Another Tall Tale

ANOTHER TALL TALE
Our Haunted House
(c)Copyrighted Franchot Lewis 1997

Now-a-days you don't hear of so many haunted houses. Today's houses,
made of brick, that have good electric lighting, storm windows, gas
furnaces, central heating and no chimneys, aren't places where ghosts
prefer to haunt. When I was a little girl every town had a haunted
house, some had two, and in the old neighborhoods, there were at least
three.

In the years 1923 to 1925 I lived in a haunted house. It was a large,
old frame building where no family lived in for long. The house was owned
by Mr. Sam Flowers, a cotton planter, who owned houses in several towns
in the two counties where he had his farming business. People said that
a murder took place in the house years ago. My parents, like the folks
who were Mr. Flowers tenants before us, mocked people who were
superstitious and who believed in ghosts. My mother was a lady who wasn't
afraid of anybody. She smoked cigarettes, even out in the street, at a
time when women weren't suppose to smoke. This outraged my grandmother
and my grandmother's friends, and it shocked some of my mother's friends.
My mother thought nothing of shocking them. And she answered my grandmother's
demonstrations, calls to social sanity and order, with, "Well mother, you pinch snuff!"

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