Ghost Story by Peter Straub Page B

for fifty years.
    You know what a schoolmaster's duties were in those days. This was no urban school, and it was no Hill School either—God knows that was where I should have applied, but I had a number of elaborate ideas in those days. I fancied myself as a real country Socrates, bringing the light of reason into the wilderness. Wilderness! In those days, the country around Elmira was nearly that, as I remember, but now there isn't even a suburb where the little town was. A freeway cloverleaf was put up right over the site of the school. The whole thing's under concrete. It used to be called Four Forks, and it's gone. But back then, during my sabbatical from Milburn, it was a typical little village, ten or twelve houses, a general store, a post office, a blacksmith, the schoolhouse. All of these buildings looked alike, in a general sort of way—they were all wooden, they hadn't been painted in years so they all looked a bit gray and dismal. The schoolhouse was one room, of course, one room for all eight grades. When I came up for my interview I was told that I'd be boarding with the Mathers—they'd put in the lowest bid, and I soon found out why—and that my day would start at six. I had to chop the wood for the schoolhouse stove, get a good fire going, sweep the place out and get the books in place, pump up the water, clean the boards—wash the windows, too, when they needed it.

    Then at seven-thirty the students would come. And my job was to teach all eight grades, reading, writing, arithmetic, music, geography, penmanship, history ... the "works." Now I'd run a mile from any such prospect, but then I was full of Abraham Lincoln on one end of a log and Mark Hopkins on the other, and I was bursting to start. The whole idea simply enraptured me. I was besotted. I suppose even then the town was dying, but I couldn't see it. What I saw was splendor— freedom and splendor. A little tarnished perhaps, but splendor all the same.

    You see, I didn't know. I couldn't guess what most of my pupils would be like. I didn't know that most country schoolteachers in these little hamlets were boys of about nineteen, with no more education than they'd be giving. I didn't know how muddy and unpleasant a place like Four Forks would be most of the year. I didn't know I'd be half-starved most of the time. Nor that it would be a condition of my job that I report for church every Sunday off in the next village, an eight-mile hike. I didn't know how rough it would be.

    I began to find out when I went over to the Mathers with my suitcase that first night. Charlie Mather used to be the postmaster in town, but when the Republicans got into office they made Howard Hummell the postmaster, and Charlie Mather never got over his resentment. He was permanently sour. When he took me up to the room I was to use, I saw that it was unfinished— the floor was plain unsanded wood, and the ceiling consisted of just the roofing joists and tiles. "Was makin' this for our daughter," Mather told me. "She died. One less mouth to feed." The bed was a tired old mattress on the floor, with one old army blanket over it. In the winter, there wasn't enough warmth for an Eskimo in that room. But I saw that it had a desk and a kerosene lamp, and I was still seeing stars, and I said fine, I'll love it here, something to that effect. Mather grunted in disbelief, as well he might.

    Supper that night was potatoes and creamed corn. "You'll eat no meat here," Mather said, "unless you save up and buy it yourself. I'm getting the allowance to keep you alive, not to fatten you up." I don't suppose I ate meat more than six times at the Mather table, and that was all at once, when somebody gave him a goose and we had goose every day until there was nothing left of it. Eventually some of my pupils began bringing me ham and beef sandwiches—their parents knew Mather was a mean-fisted man. Mather himself ate his big meal at noon, but he made it clear that it was my duty to spend