by R. J. Bonett
I knew it wasn’t unusual during the depression for people to hide money in their homes. At that time, no one trusted banks. I still had the downstairs to explore, so only briefly being let down, the downstairs may yet hold some secrets.
I never really noticed before, but there was definitely a lack of closet space. Maybe that’s what the closet with a window was for, storage. After examining the bedrooms and small closets upstairs, I was still wondering about the closet with the window. I still couldn’t figure it out, a room 5 x 7. I opened the door to it, and although the window was closed, there seemed to be a drafty chill that went across my face. With the sun shining through the window and the room being so small, it should have been warmer, and it didn’t make sense. I closed the door again and went down stairs to continue my treasure hunt.
In the living room on my hands and knees, as I was trying to pull up a small piece of loose floor board, a shadow of someone standing behind me appeared. To my shock, the shadow on the floor looked like a man holding a hatchet. Startled, I quickly jumped up and turned around, but no one was there. Could it have been a shadow of a cloud passing by the sun that caused it? It looked awfully real. Dismissing it, I returned to my search which didn’t yield any further treasure.
Getting a closer look at the rest of the downstairs rooms, I looked at the bathroom. It was an addition to the house and was in horrible condition. I dreaded having to take a shower in the tub without first scrubbing it clean. The kitchen has one door leading to an enclosed porch and a door on the opposite side of the room that led to the basement.
I could hear the furnace go on and off and wanted to go down to examine it, as well as the electrical box and the rest of the basement. I needed to know how much fuel was still in the oil tank to avoid running out when I close the house for the winter.
Opening the basement door, I suddenly jumped back, startled by a rat that was hiding behind an old broom on the landing. He stared up at me as though I was an intruder, and I quickly reacted by kicking it off the top step, not wanting it upstairs. “You’re not allowed upstairs!” I shouted into the darkness of the cellar.
I was beginning to see why the previous owner sold after two years and briefly wondered if I took on to much also. I turned on the light switch for the basement, but no luck, the lights weren’t working. I flipped the switch on and off a few times without success. Wait. I remembered I bought a pack of bulbs today. I’ll see if that’s the problem. Using my flashlight to guide my way down the stairs, I changed the first bulb at the bottom. Success! The bulbs must be burnt out and I was relieved it wasn’t something more serious. While I’m at it, I might just as well change them all. One by one I changed them, and as the light penetrated the darkest corners of the basement, I could see Ed was right. ‘There’s a hell of a lot of work here.’ I put the extra bulbs on a shelf near the stairs for easy access in case I needed them.
The furnace burning off and on that chilly autumn day wasn’t enough to take away the damp, musty smell of the dirt floor and laid-up field stone walls in the basement.
I wanted to secure the outer basement door from the inside with the padlock I bought, but the inner door was swollen from the dampness and difficult to open. Taking a firm grip on the door handle, I braced my foot against the wall for leverage and gave it a stiff yank. The door cracked open slightly, just enough to get my hand behind it, and with a few more tugs, I forced it open the rest of the way, and was able to see the underside of the outside door.
The stairs were covered by cobwebs that gave the appearance of a fine curtain, suitable for a horror movie. My intrusion sent spiders running across their webs in every direction, ruining their nets used for catching the unwary flying insects. I found an old walking cane hanging on a pipe and brushed the remaining cobwebs away.
I’ll put this new lock on the door just for added security, not that there’s anything of value here yet to steal. Now that it’s done, let me look at this old rusted electrical box. I laughed to myself, a 60 amp service with fuses, something that was done away with in the 1950s. Shaking my head in amazement, I closed the circuit box.
Tearing a piece of cardboard from an old box that was on a shelf, I put it on the dirt caked floor in front of the furnace. I wanted to kneel on it to get a better look inside the firebox. While I was on my hands and knees examining it, the furnace kicked on. With the sudden flash of light from the flame, I quickly drew my head back. ‘What’s that?’ I thought. Did I just see a shadow passing behind me? I quickly turned around, but there was nothing there.
That’s the second time that happened, last night in the kitchen before I lit the kerosene lamp and down here today.
Getting back to examining the poor condition of the furnace and knowing I had to do something with the walls and floor, I realized it would have to be changed sooner than I previously thought. As I walked up the steps, I felt the same cool breeze cross my face, the breeze I felt examining the mystery closet with a window on the second floor. When I got to the kitchen, I closed the basement door, wondering what could be causing it. I knew old houses were drafty, but generally only in selective areas. When I turned, I was startled again. Frank was standing in the kitchen.
“I knocked but didn’t get no answer. The front door was slightly open, so I just walked in. I thought you might be needin’ a little help. Anything I can do?” he asked.
“No, I just looked over the furnace and electrical box. Both are pretty old and will have to be changed. Can you tell me when the furnace was converted from coal to oil heat? Do you remember?”
“Let’s see now. If my memory’s correct, it had to be about 60 years ago or more. I was still pretty young. I remember we used to carry the coal by bucket down the basement from the outside steps. We used to pile it in the corner where the oil tanks are now.”
“Yeah, I saw a little still piled in the corner. I see some Mason jars on the shelves too. Were they your mothers?”
“They must have been. I didn’t know there was any left downstairs. I guess when my sister helped her move 12 years ago, she musta’ forgot them.”
“Frank, when did your parents buy the house?”
“I was just a baby. I think it was 1946.”
I was wondering if the money I found was something his parents saved, but the bills were in numerical order and dated 1932, so it wasn’t likely. They must have been there from the previous owner and never discovered by Frank’s family.
“I’m not going to do much more than the basics this weekend. It’s just to get a rough idea of what has to be done and in what order I’m going to tackle it.”
“Yeah, I saw the linoleum from upstairs piled in the dining room. It brings back memories from when I was little. We used to get out of bed on cold winter days, and our feet hitting that cold linoleum floor made you get dressed in a hell of a hurry. Sometimes we would run down and stand over the heater vent to get dressed.”
I could relate to his words, remembering as a kid living in the city when we had a coal furnace. Although there was duct work in the basement there, it really didn’t do much for the upper floors. Most of the heat came straight up through the grating to the first floor, and I’m sure with the absence of ductwork in the basement here, it was pretty much the same.
“Frank,” I said changing the subject, “What was the room at the top of the stairs used for? It’s too small to be a bedroom, and if it was a closet, why the window?”
Seemingly mulling that question, he replied, “For as long as I can remember, it’s a room we never used for nothin’ other than storage. I guess you noticed there ain’t much closet space.”
“I know what you mean about not much closet space. I’ll have to do something about that.”
We walked outside and across the road to the barn.
“What can you tell me about the barn?” I gestured at the building in front of us.
“I only know the
barn was originally half the size it is now, and at the turn of the century, a barn down the road a hundred years younger was brought up and added to it. When they put the barns together, they left the wooden silo in the middle and fitted the new section right around it. Funniest thing you ever saw. Most people thought it was some sort of building mistake.”
That explained to me why there were two sets of sliding doors on one side.
Frank continued. “When we were kids, me and my brothers would climb up in the silo and jump out into the hay pile,” briefly smiling at the memory. “One thing I didn’t like though, I didn’t like going into the upper part of the barn alone. Especially on the side that was original.”
“Why’s that?”
“I thought it always felt a little cooler, even on hot summer days. Never knew why.”
With him describing the same feeling I felt across my face in the house, I pried.
“What do you mean ‘cooler’?”
“Not normal like the rest of the barn. One time when I was leading the plow horse through that section, the horse went completely wild and threw me on the floor. It wasn’t normal, and that horse otherwise was mild as a kitten.”
I was more interested in getting a better idea of why the roof of the old barn was sagging and only half heartedly listened to his story. After walking in, I saw the reason. Someone in the past had taken a few rafters out to make room for the half that was added. In doing so, they weakened the roof structure. With heavy snow in the winter, which is normal here, and the lack of maintenance probably since Frank’s father passed away, water leaked in. The barn floor was at road level, and had a few soft spots. The sub-level walls below were made of field stone.
Frank remarked as he pointed down the stairs to the lower level, “That’s where we kept our 17 dairy cows at one time,” reminiscing as he looked around. “When I was younger, me and my brothers used to help with the milkin. It was all done by hand in those days. Washing milk cans, feeding and watering the live stock, raising hay, corn for feed. Too much work. Now everything’s automation, all done by machine. We never really liked farming, seeing my mother and father always working so hard and only making enough to survive with just a little extra. We all found jobs doing something else.”
What he told me about the barn section that seemed a little cooler even on warm days, intrigued me, but I put it in the back of my mind as we exited the barn.
Walking Frank to his truck, I remarked, “Oh! By the way, you were right about the good food at the Chatterbox. While I was there, a friend of yours introduced himself. I think his name was Ed. He seems like a real nice guy.”
“Yeah, Ed and me, we go back a long way, all the way back to elementary school. He’s the kind of guy you enjoy being around. He seemed to like getting into mischief.” Laughing, he continued, “I think he’d tie a knot in the devil’s tail just for a laugh.”
As he was getting into his truck, he repeated again, “Well goodbye again. Remember, if you need anything, let me know.”
As I watched him drive away, I thought to myself, ‘He wouldn’t only get to be a good neighbor, but a good friend as well.’
As I walked to the house, the sun was setting, and the sky was a bright, yellowish-orange color. With the tree shapes against the vibrant background, they looked like figures cut from black construction paper pasted to the setting sun.
I stood on the front porch for a few minutes admiring the view, then went in and locked the door. There wasn’t much else to do, and I just sat in the kitchen listening to the radio drinking a cup of coffee, working on some figures of what the different projects would cost. At 9 o’clock, I was getting a little tired of working on the figures, and decided to take a shower and call it a night.
The bathroom was the better room in the house and wasn’t in great shape by a long shot. I scoured the hell out of the tub during the afternoon, and felt it was clean enough to stand in and take a shower.
The walls were composition board for the tub lining, and from being water soaked at the bottom over the years, they were discolored and crumbling apart.
After doing the work I accomplished today and as dirty as I was, I wasn’t getting into my sleeping bag without a shower. The warm water felt good running over my dirty body, but it was slow coming out of the shower head, so I increased the flow by turning the handle a little further. There must have been a fine line between warm and super hot. With the little extra turn, it felt like steam coming out. I jumped to one side to avoid getting scalded, but lost my balance and brought the shower curtain down, trying to break my fall. I was covered with soap, and decided the smart thing to do was test the water temperature first, before getting back in to rinse off.
My next thought was, ‘I’ll have to add new tub faucets to the top of my priority list for repairs.’ The medicine cabinet was wood and looked like it was from the 1930s. The mirror had several large black spots where the silver paint behind the glass was worn off, and made it a little difficult to shave, having to move my head around the spots.
After my ordeal in the bathroom, I went out and got comfortable in my sleeping bag. I had been asleep for about an hour when a knock at the door woke me. I got up, stumbling to the door to answer it, and through the small window, I saw a man dressed in black with a black hat. I thought at first he was one of the Amish neighbors and opened the door. He was facing away from me and after I opened it, he quickly turned around. Startled, I was looking at the same man with the angry look that passed me the night I arrived.
I wasn’t sure of his intentions and prepared myself for a possible confrontation, asking in a rough voice.
“Is there something I can do for you?”
He didn’t seem to be angry with me, but had a look of bewilderment on his face.
“I’m looking for directions,” he said.
Feeling almost sorry I confronted him so harshly, I replied, “I’m sorry, I’m new here and don’t know many people. Are you looking for an Amish family?”
“No, I’m not Amish, I’m a Quaker. The land looks familiar, but the house, the barn and the people are different. I’m looking for my son. I know he was headed here.”
“Where is he coming from? Maybe it’s taking him longer than he expected.”
“He’s coming from the meeting at the church. The house that should be right here isn’t here, and the barn’s bigger than the one that’s supposed to be there too.”
I could see there was a woman in the carriage, and she looked like the same woman from the night before, staring straight ahead without expression. Seemingly puzzled, he kept looking around and continued. “I’ve been traveling up and down this road for a long time. I can’t figure it out.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be more help. Maybe my neighbor Frank that lives down the road can help you.”
As he turned and walked away, I closed the door. Through the small window of the front door, I watched as he walked off the porch, shaking his head walking back to the carriage. When I went to the front window to see which direction he was going, the carriage was gone. It had completely vanished. It couldn’t be!
This was beginning to get a little on the weird side. No. Not a little, a lot on the weird side. I wondered whether it was a product of my own imagination or someone playing a trick on me. Maybe it was Frank and some of his pals giving me a housewarming and would be coming out from behind the house laughing. I waited- Nothing. I was wondering whether it was me or the area. I got back into my sleeping bag bewildered, trying to figure it out. Finally, I drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 5
During the night, the wind off the mountain picked up, and with the loose drafty windows rattling, it woke me out of my sleep. My eyes were only open for a few seconds when I thought I saw a shadow. What’s that? It seems to be a shadow passing through the living room? I suddenly had an eerie feeling I wasn’t alone. I rubbed my eyes to mak
e sure, and with a closer look, yes! It’s a figure of a woman moving through the living room. She had a long black dress and a split bonnet headpiece with a white rim, just like the woman in the carriage. It looked as though she wasn’t walking, but seemed to be at a steady pace, sort of gliding across the floor. I sat up, and in a frightened loud voice called to her, “Hey! Who are you?” She seemed to ignore my statement, and I noticed as she passed by the front window, she seemed to be transparent. That really shook me out of my half-awake sleep. Sitting up, I realized she didn’t seem to be aware of me being there, and I felt temporarily relieved that she wasn’t focused on me.
She didn’t seem to hear me as she went by, and without turning, headed straight for the stairs, paused- then went up. I managed to nervously unzip my sleeping bag and sit up, the whole time following her with my eyes. When she reached the landing, she turned and looked down at me as if she was just aware of my presence. With the landing window behind her, a full moon revealed she was transparent. Yes, the same as when she passed the window in the living room. Where was she going? I believed she would go to the left into the hall, but wait! She went to the right, into the closet with the window.
Quickly getting out of my sleeping bag, I apprehensively climbed the dark stairs trying to see if she was still there. When I got to the landing, I cautiously cracked opened the door to the small room. I looked and for a moment thought I saw several bolts of cloth leaning up against the wall in one corner, something that wasn’t there this afternoon. I was sure of it. Then, for a split second, I thought I heard a child crying and saw what looked like a toddler’s leg sticking out from behind the bolts of cloth, as if he was sitting there playing hide-and-go seek. When I opened the door all the way, I saw the room was empty. How could this be? I felt a cool breeze go across my face again, as it did this afternoon and a chill slowly crept up my spine, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to rise. I had to pinch myself to feel if I was awake or dreaming. Sure enough when it hurt, I knew I was awake.
