The Wreck of the South Pole and Other Strange Tales — page 144: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

What Shall She Do? 137 be as nearly human as possible. If there are no traces of human hands about, the spectres of the departed are not near so easily conjured up. So, as I said, it was under no ghostly circumstances that I saw the house; in the cool autumn morning it seemed as commonplace as any other rickety shed. Yet I knew it was haunted! I went on by to the next farm house. They, also, knew it was haunted. I did not need to ask the question from the farmer who was just coming from the barn, but I did. He looked at me, shook his head, leaned up against a convenient tree, and answered: “T say nothing.” “Then you know it is?” “Well, I wouldn’t live in it.” “Why not?” In a slow, matter-of-fact manner he went on, without a particle of emotion, or a shade of emphasis, as if he were repeating a half-learned lesson. “Tf I wanted all the doors opened with no one to open them, and tramping overhead and in the next room, and lights and white objects flitting around, why, then, I would!” From which I gathered that all these things were in the habit of occurring in the old place. “Something is seen, then?” I said. “What is it? What causes the racket?” “A woman in white.” “Have you seen her?” The man crossed himself and said nothing, which im- EORNIGLOOOKS (EO)