Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans

The Beautiful Lost Children

(j88o\ The Beautiful Lost Children The passion for gold is stronger than death, it appears. Across from the cemetery at Saratoga street and Jackson avenue stands a double house, set on a line with the banquette. Iri other years Pierre Lefevre lived there, working like mad for the gold which he hoarded year after year. Never was there enough to satisfy him.He denied himself everything, living on scraps of stale food which he contrived to collect after working-hours, and allowing himself to burn but one inch of tallow candle each night. The neat stacks of gold coins grew slowly but steadily. They were his god,his complete existence. He hid them in the chimney by day, in a niche which he had cunningly constructed . But the thought of their being stolen tormented him during every waking hour, and brought him hideous dreams when he slept. "Some day I shall spend it and live like a king," he used to assure himself feverishly. But the years crept on and Pierre never could bear to part with even one beautiful shining coin. "They are my little children," he would mutter, sitting in the sunshine on Sunday. "Their hair is yellow in the sun—how could I part with my beautiful little children? Who would love them and take care of them as Ido?" But when he was very old he grew frightened. His joints were stiff with rheumatism and his back was bent almost double. His fingers were knotted and his teeth were gone. And one day old Pierre knew the end was near. 224 The Beautiful Lost Children 225 "My ears are too deaf to hear thieves," he whimpered, fondling the pretty coins. "And my sight is so poor I scarce can see you, my beautiful ones. There is no joy left to living—I am lame and sick and very tired. I must put you to bed and tuck you in tight, where you will be safe and snug." So that night he stumbled out into the rear yard and dug a deep, deep hole. It must be deep enough so that the little golden children would be warm in their new bed. He laid them all into it, carefully, tenderly, and tamped the earth down solidly above them. Then he piled on a great heap of trash and refuse and broken wood. That night old Pierre died. But old Pierre comes back. Tired and bent and in sore trouble, he hobbles across from the cemetery and moves painfully about the yard at night, muttering and shaking his gnarled old fists at whomsoever dares to set foot along the path. They are there somewhere, his little golden children—somewhere beneath the roots of the four o'clocks and the petunias and the night jasmines. But he cannot find them. He pokes and pries on painfully bent old knees, groaning and twisting in agony as he digs his ghostly nails into the dewy soil. Why don't they answer when he calls? He croons to them in his ghostly old voice, saying over soft, endearing names. But they never answer a word. Sometimes, the neighbors will tell you, he brings others to help him—the ghost of an old woman, and two or three masculine shapes, all troubled and anxious. When they appear in their weird graveclothes, every leaf and flower stands still as death. The air in the yard grows cold as death, too, and a trifle stale and strange and altogether terrible. When old Pierre reaches a certain spot in the yard, he stamps his ghostly feet upon the ground and utters a dreadful, despairing cry. Then suddenly he vanishes, and the flowers sway again in the night breeze. Numberless persons have dug in that yard. They have watched old Pierre from a safe distance, and have gone to the very spot and dug as deep as a well. But they have found nothing . Yet old Pierre comes back and back. Neighbors admonish unruly children, "If you're not good, old Pierre Lefevre will 226 Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans catch you and put you into a hole tonight, along with his other children." Poor old Pierre, with his clawing ghostly hands and his broken ghostly heart! . . . ...