Read Kentucky Hauntings for Free Online Page B

trunk in the corner of the cellar. He cleaned the poker and went back to bed. Sometime before dawn, the storm moved on.
    The next morning, the farmer's wife was surprised to find the peddler gone. She had expected him to stay for breakfast.
    â€œWhere is he?” she asked.
    â€œHe left as soon as the storm let up,” her husband told her. “He said he wanted to get an early start.”
    She knew that peddlers did want to get an early start sometimes, so she thought no more about it. Soon after, while the wife and children were visiting neighbors, the farmer took the body and the trunk with the money out of his cellar and buried them where only he would know where to look. He figured he could get whatever amount of money he needed from the trunk when he needed it.
    The farmer was shrewd enough not to pay off all his debts at once. He did not want to make anyone suspicious. He justified his killing the peddler by telling himself over and over that he had worked hard all his life and deserved some good luck, even if he had to create it for himself. Now all he had to do was wait and spend the money a little at a time. Nobody would suspect a thing. He would not have to pay for this crime.
    Some time later, another storm came up right after supper. There was no guest that night, but the family ate early and went to bed as they had done before. The farmer's wife was just dozing off when she heard noises in the living room. She heard footsteps, a thud, and the sound of something being dragged to the cellar. She gave her husband a shake.
    â€œWake up!” she said. “Somebody is in the house.”
    â€œIt's just the storm,” he told her.
    â€œNo!” she insisted. “I heard something inside!”
    Just to satisfy his wife, he got out of bed and went into the living room.
    â€œNothing's in here!” he called.
    â€œCheck the cellar,” she told him.
    She heard her husband open the cellar door, and then she heard him scream! She sat up in bed as she heard what sounded like an inert body thumping from step to step to the bottom of the stairs. Her children were out of bed now and joined her as she hurried down to where the farmer's body lay. Nobody knows what he saw, but the look of fright on his face sent the wife and children running up the stairs to send for the sheriff.
    The sheriff concluded that the farmer had tripped accidentally on the stairs and fallen to his death. He saw no reason to search the cellar.
    The family tried to stay on in the house, but on stormy nights strange sounds kept them awake. They searched, but they could never find the source. Finally, they had to move away. Others bought the house and heard the same noises. One farmer plowing the field near the barn turned up the remains of a man and a trunk filled with money. The sheriff had no proof, but it was evident what had happened. Nobody wanted to live there after that, so the house was eventually torn down.
    Since the peddler was never given a proper burial, some wonder if his ghost is still out there somewhere on stormy nights, hoping someone will help him find eternal rest.

Stories from Headlines
    O ur families were very interested in the news they heard. We did not get daily or weekly newspapers, but our relatives in cities would sometimes send us newspapers or articles. Discussion of a particularly dramatic story would go on and on. There are so many stories on TV, computers, or in newspapers and magazines today that any one story does not remain as popular. New stories come along so fast that a story that captures the imagination one day is replaced by another the next day.
    Some of the best stories passed on to us were those that the tellers learned from headlines and news articles. We didn't often see these sources ourselves; some of these stories happened before we were born. In this section we retell stories that intrigued friends or family enough that they read them and passed them on in their own words.