Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/72

 Oftentimes the sounds seemed to be made in the very presence of those who were watching. On one occasion Pat stood with a club at the back door, with the door ajar, when a loud thump happened at his side. “Bejabers, I've got ye now!” said Pat as he threw the door wide open. Darkness there and nothing more! On another occasion Fanny and I had our heads out of a third-story window on the watch when a loud noise in another part of the house startled all in it and called us there. One evening, a member of the family coming up the stairs stumbled over a large gilt mirror of great weight which had hung for years in a room in the third story. Another night the wife of my uncle, William P. C. Whitaker, then on a visit to the household, going up the broad stairway in the dark, was confronted by some obscure figure and fainted. Naturally the members of the family thought that somebody in the neighborhood played these pranks, and their suspicion fell upon a woman who occasionally came to the house and knew its arrangement. Every effort was made to catch this person in the act. Flour was sprinkled over the porches so that traces of the footsteps would be left. John and Benjamin Jacobs hid behind the shrubbery on the lawn and waited for hours. Relays were stationed at the upper windows. It was labor in vain. The manifestations continued at intervals for perhaps three months and then ceased temporarily. After about three months they began again to be followed by a period of quiet and by a third recurrence, altogether covering over a year's time. Outside of the house and near to it stood a frame structure used for the purpose of storing wood and as a receptacle for cast-off material. On a dark night a member of the family going to this house found a lot of wood gathered together with paper, and dry chips underneath, and the black girl, Fanny, with a box of matches in the very act of setting it on fire. The secret was out and she told her story. She had rung the door bell by running up the narrow back stairway and pulling out a brass stair rod which 64