does rather smack of a story as is told like that with no names?
A haunted house.
(From the “St Louis Globe-Democrat.” [a Missouri paper])
In one of the most pleasant and aristocratic localities of our city, a few evenings ago, there were some strange manifestations, by some supposed to be spiritual doings. The bells began to ring. First the front door bell, then the servants’, then the kitchen, and then all the bells rang at once. The inmates watched first one and then another of the bells, but they always rang when they were not watching. After guarding outdoors and in until exhausted, and they had become extremely alarmed, the ringing stopped at 3.30 in the morning. The servant girls gave notice that they would leave next day, but to quiet them the gentleman of the house told them that the disturbance was caused only by electricity, and he would have the bells fixed; and away he went to see the bell-hangers, and get them to ascertain what was the matter. They tightened some of the wires and loosened others, spending nearly a day in the work. “All right, now,” said they to the gentleman, “you’ll have no further trouble.” But the bell-hangers had barely reached the street when all the bells began to ring again, and with astonishing violence.
The next evening at eleven o’clock the invisible bell-ringers began their clanging music again, and continued it half an hour before reaching the closing note. For two evenings they acted only as they were acted upon by the tangible fingers of doubting Thomases. It was thought that electricity had completed its work, and there would be no more trouble; but that thought was a mistake. In the morning the beds of the children were found moved across the room, the location of other pieces of furniture changed to different parts of the room, the pictures broken down, and the cords cut. The children denied they knew anything about it, with the exception of the eldest, who said he had heard loud raps around the room. This disturbance was repeated three evenings, when the children were removed into the parents’ room, as they were all too much frightened to sleep in their own apartment.
The next evening, however, they returned to it, and they were just comfortably turned in for th enight, when the piano began to play. They opened the door and listened, and it played most beautifully, accompanying a lady’s voice in song. They then went down stairs and opened the parlour doors, when the music ceased, and the instrument was found locked, with no indications that any one was near or had been there.
For five nights peace and quiet reigned within, the children occupying the room adjoining that of the parents, the door being left open between the apartments. One little boy went to bed on the sixth night at eight o’clock, and he had not been there long before the family saw the bed moving across the room; and loud rappings and other singular noises were heard on the furniture. The little fellow was taken into the parents’ chamber again, when an invisible power picked him up, lifting him three feet, and carried him along and placed him back in his bed. The terrified parents were now satisfied that it was not done by any human agency.
While meditating as to what should be done, the family standing in a group in one corner of the room, they all saw what appeared to be a little boy emerge from the fireplace. He looked natural, but thin and pale. He went toward the door, and then vanished before their eyes. This frightened them more than ever. They made their beds on the floor, and all slept together.
In the morning the gentleman related the whole occurrence to an old friend, and that person said he had heard of a gentleman in the city of the name of Charles Tuckett, who was posted in spiritual phenomena, and he would hunt him up and see if he could solve the mysterious problem. Seeing the latter as per agreement, Mr Tuckett, with a clairvoyant and trance medium (the beautiful daughter of one of our wealthy citizens), and two gentlemen (not Spiritualists) repaired to the disturbed residence and agitated family at eight o’clock the following evening. A circle was formed, consisting of the persons just mentioned and the family.
The medium soon being under “spiritual control,” said: “I see a lady by you, madam. She is tall, with dark hair, and says she is your sister. A little boy is holding her hand.” The sister-spirit then took control of the medium, and said: – “Sister, when I died you promised to take care of my two little children. You neglected them, and this one now with me in the spirit world died from neglect. It is the same little fellow you saw in your room. You placed them among strangers and they were cruelly treated. This one died, and the other is being used cruelly by the persons you have placed him with. I desire you to bring him away to-morrow and take care of him as one of your own, as you promised me. If you do not I will trouble you more than you ever dream. Your own little boy is a medium, through whom I can operate. If you take care of my little boy I will trouble you no more, but will be around you to impress your mind with all that is good and lovely, and will be a guardian angel to you and yours, greeting you when you cross the river to where I am. Teach my boy to love me and abe a good and true man. Goodbye- your sister.” The medium came out of her trance perfectly ignorant of what had transpired.
The boy was brought away, and there has been no trouble of any kind at the haunted mansion since.
Spiritualist, 5th October 1877.
(in the Wilmington Delaware Daily Gazette for May 2nd, 1876)