WEBVTT - Short Stuff: Our Shortie Halloween Spooktacular 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:11.320 Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:15.000 there's Terry. Let's get reading. Yeah, this year we decided 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.439 to do a little shorty Halloween too, because you know, 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.960 we did our short stuff on Ambrose Beers started poking 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:25.440 around his short stories, and he wrote some super short 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.880 ones that are kind of tailor made for this. I think. Yeah, 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:32.280 it's almost like he was born in the nineteenth century 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:34.519 thinking one day, Josh and Chuck are going to have 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.920 short stuff. I want to give them something to work with. Maybe, 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:41.800 so so to prepare everyone for our Halloween Spooktacular, which 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:45.680 will be out tomorrow. We wanted to do this, right, Chuck, 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:49.160 you want to start? Uh? Yeah, what's um? Let's start 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:51.800 with the story One Summer Night. This is a good one. 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:54.800 This is a good one. Here we go, One Summer 0:00:54.920 --> 0:01:00.720 Night by Ambrose Beers. The fact that Henry Armstrong was 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:03.440 buried did not seem to him to prove that he 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:06.080 was dead. He had always been a hard man to 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:10.039 convince that he really was buried. The testimony of his 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:14.640 senses compelled him to admit his posture flat upon his back, 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:17.679 with his hands crossed upon his stomach and tied was 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:21.760 something that he easily broke without profitably altering the situation. 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:26.120 The strict confinement of his entire person, the black darkness 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:31.120 and profound silence, made a body of evidence impossible to controvert, 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:37.640 and he had accepted it without Cavill Henry Cavill, but dead. No, 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:42.880 he was only very very ill. He had withal the 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:47.120 invalid's apathy, and did not greatly concern himself about the 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:50.760 uncommon fate that had been allotted to him. No philosopher, 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.440 was he just a plain, commonplace person, gifted for the 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:58.360 time being with a pathological indifference the organ that he 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:03.320 feared consequences with his torpid so with no particular apprehension 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.760 for his immediate future, he fell asleep and all was 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:09.440 peace with Henry Armstrong. Before we go on here, Chuck, 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:10.960 I just want to point out, so this man has 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:15.240 come to his senses in a coffin, been like, well, 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:17.800 I guess I'm dead, and then went to sleep. But 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:22.720 then then he went to sleep. That's some mellow gold totally. 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:26.359 You want me to pick up here, please, But something 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.720 was going on overhead. There was a dark summer night 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:34.920 shot through with in frequent shimmers of lightning silently firing 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:39.320 a cloud lying low in the west, and pretending a storm. 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:43.760 These brief, stammering illuminations brought out, with ghastly distinctness the 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:47.440 monuments and headstones of the cemetery, and seemed to set 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.480 them dancing. It was not a night in which any 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:54.120 credible witness was likely to be straying about a cemetery, 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:56.800 so the three men who were there digging into the 0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:01.600 grave of Henry Armstrong felt reasonably secure. Two of them 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.960 were young students from a medical college a few miles away. 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:08.960 The third was a gigantic man known as Jess. For 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.160 many years, Jess had been employed about the cemetery as 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:14.800 a man of all work, and it was his favorite 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:18.600 pleasantry that he knew every soul in the place. From 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:21.000 the nature of what he was now doing, it was 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.720 inferable that the place was not so populous as this 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:29.200 register may have shown it to be. Back to you, Charles, 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:33.160 back to you outside the wall, at the part of 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.240 the grounds farthest from the public road, or a horse 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:39.960 in a light wagon waiting. The work of excavation was 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:43.080 not difficult. The earth with which the grave had been 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:47.080 loosely filled a few hours before, offered little resistance and 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:50.240 was soon thrown out. So they're Grave Robin here, right. 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:52.360 Oh yeah, it ties him very nice to do our 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:56.040 episode on Grave Robins. Right. Removal of the casket from 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.360 its box was less easy, but it was taken out 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:03.280 where it was a prerequisite of Jess, who carefully unscrewed 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:06.240 the cover and laid it aside, exposing the body in 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:09.920 black trousers and white shirt. At that instant, the air 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:14.200 sprang to flame. A cracking shock of thunder shook the 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:21.800 stunned world, and Henry Armstrong tranquility sat up with inarticulate cries. 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:24.520 The men fled in terror, each in a different direction, 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:27.880 for nothing on earth could Two of them had been 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:32.560 persuaded to return, but Jess was of another breed. In 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.599 the gray of the morning, the two students, pallid and 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.200 haggard from anxiety and with the terror of their adventure 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:43.799 still beating tumultuously in their blood, met at the medical college. 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:47.960 You saw it, cried one god, Yes, what are we 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.000 to do? They went around to the rear of the building, 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:53.919 where they saw a horse attached to a light wagon 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:56.599 hitched to a gate post near the door of the 0:04:56.640 --> 0:05:01.159 dissecting room. Mechanically. They entered the room. On a bench 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:06.480 in the obscurity sat Jess. He rose, grinning. I'm waiting 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:09.600 for my pay, he said. Stretched naked on a long 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.840 table lay the body of Henry Armstrong, the head defiled 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:21.520 with blood and clay from a blow with a spade. Wow, 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:24.560 so jest to care business? Huh he did? He said, Oh, 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:26.680 you're gonna sit up right now while I'm trying to 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:28.920 make some money. No, we're not going to have that. 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.800 We're going to put you back in the grave. Well 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.080 that was great, but we have more to come. Everyone. 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:37.360 We have one more short story from the great Ambrose 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:58.280 Beers that we will read after these commercial messages. All right, 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.839 So Chuck, we're gonna do president a hanging it. Okay, 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:08.160 I'm gonna start this one, all right. An old man 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:12.800 named Daniel Baker, living near Lebanon, Iowa, was suspected by 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:16.320 his neighbors of having murdered a peddler who had obtained 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.599 permission to pass the night at his house. This was 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.839 an eighteen fifty three when peddling was more common in 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:25.919 the western country than it is now and was attended 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:29.960 with considerable danger. The peddler with his pack, traversed the 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:33.520 country by all manner of lonely roads, and was compelled 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:37.599 to rely upon the country people for hospitality. This brought 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.880 him into relation with queer characters, some of whom were 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.919 not altogether scrupulous in their methods of making a living, 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:48.520 murder being an acceptable means to that end. It occasionally 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.760 occurred that a peddler with diminished pack and swollen purse 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:55.239 would be traced to the lonely dwelling of some rough character, 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:59.640 and never could be traced beyond. This was so in 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:02.719 the case of old man Baker, as he was always called. 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:06.560 Such names are given in the western settlements only to 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:10.480 elderly persons who are not esteemed to the general disrepute 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:14.040 of social and worth has affixed the special reproach of age. 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:17.320 A peddler came to his house and none went away, 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:22.160 and that is all that anybody knew. All right, So 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.920 we're talking about peddler's being murdered on the road. I 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:30.440 have to say, Ambrose beerst makes me look succinct. Yeah, 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.320 he can write a paragraph about like a lightning bolt 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:38.680 flashing the sky in parentheses. All right, here we go. 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.520 Seven years later, the Reverend Mr Cummings, a Baptist minister 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.600 well known in that part of the country, was driving 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.640 by Baker's farm one night. It was not very dark. 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:51.560 There was a bit of moon somewhere above the light 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:55.000 veil of mists that lay along the earth. Mr Cummings, 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.840 who was at all times a cheerful person, was whistling 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:00.560 a tune which he would occasionally enter up to speak 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:05.040 a word, a friendly encouragement to his horse. Get on, boy, 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:10.040 like that, that's friendly. As he came to a little 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:12.200 bridge across the dry ravine, he saw the figure of 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.680 a man standing upon it, clearly outlined against the gray 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:19.239 background of a misty forest. The man had something strapped 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:23.000 on his back and carried a heavy stick, obviously an 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:28.240 itinerant peddler. His attitude had in it a suggestion of abstraction, 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:32.400 like that of a sleepwalker. Mr Cummings reined in his 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:35.600 horse when he arrived in front of him, gave him 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.800 a pleasant salutation and invited him to a seat in 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:44.080 his vehicle. If you're going my way, he added. The 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:46.680 man raised his head, looked him full in the face, 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:51.160 but neither answered nor made any further movement. The minister, 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:56.680 with good natured persistence, repeated his invitation. At this the 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.400 man threw his right hand forward from his side and 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:01.720 pointed word. As he stood on the extreme edge of 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:05.480 the bridge. Mr Cummings looked past him over into the ravine, 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:09.079 saw nothing unusual, and withdrew his eyes to address the 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:15.319 man again. He had disappeared. Wow, I think you can 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:19.280 take his home. Okay. The horse, which all this time 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:23.000 had been uncommonly restless, gave at the same moment a 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:26.680 snort of terror and started to run away. Before he 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:29.480 had regained control of the animal, the minister was at 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.120 the crest of the hill, a hundred yards along it's 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.120 like a football field. He looked back and saw the 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:37.800 figure again, at the same place and in the same 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:40.320 attitude as when he had first observed it on the 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.920 twenty yard line. Then, for the first time, he was 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.320 conscious of a sense of the supernatural, and drove home 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:51.160 as rapidly as his willing horse would go on. Arriving 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:54.640 at home, he related his adventure to his family, and 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:58.400 early the next morning, accompanied by two neighbors, John White 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.800 Corwell and Abner Ray, Sir, surprised they didn't talk about 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:05.560 those guys here, returned to the spot, they found the 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:09.800 body of old man Baker hanging by the neck from 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:13.280 one of the beams of the bridge. Immediately beneath the 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:18.000 spot where the apparition had stood. A thick coating of dust, 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.760 slightly dampened by the mist, covered the floor of the bridge, 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.080 but the only footprints were those of Mr Cunning's horse. 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.079 In taking down the body, the men disturbed the loose, 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:34.559 freeable earth of the slope below it, disclosing human bones 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:38.400 already nearly uncovered by the action of water and frost. 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:42.760 They were identified as those of the lost peddler at 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:46.360 the double inquest. The coroner's jury found that Daniel Baker 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:50.440 died by his own hand while suffering from temporary insanity, 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:54.680 and that Samuel Morritts was murdered by some person or 0:10:54.840 --> 0:11:03.800 persons to the jury unknown. The end one of the 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.960 least satisfying endings of any short story, Samuel Moritz. They 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:11.000 didn't even name the guy until that point. Oh yeah, 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:14.160 I thought that was great. I mean, I love Ambrose 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:16.840 Beers for some reasons, but not for that reason, you 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:18.240 know what I mean, to get the feeling that like 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:20.640 at the end of that book, he's just like, face 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:25.319 down in a like a methodone torpor right, and a 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:30.040 trough of whiskey. Well, Chuck, I think that was short stuff. Huh, 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.880 that's right, Special Super Short Halloween Edition. The point of 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:36.440 this is to get your prime for tomorrow's spectacular. So 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.640 don't miss it, everybody. And because I said don't miss 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:46.959 it everybody, that means short Stuff is Stuff you should know. 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:49.680 Is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.560 more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.440 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.