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The Ghost in the Tower
The Ghost in the Tower
An Episode in Jacobia
By Earl H. Reed
Privately Printed
1921
Copyright, 1921
by Earl H. Reed
“HIGH UP ON ONE OF THE HILLS OF JACOBIA”
The Ghost in the Tower
A GHOST never makes the mistake of appearingbefore more than one person at a time.There may be much logic in this, for the elementof mystery, which is one of the essential attributesto comfortable ghostly existence, would be destroyed ifthat existence should be established at some one timeand place by a preponderance of unimpeachable testimony.
There is a ghost in my friend Jacobs’ water towerover in Michigan, or at least there was one there lastChristmas eve. To me he was visible most of the timeduring a long interview I had with him, and to me hehad all of the elements of reality. Nobody who readsthis narrative will be in a position to dispute his existence,for, so far as I know, he and I were the only occupantsof the tower at the time. If my nebulous friendshould choose to make himself known to somebodyelse, it may furnish material for discussion and comparisonof experiences in the future, but in the meantimecontroversy is quite useless.
To those who do not live in the world of romanceand errant fancy, the winter landscapes along the easternshore of Lake Michigan offer few allurements.[6]The sweeping miles of piled and broken ice, the bleakand desolate bluffs, with their pale brows—fringedwith naked trees—in moody relief against the dullskies, that are flecked with the white forms of the rovingwinter gulls, seem to repel every thought except thatof hoped for creature comforts in some human habitationbeyond. If it were not for these distant aureolesof hope—mirages though they often are—how grayand dreary the world would be.
Notwithstanding a love of Nature in her sternermoods, it was not for this that I journeyed to myfriend’s country retreat in the winter time. I knewthat warm hearted hospitality awaited me in the littlefarm house, nestled among the knolls back of the bluffs.
High up on one of the hills of “Jacobia,” the towerbares its lofty brow to the blasts of the gales. Thehuge structure seems calmly to defy the winter windswhistling through its upper casements and poundingagai