The boy who ate the Ghost Bird-excerpt from a short story by Austin Mitchell

The boy who ate the ghost Bird

a short story

by Austin Mitchell

           Curline had known that something was wrong with Delceta. The girl was going on fifteen and seemed to have lost her mind. They were living in the village of Spring Pass with her mother, Miss Carmeta, and her elder daughter, Lacena. Her children’s father, Cornel, only came around when he was broke and thought he could sweet talk her out of some of her money.

              Curline was a cook at the nearby high school. She baked all sorts of pastries which she sold at the school and a small shop operated by Lacena.  Curline knew that several young boys from their village had tried to be friendly with Lacena but the girl was sensible enough to rebuke any of them who passed his place. But it was Delceta who worried Curline not Lacena.

            They lived on an unpaved road road and the nearest shop was a half a mile away. It was while returning from shop alone, one night that Delceta claimed to have seen Stampy and Mass Clarence in the huge cotton tree in the Duggan’s cemetery. The cotton tree overlooked the road and generations of Duggans had been buried there with Mass Clarence being the latest.

                Stampy had been a fifteen year old boy from their village who had shot a ‘ghost’ bird with his slingshot. Stampy promptly ate the bird despite being warned that it was a ghost bird having its nest in the cotton tree in the Duggan’s cemetery.  Stampy paid no heed to these warnings, making a feast of the delectable bird meat and the next day he was dead!

            There was consternation that morning when Stampy’s father, Jacob and his mother, Mildred, started shouting that Stampy wasn’t waking up.

            “All we knock and shake him,  not a sound. Stampy dead,” Mildred wailed.

              Neighbors ran to their assistance.

            “What happened, Jacob, Mildred?” they asked.

           “Stampy dead. He went to his bed healthy last night and this morning we find him dead,”Jacob cried.

            “The little boy is dead. His body get cold already and I don’t feel his heart beating,” an old woman said

            An old man shook his head after examining Stampy.

            “The boy is dead,” he said.

            “Mildred and Jacob you can’t move his body until the police come,” a young woman advised.

             The police were sent for. They instructed that the body be taken to the nearby Spanish Town hospital. The post mortem revealed that Stampy had died from food poisoning. When told that Stampy’s last meal had been bird meat the doctor said he found it strange since there was no sign of bird meat in Stampy’s stomach. Instead the doctor said that Stampy had died from ackee poisoning as that was what he found in the young man’s stomach. 

                Spring Pass was ackee country and everybody wondered if Stumpy had a meal of unfit ackees before he ate the ghost bird. On hearing of how Stampy had met his death all the young boys in the village put away their slingshots and other bird shooting implements, afraid to shoot any bird at all.

            Still Stampy had disobeyed a few customs as far as bird shooting was concerned. You never shoot birds after six in the evenings, on Sundays, holy days like Good Friday and Ash Wednesday. Stampy was at bird bush on these days, despite pleadings from his parents and neighbors. Several persons from outside their village came to buy bird meat from Stampy.

            “What are you going to do about Delceta?” Miss Carmeta asked her daughter.

            “Whenever I go to church at nights and have to pass that tree and I remember what happened to Delceta I’m afraid, mamma.”

            They had taken Delceta to see several healers, but to no avail.

            “I don’t know what to do with her. I’ve spent so much money and she’s still the same,” Curline said as they sat on the verandah that Tuesday evening.

            Curline had just returned home from work and had already eaten her dinner and was relaxing with her mother on the verandah of their modest four bed bedroom house.

            “It was Stampy, who boxed her. That little boy was wicked when he was alive and now that he is dead, he is even wickeder,” Miss Carmeta declared.

            Delceta claimed that Stampy had called to her and knowing that he was dead, she had set off running, but he ran after her and boxed her in her face and from that day she was sick with a malady of complaints. Stampy would sometimes give bird meat to Delceta although Lacena refused to have any. Many persons theorized that Stampy was angry that he had called to Delceta and she didn’t reply and that was the reason why he had boxed her. 

            “She has to get better, Curline. Look what that wicked boy did to my nice grand daughter. I could kill him again.”

            “I didn’t know that it was you who killed him that first time.”

            “I don’t know why Bancroft don’t cut down that tree. Mass Clarence was afraid to cut it down and now he has taken up residence in it.”

            This was the only cotton tree in Spring Pass as all the rest had been cut down several years now after they were revealed to harbor ghosts. The people of Spring Pass were also afraid of the calabash tree. It all happened after Calbert Hemmings and Distant Jones had a fight and Calbert used a piece of calabash stick to cripple Distant.  It was rumored that several other persons had been crippled from blows received from calabash stick wielders but this was never proved

            The Duggans owned a hundred acre property in Spring Pass and Bancroft was the latest Duggan to own the property. He was Mass Clarence’s third son, but his two other brothers had fled the community for the United States. Mass Clarence had no daughters. Hubert and Navon had left Spring Pass claiming that they couldn’t live in such a ghost ridden place.

              Indeed, it was rumored that Mass Clarence had confessed on his death bed to having killed at least twenty of his neighbors. The Duggan’s property provided the only source of employment for most able bodied persons in Spring Pass. Stampy’s mother and father worked on the property and that was one of the reasons why he was buried in their cemetery. Stampy was allowed to shoot birds on the property and he would give some to Mass Bancroft.

Read the full story in 'Going to the bushes to cut Firewood'.