The Ghost in the Tower: An Episode in Jacobia — John Shaqi
The Ghost in the Tower: An Episode in JacobiaReed, Earl H. (Earl Howell)
Science
The Ghost in the Tower: An Episode in Jacobia
Reed, Earl H. (Earl Howell)
Ghost stories; Haunted places -- Fiction; Michigan -- Fiction; Michigan, Lake -- Fiction; Water towers -- Fiction
“A little while after you came in you were doubtless surprised, and
possibly startled, by certain sounds that it was necessary for me to
make in the top of the tower. I was communicating with Kinisi, who at
that moment was in the belfry of Trinity, and I have no doubt that
he got my message and will be here before long. You see that in the
spiritual world we have always used the Hertzian waves. You have only
recently found them with your wireless telegraphy and telephony. By
certain peculiar sound modulations, properly keyed, we are enabled
to utilize the waves in a way that your modern science has not yet
discovered. I imagine such communications might properly be called
phantograms. Before many years you will be able to talk to friends
in New York--if you have any--by simply raising a third story window
and pitching your tones into the exact harmonic, as you heard me do
tonight. It’s all quite simple when you know how. That heavy thumping
in the pipes was just a local manifestation and it had nothing to do
with the message to Kinisi.
[Illustration: THE CORNFIELDS IN OCTOBER]
“Any spiritual sound or demonstration, in which ghostly noise of any
kind is produced, is known among us as a ‘skreek’. Skreeks have a wide
range of utility. They may be vibrated over vast distances, as I
just exemplified from the tower top, or used in a merely local way,
like the expression in the pipes.
“In the summer time you often hear funny squeaky noises and loud thumps
in the water pipes that connect with the guest tents on the bluff.
Well, that’s me. While I am among the tents a great deal in the summer,
I play the pipes from the tower, so whenever you hear these skreeks
after this you will understand the cause. I tried the main pipes
tonight just to see if they were keeping their tonality in cold weather.
“Since I’ve been here I’ve greatly enjoyed myself. I take much pleasure
in wandering about the farm at night. I spend considerable time in our
friend’s cornfields during the warm summer nights where I meet many
Indian shades. They are among the stalks in the dark, cracking the
joints to make them grow faster. In October they stay in the shocks and
rustle the dry leaves at night. They used to live all over these bluffs
in their little wigwams. Sometimes I spend hours in the farm house
between the walls, listening to our friend Jacobs and his guests. A lot
of friends come to see him who interest me, and some of them I would
like to meet in the way I have met you tonight. Please remember me to
Professor Dientsbach, who has charge of the children’s saxophone band,
when you see him, and get him up here some Christmas eve if you can.
He has had the band in the tower on several occasions, and it afforded
me much pleasure. Give my regards to the small boy you call the ‘Hot
Spot’, and assure him and his little sister Gertie that there is
nothing at all in the tower for them to be afraid of, and I am always
glad to have them come up here and play.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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