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OfGhosts and Graveyards by Gaylord Cooper I can remember the first warm days of spring when I was growing up. In the evening when all the chores wçre finished and darkness was falling, the grownups would gather on the front porch and talk about the coming crops, the past winter, and....GHOSTS. The kids would play hide and seek or kick the can until it was completely dark. There were always playmates around—a brother or sister, an abundance of cousins, and maybe a neighbor or two from up or down the hollow. When the ghost stories began, we would all come and sit quietly on the edge of the porch and listen. We were always fascinated by these tales. The adults always told them as the truth, but we kids had our doubts. Never mind that the stories scared us witless. Well, that has been more than a few years ago, and I, like every other hardworking , self-respecting adult, profess ever so loudly that I don't believe in ghosts and have no fear oflonely old graveyards at midnight. Fine. Now, how many of us have ever walked a lonely, deserted country road at night and not stopped to listen from time to time? And haven't we all, in this setting and rather foolishly too, glanced over our shoulders now and then? Someone once said, "Don't look back—something may be gaining on you." Sounds like he walked a few dark roads himself. And Graveyards. Not the neat manicured lawns and evenly spaced headstones of the newer cemeteries, but the old forgotten ones, the ones long overgrown by the wild honeysuckle and periwinkle. The ones guarded by gnarled, ancient oaks or those tall dark pines that seem to grow so well in such places. You know, the places where the night wind plays so softly in the branches that you can never be sure you didn't hear someone, or something calling you. These are the old and long forgotten burying places that cause one to increase his pace without meaning to, when passing. Jim was one ofthose people who didn't take much stock in the talk ofghosts. He had his knife and his thirty-eight pistol and he just hadn't run into anyone or 27 anything that he couldn't handle with either or both. He was coming home from a dance one Saturday night and his way took him out the old ridge road where he had to turn onto the Cameron road. You could probably cut offa halfmile from this particular route by taking an unused, overgrown road that led past the old Ebo graveyard. The road was long unused and most people avoided it. Especially at night. Not Jim, though. He had just started up the short cut when the moon went behind a big dark cloud. This wasn't too unusual and Jim stumbled along until the moon came from behind the cloud. Jim put his hand out to touch the corner post of the poplar pole fence and stopped. Cold. He didn't believe it. Something was walking toward him on the top rail of the fence. At first he thought it was a bear. A second look convinced him it wasn't. Its arms were way too long. Bear or some other beast, it didn't matter. Jim jerked out his thirty-eight and let go at it. Bang! Bang! The smoke hadn't cleared from the last shot when the thing let out a squeal loud enough, Jim was sure, to wake all the dead in the graveyard and a few in the next county. Jim aimed his pistol again but the creature squealed again and jumped. Landed right on Jim's back and tried to ride him to the ground. Jim dropped his thirty-eight and pulled his pocket knife. He reached behind him and gave a couple of real good cuts. He couldn't hit anything. He tried once more and still couldn't feel anything. He dropped the knife and tried to grab behind with both hands. This didn't do any good either. He finally struggled out of his coat and...

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