“You won’t understand, I know, but I’m going to tell you,” she replied, twisting her gloves in her hands. “In the first place, you must know Steven and I used to plan that when we were married we would own a little farm. Just a little summer place, you know. He used to say every man wanted to have a farm. Doctor, when I go up the river road, just past the school house, on the bank, where the road turns into the woods, I see a little farm. The fields are neat and cultivated. The house is painted white with green blinds and the door is open into the hall, as if people lived there. Hollyhocks are growing around the kitchen door. On a table milk-pans are turned up to dry in the sun. There are some dish-towels drying on a line. And at any moment I expect to see Steven come around the corner of the house. I feel he is there, out of my sight. I wait, and listen. He hasn’t come yet, but he will, some day, and when he comes, I shall go with him.”
Her face was luminous with joy. What could I say? What ought I to say?
“Do you think I could see the farm if I were with you?” I asked, speaking slowly.
“I’m afraid you couldn’t,” she replied. “No one knows it is there but Steven and me.”
“Then, my dear Maidie, it exists only in your imagination,” I told her, gently.
She smiled, as one smiles at a child who doubts one’s word, and she went away.
I studied her case carefully. A good psychanalyst might have helped her, but I was not skilful in that method of treatment. I see now that we did wrong in circumventing her. In accordance with my advice her friends attempted to divert her attention from her daily walk. She was taken on automobile excursions; visitors came at that hour of the day; she was invited to go to moving pictures; duties were crowded upon her, in the hope of altering the fixed idea in her mind of Steven’s waiting at the ghost farm. She was very sweet about acceding to the demands and requests, though sometimes she would obstinately refuse to listen to them.
August brought hot weather. The extreme heat wore upon our nerves; everybody relaxed. Released from vigilant watchfulness, Maidie left the house, unnoticed.
A terrific thunder storm came up, and Maidie’s mother was beside herself. She had been lying down taking a nap when Maidie slipped away. She telephoned to me when the shower was over, as Maidie was not missed until then.
I got out of my car and started up the river road, a sense of foreboding in the back of my mind. I had not proceeded far when a tire blew out. Impatiently I left the machine and hurried on foot past the weather-beaten old schoolhouse a short distance. Suddenly I stopped in my tracks. The sun had come out, and I saw the ghost farm. It was exactly as Maidie had described it: a stretch of green fields; a small white house with green blinds; hollyhocks growing by the kitchen door; milk-pans glistening in the sun, drying on a table; towels fluttering on a line. I was struck dumb, and stood motionless, hardly able to draw my breath at the strangeness of the scene.
In a few minutes the vision, or mirage, vanished. Then I perceived a tall oak tree split in half by a bolt of lightning. At the foot of the tree lay Maidie, on the wet ground, a smile of rapture on her upturned face.
I knelt beside her and examined heart and pulse. Nothing could be done, her spirit had left its earthly body. She had gone to be with Steven.
