Smoking mad about sitting with the dead

Many years ago there was a house on the street where I lived called the ghost house. It’s still there and as scary as ever.

It was at one time the big house of a plantation but as the area grew the plantation was sold off piece by piece. One of the last families that lived there had a death and, as was the custom, the neighborhood men and women gathered to see if they could be of any help. Someone got up a list of men who would sit up with the deceased that night starting about 6 p.m.