Internet Accuracy Project

Home
Table of Contents
Place Name Index
Biographical Index
Reference Book Errors
Unusual Town Names
Commonly Confused Words
Spell Checker Fun
Free eBooks (A - D)
Free eBooks (E - Hd)
Free eBooks (He - Hz)
Free eBooks (I - L)
Free eBooks (M - P)
Free eBooks (Q - R)
Free eBooks (S - V)
Free eBooks (W - Z)
The Untold Lie
The Money Box
A Winter Courtship
Short Poems by Keats
Christina Rossetti Poetry
Short Robert Browning Poems
Weights and Measurements
UPS and FedEx Holidays
U.S. Postage Rates
Wind Chill Charts
Heat Index Charts
U.S. Time Zones
Roman Numerals
U.S. Presidents
2012 Calendar
2013 Calendar
Frequently Asked Questions
Recent Updates
Blog
Contact Us
Present at a Hanging by Ambrose Bierce

The following is the complete text of Ambrose Bierce's Present at a Hanging. The various books, short stories and poems we offer are presented free of charge with absolutely no advertising as a public service from Internet Accuracy Project.

Visit these other works by Ambrose Bierce
The Applicant
An Arrest
At Old Man Eckert's
A Baby Tramp
A Baffled Ambuscade
The Baptism of Dobsho
The Boarded Window
The Bubble Reputation
Charles Ashmore's Trail
The City of the Gone Away
A Cold Greeting
Corrupting the Press
The Coup de Grace
Curried Cow
A Diagnosis of Death
The Difficulty of Crossing a Field
The Failure of Hope and Wandel
A Fruitless Assignment
George Thurston
Haita the Shepherd
A Horseman in the Sky
The Hypnotist
An Imperfect Conflagration
An Inhabitant of Carcosa
The Isle of Pines

John Bartine's Watch
Killed at Resaca
The Little Story
A Man with Two Lives
Mr. Masthead, Journalist
Mr. Swiddler's Flip-Flap
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Oil of Dog
One Officer, One Man
The Other Lodgers
A Providential Intimation
A Psychological Shipwreck
The Race at Left Bower
A Revolt of the Gods
A Shipwreckollection
A Son of the Gods
The Spook House
Staley Fleming's Hallucination
The Thing at Nolan
Three and One Are One
Two Military Executions
An Unfinished Race
A Vine on a House
The Widower Turmore
A Wireless Message

To see all available titles by other authors, drop by our index of free books alphabetized by author or arranged alphabetically by title.

Potential uses for the free books, stories and poetry we offer
* Rediscovering an old favorite book or classic ghost story.
* Bibliophiles expanding their collection of public domain ebooks at no cost.
* Teachers trying to locate a free online copy of a book for use in the classroom.
* Actors or writers looking for free material to adapt for use in the theater or on stage.
* Students or educators looking for material to adapt for a public performance or in drama class.


NOTE: We try to present these classic literary works as they originally appeared in print. As such, they sometimes contain adult themes, offensive language, typographical errors, and often utilize unconventional, older, obsolete or intentionally incorrect spelling and/or punctuation conventions.

Present at a Hanging by Ambrose Bierce

PRESENT AT A HANGING

by Ambrose Bierce


An old man named Daniel Baker, living near Lebanon, Iowa, was suspected by his neighbors of having murdered a peddler who had obtained permission to pass the night at his house. This was in 1853, when peddling was more common in the Western country than it is now, and was attended with considerable danger. The peddler with his pack traversed the country by all manner of lonely roads, and was compelled to rely upon the country people for hospitality. This brought him into relation with queer characters, some of whom were not altogether scrupulous in their methods of making a living, murder being an acceptable means to that end. It occasionally occurred that a peddler with diminished pack and swollen purse would be traced to the lonely dwelling of some rough character and never could be traced beyond. This was so in the case of "old man Baker," as he was always called. (Such names are given in the Western "settlements" only to elderly persons who are not esteemed; to the general disrepute of social unworth is affixed the special reproach of age.) A peddler came to his house and none went away--that is all that anybody knew.

Seven years later the Rev. Mr. Cummings, a Baptist minister well known in that part of the country, was driving by Baker's farm one night. It was not very dark: there was a bit of moon somewhere above the light veil of mist that lay along the earth. Mr. Cummings, who was at all times a cheerful person, was whistling a tune, which he would occasionally interrupt to speak a word of friendly encouragement to his horse. As he came to a little bridge across a dry ravine he saw the figure of a man standing upon it, clearly outlined against the gray background of a misty forest. The man had something strapped on his back and carried a heavy stick--obviously an itinerant peddler. His attitude had in it a suggestion of abstraction, like that of a sleepwalker. Mr. Cummings reined in his horse when he arrived in front of him, gave him a pleasant salutation and invited him to a seat in the vehicle--"if you are going my way," he added. The man raised his head, looked him full in the face, but neither answered nor made any further movement. The minister, with good-natured persistence, repeated his invitation. At this the man threw his right hand forward from his side and pointed downward as he stood on the extreme edge of the bridge. Mr. Cummings looked past him, over into the ravine, saw nothing unusual and withdrew his eyes to address the man again. He had disappeared. The horse, which all this time had been uncommonly restless, gave at the same moment a snort of terror and started to run away. Before he had regained control of the animal the minister was at the crest of the hill a hundred yards along. He looked back and saw the figure again, at the same place and in the same attitude as when he had first observed it. Then for the first time he was conscious of a sense of the supernatural and drove home as rapidly as his willing horse would go.

On arriving at home he related his adventure to his family, and early the next morning, accompanied by two neighbors, John White Corwell and Abner Raiser, returned to the spot. They found the body of old man Baker hanging by the neck from one of the beams of the bridge, immediately beneath the spot where the apparition had stood. A thick coating of dust, slightly dampened by the mist, covered the floor of the bridge, but the only footprints were those of Mr. Cummings' horse.

In taking down the body the men disturbed the loose, friable earth of the slope below it, disclosing human bones already nearly uncovered by the action of water and frost. They were identified as those of the lost peddler. At the double inquest the coroner's jury found that Daniel Baker died by his own hand while suffering from temporary insanity, and that Samuel Morritz was murdered by some person or persons to the jury unknown.



~~~~~~~ THE END ~~~~~~~

If you find the above classic literature useful, please link to this page from your webpage, blog or website. You can also help support Internet Accuracy Project's work by contributing surplus office supplies, or used books. Alternatively, consider recommending us to your friends and colleagues. Thank you in advance!

Website Copyright © 2005-2012 INTERNET ACCURACY PROJECT. BY ACCESSING THIS SITE YOU ARE STATING THAT YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS regardless of whether you reside in the United States of America or not. Our Privacy Policy. This page was last updated January 1, 2012.




Share
Popular Pages

{ezoic-ad-1}
{ez_footer_ads}