Seymour Doolittle's Visitor

Seymour Dolittle’s Visitor—George Davis

  When my wife and I bought Marconi Manor, a Victorian home in need of much repair, we renamed it, Dolittle’s Estate. The deed says: Seymour and Dorothy Dolittle owners of said property, located at 115 Main Street, Cumberland Falls, Maine, etc.

  It was while we were in the throes of remodeling our new home. I was summoned by a workman to join him in our guest room at the top of the stairs. “Mr. Dolittle,” he said, “there’s something in this room that scares me. Do you sense it?”

  I didn’t sense anything out of the way. “Can’t you feel the cold air, as if there is a presence here with us?”

  “No, I can’t feel a thing. Now, if you don’t mind. Please return to work.” 

  “I’m not staying one more minute in this room. I will go downstairs; work in the library. I’ll send up my sheet rocker. He’s always showing off his physique, especially when there is a woman present. He claims to fear nothing in this world.” 

  The sheet rocker’s name is Willy Hanson. He is six-three, one-ninety-five with a shock of blond hair that hangs down his face. His blue eyes shine, and he struts like a proud peacock. 

  I don’t care how he walks as long as he gets the job done. 

After two hours, I went up to the guest room to see how Willy was doing. “Hello, Willy. How are you coming?” 

  “Good, you know your uncle Gregory is a big help. He’s some guy; a good worker.” 

  “Willy, I don’t have an Uncle Gregory.” 

  “Well, he said he was your great-great-uncle. That’s all I know; a really chipper fellow.” I had done my family tree a couple of years ago. There was an Uncle Gregory Smith in my mother’s family, but he died in 1918 in the flu epidemic. 

  “Okay, Willy, you and Uncle Gregory finish up here. You know I put in your contract that the job of renovation is to be finished by next Thursday, or you will forfeit a week’s payment for every day you go over.” 

  “I don’t get involved with contracts and legal documents. I am a sheet rocker.” 

  “You might want to talk to your foreman, Willy.”

  “I will. I’m almost finished here anyway. Gregory has been a great help rather you know him or not.”

  The workers left at five. Dot and I sat in our newly remodeled living room, in our twin-brown recliners and talked of the makeover. “You know, Hon,” I said. “Two more days and the job will be finished.

  Dot said, “I’m so glad, Seymour. It’s been a long five weeks.”

  “It sure has.”

  “Seymour, what were you and that man talking about up there in the guest room?”

  “He said an Uncle Gregory, my uncle helped him with the sheet rock install. The only uncle I have or had was Gregory Smith, my mother’s uncle.”

  “I have a sneaking suspicion Willy has been smoking the funny weed. He looks spaced out to me.” 

  “I agree, but how would he know my great-great-uncle when I never met him. He died way before I was born?” 

  “Coincidence, Seymour. Coincidence.” I spent the entire night in my recliner. I must have been really tired. Dot, at some point, got up and went upstairs to bed. I didn’t hear her leave. 

  It was two weeks later when Dot’s mother came to stay a week with us that the name, Gregory was heard. My mother-in-law said, she talked with my uncle. She was taken with him. In her own words, “that uncle of yours is a really handsome man, and an excellent conversationalist, Seymour.” I didn’t bother to tell her my uncle had been dead for over ninety years. Who would believe it anyway? 

  Dot’s mother, Mildred Stone came down to breakfast early Sunday morning. “Good morning, Seymour. Dorothy is still asleep I assume.”

  “Yes, Mother, she is a late sleeper.” I looked at the kitchen clock. It was five-thirty.

  “I surely am enjoying your uncle’s stories, Seymour. He is a hoot.” Yeah, he’s a hoot all right. He is a…I hate to think of it, a ghost.

  “Surely, you must get a big boot out of him, Seymour.”

  “Yes, he is something all right, Mother.”

  We finished breakfast, and before I went out to get the morning paper, Dot came down the stairs, hair a fly, her face saying, ‘don’t talk to me. I am still asleep.’ I’ve learned over the years to keep my mouth shut in the morning, let her get her first cup of coffee before starting any conversation. 

  Dot asked, “How’d you sleep, Mother?”

  “Once I got to sleep, around midnight. I slept like a baby.”

  “Why so late getting to sleep?”

  “Seymour’s uncle was telling me of times he fought in the big war, WWI. He was stationed in France and Germany and often came under enemy fire. He is so interesting.”

  Dot looked at me. “Uncle? You have an uncle living in our home without asking me if it was all right, Seymour?”

  “It’s a long story, Dot.”

  “I’ve got all day, Seymour.”

  “Suffice it to say, your mother enjoys his company. What can be wrong with that?”

  “I guess you’re right. Nevertheless, I want to meet this uncle of yours. Why isn’t he down here to breakfast?”

  My mother-in-law answered before I had a chance to say anything. “Now, Dorothy, Gregory is a shy person. He’ll come down when you, and Seymour go into town this morning.”

  “We’re leaving shortly, Mother,” I said. “We’ll be home around four.”

  “Have fun, you two,” Mother Stone said, waving goodbye as we went out the front door.

  “Mother must not be feeling well, Seymour. She’s acting awfully strange. If she isn’t imaging this uncle of yours, she shouldn’t’ allow him in her bedroom.”

  “I think Mother Stone may have drunk a little too much cooking sherry, Dot.”

  “Yeah, but how about that sheet rocker. He said he talked to your uncle as well. We know he smokes weed, but my mother has never smoked anything. Yes, she may take a snort now and again, but she has never hallucinated before.”

  “Okay, Dot. Tonight I will sleep in the guest room. Your mother can sleep in our room with you. I will see if Uncle Greg shows up.”

  Ten o’clock. “Good night, Dot, Mother Stone. Pleasant dreams,” I said.

  Eleven o’clock I was wakened by an unusual sound. I heard a pitch pipe being blown somewhere in the room. “Hello, who’s in here?”

  “Good evening, nephew Seymour. I’m your Uncle Gregory. By the way, please do not call me Greg. I hate that nickname.” Fully awake now. I sat up in bed. “So you are real?”

  “As real as a ghost can be, nephew. I’ve been dead now over ninety years.”

  “Then what are you doing haunting my home?”

  “I don’t refer to it as haunting. I prefer, visiting.”

  “Yeah, but how about that sheet rocker. He said he talked to my uncle as well. We know he smokes weed, but my mother has never smoked anything. Yes, she may take a snort now and again, but she has never hallucinated before.” 

  “Okay, Dot. Tonight I will sleep in the guest room. Your mother can sleep in our room with you. I will see if Uncle Greg shows up.” 

  Ten o’clock. “Good night, Dot, Mother Stone. Pleasant dreams,” I said. 

At eleven o’clock I was awakened by an unusual sound. I heard a pitch pipe being blown somewhere in the room. “Hello, who’s in here?”  

  My mother-in-law left Friday morning. Our home has returned to normal if there is any such thing as normal. We never heard from Uncle Gregory again. That is, until a year later. I was talking with the man who bought my parent’s home. It was in that house; I was born fifty-nine years ago. “Seymour, you know something funny happened the other day in our guest room. As I was papering the wall, I heard a soft giggling sound. When I stopped, laid down my brush a mist appeared in the corner of the room. I rubbed my eyes, thinking I must be dreaming. I was not. A man stepped out of the mist and introduced himself. He said, my name is Gregory Smith, and I was born, and I died in this house in 1927. He said he was your uncle, Seymour.” 

  “You were probably tired. Funny things develop in a sleepy mind.” 

  “I could have sworn I talked with a ghost, Seymour. It seemed so real.” 

  “Trust me. That ghost is a figment of your imagination.” 

  If you own an old Victorian manor house. Before you remodel your guest room. Oh, well, just enjoy your new home. And, if you see or hear a specter, and his name is Gregory Smith, just tell him to get lost. He is a figment of your imagination.