Jeffrey's Favorite 13 Ghost Stories. Kathryn Tucker Windham
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from the move and from the strenuous labor of clearing the land, and he fell asleep soon after he had eaten supper. He had been asleep for some time when he was awakened by a brilliant light.
His first thought was that the building was on fire, and he jumped up to run outside.
But as soon as he was fully awake, he realized that the building was not on fire. The light came from a corner of the room. In the corner was his little boy, Harvey, holding a burning candle.
Jacob Hammer walked toward the figure and reached out toward him. As he did, the child blew out the candle and vanished.
There was no more sleep for Jacob Hammer that night. Questions crowded in upon him: had he really seen his son or was his grief conjuring up cruel visions? Could Harvey have returned from the dead? And if so, why?
The daylight brought no answers and the questions haunted him all the next day as he worked in his field.
That second night, the same thing happened: he was awakened by a flash of light and saw Harvey, holding a flickering candle, in the corner of the room. Once again Jacob Hammer approached the child, and once again the child blew out the candle and vanished.
As Jacob Hammer lay awake and tried to answer the questions that trampled through his mind, a new thought came to him. Was it possible, he wondered, that Harvey’s spirit was so disturbed by his mother’s yearning for a picture of him that he had come back so that such a picture could be made? The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced of the logic of his theory.
So when daylight came, instead of going to his field, Jacob Hammer went into Talladega to borrow a camera from W.H. McMillan, a photographer there.
He did not tell Mr. McMillan why he wanted to use the camera. He would have felt foolish saying that he intended to try to photograph a ghost, so he implied that he needed a picture of a landmark on his property, and he promised to return the camera early the next morning.
Mr. McMillan let him borrow one of the cumbersome old cameras with a tripod, and he showed him how to use it.
“Be careful with the glass negative,” he warned. “They break right easy.”
Jacob Hammer took the equipment back to the school building and set it up beside his cot, focusing it on the corner where he had seen the apparition on the two previous nights. He did not go to sleep that night: he sat on the side of the cot and waited.
Hours passed. Nothing happened. Mr. Hammer was beginning to wonder if he had imagined the whole thing when suddenly a bright light filled the room, and he saw Harvey in the far corner. He snapped the shutter of the camera, and the figure disappeared.
Mr. Hammer dozed fitfully (he was very tired) until daylight came. Then he went to Talladega to return the camera and to have the glass plate developed. Once again he wondered what he should tell the photographer, and once again he decided to tell him nothing.
After he had thanked the man for the use of the camera, he asked, “Will you please develop the plate? I took only one picture, but I would very much like to see it.”
Jacob Hammer waited, a restless wait, until Mr. McMillan came out of the darkroom. He was holding the glass negative, still wet, up to the light.
“Jacob,” he said, “I thought you did not have a picture of your little boy, the one who died.”
“We don’t have,” Jacob Hammer replied.
“Yes, you do. This is him—Harvey—right here. Look.”
Jacob Hammer looked. On the negative was the exact likeness of Harvey Hammer: blond curls, big eyes, wistful smile framed in a strange aura of light.
Jacob Hammer was unable to speak. He took the negative from the hands of the puzzled photographer and hastened home.
“Martha! Martha!” he shouted as he ran into the house. “Look!” He held the glass negative up to the light.
Martha Hammer looked and burst into sobs. “It’s Harvey! It’s my baby’s picture!”
Cassie and the other children came running to see what was happening.
“It’s Harvey!” they said. “Harvey. Just like he looked.”
“And look,” Cassie said, “look how his dress has fallen around his shoulders. And look around his neck—that’s my heart-shaped locket, the one I put on him!”
After the family had seen the negative with the likeness of Harvey on it and after he had told the story of how he had made the picture, Jacob Hammer took the glass plate back to the photographer in Talladega to have prints made from it.
Three of those prints made in the fall of 1898 still exist. Each one, though faded by time, shows quite distinctly the head and shoulders of a beautiful blond child with wandering eyes that seem to peer into another world. The lace-trimmed collar of his white garment has slipped down around his shoulders. And round his neck hangs a gold, heart-shaped locket.
3
Suggsville, Alabama
Nobody in Suggsville was surprised when Stephen Cleveland took off for California to look for gold. Fact is, most of his friends would have been disappointed if Stephen had not been a part of the 1849 gold rush.
“Just like him,” they said. “Let Stephen hear about any excitement going on, and he wants to be a part of it—even if he has to go all the way to California!”
Stephen didn’t get in on the first of the California gold fever because news of the discovery of the precious metal at Sutter’s Mill was a long time reaching the Clarke County town of Suggsville. It was several months after the discovery that Stephen Cleveland heard stories of the rich gold fields around San Francisco and of the men who were making fortunes there.
As soon as he heard those stories, Stephen was impatient to join the other prospectors heading west. He did not have to ask permission of anybody (he was twenty-two years old, a man grown), so he packed what clothes he figured he would need, tucked what money he had into a wide belt around his waist, and went to tell his family good-bye before he set out to seek his fortunes in California.
His father, James Cleveland, gave Stephen a few parting words of fatherly advice. He knew Stephen was not really listening, but he felt morally obligated to pass along some bits of wisdom to his son. James Cleveland was a staunch Baptist.
So, with his father’s advice and with the envious good wishes of his friends, Stephen Cleveland headed west to become a part of a horde of adventurers, many of them young men about his own age, willing to gamble all they owned on the chance of striking it rich in the gold country.
As James Cleveland watched his son ride away, he recalled earlier occasions when he had given unheeded advice to Stephen. For though Stephen had not been an obstreperous child, he was adventurous, headstrong, and reckless. It was Stephen who, though duly warned of the dangers by his father, climbed the tallest trees, rode the wildest horses, and swam the swiftest streams. He had an assortment of scars to show for his exploits, but he had no regrets. “You know I had to try it, Papa,” he would say when his father reproved him. “I was scared, so I had to do it. You wouldn’t want me to be a coward, would you?”
There was a time when Stephen, about ten years old, planned a reenactment of the Canoe Fight. He, of course, would take the role of Sam Dale, hero of the miniature naval battle. He cast his playmates in the roles of the other participants, though it took a fight or two to persuade some of the boys to play Indians, and he located canoes to use in the drama. The long overland march to the Alabama River was about to begin when James Cleveland learned of Stephen’s plans and ordered the group to disband.
“The river is too dangerous to play in,” he told them.
Stephen obeyed his father that day. But the following day, while