “life” away, and they threatened to quit if she wasn’t “laid.” All of them had seen spooks before, on occasion, but a daily visitation of the same ghost was more than they cared about.
Had it not been for the excitable hired men, Adam, whose nerves were like iron, could have stood Yolande’s ghost indefinitely. In fact, he thought it rather nice of her to come back and see him and the children “for old time’s sake.” But the farm hands must be conserved at any cost, even to the extent of laying Yolande’s unquiet spirit.
The next night when she appeared, he made bold and spoke to her: “What do you want, Yolande,” he said softly, so as not to wake the soundly sleeping Alvira at his side. “Is there anything I can do for you, dear?”
Yolande came very close beside him, and bending down whispered in his ear: “Adam,” said she, “how can you ask me why I am here? You surely know. Did you not, time and time again, promise never to marry again, if I died, for the sake of our darling children? Did you not make such a promise, and see how quickly you broke it! Where I am now I can hold no resentments, so I forgive you for all your transgressions, but I hope that Alvira will be good to our children. I have one request to make: After I left you, you were keen to find what I did with my share of daddy’s pot of gold. I had it buried in the orchard at my old home, under the Northern Spy, but after we moved here, one time when you went deer hunting to Centre County, I dug it up and brought it over here and buried it in the cellar of this house. It is here now. There are just one hundred and fifty-three twenty dollar gold pieces; that was my share. The children and the money were on my mind, not your broken promise and rash marriage, which you will repent, and which I tell you again I forgive you for. I want my children to have that money, every one of the one hundred and fifty-three twenty dollar gold pieces. I buried it a little to the east of the spring in the cellar, about two feet under ground, in a tin cartridge box; Dig it up tomorrow morning, and if you find the one hundred and fifty-three coins, and give every one to the children, I will never come again and upset your hired men. Why I have Myron Shook about half scared to death already, but if you don’t find every single coin I’ll have to come back until you do, or if you hold it back from the children, you will not be able to keep a hireling on this place, or any other place to which you move. Many live folks can’t see ghosts; your wife is one of these; she will never worry until the hired men quit, then she’ll up and have you make sale and move to town. Be square and give the children the money, and I’ll not trouble you again.”
“Oh, Yolande,” answered Adam in gentle tones, “you are no trouble to me, not in the least. I love to have you visit me at night, and look at the children, but you are making the hired help terribly uneasy. That part you must quit.”
“That’s[“That’s] enough of your drivel, Adam,” spoke Yolande, in a sterner tone of voice. “Talk less like a fool, and more like a man. Dig up that money in the morning, count it, and give it to the children and I’ll be glad never to see you again.”
To be reproached by a ghost was too much for Adam, and he lapsed into silence, while Yolande slipped out of the room, over to the bedside of the sleeping children, where she lingered until daylight.
Adam was soon asleep, but was up bright and early the next morning, starting to dress just as the ghost glided out of the door. By six o’clock he had exhumed Yolande’s share of the pot of gold which was buried exactly as her ghostly self had described.
It was a hard wrench to hand the money over to the children, or rather to take it to Ebensburg and start savings accounts in their names. But he did it without a murmur. The cashier, a horse fancier, gave him a present of a new whip, of a special kind that he had made to order at Pittsburg, so he came home happy and contented.