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When old Jacob Loy passed away at the age of eighty years, he left a pot of gold to be divided equally among his eight children. It was a pot of such goodly proportions that there was a nice round sum for all, and the pity of it was after the long years of privation which had collected it, that some of the heirs wasted it quickly on organs, fast horses, cheap finery and stock speculations, for it was before the days of player-pianos, victrolas and automobiles.

Yolande, his youngest daughter, was a really attractive girl, even had she not a share in the pot of gold, and had many suitors. Though farm raised and inured to hardships she was naturally refined, with wonderful dark eyes and hair, and pallid face–the perfect type of Pennsylvania Mountain loveliness.

Above all her admirers she liked best of all Adam Drumheller, a shrewd young farmer of the neighborhood, and eventually married him. Three children were born in quick succession, in the small tenant house on his father’s farm in Chest Township, where the young couple had gone to live immediately after their wedding.

Shortly after the birth of the last child old Jacob Drumheller died, and the son and his family moved into the big stone farmhouse near the banks of the sulphurous Clearfield Creek. It was not long after this fortuitous move that the young wife began to show signs of the favorite Pennsylvania mountain malady–consumption. Whether it was caused by a deep-seated cold or came about from sleeping in rooms with windows nailed shut, no one could tell, but the beautiful young woman became paler and more wax-like, until she realized that a speedy end was inevitable. Many times she found comfort in her misfortune by having her husband promise that in the event of her death he would never remarry.

“Never, never,” he promised. “I could never find your equal again.”

He was sincere in some respects; it would be hard to find her counterpart, and she had made a will leaving him everything she possessed, and he imagined that the pot of gold transformed into a bank balance or Government bonds would be found somewhere among her effects.

Before ill health had set in he had quizzed her many times, as openly as he dared, on the whereabouts of her share of the pot.

“It is all safe,” she would say. “It will be forthcoming some time when you need it more than you do today,” and he was satisfied.

As she grew paler and weaker Adam began to think more of Alvira Hamel, another comely girl whom he had loved when he railroaded out of Johnstown, at Kimmelton, and whom he planned to claim as his own should Yolande pass away.

SCENE IN SNYDER-MIDDLESWARTH PARK

Perhaps his thoughts dimly reflected on the dying wife’s sub-conscious mind, for she became more insistent every day that he promise never to remarry.

“Think of our dear little children,” she kept saying, “sentenced to have a stepmother; I would come back and haunt you if you perpetrate such a cruelty to me and mine.”

Adam had little faith in a hereafter, and less in ghosts, so he readily promised anything, vowing eternal celebacy cheerfully and profoundly.

When Yolande did finally fade away, she died reasonably happy, and at least died bravely. She never shed a tear, for it is against the code of the Pennsylvania Mountain people to do so–perhaps a survival of the Indian blood possessed by so many of them.

Three days after the funeral Adam hied himself to Ebensburg to “settle up the estate,” but also to look up Alvira Hamel, who was now living there. She seemed glad to see him, and when he broached a possible union she acted as if pleased at everything except to go on to that lonely farm on the polluted Clearfield Creek.

By promising to sell out when he could and move to Barnesboro or Spangler, a light came in her dark eyes, and though he did not visit the lawyer in charge of his late wife’s affairs, his day in town was successful in arranging for the new alliance with his sweetheart of other days.

In due course of time it was discovered that the equivalent of Yolande’s share of the pot of gold left by old Jacob Loy was not to be found. “She may have kept it in coin and buried it in the orchard,” was some of the very consoling advice that the lawyer gave.

At any rate it was not located by the time that Adam and Alvira were married, but the bridegroombridegroom was well to do and could afford to wait. After a short trip to Pittsburg and Wheeling the newly married couple took up housekeeping in the big brick farmstead above the creek.

The first night that they were back from the honeymoon–it was just about midnight and Alvira was sleeping peacefully–Adam thought that he heard footsteps on the stairs. He could not be mistaken. Noiselessly the door opened, and the form of Yolande glided into the room; she was in her shroud, all white, and her face was whiter than the shroud, and her long hair never looked blacker.

Along the whitewashed wall by the bedside was a long row of hooks on which hung the dead woman’s wardrobe. It had never been disturbed; Alvira was going to cut the things up and make new garments out of them in the Spring. Adam watched the apparition while she moved over to the clothing, counting them, and smoothed and caressed each skirt or waist, as if she regretted having had to abandon them for the steady raiment of the shroud.

Then she came over to the bed and sat on it close to Adam, eyeing him intently and silently. Just then Alvira got awake, but apparently could see nothing of the ghost, although the room was bright as day, bathed in the full moon’s light.

Yolande seemed to remain for a space of about ten minutes, then passed through the alcove into the room where the children were sleeping and stood by their bedside. The next night she was back again, repeating the same performance, the next night, and the next, and still the next, each night remaining longer, until at last she stayed until daybreak. In the morning as the hired men were coming up the boardwalk which led to the kitchen door, they would meet Yolande, in her shroud coming from the house, and passing out of the back gate. On one occasion Alvira was pumping water on the porch, but made no move as she passed, being evidently like so many persons, spiritually blind. The hired men had known Yolande all their lives, and were surprised to see her spooking in daylight, but refrained from saying anything to the new wife.

Every day for a week after that she appeared on the kitchen porch, or on the boardwalk, in the yard, on the road, and was seen by her former husband many times, and also her night prowling went on as of yore. The hired men began to complain; it might make them sick if a ghost was around too much; these spooks were supposed to exhale a poison much as copperhead snakes do, and also draw their “life” away, and they threatened to quit if she wasn’t “laid.” All of them had seen spooks before, on occasion, but a daily visitation of the same ghost was more than they cared about.

Had it not been for the excitable hired men, Adam, whose nerves were like iron, could have stood Yolande’s ghost indefinitely. In fact, he thought it rather nice of her to come back and see him and the children “for old time’s sake.” But the farm hands must be conserved at any cost, even to the extent of laying Yolande’s unquiet spirit.

The next night when she appeared, he made bold and spoke to her: “What do you want, Yolande,” he said softly, so as not to wake the soundly sleeping Alvira at his side. “Is there anything I can do for you, dear?”

Yolande came very close beside him, and bending down whispered in his ear: “Adam,” said she, “how can you ask me why I am here? You surely know. Did you not, time and time again, promise never to marry again, if I died, for the sake of our darling children? Did you not make such a promise, and see how quickly you broke it! Where I am now I can hold no resentments, so I forgive you for all your transgressions, but I hope that Alvira will be good to our children. I have one request to make: After I left you, you were keen to find what I did with my share of daddy’s pot of gold. I had it buried in the orchard at my old home, under the Northern Spy, but after we moved here, one time when you went deer hunting to Centre County, I dug it up and brought it over here and buried it in the cellar of this house. It is here now. There are just one hundred and fifty-three twenty dollar gold pieces; that was my share. The children and the money were on my mind, not your broken promise and rash marriage, which you will repent, and which I tell you again I forgive you for. I want my children to have that money, every one of the one hundred and fifty-three twenty dollar gold pieces. I buried it a little to the east of the spring in the cellar, about two feet under ground, in a tin cartridge box; Dig it up tomorrow morning, and if you find the one hundred and fifty-three coins, and give every one to the children, I will never come again and upset your hired men. Why I have Myron Shook about half scared to death already, but if you don’t find every single coin I’ll have to come back until you do, or if you hold it back from the children, you will not be able to keep a hireling on this place, or any other place to which you move. Many live folks can’t see ghosts; your wife is one of these; she will never worry until the hired men quit, then she’ll up and have you make sale and move to town. Be square and give the children the money, and I’ll not trouble you again.”

“Oh, Yolande,” answered Adam in gentle tones, “you are no trouble to me, not in the least. I love to have you visit me at night, and look at the children, but you are making the hired help terribly uneasy. That part you must quit.”

“That’s“That’s enough of your drivel, Adam,” spoke Yolande, in a sterner tone of voice. “Talk less like a fool, and more like a man. Dig up that money in the morning, count it, and give it to the children and I’ll be glad never to see you again.”

To be reproached by a ghost was too much for Adam, and he lapsed into silence, while Yolande slipped out of the room, over to the bedside of the sleeping children, where she lingered until daylight.

Adam was soon asleep, but was up bright and early the next morning, starting to dress just as the ghost glided out of the door. By six o’clock he had exhumed Yolande’s share of the pot of gold which was buried exactly as her ghostly self had described.

It was a hard wrench to hand the money over to the children, or rather to take it to Ebensburg and start savings accounts in their names. But he did it without a murmur. The cashier, a horse fancier, gave him a present of a new whip, of a special kind that he had made to order at Pittsburg, so he came home happy and contented.

Night was upon him, and supper over, he retired early, dozing a bit before the “witching hour.” As the old Berks County tall clock in the entry struck twelve, he began to watch for Yolande’s accustomed entrance. But not a shadow appeared. The clock struck the quarter, the half, three quarters and one o’clock. No Yolande or anything like her came; she was true to her promise, as true as he had been false. It was an advantage to be a ghost in some ways. They were honorable creatures.

Adam did not know whether to feel pleased or not. His vanity had been not a little appealed to by a dead wife visiting him nightly; now he was sure that it wasn’t for love of him or jealousy, she had been coming back, but to see that the children got the money that had been buried in the cellar. And at last she had spoken rather unkindly, so the great change called death had ended her love, and she wasn’t grieving over his second marriage at all. However, he fell to consoling himself that she had chided him for breaking his word and marrying again; she must have cared for him or she would not have said those things. Then the thought came to him that she wasn’t really peeved at anything concerning his marriage to Alvira except that the children had gotten a stepmother. He wondered if Alvira would continue to be kind to them. Just as he went to sleep he had forgotten both Yolande and Alvira, chuckling over a pretty High School girl he had seen on the street at the ’burg, and whom he had winked at.