ds, off Stony Creek, is an acre or two of soil
piled high on a lot of rocks. The natives call it Frisbie Island. Not
more than a hundred yards off shore it contains a big bleak looking
house which was built about twenty years ago to serve as a Summer hotel
when Connecticut capitalists were deep in schemes to tempt New Yorkers
to this part of the Sound shore to spend their Summers. New Yorkers
declined to be tempted, and the old house is rapidly approaching decay.
It has recently assumed a peculiar interest for the residents of Stony
Creek. Midnight lights have suddenly appeared in all its windows at
frequent intervals, fitfully flashing up and down like the blaze in the
Long Island lighthouses. Ghosts! This is the universal verdict. Nobody
disputes it. Once or twice a hardy crew of local sailors have
volunteered to go out and investigate the mystery, but when the time for
the test has arrived, there somehow have always been reasons for
postponing the excursion. Cynical people profess to believe that
practical jokers are at the root of the manifestations, but such a
profane view is not widely entertained among the good people who have
their homes at Stony Creek.

Over near Middletown is a farmer named Edgar G. Stokes, a gentleman who
is said to have graduated with honor in a New England college more than
a quarter of a century ago. He enjoys, perhaps, the most notable bit of
superstition to be found anywhere in this country, in or out of
Connecticut. He owns the farm on which he lives, and it is valuable; not
quite so valuable though as it once was, for Mr. Stokes's eccentric
disposition has somewhat changed the usual tactics that farmers pursue
when they own fertile acres. The average man clears his soil of stones;
Mr. Stokes has been piling rocks all over his land. Little by little the
weakness--or philosophy--has grown upon him; and not only from every
part of Middlesex County, but from every part of this State he has been
accumulating wagonloads of pebbles and rocks. He seeks for no peculiar
stone either in shape, color, or quality. If they are stones that is
sufficient. And his theory is that stones have souls--souls, too, that
are not so sordid and earthly as the souls that animate humanity. They
are souls purified and exalted. In the rocks are the spirits of the
greatest men who have lived in past ages, developed by some divinity
until they have become worthy of their new abode. Napoleon Bonaparte's
soul inhabits