Weird Tales/Volume 5/Issue 5/The Ghost Farm
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.
“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.