Our house formerly belonged to a physician, and a servant girl told us
that the ghost of the dead doctor haunted one of the unoccupied rooms
in the second story that was kept dark on account of a heavy
window-tax. Our bedroom was adjacent to the ghost room, which had in
it a lot of chemical apparatus,--glass tubing, glass and brass
retorts, test-tubes, flasks, etc.,--and we thought that those strange
articles were still used by the old dead doctor in compounding physic.
In the long summer days David and I were put to bed several hours
before sunset. Mother tucked us in carefully, drew the curtains of the
big old-fashioned bed, and told us to lie still and sleep like gude
bairns; but we were usually out of bed, playing games of daring called
"scootchers," about as soon as our loving mother reached the foot of
the stairs, for we couldn't lie still, however hard we might try.
Going into the ghost room was regarded as a very great scootcher.
After venturing in a few steps and rushing back in terror, I used to
dare David to go as far without getting caught.
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