The Night the Ghost Got In

Meet the Author

• James Thurber was an American writer and cartoonist.
• Born: December 8th, 1894
• Place of Birth: Columbus, Ohio, U.S
• Died: Nov 2, 1961
• Major Works: My Life and Hard Times, My World- and Welcome to It, The Catbird Seat, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
• Best Known For: He is known for his cartoons and short tales, mostly published in The New Yorker.

Summary of the Chapter

The story “The Night the Ghost Got In” recounts the fictitious account of life at young Thurber’s house. The sequence of strange events takes place on November 17, 1915. James Thurber, the narrator, comes out of a bath at 1:15 am. He is startled by the sound of someone moving around the dining table downstairs. Despite the bathroom light shining brightly he was unable to see the table. Hence, the narrator assumes the sound of footsteps could either be his father or elder sibling Roy who could be home from their Indianapolis trip anytime.

James is startled and perplexed to discover he can still hear the footsteps, so he concludes it as a burglar and sneaks into his brother Herman’s room. When Herman awakens, the sound momentarily pauses and resumes sounding more like running than walking. Herman is startled to learn that someone downstairs is walking in circles. However, upon checking, they see nothing and assume it must be a ghost. Out of fear, he retreats to bed slamming the door. The noise disappears at the moment making the narrator say “None of us ever heard the ghost again”.

Now They were the steps of a man walking rapidly around the dining room table downstairs. The light from the bathroom shone down the back steps, which dropped directly into the dining room; I could see the faint shine of plates on the plate-rail; I couldn’t see the table.

However, the narrator’s mother wakes up and comes upon hearing the banging sound of the door. The mother inquires about the noise of the footsteps inspecting what her sons are up to. Herman denies making any disturbance. So the mother assumes that there must have been a burglar even before her sons had a chance to respond. Meanwhile, Thurber attempts to pacify his excited mother by deciding to go downstairs. The mother unbothered swiftly devises a new plan to contact the police.

“What was all that running around downstairs?” said mother. So she had heard the steps, too!
We just looked at her. “Burglars!” she shouted intuitively.

She then flung up the windows of her bedroom, that faced the neighbors, and threw the shoe through the pane of Mr. and Mrs. Bodwell's glass window. The retired engraver Mr Bodwell and his wife were initially frustrated. His wife yelled at him wondering if she could head back to Peoria. Mr. Bowell who experiences unspecified attacks eventually calms down, realizes the plan, and calls over an extension on the phone to the police informing them to go to James’s house.

The police arrive quickly. The whole incident gets exaggerated as soon as the police show up. The group consisted of eight or so of them on the police wagon, two on motorcycles, and a few reporters and a Ford sedan. Despite the calls for the front door to be opened, no one goes downstairs to open it hence they break into it and go upstairs to discover the narrator who hasn't dressed since taking a bath.

They question the narrator about himself to whom he replies he resided there. The police then assured that there was no sign of anybody in the house who further questioned the looks of the intruder. The mother replied and insisted to the policemen that two to three men were causing a commotion in the house even though all the interior doors were unbolted from inside. She ensured not to mention that she did not see the burglars.

The officers search the property, moving furniture and emptying closets to excuse their visit. Almost half a dozen police officers emerge out of the darkness of the front hallway upstairs. At one point a policeman named Joe lets his curiosity get the better of him and points out an unusual old musical instrument, a zither to another officer. It was stated that it was won by Roy in a pool tournament. The narrator then adds unnecessary information about the family's old guinea pig that used to sleep on the zither. The police react to them weirdly making them put the zither back on the shelf.

“What is it?” he asked me. “It’s an old zither our guinea pig used to sleep on,” I said. It was true that a pet guinea pig
we once had would never sleep anywhere except on the zither, but I should never have said so. Joe and the other cop looked at me a long time.

The cops grow suspicious of the family. Suddenly, they hear a creaking sound from the attic where the grandfather is sleeping. The police rush upstairs, and the grandfather, in his confused state, believes they are Civil War deserters. He attacks them, slapping one officer and shooting another with the officer's own gun. The police retreat, locking the grandfather in the attic, where he fires a few more shots before returning to bed.

The grandfather was wearing a long flannel nightgown over long woolen underwear, a nightcap, and a leather jacket when he got out of his bed. On seeing the grandfather's action, the cops concluded that the white-haired man belonged to this house but was too late to prove it. This incident further led to the grandfather labeling them cowards and arrogantly advising them to return to the Civil War battle. He shoots one of the cops by removing the revolver from his holster after slapping another police officer across the back of the head before his family could intervene. Somehow the cops escape from the old gentleman by locking him and running downstairs safely. The grandfather fires twice more before returning to his bed.

The police, frustrated and defeated, are reluctant to leave empty-handed. A reporter approaches the narrator, who is now wearing one of his mother's blouses. The reporter asks for the "real lowdown," and the narrator tells him they had ghosts. The reporter seems skeptical and eventually leaves with the police.

The policeman who was shot chose to walk upstairs since he needed his pistol back, but the others mocked him. The narrator vows to get back the pistol from his grandfather and turn it up to the police station. The next morning the grandfather shows up for breakfast smiling and seemingly unaffected by what happened earlier that night. No one told about the night's disturbances before the family requested it. The family assumes that he has forgotten unless he asks. But the grandfather expressed concerns about the presence of policemen wandering over last night. He also chastises his entire family for not leaving the water bottle beside his bed, which forced him to search for water in the middle of the night.

The next morning, the grandfather seems cheerful at breakfast. The family initially thinks he's forgotten about the previous night's events, but he hasn't. He questions them about the police presence and scolds them for not leaving a glass of water by his bed, which forced him to get up in the middle of the night.

Grandfather was fresh as a daisy and full of jokes at breakfast next morning. We thought at first he had forgotten all about what had happened, but he hadn’t. Over his third cup of coffee, he glared at Herman and me. “What was the idea of all them cops tarryhootin’ round the house last night?”

Therefore, in a hilarious turn of events, the story concludes by declaring that it was the grandfather who arrived in search of water and not any burglar or ghost. The primary cause of the disaster was nothing but the result of their misinterpretation and dismay.

James Thurber, the author conveys the moral of the story that seemingly little details can lead to miscommunications. Furthermore, a lack of proper communication can lead to weird and unwelcome assumptions. A scenario can be misleading with too much imagination.

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