The Ghost Wanted Her Easter Bonnet: 1894

Jose Guadalupe Posada, La Calavera Catrina

EASTER GHOST STORY.

It was at the midnight lunch and the telegraph editor told the story. We had all been kicking over the extra ‘assignment’ the city editor had just given us of writing an Easter story. Every man on the reportorial staff was to contribute one. The telegraph editor said he could reel off Easter stories by the yard if he had no more to do than the reporters. The sporting editor asked him for a sample. We lighted cigarettes and prepared to listen. He said:

“This is a ghost story. It is an Easter ghost story, and there is a woman in it. The woman was married to a newspaper man. His name was Bob Scrutiny. He was a jolly good fellow, but a heavy drinker and a thorough spendthrift. His wife was a silly tempered woman, or rather more of a school girl than a woman. Her temper was fearful. When angry her face and neck became scarlet, the veins in her temples expanded and she was a very unattractive person all round. Scrutiny loved his wife more than anybody except himself. He got a good salary, and she spent the greater part of it. He was always ‘broke’ by Thursday and on Mondays he was generally eating lobsters and drinking champagne at midnight. On Fridays he ate toast and drunk tea. Well, Bob was a good newspaper man. He wasn’t steady in his work, but his brilliance at times compensated for his general good-for-nothingness at other times. One night he would fairly reel ‘copy’ off by the yard; the next he would work an hour over a ‘tow-line head.’ But everybody including his managing editor liked him and his position was as secure as—well, as mine, for instance.”

The telegraph editor stretched his legs out complacently.

“But the managing editor resigned finally to accept a position as confidential secretary to Hon. Somebody or other and a new man was called from New York to fill the vacancy. One of these plodders, you know; same yesterday, today and forever; never startled at anything, moving along at the same pace no matter what the rumpus. Everything went on smoothly for a week or so. Then Scrutiny got one of his off spells and also got a big assignment; some gilt edged murder story, I believe. He got his facts all right; he always did, but when he came into the office that evening about 10 o’clock he told us that he’d be d__d if he felt able to write a line. However, he sat down and after three hours apparently hard work he sent his ‘copy’ up. The new managing editor read it. He came downstairs and said:

“’Make a column more of this, Mr. Scrutiny, and make it spicier.’

“’Make a column more of this? Mr., I couldn’t make a line more out of that to save my neck.’

“The managing editor repeated his request, then demanded more of the story and ended by leaving the ‘copy’ on Bob’s desk with instructions to write or quit. Bob quit.

“You don’t see where the Easter part comes in, eh? Well, Bob went home and told his wife of his discharge. It was about a month before Easter. She told him not to mind and gave the usual bread and cheese in a cottage story. Bob felt relieved. Knowing her temper he had anticipated a regular equinoxial storm; on the contrary, for a week or so he lived a regular honeymoon existence.

“But then Lalla, that was Bob’s wife’s name, wanted an Easter bonnet.

“Bob told her he had never denied her anything, but she’d have to go without a new bonnet this Easter. She teased and scolded, wouldn’t listen to reason, and finally worked herself into such and uncontrollable state of anger over the really trivial deprivation that I’m hanged if she didn’t break a blood vessel or something and die right then and there. It was, of course, an awful shock to Bob. He had loved his little wife, and, as men go, had been very true to her. They buried her on Easter Sunday in the big family vault, for Scrutiny came of good people, and Bob wore crepe on his hat and looked haggard.

“One day he came to the office and complained of dreaming constantly about his wife. She came constantly to his bedside and reproached him, he said. Some young fool laughingly asked him if she wanted that bonnet yet. Bob turned white, and said, ‘Yes, she asked for her bonnet, her bonnet, her Easter bonnet, so pathetically.’ This went on for several weeks. He told us he never slept and we knew he didn’t eat enough to keep a canary alive. One night he came to the office late and remarked to his small coterie of friends that he had bought that bonnet and the next time his ‘girlie,’ he always called her that, came to him he proposed to give it to her. We did not take the matter seriously. Well, Bob went home and we learned in a roundabout way that he had purchased a bonnet. He showed it to someone.

“About two hours later the night police reporter brought in the story that Scrutiny had been found dead at the Woodland cemetery.

“We questioned the reporter eagerly. He had not committed suicide, we learned, but there he lay with one hand clutching at the bars of the gate of the tomb where his wife lay buried. And near him lay an empty bonnet box.”

The telegraph editor puffed at his cigar a moment. Then he asked for a light. We roused ourselves and found that our cigarettes had all gone out.

“What do you ‘spose became of that bonnet?” asked the night editor absently.

Plain Dealer [Cleveland, OH] 25 March 1894: p. 10

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: The acquisition of a new Easter bonnet was an article of faith for every church-going lady; one would be better off dead in a ditch than seen wearing last-year’s bonnet, no matter how cleverly re-trimmed.  Even dead women desired the latest modes in hats. Mrs Daffodil has previously written about a ghost who ordered a hat. Vanity does not end with the grave. This must have been an Easter bonnet to die for.

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.