A Piedmont Porchlight Story by Ol’ Big Jim & His Faithful Scribe

If you ever find yourself walking down Center Avenue just as the sun throws its last handful of gold dust across the rooftops, you may notice a squat, yellowed building leaning ever so slightly toward the Seaboard tracks, as though the trains kept secrets from the rest of the town, and the old house couldn’t help but listen.

That was Mrs. Delphine’s Dixie Boarding House, and it had two distinguishing features:

1. The strongest coffee within three counties
2. A ghost so polite you’d swear he was raised by a Sunday School teacher and a retired Army colonel

Now, Mrs. Delphine herself was a wiry woman with a spine straight as a surveyor’s line and an attitude that could tan hide at ten paces. She ran the boarding house with all the tenderness of a drill sergeant who cared deeply about your eternal soul but didn’t trust you to wash your own socks.

She took in railroad men, drifters, traveling preachers, and one poet from Gadsden who stayed two nights and wrote nine terrible verses about fried okra.

But the most famous resident, if you could call him that, was the phantom.

He showed up one muggy evening right after the 9:14 freight roared past, shaking plaster dust loose like dandruff. Folks say the boarding house sighed a little after the train was gone, as though relieved its ribs were still intact, and then, in the hallway outside Room No. 3, the air cooled just enough to make a fella wonder if he’d stepped into a draft.

And there he was.

Not glowing.
Not moaning.
Not wailing about justice or treasure or some unfinished tragedy.

Just standing there, hat in his hands, waiting for someone to notice him.

Mrs. Delphine was the first.

“Well,” she said, planting fist on hip, “if you’re here to haunt this house, you’ll do it respectfully. Now, wipe your feet.”

The ghost, ever agreeable, leaned down, made the motion, and looked terribly apologetic when, naturally, nothing changed on the rug.

From that evening forward, he behaved like a gentleman boarder:

• He never tracked in dirt
• He never slammed a door
• He always straightened the stack of biscuits on the kitchen counter
• And he smelled faintly of cedar, coal smoke, and a hint of pipe tobacco that made people nostalgic for reasons they couldn’t place

Mrs. Delphine took a liking to him, though she refused to admit it.

“He ain’t no trouble,” she’d say. “He’s quieter than most of my paying guests, and a damn sight neater. Why, if half the railroad boys had his manners, I’d retire.”

Word traveled faster than a rumor in a Baptist choir. Soon, riders in the caboose swore they saw a gentleman-shaped shimmer waving from the upstairs window as their train whisked past. Travelers passing through town asked to rent the “ghost room,” though Mrs. Delphine maintained:

“He ain’t for rent. He’s a house fixture.”

Clyde, down at the hardware store, insisted the ghost was the restless spirit of an old conductor who’d fallen asleep riding the rails and never quite woke up.

Sadie Mae declared he was a widower, “hungry for biscuits and affection,” in that exact order.

Preacher Boone took a more theological angle, natcherly.
“He may be an angel in transition,” he mused.
“Between places. Between purposes. Between worlds.”

Owen thought the ghost just didn’t realize he’d passed on, especially if he’d lived a life of quiet routine. “A man can get so used to a schedule,” he said, “he’ll follow it right into eternity.”

And Addison? Addison claimed he’d seen him tip his hat to a stray cat.

“I tell you what,” he said, fanning himself, “any ghost courteous enough to greet a street animal is alright in my book.”

But no matter their theories, one truth became certain:

If you spent a night in Mrs. Delphine’s Dixie Boarding House,
you woke up feeling looked after.

Not scared.
Not spooked.
Just… accompanied.
Like someone had stood watch while you slept.

And that, my friend, is where we begin.

*****

Looking for that perfect stocking stuffer? Books can be a lasting gift that just keeps on giving. Why not throw in a copy of New Yesterdays? You’ll have the double gratitude of your reader as well as from Ol’ Big Jim! Audiobook, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and Amazon.