Ghosts -- Fiction; Love stories; Painters -- Fiction; Short stories
The mustache having been whittled to a tailored toothbrush. Captain
Wully started on his beard. "You should see her, laddie. A real Indian
princess, left over from a Lovers Leap. Bein' four hundred years old,
she's real aristocracy and doesn't mingle with younger ghosts, which is
why I never seen her before. Myself, I'm three score and hardly in her
class. Although I must say she took a shine to me. But Indian braves
don't wear beards."
Captain Wully put down the razor and revealed that he too was
beardless. "Sporran, silver buckles and all the fixin's I got in my
sea-chest--but my kilt went down wi' my ship."
When Captain Wully realized Heather Higgins had taken the plaid skirt
home, he was inconsolable.
* * * * *
Heather Higgins kept her appointment to sit next morning. She was
greeted at the mailbox by a subdued young man, who hastily shoved in
his pocket a letter promising drastic action in the matter of "tax
liens against property situate, to wit, etc."
"The oddest thing has happened," she said.
And Jerry knew. "The plaid skirt is gone again."
She gave him a chilly look. "See here! For a young man who claims to
know nothing about--"
"It's my handyman," he babbled. "My handyman's a kleptomaniac."
"Lem Butler's the only handyman in town. Don't try to tell me Lem--"
"Since the person concerned is progressing toward a cure, I can't
mention names. Couldn't you let me pay for the skirt?" It took a lot of
fast talking, and it took time--but he finally diverted her attention.
She was a patient model. He quickly blocked in the flowing waves of her
hair. But a listening look had come over her. Jerry listened too.
Down the stairwell drifted muted notes of a bagpipe, striving to adapt
its chromatic limitations to '_Indian Love Call_.' Another instrument
was audible also.
"Funny thing about this house," he said. "When I first moved in, I used
to think I heard bagpipes."
"Accompanied by a glockenspiel?"
"Is that what it is?"
The upper half of a very elderly gentleman bobbed in.
"_Junior!_" bawled Captain Wully from the stairs.
"Leave me alone," pleaded the elderly gentleman. "Lemme concentrate."
Captain Wully dashed in. "For shame, Junior. _Stealing!_"
Junior's eyes filled with tears. "Just one more nip, and I know I could
have relaxed enough to finish materializing."
Heather's fascinated gaze wavered between the bottomless Junior and
Captain Wully's kilt. The kilt had a zipper placket exactly like a
lady's skirt. "I think I'm losing my mind," she said.
Jerry Masterson attempted to explain the inexplicable. He recounted
events of the preceding several days and concluded, "No matter what you
think, you couldn't see him if you didn't believe."
"What about the glockenspiel?" she asked weakly.
"That's Red Skeleton," said Captain Wully. "He uses a couple
of ball-peen hammers on his ribs. We was tunin' up to serenade
Pocahauntus."
"The cat," said Heather. "She's left out."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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