Today when we think of ghost stories, we think of Halloween, but it was not always that way. In Victorian times, ghost stories were often told during the holiday season. It was a time to remember family and past events. In fact, a Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens is both a moral tale and a ghost story. In honor of that old tradition, I decided to tell some decidedly different types of ghost stories this holiday season. Ones that I hope will make your season bright.
A Gift of Love
It was the winter of 1931 and the Great Depression gripped the nation hard. People across the country struggling to find food and work was scarce. Hope seemed to have left the United States. Jacob and Maddie Denton were young couple who had only been married a year earlier. They lived in a two room but in Spokane Washington but even romance was not enough to keep the Great Depression away from them. In the winter of 1931 they were destitute. Jacob could not find work anywhere and there was almost nothing left to eat in the house. A few dollars that they had squirreled away gone to rent for the apartment. Just before Thanksgiving Jacob confronted Maddie and told her that he was going to have to leave to find work. He was is afraid to leave her and she was to be left behind, but there had to be work somewhere else and so Jacob was going to join the throngs of men riding the rails looking for work and a new life elsewhere. In short Maddie that as soon as yet found a job he would send for her.
Maddie’s task was to stay alive until Jacob could come back for her. Jacob spoke to their landlord and he assured them that he would not put Maddie out for the winter because he had no one to rent the flat and him. And Jacob .2 local grocery store which was run by a gentle man lame known for many years. The old fellow promised Jacob that he would allow Maddie to get groceries on account until Jacob could send for her comeback for her. Even promised that if Maddie spent went beyond the limit he usually gave, he would continue to give her supplies. He knew Jacob to be a good and honorable manhood fallen on hard times, and he was willing to risk losing the money in order to assist the young couple. The grocer had found to Jacob that no matter what he would not let Maddie go hungry.
Maddie said a tearful goodbye to Jacob and watched him as he walked away toward the railroad yard. In his pocket jingled the last couple dollars they had and she only pray that it was enough money to get him through until he could find work.
Maddie had her own secret that she had chosen not to share it with Jacob. Maddie was with child and she wasn’t sure she should be happy terrified by the prospects of giving birth in a world is painful and chaotic as it was at that point in time. No one would hire a woman to do work on men were going without, and so Maddie was left to clean her two little rooms and take long walks. She tried hard to not eat more than necessary despite the fact that she was pregnant. She feared greatly that she would eventually be without food. It was a realistic fear because there were many others who were going hungry at that same time.
As the weeks drunk by toward Christmas Maddie grew tired and weak herself. The lack of proper nutrition and vitamins took its toll and she found herself in bed more and more. Worse yet, the little supplies heating fuel that Jacob had left her was beginning to run low. She had but a few days’ worth left and that she tried to use it sparingly as possible. She primed the stove and only turned it on long enough to cook a few bites of food and warm the one little ground that she had stretched a sheet across the doorway of to keep the heated.
Christmas came sad and lonely for Maddie. She had no family other than Jacob Spokane and she had used up all the credit that Jacob had arranged for at the store. The grocer had assured her that this was not a problem, but Maddie was determined not to make huge bill for Jacob. She greatly feared that they would wear out their welcome with the grocer’s if they allow the bill to go to high.
Christmas day was a terrible one for Maddie. She was so sick and tired and weak that she could barely walk. She had eaten nothing in over four days and so hunger only added to her misery. Worse yet, a heating fuel around days earlier. It was below freezing inside the little house and all that Maddie could do was huddle beneath a pile of blankets and pray that whatever was going to happen to her would be quick.
Late Christmas afternoon she thought she heard a faint tapping at the front door. Maddie was not sure if this was her own hallucination or wishful thinking, but she pulled her thin legs from beneath a pile of blankets and wobbled toward the front door. She pulled the door open and wind pushed through the already chilled apartment. At first she saw nothing, but as she went to shut the door something along the side of the porch caught her attention. She stepped outside and saw three boxes filled with groceries and 25 gallon can of heating fuel. There was no one around and all she could think of was that Jacob had somehow gotten supplies sent to her. Perhaps this meant that he had found a job, but if he had been why had he not contacted her since the day he left? Why had he not sent for her to join him?
It took all of her strength to drag the boxes in. She could barely lift the cans of fuel, but she struggled until they were within the door. Maddie must’ve passed out at that point because it was hours later when she regained consciousness on the kitchen floor. Her exhaustion was so total that even the small task of carrying in the three boxes and the two cans of fuel had exhausted her completely. Maddie managed to get fuel to the cooking stove and made herself a meal. She dragged the mattress into the kitchen, sheet across the doorway to keep the little heat she had inside those four walls. She made this room her fortress because it was easier to heat one small room than two.
A couple mornings later she awoke pains in her abdomen. At first she thought she had eaten something that did not agree with her, but when she pulled the sheets back to get up she saw the bloody mess and realized that her body was rejecting her baby. She had lost the child she had struggled so hard to keep. She pulled the messy bloody bedding away and collapse back onto the mattress. The days she came and went consciousness. She struggled to keep enough water in her body to keep from dehydrating and did not even have the strength to eat any food. Eventually, she began to illustrate coming back into her body and she got up.
Each and every day Maddie wondered about Jacob. Where was he at? He must’ve found work if he were able to send food through the grocery store she thought. But if he had found a job why had he not sent for her?
Maddie stretch the food as far as she could but by the end of January it was gone. The fuel, likewise, was also used up in the bitter cold inside the little flat was almost equal to the temperature outside. Maddie took refuge under the pile of blankets and coaxing clothing the she heaped upon the bed. She crawled down inside that little nest and pray that she would not freeze to death each night. I now the hunger was just as painful as the cold. She cried fear and desperation and faint God to send her release— the death or Jacob.
One night as she lay buried down the nest, Maddie heard a faint tapping upon the door once more. She was loath to climb out of the nest of betting but she did selling answered the door. Bitter wind whips through a little room making the curtains and the sheet across the doorway swaying wildly. No one stood outside to hunt on the knocking. Maddie hurried to shut the door once more, but then she caught the glimpse along the side of the porch, of three boxes of food into cans of heating fuel. Once again the grocery had made a delivery that would save her life. She struggled desperately to bring the items inside and warmed the little room she made a meal. Putin never tasted better, but she counseled herself against gluttony. She had no idea how long the scoop would have to master and so it must be rationed.
There was still no word from Jacob, and by the end of February the food and heating fuel were nearly all gone. One day Maddie awoke to find that the weather had broken and a thaw had started. Warm weather made Maddie anxious to get outside. Every day she forced herself to walk a few more steps as she regained her strength. She was most careful with the food. She ate sparingly of little supply that was left.
One day it dawned upon her that perhaps Jacob had paid the charge account bill at the grocery store he also had groceries delivered. She decided to take a walk to the grocery store and inquire about the bill. If a bill was paid, perhaps she could get a few more groceries on account. Besides, she thought, I really want to thank the grocer for delivering supplies throughout the winter when I needed them the most.
Maddie made her way to the grocery store and stopped across the street to look at it. The windows were covered in brown paper and white soap been used to scratch out the name of the grocery store. The store was clearly shut down. She stared at it horror and in awe. Her last hope for food had just been quenched. Someone walking down the street noticed her struck look and asked her if she were okay.
“Yes,” Maddie said. “I was just surprised to see that the grocery store is closed. It must’ve just happened.”
“You must not have been around here lately,” said the man. “The store closed just before Christmas. The grocery store owner died of a heart attack in the store right before the holiday and his family shut the store down. We’ve been having to run to the A&P the next town over for groceries since then.”
Maddie looked at the man is if he had grown horns. “Closed?” She said. “Before Christmas?” That could not be possible, how else did she get the groceries and the fuel?
Maddie returned home and pondered what she had learned. Nothing about it made sense. She had gotten the boxes of groceries and heating fuel from somewhere. It had to have come from the grocery store. “Great,” Maddie left herself. “I’ve been receiving my groceries from a ghost.”
A few days later there was a knock upon the door. Maddie answered it and she froze. Standing before her was Jacob, even thinner than she was He was in the same filthy clothing that he had left in months earlier. He was unshaved and unshorn, and there were holes in his shoes. Tears glistened in his eyes as he looked at Maddie. “Oh Maddie,” he wept, “I never thought I would see you again. There’s no work—no work anywhere! I went the whole way to California but everybody’s is as bad off there as they are here. I would not have made it back home if not for a farmer having given me a bag full of seeds to eat. I had a handful every day on the train as I made it back here.” Jacob pulled the wrinkled paper sack from his pocket and dumped the seeds into Maddie’s hands. They were ill-conceived, cucumber seeds, and other vegetable seeds that the farmer had given to her husband. She laid the seeds on the table and brought Jacob inside.
There was very little left to eat, but she cooked every bit of it and fed it to Jacob. He needed the nutrition. In the coming days Jacob bartered and took jobs as a day laborer on local farms to help make ends meet. When the weather was warm enough, he tore up the front yard of the little house and turned it into a vegetable garden using the seeds he had been given by the farmer. He bartered for the rent with the landlord and did work for him to catch up on the back rent. Maddie tended that little garden lovingly and it produced abundant food for them and enough for them to trade in barter and to sell.
She had asked Jacob about how he’d gotten the food and fuel to the house and he told her that he had nothing to do with it. They discussed it at length and came to the conclusion that that dear little grocery store owner who had promised him that he would not let Maddie starve had kept his word and brought her groceries from his closed store—even though he was dead. The explanation was as good as any other they could come up with. In fact, they truly believed it to be true. No one gave away food and no one knew about Maddie and Jacob’s plight. They had no friends or family in Spokane at that time.
Perhaps it is true that that little grocery store owner came from the dead to keep his word to young Jacob. Perhaps it is true that he saved Maddie’s life on at least two occasions by bringing her fuel and food. There are some people who truly believe that keeping their word is more important than anything else—and I would wager that the owner of that little grocery store was one of them.
My Supernatural World 