Read an Excerpt
The Thing at the Foot of the Bed
And Other Scary Tales
By Maria Leach, Kurt Werth Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 1959 Maria Leach
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-81210-6
CHAPTER 1
Funny Ones
Six little ghostses
Sittin' on postses
Eatin' buttered toastses
The Thing at the Foot of the Bed
Once there was a man and they dared him to sleep all night in a haunted house.
"All right," he said. He wasn't scared of anything. He'd sleep there. No such thing as ghosts, anyway.
So he went into the house and looked around. Everything looked all right. So he went upstairs. Everything looked all right. So he went to bed.
He lay there in bed a while and listened. He didn't hear anything. So he went to sleep. It was a warm night, so he had no covers but a sheet.
The man slept a while, and then suddenly he woke up. He listened. He didn't hear anything.
The moon was shining bright through the open window. So — very carefully — very quietly — he looked around. And he saw, down at the foot of the bed, two shiny eyes staring right at him. They looked something like this:
They didn't even blink.
Was that a head — a face?
The man thought he could make out the top of a flat crooked head.
He was scared.
He didn't dare move.
But softly, very softly, he slid his hand up under the pillow and pulled out the revolver he'd brought with him.
He aimed at the thing, right between the eyes. He was so scared, though, that his hand trembled and wiggled and shook, and ...
(SCREAM)
Here the teller of the tale gives a terrifying scream — and is then silent. Finally, when someone says, "What was it?" he explains, "The poor scared fool shot off his own big toe." (His feet were sticking out below the sheet, and the moonlight shining on the nails of his big toes looked like two ghostly eyes.)
Here We Go!
Once there was a rich farmer who had a fine farm, fine horses and cattle, a fine big house, and a fine wife and several children. He was a very happy man — happy, that is, except for one thing. There was a boggart in the house.
Boggart is a north-of-England word for a kind of trick-playing spirit which takes up its abode in people's houses and barns. Some say it is a ghost, and some say it is just a mischief-maker. It never really hurts anyone, but it can play a lot of painful practical jokes.
This farmer and his wife had a boggart. It used to walk around in the house at night and pull the covers off of people. It used to knock on the door and when the sleepy farmer got up and went downstairs to open it, there would be nobody there.
It used to fall downstairs in the dark, making an awful racket, and when the wife ran into the hall, fearing it was one of the children, all the children would be safely asleep in bed.
Sometimes it would just tap, tap, tap in the night on the lid of the linen chest. Sometimes it would roll a heavy ball across the floor, time and again, so no one could sleep, or let it go bump-bumping down the stairs. One night it threw all the pots and pans down the cellar stairs. That was a clatter!
Once in a while the boggart would pitch in and help the family. It would wash the dishes when the farmer's wife wasn't looking; or sometimes it would churn the butter or collect the eggs. It would feed and water the cows and horses. But more often than not it would tie knots in their tails or let them loose in the night so the farmer had to go looking for them. Once it broke all the cups and saucers.
One of its favorite tricks was to blow all the smoke back down the chimney whenever anyone tried to light a fire. Or it would blow out the match just when someone was trying to make a light.
At last the farmer and his wife got tired of all this. They could put up with a prank now and then. But this boggart was so annoying and troublesome that something had to be done.
So they decided to move. They decided to move to a new house on a big farm far away where there would be no boggarts.
The man and his wife and children packed up all their belongings and piled them high on the big wagon.
Just as they were about to drive off, a neighbor came by and said, "Oh, are you moving?"
"Yes," said the man. He explained that the boggart's tricks had at last become unbearable. They could not stand their boggart any longer, so they were moving.
So the neighbor wished them luck, and they drove off. Then from the top of the load they heard a little voice say happily, "Well, here we go! We're off!"
Ghost Race
1. The Guitar Player
Once there was a man who played the guitar in the streets of Paramaribo in Surinam (Dutch Guiana).
He played all day and as late into the night as people would listen and give him a little money. Sometimes he was paid to come into their houses and play for parties.
He was a very fine player.
One night very late he was going home from a party and was playing the guitar softly to himself as he went along.
He met a man in the road and the man said, "Will you let me play it?"
So he said, "Sure!" and handed the guitar to the stranger. The stranger played marvelously. His playing was more wonderful than any the man had ever heard in his life.
"Man! That's how to play the guitar!" he said.
"Well —" said the other modestly, "that used to be my work when I was living."
"Gosh! Are you dead?" And the man began to run.
"Here! You forgot your guitar!"
The other ran after him. "Here's your guitar!" he yelled.
"Keep it!" the man yelled back.
But the other caught up with him. "Here's your guitar," he said.
"Keep it!" And the man ran faster than ever.
At last he got home and fell into bed. And when he opened the door in the morning, there was his guitar on the doorstep.
2. Never Mind Them Watermelons
Once there was a man who said he didn't believe in ghosts, didn't believe in haunts, didn't believe in haunted houses. Another man said he'd give him a whole wagonload of water-melons if he would spend the night in a certain old empty house down the road.
The man said, sure, he'd sleep there, so he picked up his matches and tobacco and set out. He went in the house and lighted his pipe. He sat down in a chair and started to read the paper.
Pretty soon something sat down beside him and said, "Ain't nobody here but you and me?"
"Ain't gonna be nobody but you in a minute," said the man. So he jumped out the window and started to run. He ran pretty fast, overtook two rabbits going the same way. Pretty soon something caught up with him and said, "Well, you makin' pretty good speed."
"Oh, I can run faster than this," said the man — and did.
When he passed the man who gave him the dare, he said, "Never mind about them watermelons."
Wait Till Martin Comes
That big house down the road was haunted. Nobody could live in it.
The door was never locked. But nobody ever went in. Nobody would even spend a night in it. Several people had tried but came running out pretty fast.
One night a man was going along that road on his way to the next village. He noticed that the sky was blackening. No moon. No stars. Big storm coming for sure.
He had a long way to go. He knew he couldn't get home before it poured.
So he decided to take shelter in that empty house by the road. He had heard it was haunted. But shucks! Who believed in ghosts? No such thing.
So he went in. He built himself a nice fire on the big hearth, pulled up a chair, and sat down to read a book.
He could hear the rain beating on the windows. Lightning flashed. The thunder cracked around the old building.
But he sat there reading.
Next time he looked up there was a little gray cat sitting on the hearth.
That was all right, he thought. Cozy.
He went on reading. The rain went on raining.
Pretty soon he heard the door creak and a big black cat came sauntering in.
The first cat looked up.
"What we goin' to do with him?"
"Wait till Martin comes," said the other.
The man went right on reading.
Pretty soon he heard the door creak and another great big black cat, as big as a dog, came in.
"What we goin' to do with him?" said the first cat.
"Wait till Martin comes."
The man was awful scared by this time, but he kept looking in the book, pretending to be reading.
Pretty soon he heard the door creak and a great big black cat, as big as a calf, came in.
He stared at the man. "Shall we do it now?" he said.
"Wait till Martin comes," said the others.
The man just leaped out of that chair, and out the window, and down the road.
"Tell Martin I couldn't wait!" he said.
Big Fraid and Little Fraid
Once there was a little boy who was not afraid of anything.
He used to go out on errands and come home long after dark.
His father didn't like this and tried everything to make him come home on time. But the boy paid no attention.
"Aren't you afraid?" the father said.
"What is a fraid?" said the boy. "I never saw a fraid."
"You will!" said the father.
He used to send the little boy to bring home the cows in the evening. And the boy would always come in late, singing in the road in the dark.
So the man decided to put a stop to it.
One night he got a big white sheet and put it over his head and went down to the gate to wait for the boy.
Now this man had a pet monkey who used to follow him around. When the monkey saw the man put the sheet over his head, he grabbed a little white cloth off a little table and put it over his own head and followed the man out of the house.
The man did not know the monkey was following.
The man went and hid behind the big white gatepost. And when the monkey saw that, he hid behind the other gatepost.
It got late; it got dark. And soon the boy came along home.
He saw the big white shape by the gatepost.
"Oh! That must be a fraid," he said. But he was not frightened.
"Oh! There's another fraid!" he said.
So the man thought if there was another one, there must be a real one there!
He looked. And he saw a little white figure bouncing up and down by the other gatepost.
He was scared to death and lit out for the house with his white sheet flapping behind him. When the monkey saw his master ) " run, he ran after him.
"Look at Big Fraid running away from Little Fraid!" said the boy.
The Lucky Man
Once there was a man lying in bed asleep. And he woke up.
He heard something flapping.
He got up. He walked softly to the window.
And he saw it.
It was white — flapping in the moonlight. It was under a tree. It would flap its arms out in the moonlight and then slip back into the shadow of the tree.
"It's a ghost," thought the man. "I'll fix him before he gets into the house."
Very stealthily he took his gun down off the wall where he hung it at night. And he shot holes in the flapping thing, one after another. But it went on flapping.
At last the man went back to bed. If he hadn't killed it, at least he had scared it, he thought, for it stayed in the shadow of the tree and came no nearer.
In the morning the man got up and went downstairs. His wife was already in the kitchen.
"You fool!" she said. "Shooting your clean nightshirt full of holes!" (She had washed it the day before and hung it in the tree to dry.)
"My nightshirt!" said the man. "Gosh! Lucky I wasn't in it!"
CHAPTER 2
Scary Ones
The Golden Arm
Once there was a man had a woman for a wife named Elvira, and this woman had a golden arm. She was awful proud of it. It was solid shining gold from the shoulder clear down to the nail of her little finger. She liked it even better than the real one.
Every night when she went to bed she used to say to her husband, "If I die first, promise to bury me with my golden arm."
"Yes, Elviry, I promise," the man would say, night after night after night.
Well, it happened that the woman got sick and died. The man buried her and her golden arm along with her, just as he had promised.
But after a while he began to think about it. He began to think about what he could do with all that gold. It seemed a shame for it just to lie there in the ground. He began to want the golden arm. And the more he thought about it, the more he wanted it.
So one dark night in the middle of the night he decided to go get it. He put on his long dark coat and he lighted his lantern and he went trudging through the cold dark lanes till he came to the graveyard. And he dug up Elvira and took the golden arm.
He tucked it under his long coat and started back home. On the way home it started to rain, hail, snow, and blow. But he didn't think anything of that. He got home all right.
When he got home he didn't know where to hide the golden arm, so he pushed it under the covers of the bed. Then he jumped into bed himself and shivered and shook. He couldn't get warm because the golden arm was cold as ice.
And the wind rose and he heard a voice wailing
W-H-E-E-R-E'-S M-Y G-O-O-L-D-E-N A-A-A-R-M?
The man pulled the covers up over his head so he wouldn't hear it. But he heard it just the same.
He heard it coming down the road. It was crying in the road
W-H-E-E-R-E'-S M-Y-Y
and on the porch
G-O-O-L-D-E-N
and at the door
A-A-A-R-M?
And the wind howled over the top of the door
W-H-E-E-R-E'-S M-Y G-O-L-D-E-N A-A-R-M?
The man shivered and shook under the covers. Then he peeked out.
And he saw it.
It was by the bed.
And — it pounced
YOU'VE GOT IT!
* * *
This is one of the most famous scary stories told. It is said to have been told around every Boy and Girl Scout campfire ever kindled.
This is the story Mark Twain used to tell to scare whole audiences. And he explained that it is the timing of the pause just before the pounce that makes for success or failure in the telling. If you get the pause just right, he said, someone in the audience will surely scream!
I have told the story here as well as I can remember of the way it was told to me in Shelburne County, Nova Scotia. It is a windy-night story, they say. Whenever the east wind howls loud and lonesome over a door at night, someone says, "Elvira wants her golden arm."
The Dare
Once there was a bunch of youngsters sitting in front of a fire telling ghost stories and trying to scare each other. There had been a funeral in the village that day. An old man had been buried that afternoon, an old man noted for his crankiness and cussing. The boys had used to torment him, just to hear him rage in helpless fury.
One of the group said if anyone walked on that old man's grave at midnight, he would reach up and grab him.
"Oh, rot! No such thing!" said a boy named Jim.
"Well, I dare you!" said another.
"I dare you!"
"I dare you! "
They all joined in.
"All right!" said the bragging one. "I don't believe in ghosts. I'll go do it."
"I dare you!"
"I'll do it, and I'll stick my jackknife in the grave! And you can all go see it in the morning."
So the party broke up.
When midnight came, the boy named Jim started for the graveyard. It was awful quiet. The tombstones made long shadows in the moonlight. He was pretty scared. But he could not back out now, so he went on.
Could the old geezer reach up and grab him? he wondered. He wished he had not been so smart and taken on this dare.
But he went on.
He came to the grave. He took out his jackknife and opened it. He knelt down and jabbed it blindly into the mound over the grave.
Then he started to get up and run home. But he could not move! Something had grabbed him. He could not budge from the grave.
The next day was a school day and Jim was absent from his classes.
The boys all wondered where he was. And at noontime several of them decided to go to the graveyard and see if Jim had left his jackknife sticking in the grave.
When they got there they found Jim lying in a little heap on the new-made mound.
In his haste and panic he had thrust the knife through his own coattails. He had pinned himself to the old man's grave, and had died of fright.
I'm in the Room!
Once there was a young woman named Rosie, who lived in a small Louisiana town. She could see ghosts.
She didn't really like seeing them. The very first time she saw one she was awful scared. But after a while she got used to it.
The first time Rosie ever saw a ghost she was lying in bed all alone. She was just about to go to sleep, when suddenly she opened her eyes and there was a ghost.
It was tall and white.
It said, "Rosie, I'm in the room."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Thing at the Foot of the Bed by Maria Leach, Kurt Werth. Copyright © 1959 Maria Leach. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
