When I was in Kindergarten, my family moved onto a farm several miles from the nearest town. We were only renting it, and the owners lived in a house right next door. We lived there until I was a freshman in high school. Now all of the time we lived in the house was marked by strange happenings, like the basement door always being ajar, no matter if you had just closed the thing 5 minutes before and it would slam shut sometimes in the middle of the night, believe me, this is true. My little sister and my bedroom was right next to it. Naturally, we were frightened at this, but our parents calmed us with the assurance that it had to have been the wind. Other strange things happened too. Like you would set something down, turn around and it would be gone. Later you would find it some other place, where you were absolutely sure that you hadn't put it. But our "presence" was benvolent and very fond of my 2 sisters.

My brother and I. We had a touch lamp, you know the ones where all you do is touch them to turn them on, well, our "presence" used our lamp to communicate to our mother when ever any of us were doing something that could have hurt us. We had a fenced-in yard, and my little sister and I were under strict orders not to play outside of it when we were young, but we did anyway many times without getting caught. One day, as my sister and I were preparing to sneak down to the horse corral to ride, our mother came flying out of the house and hustled us inside. Apparently, the lamp had been flashing and our mother had gotten worried about us. Rightfully so!! About 10 minutes later, my father came into the house carrying the body of a rattlesnake that he had come across on the path to the horse corral, it had struck at him and he had killed it with the shovel he had been carrying.

That was not the only time the "presence" saved one of us. One day, after my mother had shooed us outside and began house cleaning, the lamp started to go berserk. Quickly, my mother brought us into the house. After she was sure that we were okay, she called into town. My brother had been staying at his friend John's house, and they had gone out for a ride on John's motorcyle to another friend's house and had crashed on the road. My brother had been pinned under the motorcycle, but he escaped with only minor injuries. The "save" was that they crashed on a road that was not very well traveled and had my mother not worried John's mother enough to go to the friend's house to check on them, they could have been there several hours before help arrived. As time progressed, the little happenings became a part of our life.

Although none of our friends would stay the night at our house, we were happy with our ghost. When I was around 12, I finally learned who our ghost was. Our landlord had been married to his high school sweetheart and they had bought the house we were living in, to raise a family and grow old together. Now the road to the farm has a blind intersection and one day as they were driving into town, they crashed into a wheat truck that had run the stop sign. She was killed instantly, pregnant with their first child. Our landlord married again, but apparently his 2nd wife disliked the house, so they had a new one built right next door. I myself have visited his first wife's grave, talked to her parents, and read the newspaper reports on the crash to verify the story. Our ghost never harmed anyone of anything in any way. We accepted her as a member of our family and in return, she helped to protect my siblings and I.

Although we asked her to make herself visible to us many times, she never complied. The only "proof" we have of her presence is in a picture. My mother had been baking bread and spilled flour all over. She went to go get the broom and dustpan, and when she came back,there were a woman's bare footprints in the flour. My siblings and I were all outside doing chores and my mother had been wearing shoes. She grabbed a camera and snapped several pictures, when right before her eyes, the footprints began disappearing!! The pictures did turn out and occupy a place in the family photo album. I hope that the people who read this story will realize that not all ghosts are bad and can be capable of emotion and intelligence.