Memories - The Farmer Ghost

Let's have an October ghost story from my youth.  I grew up in a small town in southern Ontario and within an exploring walk there was an abandon barn in a field. All the kids would check out the barn and of course it had the reputation of being a Haunted Barn.  Everyone of the kids heard something about the farmer who haunted the barn. Who died in some horrible accident. Depending on how much we wanted to scare the newbie, was how gory the accident was.

One day while playing with others, I heard whistling, taking care of where I was stepping because the wooden floor was not really safe I walked around the old barn. I went outside and saw nothing but the whistling kept seeming to come from just around the corner.  After circling once I decided it must have been the friends I was with. I caught up with them but none admitted to whistling. We were starting to freak each other out so we all decided to head home.

As I was the last one in our walk along the rows of dried corn stalks and before the barn would disappear from sight by the hill I looked back. There stood a man, I couldn’t make out his face but his clothes were out of date I knew because I had seen pictures of my grandparents long ago wearing such clothing for farm work, he slowly raised his hand and waved and then he was gone.

Everyone thought I was making it up and after I time I told myself it was some grown up just playing a trick and then walking around the corner. There were many times I went back over the years with friends and alone and every time I left I would turn back before heading down the hill and every time there he was and he would wave.

I tried and tried to see if there was any adult working at that barn but every one told me no one was there and no one worked there. I guessed it was the farmer ghost and each time he waved, I would wave back.

The very last time I went walking there as a mother of two young girls the barn was gone and nothing was left of the field but the preparations for a new subdivision. As I walked with my girls I turned around one last time and there he stood. He waved and I did and so did my girls, he vanished (though there was no barn to hide around).

My oldest daughter asked. “Where did he go?”

The younger one said “Home of course.”

That was the last time I saw our Farmer Ghost.