Rock a Bye Baby

by Shelby Jarnagin
(Macksville, KS)

I heard there is a house not far from where I go to school that has been abandoned for at 30 years. It was in good condition. The owners took care of it. One day a few of my friends went to go check it out, and they invited me to go, but I didn't want to. So they left. About an hour and a half later they came back. Everyone was pale or about to cry.

"What happened I asked?" Nobody answered the question for a few seconds.

Then, my friend, Nick, told me what they saw and heard. He told me that they walked into the house. It was empty, and they thought about coming back in to town. Then, Jessie found a door leading to the basement. They all began to walk down the stairs, when they heard a baby start to cry and a rocking chair rocking. When they reached the floor there was no baby and no rocking chair. As they turned to leave the rocking stopped and the baby was silenced. As you can imagine, they ran out of the house, jumped into Tyler's car.

After they told me that, we loaded into separate vehicles and drove to our favorite spot to hang out. While we sat there eating ice creme and talking about what happened an old man overheard us. He said that there was a family who moved into that house. The mother just had a baby. The mother would do laundry down there, and while waiting she would rock the baby tp sleep. The father was away on business. A few nights before the father returned home it caught fire and burned down. The mother and baby died in the fire. The father was broken-hearted, and moved to another town without saying word.

After the old man left, we put the story together. We came to the conclusion that the mother and baby are still waiting for the father to come home.