When Pap was about nine years old his family lived on the road just before the one we live on now if you’re coming from the folk school. In those days, the road wasn’t paved, actually it wasn’t even graveled. Just a wagon and sled trail meandering through the countryside to the few houses that belonged to the area.
The house they lived in set off the road about a 100 yards or so with a footpath leading from the road to the yard. Typical of most house sites there were various trails leading off in different directions depending on where you needed to go.
Pap was the oldest child in his family and had already found the need to sneak off to his own special place. In other words Pap had a hideout.
Pap built himself a lean-to up on the ridge that ran behind their house. Any chance Pap got he headed off to his hideout to build a fire, sit by himself, and if he was lucky cook a tater in the coals.
One fall moonlit night Pap slipped off after supper. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going, he just snuck out and headed up the ridge to his lean-to. Since no one in the area had electricity in those days Pap was used to being in the dark and wasn’t scared to be out in it alone.
As Pap started up the dark trail, he was thinking of his lean-to and was mighty pleased with himself for managing to sneak off alone. The wind begin to blow as Pap made his way up the steepest portion of the trail. Just before a cloud blew across the moon, Pap saw a tall dark figure walking quickly down the other side of the fence line. The person wore a wide hat and a long dark flowing coat. The shadowy figure didn’t see Pap, but it scared the beejeebies out of him.
Pap made a hasty retreat back home to the light of the oil lamp and the safety of his mother and father. He never told anyone what he’d seen, he just sneaked back in as quietly as he had snuck out.
After the fear subsided Pap realized the dark figure was probably someone he knew. Once Pap begin to think about who the figure might have been he soon came to the conclusion that it was a young man with the last name of Frankum, who was often seen wandering the countryside.
Frankum was kind of quare (strange) and went about wearing a big floppy hat and a long coat. He was in his late teens and would often show up at Pap’s house close to supper time, knowing he’d be offered something to eat.
WWII hadn’t been over long and most people were still suffering from the war and just hard times in general. Pap said it frustrated his father when Frankum would show up before supper because there was barely enough for them to eat. But like most mountain folks, Pap’s parents shared what they had even though it was very little. Frankum seemed to take advantage of their generosity as he would often invite himself to spend the night, sleeping in the floor till it was time for him to eat breakfast with them.
For many years I shared spooky stories during the month of October. If you’d like to read some of them you can visit the archives here.
Tipper
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Maybe you remember this story, Tipper. I published it to my blog (GOSH – 14 years ago?). Still occasionally blog and hope to more now that I’ve retired, but we had a really scary, true story on Eagles’ Nest Mountain. If it’s okay, I could share it again.
https://colmel.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/a-truely-scary-story/
There is a home on Hwy 25 near Princeton, SC named the Burton place. I would think it was a plantation home during the Civil War. I have heard that this home was haunted or had ghosts that would be on the stairway going up to the second floor. The story goes there were some Civil War soldiers killed on the stairway during the war, I don’t know which side killed the soldiers killed were on. I have been in the home one time but was not around the stairs, it is also said the steps of the stairs have blood stains on them. I feel like the story of the soldiers being killed is true, but as for the rest of it, I don’t believe because of not believing in ghost or haints.
Here’s the link for anyone who would like to read my blog about a scary night on Eagles’ Nest Mountain in Waynesville, NC
Melissa-thank you!!
Well, I’ll just say we know we live in a world of unseen things; microwaves, radio waves, electromagnetic fields and who knows what else. Plus there is a spirit part of each of us we normally cannot see but is none the less just as real as what we can see. So I don’t automatically dismiss accounts of people seeing, hearing or otherwise experiencing “something” other-worldly. Perhaps one of the most common is the “feeling” you are being watched. However, I am seeing more and more skeletons and mock graveyards on lawns. And it is disturbing to me. There is something amiss with a preoccupation with death and the occult. I do not think it is healthy going forward and comes from an unhealthy place. Having said all that, country kids do tend to be comfortable on their “stomping grounds” even in the dark. But even common things get mysterious in half-light or full dark. I recall a Laura Ingalls Wilder story of being afraid of a big, black “something” only to figure out it was a hollow stump her Dad had used as an opportunity to create a kind of “smokehouse”. I could see something like that turning into a story of an encounter with the devil and smelling the smoke! But Dad had a story of two mysterious encounters that had physical evidence but were never explained.
I know how Pap must have felt. I came home way after dark one night several summers ago and it was a new moon. I live about 1/4 mile up a dark Hollow boxed in by 2 mountain ranges and 2 hills with few houses and no street/outside lights. I pulled the car into the driveway and didn’t see a thing. I don’t like coming home after dark because sometimes there are bears in the yard. I shut off the car and headed the 60 some feet to the front door steps. It was so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. Right as I got to the bottom step at the front door a deep voice come from behind me thru the thickest black of night. I silently gasped in my breath and froze. He said, “Do ya like guitar music?” All kinds of things were running thru my mind…attack, run, play dead, scream …. then as I came to my senses I realized it was the 30 yr old son of my neighbor that lives down at the mouth of the Hollow. I found myself giving him a lecture on not sneaking up on someone in the dark. Poor fella, he’s a bit slow and didn’t think about scaring me. He said, “Sneakin’ is my job, I am a Ninja.” Then he pulled out a ninja star/weapon and started talking about how good he could throw them. I finally shut him up and sent him on his way and climbed up the cinder blocks to the trailer door. Ever since then he thinks we are buddies. I guess we are.
I love a good haint tale this time of year! Whether it actually was one or not haha. I don’t know if y’all have heard of the high Hampton inn in Cashiers NC but my mama’s side of the family is from Cashiers and my grandpa and granny both worked there back in the day. Grandpa Alvin was a night watchmen so he saw some things. The place has been said to be haunted for many years. One night grandpa was making his rounds and heard music and singing coming from the old boarded up church on the property so thinking somebody must have broke in he went to see what was goin on. Well that place was still boarded up with no way for anybody to get it but when he looked through the boards over a window he said he saw a woman and I believe it was 3 children standing up at the front and when he peeked in they all turned to look at him and had glowing bright blue eyes! He skedaddled it right on outta there haha. Apparently there was a woman and her 3 children who had died somewhere on the property. I might have forgotten some of the details of that story over time but that was the jist of it. He died before I was born so these tales have been passed down and he had a bunch of them. I think alot of these stories probably have some sort of explanation but I’m here to tell yuns good and evil absolutely exist and if you ever experience the latter you’ll know it without a doubt…but the important thing is Jesus wins every time if you just ask for His help
I enjoyed your telling of Pap’s story. When I’m out in the woods I often think of the folks who used to travel the same paths. I can see them walking along in my mind. It always brings me comfort!
I love the way you described the trail leading to the houses that ‘belonged’ to the area. It sounds like the trail and holler where Mom grew up and is now buried. That hollers scary trail is now paved, but not much else has changed, including some footpaths leading to the cemetery where my ancestors were buried over 100 years ago.
Did you learn to tick and tally in school?
My most memorable scarey outfit featured cheap football shoulder pads and my granddad’s overcoat. I laced the pads tightly together, placed them on my head, and wore the coat over them to transform myself into the Headless Hobo. By peeking out between buttons I could move around. On Spring Street in Walhalla at that time there was a railroad trestle. A street light cast shadows across the sidewalk. People walking home alone from town after dark were my target. One night when I staggered out from under the trestle, one poor woman actually trotted up the hill toward the mill village. I did that only twice, acting alone, before retiring the the Headless Hobo.
I learned it at home, before I was school age.
I love all this story tells about who your dad was and the kind of folks he came from. He valued his own solitary company by creating and enjoying a hideout whenever he could. And he had a sense of safety and comfort at home to return to when necessary. He obviously had parents who were good and kind enough to feed and house someone who sounds like they were struggling on their own, without that sense of belonging and comfort and safety that his family knew. Thank you for sharing it, and writing it so well.
A good story from Pap! Thank you!
I am easy to spook, so I would have been running back home as fast as I could if it had been me. To this day, I get spooked at night even though I know what makes all the shadows. I will read some of the less spooky stories to my kids. They like a good scary story, but not too scary!
There was a ‘T’ intersection near our house when I was a kid. Dad told about two young men getting in a knife fight over a girl one night and one killing the other in that intersection. People for more than a mile came to see what the racket was all about as the young man lay screaming for the girl to come help him. Dad claimed that for years people reported still hearing his screams when they passed through there at night. (Probably still remembering hearing them) As a teenager when I was out late at night I would take the long way home so I wouldn’t have to pass through that section. That was probably near a mile out of my way just to avoid the chance his ghost might still be there screaming for help. Since it happened long before I was born I never heard the screams but when Dad told about it I could imagine them.
In my life I’ve seen and experienced SOMETHING. When I was a small child and others were all asleep, I’d awaken in the night to find red eyed tiny characters (about the size of a walking infant) perched about (sitting in the portals above the room) the bedroom walls all dressed in different “costumes” leering at me. There was one who was a saloon tramp who’d sit in a very non lady like position with a leg hoisted up in a wanton way. There was one guy who favored MR PEANUT with a top hat and cane. The bottom line is these critters were absolutely real and I believe now were absolutely demons from what I now know. I saw them in my innocence I do believe. There’s a lot in this old world we will never understand while we are alive. I’m certain the battle between good and evil certainly exists and there are bad things in darkness and cemeteries. There are clearly devilish critters all about and I see AI images now generated on commercials with FAKE people with horrific exaggerated facial features, etc. I also see many vampire shows geared at tiny children and girls befriending critter vampires and bragging about it. Also, I’d live in a cave because they’re around 50 or so all year round-Sasquatch may be smarter than anybody since he hides and lives for free. I’m scared of what lurks amongst us and I can “smell” evil. It gives off a stench…believe it.
It’s funny. One day this week, I remembered hearing the word “quare” in my childhood. There was an old coon hunter who kept to himself. His own sister said he was harmless, just quare.
I think of something my father in law told me about being scared to death and thinking he had seen a ghost when he was a teenager. He was either walking or riding a horse by a cemetery when he saw something white raising up and down on a grave that scared him. He took off for home. The next morning he told his daddy he had seen a ghost, his daddy told him there were no ghost and made him go back to the cemetery and look for what he had seen. It was some sheets of newspaper someone had placed on a grave being blown by the wind. He said if his daddy had not made him go back, he would have thought he had seen a ghost for the rest of his life.