The Moonlit Road - The Ticking Clock

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"Just before Grandpa died, he called Daddy to his side. Grandpa motioned for him to lean down, and when he did, Grandpa whispered to him to take care of Ol' Luke, because he'd be back for him some day. Daddy didn't know if Grandpa was talking crazy, since Ol' Luke had been dead for years, or if he really meant the clock with Ol' Luke's picture on it. Either way, Daddy decided to hide the clock so no one would find it and mess it up. So after he told Elspeth the story, they put the clock back in its hiding place. And she never touched it again until after he died, at which time she went up into the attic, got the clock, and hid it over at her place."

"I asked Elspeth if she asked Daddy what he thought Grandpa meant by 'coming back to get Ol' Luke.' She said that Daddy told her to mind her own business and get back to bed. Elspeth said that she then asked Daddy if he thought that possum walking in the attic was Ol' Luke coming back. He wouldn't answer her, but just shooed her out of the attic and told her not to tell anybody about the clock or she'd get a whuppin'."

"We guessed that since Daddy was the superstitious type, he believed the spirit of Ol' Luke, not just his picture, was somehow in the clock." So, when he heard that possum walking around in the attic, he must've thought it was Ol' Luke and was scared to death that Grandpa was not far behind."

Granny told me she didn't believe a word of that story of Grandpa and Ol' Luke coming back. But since the clock had belonged to her father and grandfather, it had sentimental value and she wanted to keep it.

"Do you believe the story?" Granny asked me. "Of course not," I said, even though I believed every word. "There ain't no such thing as ghost people, much less a ghost dog."

"Well, you better not go in the back of the house where the clock is, because Ol' Luke just might jump out and get you," Granny said. "And my Grandpa McIntyre might just come with him."

Granny's story kept me awake every time I spent the night with her and Grandpa. I just knew that I would awaken in the middle of the night to find Ol' Luke jumping out of the clock onto the bed, with Great-Great Grandpa McIntyre close behind.

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