went on. "I have been dreaming that I shall be buried alive. Oh, but I have," he added, as the Doctor began to shake his head. "If I were buried the usual manner and should wake up. . . ," here he trembled, and a look of horror spread over his face. "But I won't be buried that way!" he yelled in a frenzy. "Promise me at you will do as I say," he exclaimed in a tone that expressed a mixture of both command and entreaty.
"Well, what is it?" the Doctor asked curiously.
"I'm going to have a bell placed near my grave with a rope leading down into my coffin, and then, if I revive, I shall pull the cord, and ring the bell."
"But who would hear it?" Dr. Jackson asked, as he vainly strove to check a smile.
"Oh, there is a farm house not far from the cemetery, and somebody there could hear it, and come and dig me up."
"You'd smother before they could ever get to you," the Doctor objected.
"No! No! I have everything planned, and I have it written down so that you can do it just as I wish. I'll pay you now for your trouble," and he handed the Doctor a fifty-dollar bill. "Promise me that you will do it," he pleaded.
Dr. Jackson, thinking it all to be nonsense, nevertheless promised, and the miser slowly hobbled off.
The Doctor thought it all a good joke, and the news soon spread about the village.
"And to think," the Doctor said to a group of men standing in front of the little drug store, "the old tight-wad gave me this fifty to see that his fool notions wore carried out," and he showed them the bill.
The old man was the object of a great many jokes during the ensuing weeks, but he himself was feeling much more at ease to think that the Doctor had pledged himself to carry out his wishes.
The miser's right leg, however, was growing more and more numb. Each morning he would pinch it to see if there were any feeling left. It became very difficult for him to walk; so he decided to supervise, personally, the erection of the bell.
It was a large iron one much like the ordinary farmhouse dinner bell which the rural housewife uses to notify the men in the field that dinner is ready. The old man had it fastened on a post, which was set in the ground near the spot which he had chosen for his grave.
The time finally came when the shriveled figure of the miser did not appear upon the street, and investigation revealed him lying upon his bed, almost wholly paralyzed. Doctor Jackson obtained one of the middle-aged women of the village to wait upon him, and give him his food, for he could not even move his arms to feed himself. For a few weeks more he lay in this helpless condition gradually becoming more and more dependent upon his nurse. One morning he failed to open his eyes, and lay motionless, giving no sign of life whatever. Dr. Jackson had a great number of calls to make that day, and so it was not until late in the evening that he could attend the old fellow. Tired out from his labors, the doctor made a hasty examination, and said there was no doubt about his being dead.
Next day the Doctor gave the miser's written instructions to his man-of-all-work, and told him to see that they were fulfilled. The latter had a hole bored in the lid of the coffin, through which the rope was to pass. One end of it was placed in the hand of the corpse, and the remainder of the rope was pushed through a one-inch pipe, and fastened to the bell. The pipe permitted the rope to be pulled easily; otherwise the earth would have checked it. According to the miser's orders, another tube connected the cheap casket with the open air. This was to permit him to breathe if he should not be entirely dead.
The earth was rapidly shoveled into the opening, and in a short time a mound of yellow clay marked the old skinflint's last abode. It was unlike other newly-made graves, however, for a rope reached out of it to the bell near by, and six inches of an air-pipe protruded.
The grave-diggers left the spot, and returned to their homes. The cemetery was deserted unless one believes that the spirits of the dead hover above the last resting place of their bodies.
About three o'clock next morning the sleepy telephone operator in the little office above the drug store received a call.
"Hello! Hello!" a frightened woman's voice exclaimed. "This is Harding's. Say, that bell over in the cemetery has been ringing for ten minutes! It's getting louder and louder! Call the constable or somebody quick! There ain't any men folks at our place now, and we're scared to death!"
The operator was wide awake, for everybody knew the story of the burial of the old miser. She called the Doctor, but could get no response. In desperation she called the gravediggers, and two others to go out to the ghostly spot. As soon as she had sent them on their weird quest, she called the Harding farmhouse.
"That bell quit ringin' several minutes ago!" Mrs. Harding replied. "I don't know what to think!"
The four men reached the dark cemetery with its eery tombstones faintly visible all about them. Hurriedly, and with conflicting emotions, they ran to the new grave. What they saw startled them so that they almost turned back!
The rope, which had been fastened to the bell, now was tied to the foot of the post. Even as they looked, they could make out a slight movement of the rope! It grew taut, and then they could see it slacken!
"Gosh! He's come back to life!" one of the men whispered hoarsely.
"Look! Look!" his companion almost shouted, and pointed toward the air-pipe.
How it got there, they did not know, but a bucket was forced down over the end of the tube into the fresh earth, cutting off all the air supply from the coffin.
One of the grave-diggers kicked the bucket off, and then they all set to work digging. Frantically, yet fearfully, they threw out the fresh earth. Their lanterns cast weird shadows about them, and dimly lighted up the somber tombstones near by. They scarcely said a word, but when they did, it was in a very low tone.
Thud! A shovel had at last struck the wooden box. It startled the men. They were not any less courageous than the average, but their surroundings and the peculiar situation in which they found themselves would have affected the nerves of anybody.
Quickly they cleared off the top of the coffin.
"Hello! Are you alive?' one of them called in a low voice.
There was no answer.
"I think Hardings imagined they heard the bell ring," one of the men muttered.
"But didn't we see the rope move?" another objected.
"Well, you can open the lid," the first speaker added.
They held their two lanterns down inside the pit which they had just made. The yellow flames flickered and spluttered. The bravest of the four men used his shovel for a lever, and pried up the coffin top.
Slowly, hesitatingly, he peered inside. An unexpected movement from within would have caused him instantly to drop the lid.
He still could not make out the dead man's form. Carefully he jerked the top clear back, and the four spectators were terrified. If they had been out of the pit in which they stood it is doubtful whether they would have remained for a second glance. As it was, they were standing on the edge of the casket, and could not escape.
The old man's form was turned over, and hunched up, as if he had
