It is difficult to justify our deception of these people. We had taken over David and Betsy’s house and their life. We had driven a wedge between our parents. We had lied to good people, who had never shown us anything but kindness, and pretended that we had messages for them from beyond the veil of life. Some people might say these were wicked acts. And yet there was never any wickedness intended.
***
The excitement of the spirit circle truly infatuated me, and I know this was true also for Kate. In these early spirit circles, we did not dare masquerade as our companions’ dead relatives. When pressed by our visitors with the question “Who are you?” we spelled out the answer “many,” indicating that several combined spirits contributed to the rappings. We kept to the religious doctrines we knew, and confirmed the rewards of heaven to those souls who kept the faith.
There was no attempt made by the ladies to discover any explanation for the rapping, nor did they ever show any sign of disbelief. I think we were made bold by this simple faith, and thus were unprepared for the scrutiny that would fall upon us later. In fact, Kate and I passed that time in a kind of euphoria, having fallen under the spell of our own artifice.
So well treated were we at the hands of these ladies that we were totally unprepared for what happened the evening that Mr. Duesler came to see David, toting a shotgun in each hand.
He came quickly to the point, not being a man to mince words. “I have received some alarming news. There are a group of men from southern Arcadia who have risen in arms and are coming here tonight.”
“My God,” David gasped. “What for?”
“It has to do with the Hydesville house. There has been a great deal of talk about what happened there, especially since that man from Canandaigua was here taking certificates from everyone. David, it’s because your sister called the spirit Mr. Splitfoot. That smacks of witchcraft in their eyes. And then you dug up bones from the house, and they are saying that your family has raised the devil from the earth of the cellar.”
“That’s ridiculous!” David burst out.
“Don’t I know it?” Mr. Duesler replied in some distress. “But these are superstitious folk, and they take such things seriously. It is very unfortunate that your sister called the spirit Splitfoot, and I take responsibility for repeating the story. I thought it was amusing, and I never imagined that there might be violence.”
“I know some of these men, I’m sure,” David said mildly. “I have had business dealings in Arcadia. There is nothing to fear.”
Mr. Duesler shook his head, and there was a nervous murmur from the women listening. Betsy began to wring her hands, all the color draining from her face, and Lizzie sat down at Mother’s feet and put her head in her lap like a child.
“David,” said Mr. Duesler. “I feel partly responsible, because I told this story around town like everyone else. I never meant to bring trouble to your house. But if these people get themselves worked up into a frenzy and accuse you of devilish acts, then I fear for what they might do. I suggest you send the women and the children to a neighbor or relative. They can take my wagon. I will stay and defend the house with you.”
“Bill, I cannot believe there is any danger. I know these men, I tell you. Nothing will happen.” David turned around and looked at each of the women. “Nothing will happen. I pledge my word.”
“Nonetheless,” said Mr. Duesler. “I will stay the night with you.”
Darkness fell, and we all waited on pins and needles inside the house, listening for the sound of voices, horses, or worst of all, the crackling of flames.
Eventually the expected visitors arrived. We all ran to the front of the house, and from the windows we could see the lit torches and the movement of bodies on the road. Betsy and Lizzie ran to get the babies from their beds, and I pulled Kate close and whispered fiercely in her ear, “We have to tell the truth! We have to tell them we faked it all!”
Kate was pale and shaking. “They’ll not believe us now.”
Mr. Duesler had brought his shotguns, and now he tried to hand one to David. But my brother shook his head. “I don’t want that.”
“Don’t be a fool!” hissed Mr. Duesler. “You need to defend your family!”
“It will be a sorry day when I cannot do that with reason and good judgment alone,” replied David. Then he took hold of the handle to the front door, threw it open, and stepped out onto the porch to face the men.
They were armed. I could see the glint of shotguns in their hands. Some held torches, which could easily set the farmhouse ablaze. Through the window, we saw David stride confidently across the porch and down the steps to meet them. My mother pressed her hand to her mouth, and Betsy sobbed, caught between watching her husband through the window and running out the back door with her children.
We heard David’s voice ring out: “Gentlemen! Welcome. I understand you have some questions for us regarding events that happened in Hydesville. I would be happy to address these matters with you.”
There was a murmur among the crowd, and a voice shouted out, “We heard there are witches and the devil in your house!”
“No, sir!” David called out. “Just my family—my mother, my wife, and my sisters, who are a bit frightened by your presence. Surely you have some daughters or sisters, and you can appreciate how they might feel if approached in the night by armed men with torches! I would ask you to lay those aside, and then you may search my house if you will. I can assure you that you will find nothing unnatural or sacrilegious here. I did find some bones in the Hydesville house, and I suspect there may have been a murder there some years back. I haven’t been able to prove it or pinpoint how long they have lain there.”
“Dave Fox?” someone spoke out loudly from the crowd. “Is that you?”
“Yes, sir! Ned Burns, is it?”
“Why, I didn’t know it was you they have said so much about!”
David laughed lightly. “Yes, I am afraid it is me. We’ve been very busy here, and I haven’t been out to see you about that cow like I said I would.”
One man stepped forward, holding his torch up to illuminate his own face, and using his shotgun like a walking stick. “I wondered what had kept you!”
“Will you search the house, Ned?” asked David, as though he were inviting the man in for tea.
“No, we won’t come in. We’ll come back in daylight, properly, as God-fearin’ men ought to. No need to disturb your family now. Come on, men! That’s Dave Fox, I tell you. He’s all right, by God.”
And with no other prompting, the crowd vanished back into the darkness, their lit torches dwindling to the size of fireflies in the night. David turned and strode back into the house, walking past Mr. Duesler and his shotguns without a word, having defended his house and family with nothing more than his amiable personality.
In the morning, only one man returned. David brought the box of bones out of the barn. The man poked and prodded the sad little display, commiserated with David on the unlikelihood of proving a crime with such inadequate evidence, and then departed without burning the house down. Thus, the first occasion in which the rapping was denounced as witchcraft ended as quickly as it began, and without violence.
Chastened by our near collision with superstitious zealotry, Mother suggested that we suspend the spirit meetings for a time. Which is why we were surprised to hear a wagon approach the house the next evening around dinnertime. Although the immediate fear had subsided, none of us had quite relaxed yet. We were half prepared to hear that the crowd of agitators had returned or that another group of townspeople had assembled with some demand or accusation. I do not think that any of us were prepared for the new fright actually descending upon us.
“What in the Sam Hill has been going on in this house?”
The voice rang out as clear and precise as a church bell. Lizzie, peeling potatoes in the kitchen beside me, ins
tinctively flinched and hunched her shoulders like a baby bird sinking down into its nest. “Mother!” she whispered hoarsely.
We were done for.
My sister Leah had arrived.
PART TWO:
THE RISE OF A RELIGION
Chapter Nine
Maggie
Leah did not believe a word of it.
“I cannot believe you have been so easily taken in, Mother,” she chastised. “Lizzie, give over those potatoes. One would think you hadn’t been taught how to handle a peeling knife. I wish you had sent for me sooner! To think I had to hear this from the parent of one of my pupils. I cannot tell you how embarrassing it was to know nothing of what was happening here while my family name was being ridiculed in letters to strangers!”
“You haven’t heard the spirits rapping,” Mother said indignantly. “You don’t know a thing about it.”
“I know a humbug when I hear it, even thirdhand. For Pete’s sake, you would think my own daughter at least would have written to tell me! But apparently you were all too busy talking to dead people to have time to write the living!”
“I didn’t want to worry you, Mother,” Lizzie mumbled.
“Oh, it was much better to have Jane Little’s mother come and read me her cousin’s letter and inquire whether insanity ran in my family! Betsy, don’t reach over your head like that; it’s not good for the baby. Maggie, fetch that pot down for Betsy instead of sitting there like a bump on a log—that’s a girl. Kate, you look like the cat that swallowed the canary. Make yourself useful and set the table.”
Leah was tall and large boned, but her years of living lean had not allowed her to attain the girth of Mother. At thirty-four, she still held a flush of prettiness in a face that was a little too round but lit up by lively gray eyes. She wiped her hands on her skirt apron and surveyed the kitchen as though it were her domain while we hustled about doing her bidding. “Where is Father?” she asked, suddenly realizing his absence.
We all continued at our assigned tasks in silence for a moment while glancing sidelong at Mother. After an awkward pause, she lifted her chin and met Leah’s eyes significantly. “He moved out to the new house to finish it.”
My sister arched an eyebrow. “He’s living there alone?” At Mother’s brief nod, Leah shook her head and shrugged one shoulder before turning to resume slicing the potatoes.
David put his head in through the back door and handed me a bucket of water from the pump. “Does she want to see the bones?” he whispered to me.
“Not before supper, David, thank you!” Leah called out. “I’ll come out to the barn and pay my respects later, if you don’t mind.” I fetched up beside her with a freshly filled pot and let her slide the sliced potatoes into the water. Then she looked up and met my eyes, murmuring in a lower voice, “I will want a few words with you later, as well.”
I nodded mutely.
***
At supper that evening, Leah told us how she had left Rochester the very day she learned about the hauntings involving her family. She went first to the Hydesville house, only to find that we had all moved out.
“Throughout the trip, I kept thinking that there had been some mistake and I would find that Mrs. Little’s relative was ill-informed or a malicious gossip. But the neighbor in Hydesville, your Mrs. Redfield, was quick to regale me with stories about your resident ghost and about the spirit sittings you have held here at the farm.”
Mother was eager to tell her own story and launched into a long-winded version of the same tale she had told Mr. Lewis. David and Betsy interrupted to share their own little pieces, and Lizzie nodded along wholeheartedly. When they explained that the spirit rapping occurred only in the presence of her sisters, Leah turned her head to give us a most skeptical look.
Kate stared back with her innocent gaze. “We were awfully frightened at first, but now that we have come to know them, the spirits do not trouble us at all. They so terribly want to be heard.”
“Indeed,” Leah replied dryly. “I can hardly wait to satisfy their need.”
Although we had agreed, for Betsy’s sake, to suspend the spirit circles, it was decided to make an exception in honor of Leah’s arrival. After the supper dishes had been cleared and after David had taken Leah to visit the bones in the barn, we drew the curtains in the parlor and extinguished all but a single candle.
The spirits would be subdued that night. I had grown accustomed to concealing a block of wood within my petticoats on which I would knock with my hand in the darkness of the parlor. Tonight, with Leah watching, I could not dare. Mother began as she always did, by summoning the spirits. When they had signaled their presence with a loud rap, she began to ask the usual questions.
“Are we in the presence of spirits from beyond the veil of life?” Two raps.
“Have you any messages for us this evening?” Two raps.
Mother smiled triumphantly and looked significantly at her eldest daughter as she asked, “Do you have a message from my grandfather Jacob Smith this evening?” Two raps.
This great-grandparent, whom I had never known, was a special favorite of Leah’s, but she sat impassively as we waited out the rapping through the alphabet, which eventually spelled out: Welcome my little Annie Leah.
Leah’s only response to this pet name was a raised eyebrow. “Is this the spirit of my great-grandfather, Jacob Smith?”
There came one rap, for no.
Mother leaned forward to touch Leah’s arm. “Oh no, he never raps himself.”
“Why not? I never knew him to be short on words in life.”
“You’re not taking this seriously,” Betsy observed quietly.
“I am serious!” Leah protested, but she was laughing.
“Do you have any questions for the spirits, Leah?” Kate asked sweetly.
“Yes, I do.” Leah leaned forward in her chair and addressed the air just below the ceiling, as she had seen our mother do. “Was Adelaide Granger’s daughter Harriet really poisoned by her husband?”
It was a pickle of a question. We all knew the story, from our days living in Rochester. The daughter of Leah’s friend Mrs. Granger had died of a sudden illness, and poison had been suspected. The husband, who was a doctor, had gone to trial and had been acquitted, but Mr. and Mrs. Granger had never stopped believing that their son-in-law had murdered their daughter.
Rather to my surprise, the spirit rapped twice, for yes. I wondered if Kate knew what she was doing.
Leah also registered surprise. “What should Mrs. Granger do about it?”
David called out the alphabet for us, as he usually did.
Nothing. Be at peace.
“What about justice for the husband?” demanded Leah.
The answer came: He will receve justice in the next life.
“That’s an interesting spelling of the word ‘receive,’” noted Leah. “Perhaps our spirit should have spent more time at its studies and less time rapping on the gates of heaven.”
“Oh, Leah!” Mother exclaimed at the same moment that David snorted and said, “Doggone it, Leah!”
Suddenly, Kate spilled out of her chair and onto the floor in a faint, which we had agreed she would do if our sister became difficult. I was the first on the floor beside her, taking her hand as everyone else started out of their seats. “Kate! Kate!” I cried. “Can you hear me?”
Kate turned her head toward my voice and her eyelids fluttered. “Don’t fear for me, Maggie. I am simply spent. The spirits have gone away now.”
Lizzie was immediately at my side, helping me lift Kate to her feet, and then Mother was there, clucking and fussing over her. Together, we escorted Kate upstairs and put her into the trundle bed in the children’s room, and then I lay down beside her, pleading exhaustion myself.
I know the adults spent a long time downstairs talking after that. Kate and I
whispered to each other, trying to decide what we should do. We heard footsteps approach and we quieted ourselves instantly. The door opened and someone slipped into the room. I knew without looking that it was Leah. She stood over us silently while we tried to breathe steadily and feign sleep. After a time, she moved away and her footsteps retreated down the stairs.
***
There was one sure way to avoid Leah the next day—we went to school. Our attendance had been sporadic since we moved to Hydesville, and once the rapping began we had been more often truant than not. The teacher looked none too pleased to have us suddenly appear, as our presence provided a distraction to the other pupils, who were more interested in us than their lessons.
As we were passing through Hydesville on our long walk back to David’s farm at the end of the school day, Mrs. Redfield came bustling out of her house to catch us.
“I have so missed our sittings, girls! Mrs. Jewell and I were just saying that we hoped that we could sit with you this evening. With all due consideration to Betsy Fox’s nervous condition, I wanted to offer my own parlor. I can send my husband with the carriage for you and your mother—and the sister you have visiting from Rochester. Do ask your mother, won’t you, girls? I will send Mr. Redfield around dusk.”
“Betsy’s nervous condition indeed,” muttered Kate as we continued on our way. “She looked pretty sprightly last night when she was watching Leah sharpen her tongue on us.”
“She’d boot us all out of the house if David would let her,” I agreed. “Shall we go to Mrs. Redfield’s house tonight, then?”
“If Mother will allow it,” replied Kate. “I’m a little fearful about what Leah will say in front of the ladies, though.”
At Mrs. Redfield’s house, Leah could not have been more pleasant or polite. The ladies were quite taken with her personable manner and forthright friendliness. Mrs. Hyde asked her, “Where is your husband, dear?”
Leah cast her eyes down sadly and said, “He’s dead,” which was news to me. But then I saw Lizzie cringe in embarrassment, and I realized that her father was just as alive as ever and probably still living out west with his rich widow.
We Hear the Dead Page 6