Evening Star Newspaper, March 13, 1932, Page 71

Features Art Notes he Sunday St Magasine WASHINGTON, D. PART == C —_—e— MARCH 13, 1932 . 20 PAGES. A VIRGINIA GHOST OR TWO From a Little Wayside Church Along the Richmond Road, Not Far South of the National Capital, Come These Unusual Ghost Stories, Related by an Aged Negro Sexton. A Night of Storm and the Man Who Sought Shelter. RMY of motors, radiator to tail- light, swinging along the Rich- mond road. The major is driving his roadster—the major whose weather-beaten face has felt the sun and rain of many a Marine campaign. “Need some gas,” the major remarks. “Let’s stop here. Good place, too,” he adds. “We can take a look at the ‘Haunted Church.’” “Haunted?” I asked. “What sort of spirits?” “Gasoline,” he smiles. I disdain it. “You don’'t believe in haunts?” he asks. “Do you?” “I don’t know. I honest- ly don’t! There are some things. Anyway, 1 want to see it—this ‘Haunt- ed Church.”” The major gestured to- ward a grove of oak and walnut and hickory across the road. Through leafless branches one swift, single heliograph signals that the sunset has caught a win- dowpane. At the end of a sandy path we come upon a shining wall of them. NLY a moment. The burnished copper dims. They are windows again— windows in a crucifer church of mellow brick, white painted wood worm- holed to softness. “Aquia” is chiseled in the limestone above the gracious door- way. As I stand there, en- ehanted by its beauty, the paneled door slowly opens and a colored man, a very old colored man, steps slow- ly out. “Yall like to see my church?” he asks. “I kin show hit to you. Close on to 50 years I been de sex- ton hyar, and I kin show hit all to you.” He turns away, saying under his breath, “All, yas suh, all.” Then, looking at us search- ingly, he adds, “All I kin show.” It is strangely quiet here, 80 close to that road. No noise. No smell of gaso- line. Only that faintly golden light and the screen of ocak and walnut branches;, the brooding little church and the damp scent of leaves aiu . Before going inside we stop for minute to look at one of the weather- worn tombstones. With difficulty we read the half-obliterated words chiseled into it: JOHN PEYTON 1691-1760 ELIZA the affectionate wife of Rowzer Peylon born on the 12th of May 1791 died on the 28th of Octob 1822 It may be truly said of her th: she wallked “humbly with her God and her delight was in doing justly and loving mercy “By the lightning's flash he saw again the same weird sight.” BY ANNE HARD. With an audible sigh, as if for very lovingness reluctant to leave these graves, the old sexton turns toward “his” church. Above shallow stone steps is a door of “four-three-one” paneling, worm-traceried. Over it, framed into the faded rose brick by limestone fac- ings, is a classic architrave, on which is carved: “Built AD. 1751. Destroyed by fire 1754 and rebuilt A.D. 1757 by Mourning Richards, Undertaker; William Copern, Mason.” Some markings in the limestone cateh my eye. “What a shame! Towurists have carved initials——" I begin. “No, ma’am,” the sexton says. “Dey was soljers. See hyar: ‘5 Tex Vol—1862.’ Hit ain’t no tourists do dat. Federals and Confederates. Dey was both hyar endurin’ de war.” , .. He has opened the door and with old- time courtesy he bows us in, Beautiful and strange. There is a chill not of the season here. A place of memories. Straight to the rooftree, empty and listening, all around windows are spaced —12 square windows i2-paned; 18 areched windows, 18-paned. Toward the plain altar, where the Creed, the Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer are paint- ed on wood, goes a flagged aisle, bisected exactly by the cross aisle. Rising high as the chin of a tall man are paneled walls of pews. Benches against the inner sides of them. A huge wood stove stands at the inter- section of the aisles. At the front of the altar two great plank doors form the flooring. Under those doors generations of one family lie buried. The church has no cellar. Its cellar is only another graveyard. Beneath the altar, above the doors, this inscription: “In Memory of the Race of the House of Moncure.” Opposite, in the dimming light, I see the little stair- way of the west choir, going up by its four pillars to the belfry. But the most curious fea- ture of the church—domi- nating, inescapable—is the reading desk, the pulpit. It has three levels, built around a single pillar, each level touched by a spiral staircase, surmounted by a tremendous canopy of painted wood at the roof- ceiling itself—at once a monument and a sounding box. Three men could preach at once from it, one above the other. After we have examined the details of the inside I see that the old Negro has something om his mind—a story. The church itself breathes mustily of many stories. We sit down inside a pew near the pulpit to listen to the sexton. As he talks, and points with a thin brown finger, I keep my gaze fixed euriously on the pulpit. Even sitting up- right I can barely see the second level of its curious structure, and, as the shad- ows darken and the old man’s voice deepens, the great wood canopy at the top seems to grow in size, to lean toward us, finally, with a menacing look. But the Negro has begun his story. I draw my mind away from its fascinated but fearful contemplation of the pulpit and hear him . saying: . “Hit was a hot night in July, a long time ago. De front door was shet. Never did I keep hit open in dem days. De only door we kept unlock was dis one, on de side hyar. And jest inside was a lan- bern we kept burnin’. T lit hit myself overy night and guyed hit up so’s no one could git hit down but me. “Dey was no autermobiles in dem days—jest hosses on de Richmon’ Pike; and no pavemint—jest elay and sand. Down de road come a trabeler, on hoss- back——” “Down the road came a traveler!” How many weird tales have begun with those words! We sit in the gathering darkness of the old chureh, under the shadow of that strange, three-tiered, canopied pulpit, and listen to the darky's