Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans

Up from the Sea

Up From the Sea The sea hath its dead. But how well it holds them is another matter. There is the Seamen's Bethel on Saint Thomas street. This property was acquired by the Presbyterians in 1860 and adapted to its present use. Before that one of its buildings had been a private residence. Shortly after it had been renovated and furnished for the accommodation of sailors, whispers began to go the rounds— weird tales of mysterious shapes and sounds, the coming and going of ghostly feet, and a strange and puzzling pantomime. Seamen told of two vague forms—and occasionally not so vague •—that climbed the stairs and went in at each chamber door, as though they were searching desperately for someone they never could find. Lodgers awoke in a cold sweat, to see two shifting Somethings bending over them, swaying and twisting and giving off a smell of rotting fish and bitter salt. Some thought it was fog, and got up to shut the window. Some thought it was smoke, and aroused fellow sleepers. Some thought it was moonlight; but when they turned over for another nap, there came a tugging at the bedclothes, and two queer faces peered down out of the still darkness, the mouths agape and the eyes like shining shells. There began to be tales about two misty shapes passing up and down the stairs, and from one end of the hall to the other—back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes there was faint music—a boyish soprano very far away, but moving with the shapes. Doors opened and closed. And then one night a seaman, bolder than the rest, watchSo (1840) Up From the Sea 81 ing the two uneasy wisps of vapor moving round and round his bed, cried out to them, demanding to know their mission or their grievance. At once came the reply, in a thin, faraway wail. "Mother, Mother! Where's Mother?" the voice called. "I've brought Julian back to Mother! Mother, where are you? I never can find you—Mother, Mother!" Then, as the sailor raised himself on an elbow, the two visitors stood before him clear and plain—a young seaman in dripping oilskins, and by his side a slender boy with seaweed for clothing. A moment they tarried, then vanished. "I looked on faces of the dead," the sailor told himself. "They spoke to me, because I was not afraid. All these other ninnies have been too scared to find out what the ghosts wanted!" He recounted it to his comrades the next morning, laughing loudly and bragging at his own bravery. But at noon he died. They said he choked to death, staring terrified at Something which the others could not see. One there was who made it his secret business to inquire and remember and piece together. He learned that about 1840, when the house was built, a newly married couple by the name of Weaver came there to live. During the ensuing decade they had five children. The youngest was a boy, named Julian. When he was between four and five he was spirited away by some stranger, and never was seen again. In frantic grief the family searched the country over, but to no avail. The mother always clung to the belief that he would come back, no matter how long he might be away. Later the eldest son, Edward, went to sea. His ship, the Steven Gaunt, was wrecked, and of all the crew and passengers but one survived. That one sailor came to New Orleans and established a home. He it was who related, when storms roared and rains spattered down the chimney, the story of young Edward Weaver who shipped on the Steven Gaunt and discovered his long-lost brother as cabin boy. They were inseparable , these two, going over and over again the joyful story they would have to tell when they returned home. How happy they would all be again—and Mother would bake a 82 Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans great cake, with all the candles it could hold, because Julian, who had been away forever, would never be lost again! They used to play at the various ways she was to be told the glorious news, rehearsing this speech and that, laughing and joking and planning gifts with which to surprise her. But they never lived to come home. Only...