Dive into the chilling world of Ambrose Bierce with this complete audiobook of "A Baby Tramp," a classic horror short story from his iconic collection, "Can Such Things Be?" This tale of a mysterious town and an orphaned child's inexplicable journey back to his past will haunt you long after it's over. Bierce, a master of psychological horror, uses his signature cynical and foreboding style to blur the line between the supernatural and the brutal realities of human life. This story is perfect for fans of gothic literature, mystery, and classic American horror.
"A Baby Tramp" centers on the eerie town of Blackburg, a place known for bizarre phenomena like raining frogs and crimson snow. It tells the story of Jo, an orphan separated from his family at a young age. Driven by a force he cannot understand, Jo finds himself inexorably drawn back to Blackburg and the tragic secrets of his past. The narrative weaves together themes of fate, loss, and the haunting persistence of memory, all culminating in a deeply unsettling and tragic climax. This unabridged reading allows you to experience the full, atmospheric dread of Bierce's prose, making it an essential listen for anyone who loves a good ghost story.
Ambrose Bierce is a pivotal figure in American literature, often considered a bridge between the works of Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. His stories are characterized by their psychological depth, dark humor, and a focus on the inexplicable and the macabre. "Can Such Things Be?" is one of his most celebrated collections, a must-read for any horror aficionado.
#AmbroseBierce #GhostStory #ClassicLiterature #HorrorTok #CanSuchThingsBe
"A Baby Tramp" centers on the eerie town of Blackburg, a place known for bizarre phenomena like raining frogs and crimson snow. It tells the story of Jo, an orphan separated from his family at a young age. Driven by a force he cannot understand, Jo finds himself inexorably drawn back to Blackburg and the tragic secrets of his past. The narrative weaves together themes of fate, loss, and the haunting persistence of memory, all culminating in a deeply unsettling and tragic climax. This unabridged reading allows you to experience the full, atmospheric dread of Bierce's prose, making it an essential listen for anyone who loves a good ghost story.
Ambrose Bierce is a pivotal figure in American literature, often considered a bridge between the works of Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. His stories are characterized by their psychological depth, dark humor, and a focus on the inexplicable and the macabre. "Can Such Things Be?" is one of his most celebrated collections, a must-read for any horror aficionado.
#AmbroseBierce #GhostStory #ClassicLiterature #HorrorTok #CanSuchThingsBe
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00:00Gates of Imagination presents A Baby Tramp by Ambrose Bierce, read by Billy Dixon.
00:11If you had seen little Joe standing at the street corner in the rain, you would hardly
00:16have admired him. It was apparently an ordinary autumn rainstorm, but the water which fell
00:23upon Joe, who was hardly old enough to be either just or unjust, and so perhaps did
00:29not come under the law of impartial distribution, appeared to have some property peculiar to
00:35itself. One would have said it was dark and adhesive, sticky. But that could hardly be
00:42so, even in Blackburg, where things certainly did occur that were a good deal out of the
00:47common. For example, ten or twelve years before, a shower of small frogs had fallen, as is
00:54credibly attested by a contemporaneous chronicle, the record concluding with a somewhat obscure
00:59statement to the effect that the chronicler considered it good growing weather for Frenchmen.
01:05Some years later, Blackburg had a fall of crimson snow. It is cold in Blackburg when winter is
01:12on, and the snows are frequent and deep. There can be no doubt of it. The snow in this instance
01:19was of the color of blood and melted into water of the same hue, if water it was, not blood.
01:26The phenomenon had attracted wide attention, and science had as many explanations as there
01:32were scientists who knew nothing about it. But the men of Blackburg, men who for many years
01:39had lived right there where the red snow fell, and might be supposed to know a good deal about
01:44the matter, shook their heads and said something would come of it. And something did, for the next
01:51summer was made memorable by the prevalence of a mysterious disease, epidemic, endemic, or the
01:57Lord knows what, though the physicians didn't, which carried away a full half of the population.
02:04Most of the other half carried themselves away and were slow to return, but finally came back,
02:10and were now increasing and multiplying as before. But Blackburg had not since been altogether the
02:16same. Of quite another kind, though equally out of the common, was the incident of Hetty Parlow's
02:24ghost. Hetty Parlow's maiden name had been Brownen, and in Blackburg that meant more than one would
02:31think. The Brownens had from time immemorial, from the very earliest of the old colonial days,
02:37been the leading family of the town. It was the richest, and it was the best, and Blackburg would
02:45have shed the last drop of its plebeian blood in defense of the Brownen fair fame.
02:51As few of the family's members had ever been known to live permanently away from Blackburg,
02:56although most of them were educated elsewhere and nearly all had traveled, there was quite a number
03:01of them. The men held most of the public offices, and the women were foremost in all
03:07good works. Of these latter, Hetty was most beloved by reason of the sweetness of her disposition,
03:15the purity of her character, and her singular personal beauty. She married in Boston a young
03:21scapegrace named Parlow, and like a good Brownen brought him to Blackburg forthwith, and made a man
03:27and a town councilman of him. They had a child which they named Joseph, and dearly loved, as was then
03:34the fashion among parents in all that region. Then they died of the mysterious disorder already
03:40mentioned, and at the age of one whole year, Joseph set up as an orphan.
03:47Unfortunately for Joseph, the disease which had cut off his parents did not stop at that.
03:53It went on and extirpated nearly the whole Brownen contingent and its allies by marriage,
03:58and those who fled did not return. The tradition was broken. The Brownen estates passed into alien
04:07hands, and the only Brownens remaining in that place were underground in Oak Hill Cemetery,
04:13where indeed was a colony of them powerful enough to resist the encroachment of surrounding tribes and
04:19hold the best part of the grounds. But about the ghost.
04:22One night, about three years after the death of Hetty Parlow, a number of the young people
04:30of Blackburg were passing Oak Hill Cemetery in a wagon. If you have been there, you will remember
04:36that the road to Greenton runs alongside it on the south. They had been attending a May Day
04:41festival at Greenton, and that serves to fix the date. Altogether, there may have been a dozen,
04:47and a jolly party they were, considering the legacy of gloom left by the town's recent somber
04:53experiences. As they passed the cemetery, the man driving suddenly reigned in his team with an
05:00exclamation of surprise. It was sufficiently surprising, no doubt, for just ahead, and almost
05:06at the roadside, though inside the cemetery, stood the ghost of Hetty Parlow. There could be no doubt of
05:13it, for she had been personally known to every youth and maiden in the party. That established
05:19the thing's identity. Its character as ghost was signified by all the customary signs. The shroud,
05:26the long, undone hair, the faraway look, everything. This disquieting apparition was stretching out its
05:35arms toward the west, as if in supplication for the evening star, which certainly was an alluring object,
05:41though obviously out of reach. As they all sat silent, so the story goes, every member of that
05:48party of merrymakers, they had merry-made on coffee and lemonade only, distinctly heard that ghost call
05:55the name, Joey, Joey. A moment later, nothing was there. Of course, one does not have to believe all
06:04that. Now, at that moment, as was afterward ascertained, Joey was wandering about in the sagebrush on the
06:12opposite side of the continent, near Winnemucca, in the state of Nevada. He had been taken to that
06:18town by some good persons distantly related to his dead father, and by them adopted and tenderly cared
06:25for. But on that evening the poor child had strayed from home and was lost in the desert.
06:32His after-history is involved in obscurity, and has gaps which conjecture alone can fill.
06:40It is known that he was found by a family of Paiute Indians, who kept the little wretch with them for a
06:47time and then sold him, actually sold him for money, to a woman on one of the east-bound trains,
06:53at a station a long way from Winnemucca. The woman professed to have made all manner of inquiries,
07:00but all in vain. So, being childless and a widow, she adopted him herself.
07:07At this point of his career, Joey seemed to be getting a long way from the condition of orphanage.
07:13The interposition of a multitude of parents between himself and that woeful state promised him a long
07:19immunity from its disadvantages. Mrs. Darnell, his newest mother, lived in Cleveland, Ohio.
07:26But her adopted son did not long remain with her. He was seen one afternoon by a policeman,
07:32new to that beat, deliberately toddling away from her house and, being questioned,
07:37answered that he was a doing-home. He must have traveled by rail somehow, for three days later he was in
07:44the town of Whiteville, which, as you know, is a long way from Blackburg. His clothing was in pretty
07:50fair condition, but he was sinfully dirty. Unable to give any account of himself, he was arrested as
07:57a vagrant and sentenced to imprisonment in the infant's sheltering home, where he was washed.
08:04Joe ran away from the infant's sheltering home at Whiteville,
08:07just took to the woods one day, and the home knew him no more forever.
08:14We find him next, or rather get back to him, standing forlorn in the cold autumn rain at a
08:20suburban street corner in Blackburg. And it seems right to explain now that the raindrops falling
08:26upon him there were really not dark and gummy, they only failed to make his face and hands less so.
08:32Joe was indeed fearfully and wonderfully besmirched, as by the hand of an artist. And the forlorn little
08:39tramp had no shoes, his feet were bare, red and swollen, and when he walked he limped with both
08:46legs. As to clothing, ah, you would hardly have had the skill to name any single garment that he wore,
08:55or say by what magic he kept it upon him. That he was cold all over and all through did not admit,
09:02of a doubt. He knew it himself. Anyone would have been cold there that evening. But for that reason,
09:11no one else was there. How Joe came to be there himself, he could not for the flickering little
09:17life of him have told, even if gifted with a vocabulary exceeding a hundred words. From the way
09:24he stared about him, one could have seen that he had not the faintest notion of where, nor why, he was.
09:32Yet he was not altogether a fool in his day and generation. Being cold and hungry, and still able
09:39to walk a little by bending his knees very much indeed and putting his feet down toes first,
09:45he decided to enter one of the houses which flanked the street at long intervals and looked so bright
09:52and warm. But when he attempted to act upon that very sensible decision, a burly dog came
09:59bousing out and disputed his right. Inexpressibly frightened and believing, no doubt, with some
10:07reason too, that brutes without meant brutality within, he hobbled away from all the houses,
10:13and with gray wet fields to right of him, and gray wet fields to left of him, with the rain half
10:20blinding him and the night coming in mist and darkness, held his way along the road that leads
10:26to Greenton. That is to say, the road leads those to Greenton who succeed in passing the Oak Hill
10:32Cemetery. A considerable number every year do not. Joe did not. They found him there the next morning,
10:41very wet, very cold, but no longer hungry. He had apparently entered the cemetery gate,
10:48hoping perhaps that it led to a house where there was no dog, and gone blundering about in the darkness,
10:54falling over many a grave, no doubt, until he had tired of it all and given up. The little body lay
11:03upon one side, with one soiled cheek upon one soiled hand, the other hand tucked away among the
11:10rags to make it warm. The other cheek washed clean and white at last, as for a kiss from one of God's
11:17great angels. It was observed, though nothing was thought of it at the time, the body being as yet
11:24unidentified, that the little fellow was lying upon the grave of Hetty Parlo. The grave, however,
11:31had not opened to receive him. That is a circumstance which, without actual irreverence,
11:37one may wish had been ordered otherwise.
11:39Thank you for listening to this audiobook. If you enjoyed this story, don't forget to give it a
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