Rascal Chuck Is Haunted At School

    Even now it's difficult to explain how the haunting happened. We're traveling in Pennsylvania when Chuck insists on seeing a one room school house nearby. A very special place. Circa 1890. Called the Maple Grove School. 

        I know all about it. Thousands of school houses just like this one existed in Pennsylvania after free public education was established in the state in 1834. All across rural Pennsylvania, they were built to provide schooling from first through eighth grade. These are known facts. No dispute.

      Chuck wants to see the school. Go inside. See what it was like over one hundred years ago.

          What can go wrong?

      Dan parks the car, and we head across the beautiful grass field. I see the school in the distance, and it's just like the school on Little House on the Prairie or When Calls the Heart. There's even a school bell on top to call the kids to school.

         One teacher and a bunch of kids of varied grade levels all in the same room. Chuck's grandfather (my dad) went to a school like that in Minnesota. He was a second grader who skipped a grade because he did the third grade work when he finished his work. So, the next year he jumped to fourth grade. 

        There's no one around because the school hasn't been officially used since the 1960's. Is that an important fact to consider? We spot the outhouses to our right. 

        There is also a place to tie your horse if you were lucky enough to have one to ride. 

        We open the front door and peek in. Eerily deserted. I don't use that word eerily lightly. I can feel something in the air. I shrug it off. The place is old. Sometimes I have a too active imagination.

         I am immediately mesmerized, staring at the rows of desks, old-fashioned desks, and the black wood stove that sits prominently in the middle of the room. I imagine all the kids who sat there, farm kids, most likely.

    The blackboard proudly displays the Pledge of Allegiance for the children to recite. 

        Chuck scampers in beside me. 

        "This is the way it used to be," I explain to my rascal cat. "No computers, no WIFI, no TV's in the classroom. Just books and a chalkboard. Kids brought their lunch with them or they went back home for lunch. There was no cafeteria with hot lunch being served." I'm pulling from memory here because I used to be an elementary school principal, and I know all about lunch periods and recess.

        Chuck doesn't react. I gaze down and he's not there. Has he even heard a word I've said? Where the heck is he?

        Suddenly, I hear a crash. What?

        Behind me, to the left, is the cloakroom where the kids would have put their coats and hats. When we walked in, we saw only the coat hooks hanging from the walls. 

        The tell-tale signs of an orange and white tail disappears out the front door. Chuck is running as fast as Chuck can run out of the school. The bang was the front door slamming, then swinging open again after Chucky ran through it. Something scared him. This doesn't make sense. He's the one who wanted to see the school.

        I go to investigate. Now I hear it--a kind of stomping of boots. The sound that kids would make if they just came in from a snow storm and were trying to get their boots clean. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. 

        I hesitate. One side of my brain is saying there must be a reasonable explanation. Just go look. The other side is screaming--this is too weird because I know there's nothing there. No snow outside, no kids. No boots. 

        I round the corner. Sure enough, only a deserted cloakroom.  Again it's eerily quiet. 

            

        Chuck is outside. He's found Dan, standing where they would hitch the horses. 

        "What's going on?"

         A haunting? I can't even begin to explain it. "We heard something. Let's just get out of here."

        "Chuck said . . ." 

        There's more to see in this preserved village that dates back hundreds of years. But now I'm beginning to wonder. Is the General Store haunted too? That's where we're headed to next.

                                                        TO BE CONTINUED