“You always take better care of me than anybody,” Little Willie told Granny Burton. “Promise you'll always come when I'm sick.”
“Well, of course, I promise,” said Granny Burton.
Unfortunately, Granny Burton was a little hasty with her promise. Suddenly one day, without any warning, Granny Burton died of a heart attack. Everybody was deeply shocked because nobody had known she had a heart problem. She had never complained, so maybe she herself didn't know how serious her condition was. Nobody was around to take her place nursing the sick. The Dunbar family especially missed her.
Little Willie insisted on going to Granny Burton's funeral with his parents. It was a chilly day and his parents didn't want to take him out, but he was so persistent in his intent to go that they finally gave in. As Little Willie stood by Granny Burton's grave, he realized he should have listened to his parents. He could feel the damp air sinking into his bones, and by the time the funeral ended and he got home, he was chilling and running a fever. The local doctor came and left some medicine, but he had to be on his way to pay another house call.
Mrs. Dunbar was afraid that Willie's chill might turn into pneumonia, so she bundled the little boy up in the quilts she had made for him. She sat by the fire to make sure he didn't kick the covers off. He was due to be given another dose of medicine in two hours, and she wanted to be sure to stay awake to give it to him.
Little Willie slept fitfully at first, but he finally settled into a peaceful sleep. His mother, tired from the household chores and from Granny Burton's funeral, sat in her rocking chair in front of the warm fire. The flames danced in the fireplace, and the penetrating heat relaxed her exhausted body. Soon she was fast asleep. Time passed, but she was not aware of it.
Then suddenly, she woke up. She wasn't sure what woke her, but she saw that dawn was breaking. Her first thought was that she had missed giving Little Willie his medicine and had let the fire go out. She could see that the fire was burning, though, and the room was warm. She stood up and moved quickly from her chair to Little Willie's bed. She was sure he would be feeling worse without his medicine, but he opened his eyes and smiled up at her.
“Honey, I am so sorry,” she said. “I fell asleep and didn't give you your medicine. I'll get it for you right now.”
“Wait, Momma!” he said. “I've already had my medicine.”
“Son, I've told you not to get out of bed and get medicine by yourself,” she scolded gently. “Why didn't you wake me up?”
“I didn't get up, and I didn't need to wake you,” he told her.
“Then how did you get your medicine?” she asked him.
“Granny Burton brought it to me,” he told her.
“That's impossible!” exclaimed Mrs. Dunbar. “You must have been out of your head with fever! Granny Burton is dead!”
“I know she's dead, Momma,” said Little Willie, “but I woke up and she was right here by my bed. She put her finger to her lips and shook her head so I'd be quiet and not wake you. Then she brought me my medicine and tucked the quilts around me. After that, she put some wood in the fireplace, and just vanished.”
“That just couldn't happen, honey,” she told Little Willie. “Are you sure you weren't dreaming?”
“I'm sure,” he insisted. “She opened the bottle and gave my medicine to me.”
Mrs. Dunbar looked at the bottle on the dresser. She could see that the level of liquid was down in the bottle and the spoon beside the bottle had traces of medicine on it. The bottle and spoon definitely had been used.
Mrs. Dunbar couldn't understand it. She asked her husband if he got up and gave Little Willie his medicine, but he insisted that he had slept through the night. Little Willie never changed his story. He knew Granny Burton had kept her promise, even though he didn't know how she could have done it.
After a while, Mrs. Dunbar began to believe the story. There was no other explanation for what had happened. At other times after that when Little Willie got sick, she would notice small signs that Granny Burton had paid a ghostly visit to watch over Little Willie. She would just smile and say a silent thank you to Granny Burton for taking care of her child while she got a good night's sleep.
Ghosts in the Graveyard
Tom Simpson told us this story. We thought of Tom and Edgar as the Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn of their day.
Country living did not always offer a lot of excitement for growing boys in the early 1900s, so they often manufactured their own. Sometimes they got more excitement than they could handle.
Two young friends, Tom and Edgar, had heard graveyard tales all their lives while sitting around listening to older folks weave their magic with words. One of their favorite graveyard stories was told in different versions as part of many cultures. A neighbor said it really happened to his aunt in Kentucky. Edgar had read that it happened to a man named Ivan in Russia. Tom once met a man from South America who told him it happened to a child in that country.