Several days after the time Ol’ Mose woke me, the night air in the cabin was stirring once again. In the quiet of the dark I heard pattering feet moving across the dirt floor. I opened my eyes and there he was, heading for the door. I managed to lift my head in time to see him push the door open and step outside. He was carrying his shoes.
The door moved without a sound. That surprised me. I remember thinking—how come the door didn’t making any noise? It was a rickety old door. Anytime someone went in or out you knew it. Those old rusty hinges would screech like a flock of scared turkeys.
I sat up and looked around. But I couldn’t see much. It was too dark. I asked myself—did I really see the door opening or was it a dream?
Maybe, I saw a ghost. Who else could go through a door without it squawking? I decided that it couldn’t be a dream because by then I was thinking so hard I was wide awake. So it had to be a ghost.
That was it for me. I wanted no part of any ghost in the middle of the night. So I threw my head down and the next thing I knew it was morning and that dag-blamed horn was blaring again.
That Mose was an odd character. We never saw much of him during the day. Often he was away working on a neighbor’s farm or tending to his shop. I’ll tell you one thing. His tools were the envy of every farmer in the county. He had a tool for every purpose and if he realized that he didn’t have the right tool for a job, he would invent one.
He kept his tools shiny and clean, each one hanging on its own hook on the wall in his workshop. He may have kept his tools neat but the rest of his shed was not so orderly. It seemed like he saved everything he could get his hands on. Every corner of his little shop was cluttered with piles of broken wagon wheels, steel bars, gears, axels, blades, brackets, harnesses, anvils, broken machinery and metal parts of all kinds.
He had one wooden chair in his shop but you couldn’t sit in it because he kept a stack of tool catalogues on the seat. Now, I know Mose could not read, but he would look through the catalogues regularly and if a particular tool caught his eye, he would show the catalogue to Massa and get him to order it from the company.
A fire was going constantly so he could weld a strip of iron in a minute.
The same day I saw the ghost, I was working in the field when the bottom of my shoe fell out. I asked the overseer if I could go back to the cabin. Auntie Bee kept a box near her bed filled with all sorts of buttons, threads, cloth and skins. I was sure I could find a leather strip to stuff inside my boot.
When I got to the cabin the door was wide open. Somebody was inside.
It was Mose. He was sitting on a stool by the door. I noticed that he was holding a can of oil. He didn’t say anything as I went to Auntie Bee’s bed, got the box and found the piece of leather I wanted. I figured he was fixing the door and that is why it didn’t squeak anymore.
I have to say—seeing him by the door with his oil relieved me greatly. Now I could be sure it was no ghost walking out the door in the middle of the night. It was definitely Mose.
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Friday, May 21st 2010 at 9:31PM
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