Haints, Spooks and Visions
As the North Carolina Welsh migrated west through the mountains to the flatlands of Boot Heel, Missouri, they brought along their fascination with “haints”(haunts).
Perhaps it was relief from the humdrum of cotton farming. Ghost stories were a diversion.
Family relations on Saturday nights gathered at the home of Uncle Homer and Aunt Liddy who had a Crosley radio set.
The magic contraption could tune in only to WLW Cincinnati. That station’s transmitter tower was so powerful it made nearby bedsprings sing - really.
“The Station With A Soul” mostly played fiddle, banjo, mandolin and guitar music. A harmonica joined this angelic choir for sound effects when they played “The Orange Blossom Special” or “Casey Jones.”
Grownups pulled their chairs close to hear best. We kids made pallets of quilts at their feet. After sign- off at 10 p.m., the adults would take up slack with family memories. These usually included tales of haints, spooks and visions.
Kids who had not fallen asleep listened with fascination.
Ghostly Cats
My favorite “ghost” story - told by Uncle Homer, surely for little ears - involved giant cats. They materialized from thin air in an abandoned cabin to terrorize any one daring to sleep there.
An itinerant field hand took refuge there one night during a raging storm. He made a fire in the fireplace to dry out.
After the fire had burned to embers, a huge cat suddenly materialized. It jumped into the fire embers and kicked them around the floor.
With this the big cat said: “I don’t know whether to attack you now or wait for Martin!” Then the apparition floated up the chimney.
The man rushed to sweep the embers back into the fireplace lest the cabin burn.
Presently another over-size pussycat materialized and kicked embers around. This cat also declared it didn’t know whether “to attack you now or wait for Martin.”
The lost man had enough and ran for the door. He paused long enough to shout: “I don’t know who Martin is; but when he comes, tell him I’ve done been here and gone!”
The Crying Baby
Someone would follow this story with one that still gives me goose bumps.
“Y’all remember when old man Smith died and no one would live in his house. Said it was hainted. Well, finally, a young couple bought it.
“They had a jersey cow to give milk for their baby. The father brought the cow to the backyard every evening to be milked by his wife while he cleaned up.
“She told him that every evening — when she began to milk — the first streams would tinkle the empty pail. With this, she would hear a baby cry. Said it sounded like it came from a big rock nearby.
“Her husband would laugh, but she kept complaining. Finally he got a shovel, moved the rock and dug. Found the skeletons of a baby and a woman. He went and got the sheriff, and everybody in town came to inspect.
“They surmised the bones were of Smith’s wife and baby who he used to say had run away. Back then; women did that because it was hard to get a divorce.
“You know, new-born babies are too young to know they are dead. That baby’s spirit was hungry and cried when it heard milk hitting the pail.”
Testing A Story
Crying, dead babies were a frequent spook story.
There was a bridge over Jimson Creek that was hainted. It was said that an unwed young woman had a baby and threw it from the bridge to drown.
Sometimes, young girls walked over the bridge and declared they heard that baby crying for its mama.
Cousin Marlene said she heard the baby cry many times. Marney was ten years older than me, so I believed her. Whenever I crossed the bridge I stamped my feet to wake up the baby, but I never heard any crying.
My Vision
A frequent topic of Saturday night ghost stories was my mother’s contribution.
“When Sonny (me) was four, we went to see my mama Lindsey in Blytheville (Arkansas). Mama took us to meet her next-door neighbor.
“We talked about the weather and such as Sonny played on the floor with some toys the neighbor gave him. After awhile we noticed he was talking to himself as he played.
“The neighbor lady asked who he was talking to. Sonny said, ‘Billy.’ She looked startled and asked what his friend looked like. Sonny said, ‘He has red hair and a blue suit, and he says these toys are his.’
“That lady turned as white as a sheet, and so did mama. They were so upset, we went home.
“Mama said that a year earlier the neighbor had a four-year-old boy named Billy with red hair who died. He was buried in a blue suit along with a favorite toy!”
Beware 1969
These glimpses into the past or future by children were called “visions.” Ghost-story sessions always included one by Aunt Liddy.
“We were riding in a wagon back in 1920. JB was eight. He said, ‘Look at all those numbers.’ I said ‘Where?’ He replied, ‘In the sky.’
“I looked up and said, ‘Oh, yes, I see them, 1969.’
“‘What numbers?’ said Homer and everyone else. ‘We don’t see anything, no clouds, no nothing.’ But I swear they were plain as day to me and JB.”
This recitation was followed by opinions on the significance of 1969. The usual conclusion was that the world would come to an end then.
Cousin JB, in later years, thought that 1969 probably was when he was going to die. He and the rest of the family worried about 1969 for 49 years, but nothing happened.
JB got married, reared four children, was blessed with six grandchildren and died in 1985. Last time I checked, the world was still spinning on its axis.
All Is Vanity
Uncle Homer had a poster in the hallway that impressed me as a vision - something that seems real but is not quite so. See ILLUSTRATION
Sitting With a Coffin
My father enjoyed the Saturday night gatherings but pooh-poohed haints. Nonetheless, he would contribute an experience he thought both funny and serious.
A prominent farmer who retired “up north” died. His body was shipped to Steele (my birth place) to be buried in his family plot.
The body arrived by train one evening in a sealed coffin during a raging storm. Relatives phoned the depot manager and asked him to recruit “mourners” to sit with the coffin until they could get to town and pick up their dear departed.
In those days, relatives and friends maintained vigil of a deceased person until burial. The depot manager said he would arrange everything.
Among those recruited were my father, several other men and the depot handyman. The latter had to be bribed inasmuch as he was less than eager to fraternize with the dead.
Especially when the Lord was casting lightning and thunder helter-skelter in the dark of night. .
Practical jokes were entertainment those days before television and golf. The manager couldn’t resist the opportunity to test the meld of a corpse, superstitious bystander and unsettling natural elements.
He set up a promising situation with willing partners, and his unsuspecting employee. All gathered in the gloom to perform a neighborly service.
According to plan, there was considerable talk about life after death etc. After awhile, the manager sent the nervous handyman for coffee.
During his absence, the connivers unscrewed the coffin lid and moved the body to the ticket office. One of the pranksters climbed into the coffin, and the lid was laid loosely in place.
About midnight, the men began leaving at intervals for various contrived reasons.
Finally the manager also left “to get cigarettes.” He joined the other conspirators waiting on the baggage dock and tripped the electrical switch to plunge the depot into darkness. .
With this, the substitute corpse threw off the coffin lid, sat up and asked in sonorous tones: “Where did everybody go?”
The handy man didn’t know, but he was overwhelmed by desire to join them.
Unfortunately the coffin and contents were twixt him and the door. No matter. The reluctant mourner dived through the nearest window and accumulated distance with alacrity.
The jokesters had a good laugh. However, they became concerned about their victim and found him, badly cut, in a ditch two blocks away.
They toted him to a doctor to be sewed up - then passed a hat for the doctor’s fee and a consolation prize for the victim.
Thereafter, Dad would allow that sensitivity to haints was silly. “But it won’t hurt none to say a prayer when a rooster crows a deathwatch at midnight.”
Lindsey Williams is a Sun columnist who can be contacted at:
LinWms@earthlink.net
LinWms@lindseywilliams.org
Website: www.lindseywilliams.org with several hundred of Lin’s Editorial & At Large articles written over 40 years.
Also featured in its entirety is Lin’s groundbreaking book “Boldly Onward,” that critically analyzes and develops theories about the original Spanish explorers of America.
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November 25th, 2007 by 
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