The grave-diggers left the spot, and returned to their homes. The cemetery was deserted unless one believes that the spirits of the dead hover above the last resting place of their bodies.
About three o’clock next morning the sleepy telephone operator in the little office above the drug store received a call.
“Hello! Hello!” a frightened woman’s voice exclaimed. “This is Harding’s. Say, that bell over in the cemetery has been ringing for ten minutes! It’s getting louder and louder! Call the constable or somebody quick! There ain’t any men folks at our place now, and we’re scared to death!”
The operator was wide awake, for everybody knew the story of the burial of the old miser. She called the Doctor, but could get no response. In desperation she called the grave-diggers, and two others to go out to the ghostly spot. As soon as she had sent them on their weird quest, she called the Harding farmhouse.
“That bell quit ringin’ several minutes ago!” Mrs. Harding replied. “I don’t know what to think!”
The four men reached the dark cemetery with its eery tombstones faintly visible all about them. Hurriedly, and with conflicting emotions, they ran to the new grave. What they saw startled them so that they almost turned back!
The rope, which had been fastened to the bell, now was tied to the foot of the post. Even as they looked, they could make out a slight movement of the rope! It grew taut, and then they could see it slacken!
“Gosh! He’s come back to life!” one of the men whispered hoarsely.
“Look! Look!” his companion almost shouted, and pointed toward the air-pipe.
How it got there, they did not know, but a bucket was forced down over the end of the tube into the fresh earth, cutting off all the air supply from the coffin.