The Ghost Farm - Susan Andrews Rice

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The Ghost Farm by Susan Andrews Rice.

When Stephen was killed, we did not know it until 30 days afterwards.

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 a railroad track and was blown to pieces by a German shell.

We could not tell Mady 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 Stephen and me that drives me frantic.

She bursts out one day when I was making her a visit.

She had been reading a letter from Stephen, and it lay on 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, Mady, I said.

Better leave such people alone.

The wiki board then.

It seems rather like a silly game, but I shook my head.

That way madness lies, I quoted.

I wouldn't, Mady.

Stephen 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 that she was reading everything she could find

about spirit and medication, although I never heard of her making any attempt to reach

Stephen in that way.

I was very busy that fall with influenza cases, and Mady went into red crosswork, 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 Mady was drifting into Melancholia.

Mady 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 Mady's lover.

Her mother had informed me that her walks were always in one direction.

Thinking of that, I asked, why do you always walk along the river road, Mady?

She turned a vivid pink.

You wouldn'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 Stephen 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 schoolhouse 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 live there.

Early hawks 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 Stephen 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, someday, 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 am afraid you couldn't, she replied.

No one knows it is there, but Stephen and me.

Then my dear Maddie, it exists only in your imagination, I told her.

She smiled as one smiles at a child, who doubts one's word, and she went away.

I studied her case carefully.

A good psych analyst might be able to help her, but I was not skillful 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 Stephen's

waiting at the ghost farm.

He was very sweet about a seeding to the demands and requests, though sometimes she could

obstinately refuse to listen to them.

August brought hot weather.

The extreme heat wore upon our nerves, everybody relaxed.

Released from vigilant watchfulness, Maddie left the house unnoticed.

A terrific thunderstorm came up, and Maddie's mother was beside herself.

She had been lying down taking a nap when Maddie slipped away.

She telephoned to me when the shower was over, as Maddie was not missed until then.

I got out 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.

Then suddenly I stopped in my tracks.

The sun had come out, and I saw the ghost farm.

It was exactly as Maddie had described it.

A stretch of green fields, a small white house with green blinds, hollyhocks growing by

the kitchen door, milk pans glittering in the sun, drying on a table, cows fluttering on

the 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.

When I perceived a tall oak tree split in half by a bolt of lightning.

At the foot of the tree lay Maddie, on the wet ground, a smile of rapture on her upturned

face.

I knelt beside her and examined hard and pulse.

Nothing could be done.

Her spirit had left its earthly body.

She had gone to be with Stephen.

At the end of the ghost farm, by Susan Andrews Rice.