Jacob's Spirit — Fay Risner

Ellen Carter has been hearing banging noise around the barn for months. Her husband, Jack, insists it must be a loose board blowing in the wind, but he hasn't found the board yet to nail down. One evening, he joked that it might be a ghost doing some carpentry in the barn. That suggestion is enough to make Ellen apprehensive when she has to check the sheep at night during lambing time. She knows that Jack is teasing her, but in the middle of one May night, Ellen can't sleep for the banging noises. She got up and looked out a window at the barn. She sees a boy sitting on the ground. He's in pain with a broken leg. By the time Ellen runs outside and around the house, the boy has disappeared. Jack doesn't believe she saw a boy. He says she has been sleepwalking and dreaming. What Ellen thought she saw seemed so real. Was she dreaming or did she really see Jacob's Spirit?