Ringwood Manor was the home of General Erskine, who ran the Iron Works. General Erskine was a Geographer and Surveyor-General for General George Washington during the Revolutionary War. What does that mean? It means, dear, that he made maps. General Erskine died of pneumonia during the war and was buried at the Manor.

In the terrible heat of a dry summer, the captain did not survive long without water. A few days after the mutiny, the captain succumbed to heat and thirst. The new captain, a greedy Spaniard with no compassion in his soul, left Don Sandovate tied to the mast, his body withering away, while the ship turned pirate and plundered its way up the coast. But Providence was watching the ruthless men, and a terrible storm arose and drove the ship deep into the Atlantic, where it sank with all hands, the body of Don Sandovate still tied to the broken mast.

He stretched a bit and yawned, trying to stay alert. And then he gasped. The lights had picked up the figure of a beautiful woman with long red-gold hair and wonderful blue eyes standing near the tracks. Too near! He sounded his horn to warn her away. And then he realized that the light was shining right through her. She was a ghost!

Then one night, while the tavern was full of drinkers, a nasty character named O’Hare wandered into the bar. Women and children were not safe in his presence, but especially not women.
After O’Hare had consumed far too much alcohol, he suddenly announced to the bar that he’d seen a pretty young thing in the alley out back of the tavern. The bartender froze in the middle of polishing a glass, and the men around the bar exchanged covert glances. No one said a word, but everyone was thinking about the ghost of the vengeful young girl. Everyone in the bar looked down at their glasses as he stumbled to his feet. No one made a move to stop him, and there was a quiet air of “he deserves what’s coming to him” about the bar as O’Hare left the building. It’s just too bad that there isn’t really a ghost, thought the bartender, setting down the shining glass and picking up another one to polish. O’Hare sorely needed a lesson in human kindness and respect for others.

As if that weren’t enough, the railroad signals started flashing and a bright light appeared a little ways down the track, bearing down fast on our car. I turned the key and hit the gas pedal, trying to get the car started.

The old tramp started screaming when he heard the whistle. The stationmaster could hear the roar and chug of a steam train, approaching fast. Approaching too fast to stop at the station. The old man was standing at the edge of the platform, staring down the tracks in frozen terror. The stationmaster ran forward and grabbed hold of the old tramp to pull him out of harm’s way.

I find it odd that no one else can hear the children. I tell my mother about the game of hide-and-seek that they play with me, but I know she doesn’t believe me. She just ruffles my hair and chuckles about my bright imagination. Papa can’t hear them because he is too busy reading the paper and going to work. He says I will grow up to be a writer.

O armed with Colt pistol and a Bowie knife, Texas Ranger Bigfoot Wallace once more took on the Wild West, and quickly made his mark on Texas folklore. In them days, the Rangers tended to handle stock theft at the end of the rope, so to speak, stringing up the bandits, forcing a confession out of them, and then leaving the bodies swaying in the wind to deter other outlaws. Only it didn’t work, and the bandits kept right on stealing, sometimes passing right under the bodies of their fellow outlaws to do it. S.

When he returned to camp alone, Ryan told his fellow loggers that they had been attacked by a bear. Ryan claimed to have been knocked out by a glancing blow, and said that when he came to, he found that the cook had been dragged away. Ryan told the lumberjacks that he had tried to track the bear, but a snowstorm had obliterated the tracks. Search parties were sent out, but they found no trace of the dead cook. Meanwhile, Ryan made himself scarce while the men were out searching, and no one ever found out where he went.

Johnny alternated between elation when Celia talked with him and despair when she flirted with another man. I watched their courtship from afar and was troubled. There was something about Celia that I didn’t like. I never mentioned it to Johnny, but I thought she was too much of a flirt. I wished Johnny had fallen for a nicer woman.