by Linda Sandoval
There was a house down the street from me where I grew up that was said to be haunted by the ghost of little Maddy Baldwin. According to the story she died in her attic bedroom and sometimes could be heard crying and rocking in her rocking chair. The whole town knew this story. I used to play in that house when I was little. It was an old farm house that had been turned into a rental property and Bart, a friend of mine, lived on the bottom floor. When the upper apartment was empty Bart and I would stage plays in the dinning room while our neighborhood kid audience sat on the floor in the living room. At the end of the show, whatever it was, we would tell the ghost story and ask everyone to listen for the rocking. Then we would all go screaming out of the house. We never really heard her. But one day Bart and I finally got the courage to go up to the attic and sure enough there was a little rocking chair and an old feather tic just the size of a child's bed.
There is an old graveyard in my town where the graves date back to the 18th century. One is for a little girl. It has the sweetest lamb carved on it but I can't read what the stone says. It's all in a type of German that is no longer spoken.