Strong High School - Mussul Unsquit Yearbook (Strong, ME)

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THE MUSSUL UNSQUIT 19 trembling, he opened the door to gaze down into the cellar. As he looked he became stiff and seemed glued to the spot. Then he turned and fied, and didu't stop until he reached his hotel, where he threw himself on the bed, remaining there too frightened to move, until late in the forenoon. The next evening he went to tl1e club, where the fellows asked him to tell his story. I-Ie told them, but when he came to the part where he looked down into the cellar, he hesitated. They urged him to go on, but he said, HI can never tell what I saw in the cellar, and to this day no one can get Mr. :Xi to tell what he saw in the cellar of the haunted house. J. V. S., 24. EAGLE MOUNTAIN CAVE CEnglish IIIJ T was one day in the summer of 1851 that I received a letter from a college chum, John Daven, who was much inter- ested in miueralogy. The letter stated that he was about to explore for minerals and desired me to accompany him. That night I showed my father the letter and the de- sired permission was given me. Three days after receiving the letter I was speeding toward Dayton, where my friend was going to join me. I passed through rich farming lands, and large cit- ies, and at last arrived at Dayton. Imme- diately on getting off the train, I found john, whom I was very glad to see. We then boarded the train for the backwoods. John told me that it was on Eagle Moun- tain where he intended to search for min- erals. I learned that this mountain was lo- cated far back in a wild, sparsely settled country, and that we should have to leave tl1e train fifty miles this side and hike the remaining distance. We rode all that night and exactly at noon of the next day we arrived in a small lumber town, which certainly lived up to its name of Shack Center . There was no street in the villageg the shacks just seemed to be dumped in a cluster. On waking up a near-by lounger and asking him where we could obtain some- thing eatable, that worthy, slowly shifting his plug from one side of his mouth to the other, at his leisure, replied, Reckon old man Kimpton up at the saloon will give you enough to keep you from starving and also a dose of good manners. After we had eaten our sumptuous meal of canned pork and beans, sourdough bis- cuit, dried apple pie, a11d black coffee, we bought some supplies, made up our packs, and set off in the direction of Eagle Moun- tain. The next night we camped at the foot of the,mountain in a wild and desolate place. About nine in the evening we crawled into our blankets and soon fell asleep on our beds of spicy spruce boughs, but being rather nervous, we slept with one eye open, expecting any minute to be a meal for some wild beast. About midnight, I was awakened by s11arls and growls near-by. Lifting my head, I could see a row of green eyes all around the camp fire. Cold sweat stood out on my forehead, but gathering my courage I gripped my rifle and was about to shoot, when John, who possessed a keener presence of mind than I, fired a volley of shots in the direction of those weird, green eyes. With snarls and shrieks of anguish and rage they disap- peared into the depth of gloom surrounding the camp Ere. We slept no more that night but remained on guard expecting a return of our savage visitors. In the morning we set out up the slope of the mountain, eager to leave our wild camping place behind. At noon we reached our destination, the summit of Eagle Mountain, which was more strange and much wilder than the foot, and we be- gan to think that minerals would have to be very plenty to keep us long on this weird mountain. Nevertheless, we made

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18 THE MUSSUL UNSQUIT fire on the hearth. He put on his dressing gown and sat down before the fire. After a short time he got up and locked the door, then went to bed. Several times during the night he thought he heard noises but nothing came of it. All of a sudden something wakened him with a start and he found the lights burning brightly, as was the fire, also. He looked toward the door and saw that it was open and the same hand was beckoning him. He followed it down into the dining room and he started to open a door that led into the kitchen, when he did so there was a terrible noise and A-- became so frightened that he turned and fled to his room. After quieting his nerves he re- turned to bed. Again he awoke and found the hand beckoning him. This time he went into the kitchen. There was a fire in the stove, and a kettle was singing merrily. Beside the stove there was a door that was bolted. This door unbolted itself and then opened a little way, and the hand appeared and beck- oned A- to go down cellar, but A- was terrified and returned quickly to his room as before. He decided to sit up the remainder of the night. He heard the door creak and saw the hand motioning again, although very weary of that hand, he seemed powerless to resist following where it led. This time it led him to the attic and something pushed him into a room, and a voice that seemed to come from everywhere, and which was very hollow and ghostly, said, Stay there until you can do what the hand bids you. A-- was now almost beside himself with terror. He leaped to the door and tried to force it open, but it was fast and could not be opened so he turned and went back to a little cot, that was in the room, and sat down upon it. What could this mean? was the question that was before A--- to solve. It must mean that I am being punished for not go- ing down cellar as the hand wished, thought A- to himself. After a few hours the same voice was heard to say, Now, let us try againf' and Ai- was led back down the attic stairs to his bed room. After being there a while, he heard a noise and turned, only to see the hand beckoning him to follow it. He arose and followed it, hardly realizing what he was doing. It took him down the stairs into the parlor and then disappeared. Ai seated himself and took up a paper from the table, intending to read it. As he glanced through the pages he saw that the date was October 3, 1892. After gazing over the pages, he saw an account of the murder of C. N. Wilson. This must have been the same man, thought A- to him- self. As he had become interested in it he heard the voice again, Better dress, it 's cold down there. Mystified and terrified, A-L returned to the second floor and dressed himself slowly, because he was wondering what was going to happen next. After dressing he sat down to see the hand beckoning him, so he got up and followed the hand down the stairs. Again he heard the voice, Put on your coat, it's cold down there. Not realizing what he was doing, A- went into the cloak room and put on his coat. Upon returning to the hall expecting to be called into the kitchen, he found nothing. Listening, he heard a num- ber of strange noises, which seemed to come from the cellar. Then he thought he heard voices, which of course seemed to come from the cellar. After a time he became tired of waiting for the reappearance of the hand and wan- dered into the parlor and sat down to read the paper again. He had hardly picked it up when the hand appeared and beckoned him to follow. He followed it out through the hall, into the dining room, and then into the kitchen. Upon entering the kitchen, Ai turned to the cellar door, and as he looked it unbolted and opened a little way and the voice said, Come! Come! A- hesitated, but the voice repeated the words, and, unable to resist any longer, he advanced to the door, and although he was

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2O THE MUSSUL UNSQUIT our camp, devoured our lunch, and began to unpack our supplies. VVhile we were lying around the camp, resting and talking over our wild experi- ence of the night before, our nerves were shattered suddenly by a horrible, blood- curdling shriek as if some one were in mortal pain. At that instant a man ran across the clearing at a short distance from our camp. His hair was long and white, his beard gray and unkempt, and he wore scarcely any garments. At equal intervals he would suddenly leap off the ground and utter a terrorizing shriek. We sat paralyzed with fear and horror for a short time, but collecting our wits, we de- cided that he must be an old hermit, who had lived so many years in solitude, that it had driven him crazy. We saw no more of the mad hermit that day, but neverthe- less we were on the lookout for the old lunatic because we did not know what he might be capable of doing. The next morning, after a sleepless night, we started out to look for minerals. We went over the summit of the mountain and down on the opposite slope, where we found several specimens of mineral rock. About noon we came upon a cave, and thinking that we were not rushed for time, desired to inspect it. By crawling through the small opening, we were soon inside a fairly good-sized room with rough dirt walls, on one of which, down near the dirt floor, was a small aperture large enough to admit a man's body into the unknown depths beyond. We had a thirst for further adventure so we squeezed through the aperture and found ourselves in a room, somewhat larger than the first. We looked around us and saw a roughly constructed table, a few clay dishes, an old shotgun, a fur garment of some kind, and to our hor- ror, a pile of bones in a corner. The room was too dark for us to determine whether they were the bones of a human being or those of an animal. We had no matches with us and so were unable to find out whether the unfortunate was man or beast. On further investigation we discovered that the room branched off into a dark, un- penetrable, and maybe endless, passage leading further into the bowels of the earth. Then it dawned upon us that we were in the habitation of the old lunatic and the realization caused a prickly feeling to steal up our backs. At that minute we heard a terrible rumbling not unlike that of thun- der. When we looked for the mouth of the cave we were frozen with horror and dismay to find that the place where it had been a few minutes previous was now buried under hundreds of feet of Old Mother Earth. For some unknown reason the steep slope of old Eagle Mountain had desired to slide, with the result of trapping us in a strange and unknown cave, with our most dreaded and feared of all visitors, the old lunatic. All the food we possessed was that which we had in our lunch-boxes, intended for our dinner, only this meager supply of food to last, we knew not how long. We had no hope of being rescued, for the near- est place of civilization was fifty miles to southward and the endless wilderness stretched away to the northward. Hence, we were buried alive. Worst of all was to be compelled to die in terror with the old lunatic lurking somewhere in that vast depth of blackness and gloating over our death. We were unarmed because we had not had foresight enough to bring our guns with us. We collected our scattered wits some- what and made our way back to the room of the dark passage, determined to take what might come, as best we could. Our determination was suddenly forced from us, however, by the blood-curdling shrieks, heard far down the passage, every second coming nearer. Cold fear gripped my senses, my heart came to my mouth, and I believe my hair grew gray in those awful moments of waiting. John's hair fairly stood on end and I could plainly see the ashy whiteness of his face and his pro-