The Underground Tomb of Happening's Haunted House

STERN WARNING: If you are under 12 years of age and do not have
your parents' permission to be here, we will not protect you from their
displeasure or harsher dealings. And don't come crying to us when you
are scared s***less, you little big-shot snotnoses

GET OUT NOW!
Richard Corey
E.A. Robinson (1869-1935)

WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town,        
We people on the pavement looked at him:        
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,        
Clean favored, and imperially slim.        

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;        
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,        
“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.        

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—        
And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything        
To make us wish that we were in his place.        

So on we worked, and waited for the light,        
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;        
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
Good Advice
by Ben Puliafito


This Halloween don't be frightened by the ghosts, ghouls, or boring treats. I'm, as I'm sure many of you are, sick of getting pathetic treats and
candy. What kind of person gives out packs of raisins, raisinets, or anything with raisins in it for that matter; who really thinks of raisins as a
treat anyways? Last year, someone handed out homemade cookies. Great idea, right? Wrong...these were the worst cookies I've had in my
life; they included only non-sweet food, such as little bits of apple and raisins. Sometimes people don't even give out anykind of candy or
treat. Every year at least one person hands out those little religious pamphlets about why I should accept Jesus into my life. What has this
world come to? Since when is Halloween not about eating some much candy and sugar that its almost impossble for you to go to sleep and
you end up staying awake all night watching horror movies and about teaching people how to get in touch with God.
   Because of these non-giving-out-treats-on-Halloween-believers, I have decided to give you a few tips on finding the best houses to
trick-or-treat at. 1. DO spot for good, expensive Halloween decorations. If these people have spent so much for decorations, think about how
much they could have spent for good candy selections. 2. DO NOT trick-or-treat at houses with the lights off. If the lights are off in the house,
it probably means this people hate kids and people who hate kids have the worst or no candy. Plus, you might be waking up some people;
bad choice... 3. DO go to the houses with open bowls of candy and a note like: "Save some candy for the rest of the ghouls and goblins.".
This people are basically asking you to take as much candy as you want! 4. DO NOT go to houses you have had to wait more than two
bellrings in a past year of trick-or-treating. 5. DO go to big neigborhoods with a bunch of houses packed together. This people usually have a
lot of people celebrating Halloween and going trick-or-treating; the parents know this and get a lot of good candy. 6. DO NOT go to houses
with the cars with bumper stickers like "Jesus On Board". These people will definitely give you the little pamphlet about Jesus Christ. 7. IF
you ignore the previous rule, and you notice that the person is putting a little comic into your bag, then get out of there. This is no mini comic
book, this is a little religious pamphlet. This will just waste bag space. 8. DO go to houses where kids live, because this kids mothers' know
all about trick-or-treating and candy. 9. DO trick-or-treat till at the least 10 o'clock at night. You have to get as much candy possible. 10. If a
house is giving out great candy, then go to the house again in a different costume. They won't notice that it's the same person.
Doctor Meyers

No other man, unless it was Doc Hill,
Did more for people in this town than l.
And all the weak, the halt, the improvident
And those who could not pay flocked to me.
I was good-hearted, easy Doctor Meyers.
I was healthy, happy, in comfortable fortune,
Blest with a congenial mate, my children raised,
All wedded, doing well in the world.
And then one night, Minerva, the poetess,
Came to me in her trouble, crying.
I tried to help her out--she died--
They indicted me, the newspapers disgraced me,
My wife perished of a broken heart.
And pneumonia finished me.

John M. Church

I WAS attorney for the "Q"
And the Indemnity Company which insured
The owners of the mine.
I pulled the wires with judge and jury,
And the upper courts, to beat the claims
Of the crippled, the widow and orphan,
And made a fortune thereat.
The bar association sang my praises
In a high-flown resolution.
And the floral tributes were many--
But the rats devoured my heart
And a snake made a nest in my skull

Barney Hainsfeather

IF the excursion train to Peoria
Had just been wrecked, I might have escaped with
my life--
Certainly I should have escaped this place.
But as it was burned as well, they mistook me
For John Allen who was sent to the Hebrew
Cemetery
At Chicago,
And John for me, so I lie here.
It was bad enough to run a clothing store in this
town,
But to be buried here--ach!

Yee Bow

THEY got me into the Sunday-school
In Spoon River And tried to get me to drop
Confucius for Jesus. I could have been no worse
off
If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for
Confucius.
For, without any warning, as if it were a prank,
And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley,
The minister's son, caved my ribs into my lungs,
With a blow of his fist.
Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin,
And no children shall worship at my grave.

Harry Wilmans

I WAS just turned twenty-one,
And Henry Phipps, the Sunday-school
superintendent,
Made a speech in Bindle's Opera House.
"The honor of the flag must be upheld," he said,
"Whether it be assailed by a barbarous tribe of
Tagalogs
Or the greatest power in Europe."
And we cheered and cheered the speech and the
flag he waved
As he spoke.
And I went to the war in spite of my father,
And followed the flag till I saw it raised
By our camp in a rice field near Manila,
And all of us cheered and cheered it.
But there were flies and poisonous things;
And there was the deadly water,
And the cruel heat,
And the sickening, putrid food;
And the smell of the trench just back of the tents
Where the soldiers went to empty themselves;
And there were the whores who followed us, full
of syphilis;
And beastly acts between ourselves or alone,
With bullying, hatred, degradation among us,
And days of loathing and nights of fear
To the hour of the charge through the steaming
swamp,
Following the flag,
Till I fell with a scream, shot through the guts.
Now there's a flag over me in
Spoon River. A flag!
A flag!
A Few Moments from Sister Carrie
Theodore Dreiser 1871-1945

Little by little the night crept on. Along the walk a
crowd turned out on its way home. Men and shop-girls
went by with quick steps. The cross-town cars began
to be crowded. The gas lamps were blazing, and every
window bloomed ruddy with a steady flame. Still the
crowd hung about the door, unwavering.

   "Ain't they ever goin' to open up?" queried a hoarse
voice, suggestively.

   This seemed to renew the general interest in the
closed door, and many gazed in that direction. They
looked at it as dumb brutes look, as dogs paw and
whine and study the knob. They shifted and blinked
and muttered, now a curse, now a comment.  Still they
waited and still the snow whirled and cut them with
biting flakes. On the old hats and peaked shoulders it
was piling. It gathered in little heaps and curves and no
one brushed it off.In the centre of the crowd the warmth
and steam melted it, and water trickled off hat rims
and down noses, which the owners could not reach to
scratch. On the outer rim the piles remained unmelted.
Hurstwood, who could not get in the centre, stood with
head lowered to the weather and bent his form.

   A light appeared through the transom overhead.  It
sent a thrillof possibility through the watchers. There
was a murmur of recognition. At last the bars grated
inside and the crowd pricked up its ears. Footsteps
shuffled within and it murmured again.  Some one
called: "Slow up there, now," and then the door
opened. It was push and jam for a minute, with grim,
beast silence to prove its quality, and then it melted
inward, like logs floating, and disappeared. There
were wet hats and wet shoulders, a cold, shrunken,
disgruntled mass, pouring in between bleak walls. It
was just six o'clock and there was supper in every
hurrying pedestrian's face. And yet no supper was
provided here--nothing but beds.

   Hurstwood laid down his fifteen cents and crept off
with weary steps to his allotted room. It was a dingy
affair--wooden, dusty, hard. A small gas-jet furnished
sufficient light for so rueful a corner.

    "Hm!" he said, clearing his throat and locking the
door.

   Now he began leisurely to take off his clothes, but
stopped first with his coat, and tucked it along the
crack under the door. His vest he arranged in the
same place. His old wet, cracked hat he laid softly
upon the table. Then he pulled off his shoes and lay
down.

   It seemed as if he thought a while, for now he arose
and turned the gas out, standing calmly in the
blackness, hidden from view. After a few moments, in
which he reviewed nothing, but merely hesitated, he
turned the gas on again, but applied no match. Even
then he stood there, hidden wholly in that kindness
which is night, while the uprising fumes filled the room.  
When the odour reached his nostrils, he quit his
attitude and fumbled for the bed. "What's the use?" he
said, weakly, as he stretched himself to rest.
An American Tragedy  
Theodore Dreiser
1871-1945
p.813

“Goodbye, Cutrone!” It was a hoarse, shaky voice from
near-by cell—Clyde could not tell which. “Go to a better
world than this.” And then other voices: Good bye,
Cutrone. God keep you—Even though you can’t talk
English.”
The procession had passed. The door was shut. He
was in there now. They were strapping him in, no
doubt. Asking him what more he had to say—he who
was no longer quite right in his mind. Now the straps
must be fastened on, surely. In a moment, a moment,
surely—
And then—although Clyde did not know or notice at the
moment—a sudden dimming of the lights in this room—
as well as over the prison, an idiotic or thoughtless
result of having one electric system to supply the death
voltage and the incandescence of this and al other
rooms. And instantly a voice calling—
“There she goes. That’s one. Well, it’s all over with him.”
And a second voice: “Yes, he’s topped off, poor devil.”
And then after a lapse of a minute perhaps, a second
dimming lasting for thirty seconds—and then finally a
third dimming
“There—sure—that’s the end now.”
“Yes, he knows what’s on the other side now.”
Searcy Foote

I WANTED to go away to college
But rich Aunt Persis wouldn't help me.
So I made gardens and raked the lawns
And bought John Alden's books with my earnings
And toiled for the very means of life.
I wanted to marry Delia Prickett,
But how could I do it with what I earned?
And there was Aunt Persis more than seventy
Who sat in a wheel-chair half alive
With her throat so paralyzed, when she swallowed
The soup ran out of her mouth like a duck--
A gourmand yet, investing her income
In mortgages, fretting all the time
About her notes and rents and papers.
That day I was sawing wood for her,
And reading Proudhon in between.
I went in the house for a drink of water,
And there she sat asleep in her chair,
And Proudhon lying on the table,
And a bottle of chloroform on the book,
She used sometimes for an aching tooth!
I poured the chloroform on a handkerchief
And held it to her nose till she died.--
Oh Delia, Delia, you and Proudhon
Steadied my hand, and the coroner
Said she died of heart failure.
I married Delia and got the money--
A joke on you, Spoon River?
from the Spoon
River Anthology
Edgar Lee Masters
1868-1950: