Stories of Superstition: the Old Dugger Place

              From: Rhea, Sketches and Legends of Upper East Tennessee ( 1932)
STORIES OF SUPERSTITION:
THE OLD DUGGER PLACE
“ You mean that place down in the holler?” asked Liddy,
as she sat on the porch peeling apples. " Lord Yes, hits hanted, allers
has been as fur back as I kin ricollect. I don’t know whur ye’d call hit
a hant er not. Hits a sort of a evil sperit, that hangs over hit all the
time. Wuzn't ye never inside of hit? Well, ef ye’ll go and look, ye’ll
find a powerful red stain on the floor, right behind the front door. I
ain’t never knowed nobody that lived thar sence Jim and Allie
Honeycutt moved out. She said that as long as she lived than that no
matter how hard she’d scrub that place with soap and warter hit would
jest git brighter, ever time and hit never would come off. I never
knowed. how that red stain got thar, but ? ap, he allers ‘ lowed that
some pore feller wuz kilt that in time of the war. Ye know they say
that at one time they wuz a gang of robbers had their den thar, and
they’d go out and git people, lettin on like they wuz friendly to ‘ em,
and bring ‘ em in, take their money and kill ‘ em and nobody would
ever know what went with ‘ em.
“ Nobody ever lives thar now because as shore as they do
they’s some member of their family certain to die. Ye know, Little Joe
Dugger, he moved his family in thar and ‘ lowed he’d live thar. But
they warn’t thar no time till their gal tuck sick with the fever, and the
raincrows and screech owls, hit wuz a sight to hear ‘ em. They jist kept
on a hollerin’ till she died, and then they jist kep up their lonesome
croakin’ till Milly she jist told Joe that they wuz all a goin’ to die ef