Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25326117-20150308030758

It was the eighteenth century, and seven-year-old Catherine Chicken was getting a new father. Her mother had just remarried and she was expected to go to a nearby boarding school, because her new father didn't ant to raise a child that wasn't his. Being the young and adventrous girl that Catherine was, she didn't do too well at her new boarding school. She would often skip classes and chores to play outside with her pet turtle. This greatly upsetted her French teacher and his wife, the Dutarques.

Monsieur Dutarque found the seven-year-old lass under an oak tree one day when she decided to again cut classes. He wasn't relieved and approached the young girl. She was snatched up by his giant, beefy hand and dragged to the local graveyard with rope in hand. He bound the young girl to a local headstone and continued shouting as he was finishing up his horrible deed, "There, you wanted to outside!  Now, you're outside!"

He marched off in the direction of the boarding school. Monsieur Dutarque had collarborated a lie for the girl's absense. "She is with a relative," he would say. Nobody questioned him until the young girl's stepfather went to the relative's house. The relative exposed Monsieur Dutarque of his lie and a search party was called forth.

Night hit the quiet town of Childsburg, South Carolina and the seven-year-old was freezing. She looked around for help, but nobody was there. She called out for help, but all she received was the howling wind. Catherine was terried, because her only company was the dead and the elements. The young girl cried and something came upon her.

A giant creature with the head of a pumpkit, lit aflame approached the girl. Catherine fainted at the sight of the strange beast. The beast came forth and it's eerie flame shined on the poor girl. The monster wasn't a monster in fact, it was a slave named Money. Money with his pumpkin torch alerted the search party of his discovery. The townspeople were relieved and picked up the unconscious Catherine.

Catherine struggled for her life as the elements weakened her body. She had called out to her French teacher, "Why Monsieur Dutarque...why?" Everyone wanted the Dutarques' heads, but the townspeople needed to wait for the law to take action and for young Catherine to survive. Catherine regained her health and the law took action.

Madam Dutarque was abandoned on some shore. Her husband, Monsieur Dutarque and a stubborn mule weren't so lucky. The French teacher was strapped to the domestic beast and let loose. The people hoped that God, the wildlife and the Natives would deal the cruel headmaster justice. Dutarque somehow got free from the stubborn beast and with his out-of-date teaching certificate in hand; he headed to New Orleans. God had plans for the cruel man.

Monsieur Dutarque got a job at an all boys school. A well was there to meet the staff and the students' thirst. Dutarque would constantly insult his students, saying things like, "You trash would never amount anything, but being dirt-poor farmers!" He would also force them to drink from the pail from the well and forced the thirsty lads to watch.

The teacher also forced the boys to only speak to him in French, while he was free to use the English language to his leisure. The boys grew tired of their teacher's abuse and they went to bed that night, unaware of the terror that awaited them in the classroom in the morning.

Dutarque had gotten drunk off of wine. He had decided to grade his papers with nothing, but Fs. The teacher groggily was thirsty and the wine could not satisfy his thirst any longer. The teacher went down to the well and tried to pull the pail up, because he didn't bother with the lever, since he was 'above' doing manual labor. After all, that was something for his useless students to do, right?

Dutarque fell in the well. He thrashed around in the water wildly. He grabbed a hold of the pail and called out for help. He was only met with dead silence and the pail couldn't hold him. It bobbed up and down with the teacher's body in it.

The morning came and the boys were horrified that their teacher had given them Fs, even more so by the fact that they were written in what appeared to be blood. The students searched everywhere for their cruel teacher, but that could not find him. They eventually got thirsty and headed to the well. The first boy tried the lever, but the pail wouldn't come up. All the boys worked together to get the pail up and to keep each other from falling in. They got pail, but they were horrified to discovery their dead teacher in there.

Dutarque was granted justice and he could no longer commit vile deeds against minors.

As for, Catherine Chicken, she eventually got married and had six kids. Her spirit is said to haunt two places: Strawberry Chapel, the place where she was bound to a gravestone and the plantation that replaced the home she knew that had burned down. She is said to scream and cry in Strawberry Chapel and the place is off-limits to trespassers, because of vandalism. The other place, Rice Hope Plantation is up for sale and legend has it that the young Catherine is trying to relive her lost childhood as people have seen and heard a young phantom girl lurking playing about.

(This is based on an urban legend.  I managed to get the information from a blog: https://mail.google.com/_/scs/mail-static/_/js/k=gmail.main.en.Xvwle1A81xg.O/m=m_i,t,it/am=OiMa4f5v_UGMM7RLn9T9--93lxQ_-7z-jzMBJDsF8H-z_wfwe2Af_ZAB/rt=h/d=1/t=zcms/rs=AHGWq9Cxwl1mkA-h62WCcx2bSNOpmYYWwQ and a book source: https://books.google.com/books?id=aSOxeCY4PmsC&pg=PA29&lpg=PA26&ots=H10eX9UEX5&focus=viewport&dq=Catherine+Chicken%27s+ghost+sc&output=html_text). I don't own the work, I just thought it would be nice to share an urban legend with you guys. All credit goes to their rightful owners. 