THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 1929 The RED f [lamp jf p— : Copyright by Gee. H. Doran Company > **w, WNU Service , June 18. l fed tonight rather like the man who had caught a bull by the tail and let go. And yet I am • certain tfcer<3 is a perfectly natural explanation. ' p^— — The difficulty is that I cannot verjf well go to Jane about it. If it is what it appears to be, and not a double exposure, it will frighten her. If it is a double exposure, she will wonder at niy inquiry, and think I am ’watching her. - - *ns*mp certain things are very curious; she thought she saw Uncle Horace marching onto the Field with his class. So much did this upset her that, when she stood up to take her picture, the camera shook in her hands. Then she takes the picture, and instead of the eight old men of the class of ’7O there are nineT ' - -- ' - And she knows it. Why else would she hide the print, and pretend that she had mislaid it? It was that fact which made me suspicious. ‘Til lQok them up for you later, William,” she said. “You aren’t in a hurry, are you?” “In the bright lexicon of vacation there is no such word as hurry,” I observed, brightly. And she who usually smiles at my feeblest effort turned abruptly away. So Jane had lost TiSr picture. Jane, whose closets are marvels of mathe matical exactness, who keeps my clothing so exactly that 1 can find it in the dark, save for that one incident, duly noted in this Journal, when I un folded a washcloth at the president's dinner, having taken it from my hand kerchief box. And shortly after Jane went out for a walk, Jane who never exercises save about her household. Poor Jane, I feel tonight, face to face with the inexplicable and hiding it like one of the seven deadly sins. There are nine men in the picture; there is no getting away from it. And there is no denying, either, a faint difference in the ninth figure, a sort of shadowness, a lack of definition. Under Jane’s reading glass it gains nothing. The features, owing to the distance, are indistinct, but if one could imagine the ghost of old Hor ace, in his brocaded dressing gown and slightly stooped to cough, in that hi are of noise, shouting and sunshine, it is there. 4* Later: I have shown the picture to and he says it is undoubtedly a case of double exposure. “I don’t think she ever took a pic ture of him in her life.” “Well, somebody has,” he said, and handed the print back to me. ‘lf you “I’m Certain of One Thing. The Less Said About It the Better." don’t believe me, show it to Cameron. He’s a shark on that sort of thing.” (Note: Cameron, Exchange Profes sor of Physics, at our University. A member of the Society for Psychical Research, and known. I understand, among the students as “Spooks” Cam eron.) But I have not show, it to Cameron, and Ido not intend to. I hardly know the man, for one thing. And for an other, Lear is right. The University looks with suspicion on the few among the faculty who have on occasion dabbled with such matters. “Personally,” he said, “I think it’s a double exposure. But whether it is or not I’m certain of one thing, the less said about it the better.” June 19. Curious, when one begins to think on a subject, how it sometimes comes up in the most unexpected places. 1 dropped into the dining room for tea this afternoon after Jane’s bridge party, to find Jane looking uncom fortable and an animated conversa tion on spiritualism going on, with Helena Lear leading it. “Ah!” she said when she saw me, “here comes our cynic. I suppose you don’t believe in automatic writing either?” “I should,” I replied gravely. “I have seen as many as fifty men tak ing notes while in a trance in my lecture room.” “Nor in spirits?” “Certainly I do. And in the Smoke of Prophecy, and the Powder of Death.” She looked rather blank, and Jane flushed a trifle. “What is more,” J said, a trifle car ried away by the tenseness of the room, perhaps, “I know that if I take a pifiee of chalk— bare you any chalk, Jane —ahd draw on the floor here the magic circle, and a triangle within it, no evil spirits can approach SR* Get the chalk, dear; I promise I shall jhsturbed by so much as one demon.’* In the laughter which followed the subject was dropped. But Helena Lear, when she gave me my tea, eyed m £. SOT SS m l£!£ ent# *Tou ana four circle!” she said. “Don’t you know that half these wom en more than half believe you?” “And don’t . “You don’t believe yourself.” “Still,” I said, remembering von Humßoldt, “I am riot an out-and-out skeptic. I admit that Jock there, who is acting as a vacuum cleaner under the table, can hear and see and smell things that I cannot. But I do not therefore believe he communicates with the spirit worid.” “But he sees thifigs you don’t see. You admit that.” “Certainly. He may see further nto the spectrum than I do.” “Then what does he see?” she said triumphantly. A fortunate digression enabled me to escape with a whole skin, but I think there was something rather quizzical in her smiling farewell. After all, if Jock does see things I do not, what does he see? I’m blessed if I know* *■***—• im June 20. Jane knows that I have seen the picture, and that I know it lies be hind her refusal to go to Twin Hol lows for the summer. When I came back from Larkin’s office today, the final papers having been signed, I could see her almost physically brac ing herself. “£o It's all set, my dear,” I said. “And if we can get Annie Cochran to clean the place a bit —” “Would yon mind so very much,” she asked, almost wistfully, “if we don’t go there?” “But it’s all settled. Edith is com ing back on purpose.” (Note: The “Edith” of the Journal Is my niece, who makes her home with us. At this time she was ab sent on a round of house-parties. A very lovely and popular girl, of whom more hereafter.) “It’s too large for us,” said Jane. “I need a rest in the summer, not a big house to care for.”'. And there was a certain definite ness in her statement which ended the conversation. As a result, and following our usual course when there is a difference between us, we have taken refuge in a polite silence all day, the familiar armed neutrality of marriage. Lear has told Cameron about the picture. I met Cameron while taking Jock for his evening walk tonight, and he reintroduced himself to me. After today’s repression I fear I was a bit talkative, but he was a good listener. Evidently he has a certain under standing of Jane’s refusal to go to Twin Hollows, although he said very little. “Houses are curious, sometimes,” was his comment. But on the matter of the picture he was frankly interested. “There is,” he said, “a certain weight in the evidence for psychic photography, Mr. Porter. Os course It is absurd to claim that all the curi ous photographs—and thousands of them come to me—are produced by discarnate intelligences. But there is something; I don’t know just what.” Jane has gone to bed, still politely silent, and I am left alone to wrestle with my two problems; where to spend the summer, and why Jane finds the house at Twin Hollows what Cameron describes as curious. A mild term, that, for Jane's feeling about the house. Actually, she hates it Has always hated it. She has had no pride in our acquisition of it; she has even steadfastly refused to bring away from it any of that early Ameri can furniture with which old Horace bad Allied it Yet she collects early American fur niture. I write tonight at an utterly inadequate early American desk, be cause of this taste of hers. And yet she will have none of Uncle Horace’s really fine collection." Not is she of the type to listen to Annie Cochran’s story that the old portion of the house is haunted by the man killed there. (Note: An old story and not au thenticated, of the shooting of a man many years ago as he hid to escape : the excise. As a matter of fact, none of our later experiences in the bouse bore- out this particular tradition at * all.) ! If she has a distaste for it, it may 1 possibly relate to the occupancy of the bouse by the Riggs woman before Uncle Horace bought it. But evep here I am doubtful, for Mrs. Riggs ! was caught 4n most unblushing fraud and entirely discredited as a medium. r June 21. Edith is back. She came in this THE CHATHAM RECORD, PITTSBOtIO, N. C morning, kissed J< k, June ami m> self, Jock first, demanded an enormous breakfast ami all the hot water in the house, and descended gaily a hall hour later to the table. “Well,” she said, attacking her melon, “and when do we go to the haunted house?” “Ask your aunt.” She glanced at me and then shrewd ly at Jane. “Good heavens!” she said. “Don’t tell me there’s any question about it?” “It isn’t decided yet,” Jane said uneasily. “It’s a big bouse, Edith and—” “All the more reason for taking it,” said Edith, and having finished her melon flung out her pretty arms. “Grass l ,” she said, “and flowers, and the sea. I shall swim,” she went on. “And old Father William shall fish, and Jane shad sew a fine seam. And at night the ghosts shall walk. And everything will lovely.” She turned to me. “You Jo believe in ghosts, don’t you, Father William?” And somehow even Jane caught some of the infection of her gayety. “Ask him about the triangle in a cir cle,” she said. -m that?” Edith inquired. “The triangle in a circle, drawn around you, will keep off demons,” I explained gravely. “Surely you know. tb atr. “How —convenient!" +*u*m** “And that the skins of four frogs, killed on a moonless night, will make one invisible if worn as a cap? And that the spirits obey Soloman’s seal — not the plant, of course! And that If you eat a stew of the eyes of a vul ture, and the ear-tufts of an owl, you will be wise beyond all dreams of wis dom ?” | Jane got up, and I saw that my non sense had had its effect. She was smiling,’ for the first time in days. “If you care to go out and look at the house tomorrow, William,” she said, “I will go.” And perhaps Edith had sensed a situation she did not understand, for she kissed her, and as I left the room I heard her requesting Jane to bring back with her marketing some frog skins and the ear-tufts of an owl. So this afternoon things are look ing brighter. And thus does man de ceife himself! Tlie Towß i£ very quiet tonight. The annual student exodus is almost over, although still an occasional truck goes by, piled high with trunks. The Lears intend to stay. Sulzer and Maclntyre are off for the Scottish lakes, and Cameron, I hear, is going soon to the Adirondacks, where he spends his sum mer in a boat, and minus ghosts, 1 dare say. I have mailed him the picture to day, and can only hope Jane does not miss it. One wonders about men like Came ron. Slight, almost negligible, as is my acquaintance with him —I would not know him in a crowd, even now — there is something of Scottish dour ness in him. He neither smokes nor drinks; he lives austerely and alone. He has a reputation as a relentless investigator; it was he who exposed the hauntings at the, house on Sab bathday lake, in Massachusetts. But he is a believer. That is, he believes in conscious survival after death, and I suspect that he has his own small group here. Among them little Pettingill. It would be a hu miliating thought, for me, to feel that after I passed over, as they say, little Pettingill might hale me- to him, in the light or a red lamp, and request me to lift a table! Warren Halliday is on the veranda with Edith. I can hear her bubbling laughter, and his quiet, deep voice. After all, 1 dare say we must make up our minds to lose her some time, but it hurts. And it will not be soon. He has not a penny to bless himself with, nor has she. I think, if I were very rich, I would provide an endowment fund for lovers. But something is wrong with our university system. It takes too long to put a man on a wife-supporting basis. Halliday is twenty-six; he lost two years in the war, and he has another year of law. Truly, Edith will need the eyes of a vulture and the ear-tufts of an owl. June 22. All houses in which men have lived and suffered and died are “haunted houses.” But then, all houses are haunted. Why, then, did Jock refuse to enter the house at Twin Hollows today, but crawled under the auto mobile and remtained there, a picture of craven terror, until our departure? Old Thomas, the gardener, met us in Oakville with fht keys, and we drove out to the house. 1 sensed in Jane a reluctance to enter, but she fought it back bravely, and we exam iried it with a view to our own occu pancy. It is In excellent condition and repair, although the white covers over the library furniture and in the den behind gave those rooms a rather ghostly appearance. Jane, I saw, gave * ■ glance into those * ro#is, aritf chill inside, moved out into the bud light. Edith, however, was enchanted with it all, and said so. She danced through the house, shamelessly courting old Thomas, selecting bedrooms for us all, and peering into closets, and I caught i up with her at last on the second floor, looking at the boat-house on the beach beyond the marsh. “What’s above it?” she asked ■ “Rooms?” • “When the old sloop was in eommis 1 sion, the captain slept there,” I told her. I “How many rooms?” “Two, I think, and a sort of kitch enette” j “Are they furnished ?” Old Thomas, being appealed to, said they were, and Edith’s fac£ assumed that air of mysterious calculation which I have learned to associate with what she calls “an idea.” What ever it was, however, she kept It to herself, and I left her selecting a bed room for herself, and putting into it sufficient thought to have served a better purpose. It is a curious thing, to go into a house left, as Twin Hollows has been, without change since old Horace died, and not to find him there; his big armchair near the fireplace in the li brary, his very pens still on the fiat stopped desk which is the only modern piece in the room, the books he was reading still in the desk rack. I had a curious feeling today that if I raised my voice, I would hear the little cough Which was so often his preliminary to speech, from the den beyond. I threw back the covering which protected the desk top, and sat down at it Just there, in all probability, he had been sitting when the fatal at tack took place. He may have felt it coming on, but there was no one to When a man is buying something for himself, he never has it sent out on approval—but he never buys for his wife without making sure she will be permitted to exchange it. this machinery of betterment; so the ! public is entitled to each improve ment as promptly as it has been proved. In this way came the self-starter, the closed body, durable Duco finish, four wheel brakes. By the same process one of the remarkable feats * in industrial history has just been effected: Chevrolet has been trans formed into a six-cylinder car within ■ the price range of the sou overnight. Similarly, the new brakes and transmissions of Cadillac and LaSalle are a fundamental improve (ment; while the new models of Buick, Oldsmobile, Oakland and Pontiac all represent values that could not have •been offered before. Such progress, born of the in- ; f herent ambition of an organization of T ’active minds to do better and to give • 4 more, is of benefit to all. It offers you more for your money with each suc f oceding year. It gives you more value far your present car when you trade kit in. - ~, ' ' 1 This is ©ur policy. This is real prog f ness. f) > || , ALFRED P. SLOAN, Ji >t President Detroit, March 1,1919 PAGE THREE • Nineteen Cents Profit From Each Tested Hen Raleigh, March 13.—The 1,828 hens on which records are being kept by poultrymen cooperating with the office of poultry extension at State College paid a net profit of 19 cents per hen above feed costs in January. “At the present time we have eleven farms in five counties of North Carolina keeping records of all facts about their poultry business,” says P. A. Seese, assistant poultry specialist. “The owners of these farms are sending up complete de tails about all eggs laid, feed given, feed costs, eggs sold and profits made. There are an average of 166 hens on each of the eleven farms. In January, the average number of eggs was 11.5 per hen with an aver age price of 40 cents a dozen. The highest price received for eggs by the owners of these hens in January was 51 cents and the lowest 33 cents a dozen. The average feed cost per bird was 19 cents and the average net profit per bird was 19 cents.” Mr. Seesg says that while these records cover only a small part of tha State, they are from widely separated sections and give some idea t as to what is going on actually in the poultry industry. Too little grain feeds is being given fpr this season of the year is one fact found in the records, states Mr. Seese. To have birds in shape for heavy spring pro duction, body weight must be in creased during the winter. At the present time, Mr. Seese says the most common question reaching the poultry office is how to feed baby chicks. The kind of feed is not nearly so important, as the system of feeding, he says. Either a good home-mixed feed or a good com mercial baby chick feed will give good results but, the chicks must not be fed until they are 48 to 60 hours old. Milk is excellent. A little time teaching the chicks to eat and drink is well worth while because many incubator chicks die before they ever learn. Feed frequently and sparingly during first two weeks. —§ A new park is planned in Detroit about the end of the new Ambassa dor international bridge. Evidently it is believed Detroiters returning home from Windsor will need a deal of navigation room.