Browse:Stranger in the House (Volume 1, entries 330)
Stranger in the House
Volume 1, entries 330. Source context: SPIRITS → SELL SELF TO THE DEVIL. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 330
This lady had lived on the suburbs of the town over there at Berlin, Maryland, between Ocean City and Berlin, and she had jus' lost her husband. She has a little four-room house, very poorly constructed, it didn't cost much, and she has one boy. The boy's around fourteen years old. And directly after she lost her husband, there was a colored man came there and insisted that she take him in as a lodger. Well, she told him no, that she had never did it, jis' lost her husband - she rather not to do it. But he insisted staying there and she jis' couldn't get away - see, he jis' forced hisself to stay in her house. And after he had been there a couple of days, she come in home one afternoon from her work, and there she discovered this man had company. And on the second afternoon that this fellah had been at her house she come in from her work, and her son and her both heard this laughin' and talkin'upstairs. Knowin' there wasn't anyone but de one man there they began to investigate. And de boy goin' up de steps come back to his mother and says, "This man is up there and he has another heavy-set right black man settin' there with him, ' and he says, "they are a jis' havin' a big time."
(How did the boy see him?)
Through the crack of the door. And well, she begin - she was alarmed anyhow by him being there, and dat re'lly alarmed her more. And the next afternoon when she came in, her boy with her, they heard him a-laughin' and a-playin' upstairs. And when de boy went to see who was up there again and he had a great big black- snake on de bed playin' with it. Well, she asked him to leave again. But he laughed at her. So directly afterwards before she went back to her work, he came on out and went out, and she fastened ev'ry winder, locked ev'ry door in order that he couldn't git back in there. Well, when she came on back that night from her work he was right back in the house upstairs in his room. So then she began to think there was somepin funny about it. And he wanted to stay to his room. He didn't want to be seen around in de public. In fact he told her dat he didn't want to be seen in de public too much. And on the fifth day then he decided to leave and he went to her and he ast her what did he owe her. "Well, '' she say, "I don't make you any charge; anything you wanta give me is all right." She was only too glad to git clear of him, she told me. "Well," he say, "but I wan' choo to tell me." She says, "No, I won't." Well, he says then - he up and says to her, he says, "Now, you have recently lost your husband." She says, "Yes, that's right." And he say, "You owe the under- taker two-hundred dollars for this burial and everything. Is that right?" She says, "Yes." 'And you promised to pay him so much ever' month?" She said, "I did." "Well," he says, "I'm gon'a give you enough money to pay that bill off. But I want choo to do this. I want choo to pay them. You take this money and put away home here and keep it. And you go up and you jis' pay the twenty-five dollars a month like you have been doing, and don't pay any more than that, don't make any display with this money, becuz they know that choo can't make it. You haven't made it so quickly, and they'll want to question you where you got it from. And you act as I have instructed you." And she says he out and counted her out two-hundred dollars and gave her. And he packed up and disappeared, and told her that, "choo'll never see me again." And she believed that he was a man that had sold hisself to the devil. And when a person do that, if there's anything dat they want to accomplish, they can do it.