The Foxfire House

by Leah L. Cole

        Back in the day when coal was discovered in the hills of Pennsylvania, a man moved his family a way out into the woods just a few miles from the mine he was working in. Steel was in need for the war (the Revolutionary one), iron mines were close by, the coal supply was good, and a man could support his family on a small patch of ground carved out from the surrounding woods.

        The couple was young, and when they moved out of town, they took their beautiful little girl with them. She was sun haired and green eyed. She seemed to wake each day with a laugh, and never complained when it was time to do the endless chores on the farm. She helped her mother with the baking and the gardening and the washing and the hauling of wash water and of chamber pots with an equally sunny disposition. While her mother spun wool, the little girl carded it. While the mother put up peas, the little girl shelled them. While her mother milked the cow, the little girl churned the sweet cream into butter.

        One winter, a particularly harsh one for Pennsylvania struck. Just as the miner and his wife were beginning to run low on cut firewood and tallow candles and dried beans and preserves of last summer's fruits, the first thaw came. One bright sunny day the earth turned soft and damp, ready for the first planting of the garden. The mother was relieved. Her store of herbs for home-made medicines was severely depleted and she wanted to get the next summer's store planted as soon as possible. Singing beside her mother in the garden was the little girl, carrying the seed bag for her mother. Dig a furrow. Drop a seed. Pat the dirt back, move on. Throughout the morning and early afternoon the mother and daughter worked side by side.

        That night the family ate a hearty meal, the father being tired from the mine, and the mother and daughter being worn hungry from their time in the fresh air and their labors in the garden. Come the next morning, though, the mother went up into the attic to find her daughter a changed little girl. She woke frowning and complaining of a sore throat. She had a fever and her eyes were off color. The mother took down her last precious herbs from the ceiling of the attic and mixed up the concoction he mother and her mother's mother had given for this fever. Hours later, the little girl seemed improved. The next morning, however, the little girl was worse than ever. The wife of another coal miner had sent over some more medicines from her stock to help out the family. That evening the little girl again seemed better. The sun rose on the third morning to find the girl so weak she could barely move. The miner and his wife resolved to take the little girl the long trek into town to the doctor, just as soon as the miner could go to the mines and tell his supervisor. By the time he returned, the little girl simply lay weakly in her mother's arms. By the time the team of horses was hitched to the wagon, the little girl was dead.

        Sick of heart, the miner and his wife buried their only child at the foot of the garden and moved away, unable to bear the sorrow of her loss.

        Many years passed and the house stood abandoned. Finally a couple bought the house from the same coal mine. They thought it was quaint and wasted no time moving in their belongings. The furniture included the fancy mantel clock that had been a wedding gift from the husband's parents. All went well for most of the first month that the couple lived in their new house. They enjoyed the rusticity of the house where they had to haul water, and light candles, now that most houses had indoor plumbing and new gas lights.

        Then, one night, the moon rose full and clear over the cool summer night. For some reason, the wife was restless. Sitting in the kitchen shelling some of the wild peas she had found in the garden, a glimpse of movement out the open front door caught her attention. When she went outside to see if it was just a raccoon or skunk, she found nothing moving in the garden. Suddenly exhausted, she put the peas up and went to bed.

        The next month, the full moon again rose. The husband had been working late in the mines, and returned for supper just after dark. As the moon rose, they both caught a strand of music floating through the night. Thinking it was other workers from the mines come to visit, the two rushed into their yard. To their utter astonishment and terror, they found the apparition of a little blond girl, seeming to sprinkle seeds across their garden. In their horrified flight from their house, they left dinner set on the table and took no belongings, riding their horses to the town barebacked.

        Again, the coal mine gained ownership of the house. No one could even be found to rent the house, because the belongings of the couple remained in the disarray they left. The food remained unspoiled on the tables and the wind up clock, which had required winding every Sunday morning, continued to run for more than twenty years. People passing through that area told of an eerie light that floated through the clearing and through the trees singing on clear summer full moon nights. The house became known as the Foxfire House, but remained abandoned.

        Finally the coal seam ran out, the ground was backfilled and sold, and a Girl Scout camp took over the land near the Foxfire House. Eventually they were allowed to buy the Foxfire House, and began to restore it to its original form. Girls came and worked the garden into productivity again. They learned to card and spin wool when most didn't even own a pair of wool mittens. They stayed in tents put up near the house and played in the kitchen and front room by day. By night, though, few girls were brave enough to sleep in the house. It was said that the house was haunted.

        I tell you now: I slept in that house with my hand on my green plastic Girl Scout flashlight all night long. The house was not haunted. But when I woke in the middle of the night to visit the latrines, I saw a little blond girl with green eyes dancing and singing in the garden.

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