{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3496",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 3496,
    "subject": "PEACE: farmgirl Margaret Lorn and the Bell Witch",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2002-10-21T18:41:18+00:00",
    "last": "2002-10-21T22:06:24+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0210-1892@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-10-21T18:41:18+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) PEACE: farmgirl Margaret Lorn and the Bell Witch",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I trust that Roy (and anybody else) can answer this quick question.  It is\nquite possible we've been through this before and I've forgotten.\n\nThat Margie is sure a little vixen!  The sequence with her and Weer at the\nfarm (in section 2: \"Olivia\") is wonderfully like Tom Sawyer and Becky\nThatcher, especially when they are in the cavernous barn and she is teasing\nhim about the bad goat she is about to set  loose against him -- then he\ndiscovers the egg.  (Boy and girl, cave, treasure sought . . . it doesn't\nharm that Injun Jim and his cave is mentioned in section 5.)\n\nThe Bell Witch episode in the \"Gold\" section is another one: is she playing\na trick on Weer, just like her goat trick, or is there a real ghost?  As\nper my rule before, it is real, whether Margaret means it as a trick or not.\n\nBut my question is this: when did the Bell Witch scene happen?  When the\negg hunting party arrived, it was raining cats and dogs.  I guess the\nhunters did spend the night; I guess the Bell Witch scene could be the next\nday before they left with the egg.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0210-1894@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Roy C. Lackey",
        "address": "rclackey at stic.net"
      },
      "date": "2002-10-21T22:06:24+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE: farmgirl Margaret Lorn and the Bell Witch",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0210-1892@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "mantis wrote:\nThe Bell Witch episode in the \"Gold\" section is another one: is she playing\na trick on Weer, just like her goat trick, or is there a real ghost?  As\nper my rule before, it is real, whether Margaret means it as a trick or\nnot."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I think she is pulling his leg, just as she clearly was about the faces on\nthe Chinese teapot. It's the reverse of the country bumpkin in the big city;\nthe girl from the country is taking advantage of the city boy's ignorance of\ncountry ways to tease him. As a practical matter, most headstones to be\nfound in rural cemeteries (of those grave markers to be actually made from\nstone), dating from the 19th century and earlier, tended to be simple slabs,\nusually no more than 6-8 inches thick. When the egg hunters arrived at the\nfarmhouse, Den noted that there was no porch and \"only a single high stone\nstep\". (91) That the step was \"high\" makes me doubt it was even a\ngravestone.\n\nAlso, the Lorn's strict religious observances make me doubt that they would\ndesecrate a grave or use a gravestone for a doorstep. Neither do I think a\nstrict country preacher would enlist the aid of a heathen \"wise woman\" to\nlay a ghost."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "But my question is this: when did the Bell Witch scene happen?  When the\negg hunting party arrived, it was raining cats and dogs.  I guess the\nhunters did spend the night; I guess the Bell Witch scene could be the next\nday before they left with the egg."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "It almost has to have been the next day, although the ground would have been\nquite muddy. When Weer was looking for Blaine's new house it was \"in an area\nthat had been a farm when I was a boy, a farm I had passed, once, on my way\nto the Lorns', when Mr. Macafee and my aunt Olivia had gone to buy the\nwonderful egg\". (171) The \"once\" makes it sound as though that was the only\ntime Weer went to the Lorns' house.\n\nMy question is: what is a Bell Witch?\n\n-Roy"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}