The Ghost of Tillie Jean Cassaway by Ellen Harvey Showell Page A

children, never wanted any. Most kids are afraid of me, cause I made it plain I don’t want nobody messing around my property. But that little girl, Tillie Jean Cassaway, she never was afraid. She came over that old bridge all by herself, and she’d follow me around asking all sorts of questions. At first I tried to shoo her away, make her go home. She’d go, but be back the next day, calling for me. It was like she didn’t have no friends, no one to play with.”
    â€œThat family kept to themselves, it’s true,” said Granny.
    He continued. “I never was good at getting along with people, mostly I just like to be left alone. But days that Tillie didn’t come, I’d look for her. She helped me with the chickens and the pigs … sometimes I took her home in the boat, oh, she loved that. So, when she … when the accident happened … when she was drowned, I missed her more than I ever missed any other human being.”
    He paused and seemed to be thinking about what he’d said, and how strange it was. Granny said, “It’s a terrible pity. She was so young.”
    Morton Craig continued, “Then one day I came out of the house and this other little girl was standing in front of my door, holding a book and nothing else. She wouldn’t talk, or say who she was, not for a long time, and she wouldn’t go away. So I called her Tillie. It was like she come to take Tillie’s place.”
    â€œWhere did she come from?” asked Granny.
    â€œOff Couger Mountain, I found out.”
    â€œLordy, by herself?”
    â€œYeah. She was an orphan, run away from the folks she was staying with. They had a lot of kids, she had no place to sleep, didn’t get enough to eat.”
    â€œThere are some mighty poor families up there,” said Granny. “I know there’s young’uns go lack.”
    â€œYes. Well, I fed her and told her she could stay with me if she kept away from other people. A man come asking about her, one of the family she’d been staying with. He told me who she was. He said he never knew her pa, he’d been gone a long time, but her mother was taken sick two years ago and died, and they took her in. I told him to go on, leave her alone, I’d take care of her. He left and never come back.”
    â€œYou called her Tillie Jean, just like she was the other girl!” exclaimed Hilary.
    â€œYou had her afraid to even talk to me,” said Granny.
    â€œShe thought anybody’d see her, they’d lock her up!” said Hilary.
    The man said, “I thought if folks found out about her, they’d take her away, put her in an orphan home and make her go to school! I had to keep people from knowing she was with me. I told her to call herself Tillie Jean now, that she was like a child that come from the grave.”
    â€œOf course she must go to school,” said Granny. “She got a right to learn, like other children, no matter where she comes from.”
    â€œI never seen no good in schoolin’,” said the man. “Anyway, why’d she come to my place, if it warn’t meant? I took care of her, bought her clothes and patent leather shoes, just like she wanted. She belongs with me!”
    â€œWell, she can stay with you but still go to school,” said Granny. “She ain’t no different from other young’uns. Seems right smart, I’d say. Hilary here can help her catch up.”
    â€œYes, and they’ve got a special reading class at school. She can go to that.” said Hilary. “Willy had to take it last year.”
    Ann Turner came and stood in front of the man and asked, “Why did you shoot my dog?”
    â€œHe’s a mean dog and running wild … gets in fights with other dogs around and chases people,” he answered.
    â€œHe ain’t mean,” said the girl. “I brung him food and water and he licked me.”
    â€œHe sure