Ervin’s job took him to Tennessee, and the family felt lucky to find this house on such short notice. They moved into their new home in August, and immediately noticed some strange things happening in the house.
At first they heard the door from the garage open, followed by footsteps going into the bedroom next to the garage. They always checked, but found nobody in the house except the family.
Next, they found a pair of men’s work shoes in the closet in that bedroom where the footsteps went. The shoes were worn and had traces of mud on the soles. They were placed neatly side by side.
“Where did these come from?” asked Fatima.
“I don’t know,” said Ervin. “They aren’t mine.”
They asked their son, but he had no idea where they came from. None of his new friends had been in the house the day before to play a trick like that.
The next day, when they looked in the closet, the shoes were gone! Only small crumbles of mud remained on the closet floor.
The third thing that happened was that they heard wheezing and choking sounds coming from what they now jokingly called “the haunted bedroom.” It definitely sounded like a male.
On Labor Day, the weird happenings all came to a head.
It was stormy that night. Clouds rolled in at dusk and took over the sunny sky that had been so perfect for the day’s activities. Fatima and Ervin had taken my nephew to a Labor Day parade, but they had made it home before the storm came in.
As the storm roared across the sky, the outside door slammed and footsteps stomped like someone wearing work shoes into the bedroom. This time, it sounded so much like a real person that they all went to check. The room was empty, so they turned to go.
The bedroom door slammed behind them, and loud choking sounds and wheezing began, like someone struggling for breath. Then the storm ceased and the sounds stopped. It was quiet for the rest of the night, but the silence was too eerie for the family to sleep much.
The next morning, Fatima made a decision to check into the history of the house they had bought. When her son left for school and her husband left for work, she left for the library.
The local librarian was a friendly, helpful woman, so Fatima introduced herself and the two struck up a conversation.
“So you bought the old Tucker place?” the librarian said.
“Yes,” said Fatima, “but we don’t know the history of the place. Do you know anything about it?”
“Well, I don’t know that I could tell you much,” she said.
“Anything you could tell me would help,” said Fatima. “You see, there are some things about the house that we can’t explain.”
Fatima decided to tell the librarian about everything that had happened. Oddly enough, the woman didn’t seem shocked.
“Mr. Tucker was a hardworking man,” she said. “After his wife died, he only had a nephew who lived somewhere in Tennessee. Mr. Tucker planted a garden every year, and he usually had everything harvested and the soil dug up by Labor Day. He always got upset if he didn’t get his work done.”
“We thought he might have been sick,” said Fatima.
“He was at the end,” said the librarian.
“Do you think he has come back to haunt the house?” asked Fatima. “Doesn’t he want us there?”
“I wouldn’t want to say this publicly,” said the librarian, “because some people get all upset when ghosts are mentioned, but I think he comes back every year to finish digging up his last garden.”
“Have other people experienced this haunting?” asked Fatima.
“Well, I have heard stories, but not many talk about it,” the librarian answered.
“Please tell me all you know,” Fatima said.
“It’s a sad story,” the librarian began. “Mr. Tucker’s health began to fail a year before he died, but he was determined to put out his garden like always. It was on the land in back of that strip of woods, a good way from the house.
“Mr. Tucker got to feeling so bad that he finally had to go to the doctor. The doctor told him he had a serious heart problem. The doctor told him he needed to forget about gardening and have surgery.
“Mr. Tucker would have none of that. Every time he came to town, everybody could tell he was struggling to breathe. He was wheezing and choking for air all the time.
“Labor Day came, and Mr. Tucker told his neighbor he was about finished with the digging in the garden. He was so happy he was going to meet his deadline.
“‘I hate to leave a job half done,’ he said. ‘I always liked to set deadlines for myself and meet them.’
“Then a storm came up unexpectedly and Mr. Tucker had to quit and go to the house. That night, the strain of all he had been doing caught up with him. His heart gave out and he died in his bedroom by the garage.
“When his neighbor didn’t see him outside the next morning, he went to check and found him dead.
“Now don’t quote me on this, but I think he hates Labor Day. I think his ghost comes back to finish his work each year, and I think that is what you heard.”
Fatima promised she would not tell anyone where she got her information, except for her husband and son.
Ervin and the young son were surprised that Fatima had found out so much about the happenings related to their new house. They looked at the land behind the house, but it was overgrown with weeds. They had it mowed, but didn’t plant anything there.
The year went by uneventfully—until late August came again. Once again, they heard the door opening and footsteps going to the bedroom. This time, they decided to take some action that might prevent another dramatic Labor Day night.
Ervin had the small field plowed again, but this time he also had the soil turned over. He thought that, this way, perhaps Mr. Tucker would feel as though his work was done and not come back this year. Maybe he would be able to find peace on the other side.
The family waited to see what would happen.
Nothing did! The footsteps, opening doors, and choking and wheezing ceased. They worried a little about Labor Day, especially when a storm came up just before dark and dumped rain all night. Still, nothing unusual happened.
After that, Mr. Tucker never paid a visit again. Fatima and her family, however, wondered if he still hated Labor Day!
Dare
The men in the Simpson family hunted for food, but they did not hunt as a sport. Their targets were opossums, rabbits, squirrels, quail, wild turkeys, and an occasional wild duck. All these supplemented the food they raised on the farm, including hogs and chickens.
To aid in the hunting, Roberta’s Uncle Josh kept hunting dogs. His best hunter and most faithful companion was a mixed-breed dog he called Dare. Though Dare unquestionably recognized Uncle Josh as his master, he was fond of the rest of the family, too.
Most farmers had dogs to help out. They often worked from dawn to dusk to tend their crops of corn and other grain, tobacco, and vegetables, and even hired out to other farmers or swapped work to reap their harvests. The people in the neighborhood helped each other when help was needed—except for one man whom they called Old Bunker.
Old Bunker worked now and then to get a little spending money, but mostly he liked to lie in his bunk and smoke his roll-your-own cigarettes. He always seemed to find money to buy the supply of whiskey that he consumed daily. People figured that he stole most of it.
One night Uncle Josh and some friends decided to go possum hunting. They took their dogs and set out into the woods behind Uncle Josh’s farm. They had walked quite a way when the dogs treed something. The men followed the sound of the dogs; but when they got there, they found only quivering dogs, with no sign of Dare or the prey the dogs had been chasing. Uncle Josh called and called, but this time Dare didn’t come.
For days, Uncle Josh went out looking for his dog, but he never found a sign of where she might be. Though he knew it was very unlikely, he hoped that Dare was just lost and would find her way home.
Labor Day came, a
nd Uncle Josh went into town to get some supplies. Aunt Marie and Grandma Simpson stayed home to shell some beans for supper. The weather was still warm, so they sat on the front porch to do their work.
It wasn’t long before they were surprised to see a man coming down the road. They weren’t scared because it was a common thing to see neighbors walking.
“He’s turning down the lane,” said Aunt Marie. “I wonder why he would be coming here. Since Josh just left, he must have seen him along the road.”
As he came closer, Grandma Simpson recognized him.
“Why, that’s Old Bunker!” she said. “I guess he knows Josh sold some of the crops and is coming to ask for money.”
“He looks like he has been drinking,” said Marie. “He’s weaving a little as he walks.”
“Josh home?” he asked, walking right up to the porch.
“No,” said Aunt Marie. “I’m surprised you didn’t see him on the road. He just left.”
Old Bunker grinned slightly. Grandma Simpson did not like it.
“You ladies here alone?” he asked.
Without waiting for them to answer, he stepped up onto the porch.
Grandma Simpson and Aunt Marie did not scare easily, but there was something about the way Old Bunker was acting that put them on alert. If men came to a home and the man of the house was gone, the visitors would leave. They never came to sit with the women. They never discussed business with the women.
“I heard Josh did good with the crop sales,” Old Bunker said. “I thought he might spare me a little money.”
“You’d have to talk to him about that,” said Grandma Simpson. “I think you’d better go on along now and come back later.”
“I think it would be better if you gave me some of that money now,” said Old Bunker, standing up and walking toward the two women. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an old hunting knife.
The women had no weapons within reach. If Grandma Simpson had only had her rifle by her, she would have shot him in a heartbeat, but she didn’t.
“Let’s go inside,” he said to them, motioning to the door.
Suddenly, from around the corner of the house, came a dog, growling and snarling. It was Dare! She lunged toward Old Bunker and knocked the knife to the floor. Grandma Simpson snatched it up, but Old Bunker didn’t stay around to notice. Trying to fight off the dog, he jumped from the porch, staggered, regained his balance, and ran down the lane toward the road. The two women looked back at Dare, but she had vanished.
When Josh came home and learned what had happened, he went for the sheriff. Old Bunker had cleared out, though, and he never came back. We heard that he was killed in a car wreck near the Ohio state line while he was headed for Cincinnati.
Dare never came back, either. She had come home to defend her human family and, when that was accomplished, she went back into the spirit world.
Roberta always believed that Old Bunker had killed Dare and that she came back to get revenge.
Grandma Simpson had always looked at Labor Day as just another day, but this was one Labor Day she would remember and celebrate. She and Aunt Marie always wondered what would have happened if Dare had not returned to drive Old Bunker away.
Ridge Dancer
In the Brown family, the children always looked up to their parents, grandparents, and other older people to explain mysteries to them. A neighbor who had once lived in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains told one mystery to Lonnie’s family, but he never had the solution to the mystery he shared.
This is how Lonnie tells that story.
It was a warm Labor Day night, and our family and a neighbor, who had come to sit with us until bedtime, had taken chairs outside to enjoy a refreshing breeze. The moonlight was bright, and the sky was clear except for the faraway stars.
“Tonight reminds me of the Ridge Dancer,” our visitor said.
He had our attention right away.
“A Ridge Dancer?” asked my brother. “What is that?”
“I am not sure I can answer that,” he said. “It was a silent figure, but it danced like it was hearing drums beating.”
He told us then that his family had once bought a small farm in a valley beneath a high Appalachian ridge that had an open spot cleared on top among the trees. The family went up to explore, but the clearing looked like any other field.
“It seemed like a hard place to reach in order to cultivate, but obviously someone had made the effort,” our visitor said. “It wasn’t our land, though, so it wasn’t our concern. We went on home and tended to our own business.”
He said they had moved to their farm in early spring, so they planted and harvested crops the first year.
From time to time during the spring and summer, they would climb the ridge and check out the clearing.
“It was odd, but nothing was growing in the clearing except short grass,” he said. “It didn’t look like anyone had been there to cut back bushes and weeds or mow the grass. It always remained the same.”
“What was the clearing for on a ridge?” asked my brother.
“Well,” said our neighbor, “there is a story about that ridge. They say it was sacred to the Indians. Their medicine man would dance on the ridge on the night of Labor Day if there were going to be good crops the next year. “
“Why did he do that?” my brother wanted to know. “And why on Labor Day?”
“That’s the mystery, son,” the neighbor said. “Nobody really knows. There were a lot of Indians here when Kentucky was first settled. From their camps on both sides of the ridge, they would have a good view of anything that happened on the ridge top.
“The medicine man performed his magic to find out how things would grow the next year, and then he danced on top of the ridge to let them know whether food would be plentiful the next year, or if they should move on.”
“I never heard any Indian stories like that,” said my brother.
“I hadn’t either,” said our neighbor. “I am just telling you what I know about the Ridge Dancer.”
“Did you see him?” my brother asked.
“Yes,” replied the neighbor. “We saw him the fall after we moved there. It was Labor Day, and we were relaxing in the yard after supper, just like we are now. All of a sudden, the moon got brighter. We looked up and saw a figure dancing on the ridge! Just like the story says, we had a good crop the next year.”
“Did you ever see him again?” asked my brother, who was really hooked on the story now.
“No,” our neighbor answered. “We watched for him the next Labor Day, but he never came.”
“Did you have a bad harvest the next year?” my brother asked.
“Yes, the harvest was bad. We barely made it through the winter,” said our neighbor. “My dad sold the farm and we moved here. I never went back. I sometimes think of the Ridge Dancer, though, and wonder who he was and if he is still dancing.”
Columbus Day
Columbus Day first became a federal holiday in the United States in 1937, instituted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Since 1970 it has been celebrated on the second Monday in October. The holiday commemorates the anniversary of Italian navigator Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas on October 12, 1492.
Columbus Day celebrations tend to be more about Italian American heritage than the man himself.
Columbus Day is celebrated in several other countries besides the United States, though the extent of the festivities ranges from large-scale parades to nonobservance.
If it hadn’t been for Columbus Day, we would not have had the following holiday ghost story.
Columbus Day Ghost
Roberta tells this story about a sleepover she had one October night when she was young.
I rarely had more than one friend sleep over at a time, but on this occasion my mother, Lillian Simpson, gave me permission to have one friend and three of my cousins spend the night.
It was October, so the air was just right for sitting
outside on the porch. After Mom and Dad went to bed, we moved closer into a tight circle and began to tell stories.
My cousins and I told each other stories all the time, so we had heard very few new ones to tell each other. That’s why we were eager to hear stories from my friend. This girl and I knew each other from school, but she lived all the way over in the next town, so she had a new territory of tales for us to explore.
“Do you know any family stories?” I asked. “You know, scary or strange?”
“I know one about my sister,” she replied, “and it is absolutely true.”
“What happened?” one of my cousins asked.
“My sister never would have seen a ghost if it hadn’t been for Columbus Day,” she said.
“A ghost story? Great! Tell us about it!” we said.
“My sister worked for the post office in Taylor County,” she said. “She had the day off because Columbus Day was a holiday for them. She was watching for her neighbor to come home from school so she could see if she wanted to go to dinner and a movie.
“Her neighbor always complained because schools remained open on Columbus Day and she had to work. She didn’t think anyone should celebrate Columbus Day because she knew there were other people in America before he showed up.
“She saw her neighbor drive in a little later than usual. She realized she had stopped for some groceries when she saw her take the brown grocery bag out of the car.
“My sister called to the neighbor from the kitchen door and asked her to call as soon as she got the groceries put away. The neighbor nodded and went on inside.
“She had lived alone since her mother had died a few weeks ago, and she often mentioned that she missed the comfort of having another person live in the house.
“My sister waited several minutes, but her neighbor didn’t call. She thought maybe she had received a call and was tied up on the phone. She waited a few more minutes and tried to call her. The phone rang and rang. The line wasn’t busy; there simply was no answer.
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