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The sociable ghost : $b Being the adventures of a reporter who was invited by the sociable ghost to a grand banquet, ball, and convention under the ground of old Trinity churchyard. A true tale of the things he saw and did not see while he was not there.Harper, Olive

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The sociable ghost : $b Being the adventures of a reporter who was invited by the sociable ghost to a grand banquet, ball, and convention under the ground of old Trinity churchyard. A true tale of the things he saw and did not see while he was not there.

Name: The sociable ghost : $b Being the adventures of a reporter who was invited by the sociable ghost to a grand banquet, ball, and convention under the ground of old Trinity churchyard. A true tale of the things he saw and did not see while he was not there.
Author: Harper, Olive

Harper, Olive

American fiction -- 20th century; Ghost stories

This caused the reporter to break out in a cold sweat, for he now felt
almost afraid to think. The ghost resumed:

“I don't believe that nobody cares about us when we are once dead. I
died and was buried in a vault under the old church that stands
somewhere in Amity Street or close by. It may be gone now for all I
know, for I haven't been there for a long time, and I don’t care if the
old shebang is torn down, for it is to that that I owe my misery. Just
look at me! I was a giant in my life, and stood seven feet in my
stockings and was big according. But, when my time came I was sick and
died like the weakest critter of them all. My folks paid the seven
dollars to have me put into the receiving vault like the rest. I was
pretty comfortable for the first year. The rule was that when new
corpuses came in they must be put into the receiving vault the first
year. Afterwards they were put into the back vault to make room for the
new comers. There was shelves in the first one, and nobody couldn't
crowd his neighbors, but in the back vault he was laid just one coffin
on top of another, and nothing between them. At one time there was over
five thousand corpuses under the church, but hardly anybody knew it.

“The most of the coffins was old what was in the back vault, specially
the lower line, and often when a new fellow was put in on top of the
other lot the old coffins would mash down to nothing, and nothing of the
body would be left, but the bones, and you can just guess how that
squeezed. They kept on piling more and more until even with the
crumbling old coffins there was no more room. Then the trustees or
whoever it was that had the say, decided that we must all be moved to
York Bay, and they set about moving us.”

The reporter was deeply interested in this, and followed every word with
the greatest care, for if it turned out to be true after he should be in
a position to verify it, he intended to write it up for the benefit of
humanity. The ghost accepted the chair which the young man brought him
and continued his story.

      The mended ghost.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The sociable ghost : $b Being the adventures of a reporter who was invited by the sociable ghost to a grand banquet, ball, and convention under the ground of old Trinity churchyard. A true tale of the things he saw and did not see while he was not there.

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