THE GHOST FARM
When Steven was killed we did not know it until nearly thirty days afterward. He went overseas in April, and it was the last of June before we knew he went out with a party of engineers to repair the railroad track, and was blown to pieces by a German shell.
We could not tell Maidie the truth. She knew he was dead, but concerning the manner of his going she was ignorant. They were engaged. Her love for him amounted to adoration. She was an intense, emotional girl, bound to be unhappy because of her sensitive nature and strong feelings.
She was under my professional care for several weeks the latter part of the summer, suffering from a broken ankle.
"It is the silence, the awful blank wall between Steven and me, that drives me frantic," she burst out one day, when I was making her a visit.
She had been reading a letter from Steven, and it lay in her lap. She had a little package of his letters always near her.
"I know," I returned, with a sigh. I, too, had lost my nearest and dearest.
"I wish I could consult a medium," she said, lowering her voice. "How wonderful it would be to receive a message from him! I could hardly bear it, I'm afraid."
"Don't do it, Maidie," I said. "Better leave such people alone."
"The ouija board, then? It seems rather like a silly game, but—"
I shook my head.
"'That way madness lies'," I quoted. "I wouldn't, Maidie. Steven lives in your heart, in your memories of him."
She smiled that pathetic little smile she had worn when she wished to appear cheerful.
"You are right," she answered, and changed the subject.
In spite of what she had said I discovered she was reading everything she could find about spirit communication, although I never heard of her making any attempt to reach Steven in that way.
I was very busy that fall with influenza cases, and Maidie went into Red Cross work, and when the epidemic was over I heard she had gone to California. She returned early the following summer looking haggard and ill. I prescribed for her, but could find nothing really wrong with her. She took long walks, and, her mother told me, she always went alone and resented any offer of companionship. She thought it queer, and said she feared Maidie was drifting into melancholia.
Maidie came into my office one afternoon, and I was struck with the change in her expression: she looked happy and young; the strained misery had vanished from her face. I was puzzled. Could she have fallen in love? I ran over in my mind a list of her young men acquaintances, but none of them could I see as Maidie's lover.
Her mother had informed me her walks were always in one direction. Thinking of that, I asked, "Why do you always walk along the river road, Maidie?"
She turned a vivid pink.
