One day last summer I came upon two of my friends who were sitting on store boxes and seemed to be very much excited.

"When will we do it?" asked Charley.

"Tonight," answered Ralph.

"Who else will we get," inquired Charley.

"We´ll get -- here he is now," said Ralph as he noticed me.

"What is it boys?" I asked.

"We are going to stay all night in that haunted house everyone is talking about," they both answered. "Will you go with us?"

"Yes," I answered. "When shall we meet?"

"At your house at eight o´clock," said Ralph. Then we went home.

(The reader may be wondering what this conversation is about and I shall explain.) There is an old house near St. Marys Avenue, that was said to be haunted. Especially on dark nights, a light could be seen through the attic window. No one lived in the house. Some evenings there would be very uncanny sounds issue from the attic.

Sometimes the light would burn steadily and sometimes it would come in slow flashes as tho some object had been drawn in front of it. Many investigations had been made in the day time, but nothing could be learned. There was nothing in the attic but a piece of rotten wood and some rags. Sometimes there would be a number of small lights instead of one large one. And this was the mystery we intended to solve.

At eight o´clock we met at my house. Charley had a 22 cal. rifle, and Ralph and I each had a 22 cal. revolver. We had also a box of shells. What we were going to do with the guns, we didn´t know, but we took them along.

"It aught to scare any ghost," said Ralph.

"It may not be the ghost that gets scared," answered Charley.

"Well we´ll stay won´t we?" I asked.

"Sure," they both answered.

"All right, let´s go and get acquainted with the place," I said.

We went to the house and entered by the alley. We each had flash lights and we flashed them around. The interior was more dilapidated then we had imagined. The plastering was mostly all off of the walls and ceiling. It presented a dreary aspect, and each of us shivered.

"This is a ---- of a place," said one of the others. "Almost wish I hadn´t come."

Tho I didn´t like the place none too well myself, I thought it best to keep our spirits up so I said,

"Just think what a nice one we will have to tell the bunch. They wouldn´t come. They thought we wouldn´t."

"Maybe we´ll tell them," said Ralph.

That evening there was a bright moon for a while, and then some clouds appeared that promised a storm.

We arranged that each us should take turns watching an hour at a time. My turn came last. Charley was to watch from nine until until ten, Ralph from ten to eleven, and I was to watch from eleven until twelve and so on thru the night.

Charley's watch passed and so did Ralphs. At last my turn came. Tho it may seem strange, I really went to sleep while the others took their turns. When they wakened me, I thought a ghost had me for sure, and hit Ralph so hard he said he had a notion to tie me up and leave me there. That didn´t scare me, for I knew he wouldn´t do it. I took my turn.

I had the rifle and both revolvers in reach, and they were loaded. I had my watch in my hand and counted about twenty nine of the first thirty minutes. The moon was still shining, but the clouds were almost to it. For about ten more minutes it began to grow darker and to thunder. Then the rain came. A few more minutes and I thought I heard something. I jumped and came down on Charley and he in turn swung at something, possibly me, and hit Ralph, who then awoke.

"What is this?" he asked.

"I thought I heard something," I answered.

We all listened. Certainly there was a scratching sound which seemed to come from the outside. We took the guns and went out. We saw nothing. We returned to the room. We heard more scratching sounds but thought it was rats. It was getting very dark by now and we spoke in whispers. Suddenly someone, I don´t remember who, gave a gasp.

"Oh look up there," in a whisper

We looked. There was a dull glow that we could see through the lathes of the ceiling where the plaster was off. We were actually scared stiff. We also heard something up there; some plastering fell. This brought us to our senses. Each one grabbed the other. At that instant an extra large quantity of plastering fell, and with it came the light, and a number of small dark objects that instantly disappeared.

We made a dash for the door but in our hurry we took the wrong door. This one was shut and bolted. We left the guns where they had fallen. We all leaned against the door and stared. It was possibly five minutes before we recovered. As nothing happened we gained a little courage and took a step toward the other door, watching the light. As we came near it, we stopped. Ralph took a step towards it, and Charley and I each had a hold of an arm. We took another step nearer, and I stopped to get my revolver. Ralph put his hand towards it.

"It a´int hot boys," he said. (Don´t correct his grammar. He was excited.)

Then Charley, for some reason or other, flashed a flashlight at it. We saw nothing in its light but the wood and plaster that had fallen down. This was too much. We gave a yell, and this time made for the right door and we were soon out of the vicinity. When we finally stopped a person near might have heard such exclamations as these:

"Never again."

"Don´t speak to me of that place."

"Who said we´d tell the bunch."

"The ghost can rest undisturbed from now on as far as I´m concerned."

"The guns can stay there."

"Wonder what it was?"

After we got over our excitement we went to some boy´s barn, where we had a club room, and prepared to stay there all night. We sat up for a long time discussing our adventure. We finally decided to go back the next day, which was Sunday, and get our guns and look around a little. We did that and got our guns. That afternoon, Sunday, I went back by myself. I picked up a piece of wood that had fallen with the plastering. I wanted it to remember this episode by. (I took it home and laid it on the dresser in my room. I thought no more about it.)

That night poppa and mamma went to church, and the rest went some place. I came in about nine o´clock and went into my room. There on the dresser was something that gave forth a dull glow. My room is at the head of the stairs, the door opening directly in front of the stairs.

I actually fell half way down the staircase and caught myself, but then I went down about as quick. I ran to Ralph´s house and called him. He was there. I told him what had happened. Then we went and got Charley, and returned to the vicinity of our house. We waited for poppa and mamma to come from church. We told poppa. He went up to my room and went in. He walked over to the dresser and picked it up and said,

"Boys, that´s fox fire.""

That night I thought it all out. Fox fire is a substance which looks like rotten wood. It glows in the night time, or in a dark place. I saw some while in Gilmer County, but only small pieces, but my cousin´s husband said he knew of a whole log that shown that way. After thinking it over a while I came to this conclusion:

The piece of wood I had brought home was the same one that had been seen in the attic. This was the light that could be seen. On dark nights it could be seen better as it was darker. Sometimes there would be some small lights instead of one large one. This was caused by a very bright moon which shown thru holes in the ceiling and falling on the piece of wood the light could not be seen on that certain spot. On very light nights it couldn´t be seen.

Beside the plaster that had fallen I found a dead cat. This explained the (number of small balls of fire that would move about) sounds. Especially on a stormy night weird sounds could be heard. This was the cats. On stormy nights this was a rendezvous of the the cats. What made the sounds uncanny was more than one cat at a time and the way it echoed thru the small attic. This also explained the light coming in flashes. That was the cats walking before it. We could not see it when the electric light was flashed on it because the electric light was much more powerful. And now, it you don´t believe this is possible, try it.

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