Philadelphia Weirdness

An Urban Legend?

Welcome to another installment of the eerily obscure and bizarrely sinister.

The most common urban legend to haunt worldwide folklore is that of the phantom hitchhiker. The following tale borrows heavily from that theme. Whether the tale is true, only you can decide, because it happened so long ago...

During the late 1800s a neurologist named Dr. Weir was relaxing at his Philadelphia home. The fire was crackling and the snow outside was covering the streets and roof-tops like a pristine quilt. And then, a knock at the door. He ignored it, and began to doze. There was another rap at the door. Weir rose from his cosiness, unslid the bolt, creaked open the door and was shocked to find a small child, forlorn and wearing a fragile frock and tatty shawl.

"My mother is very sick, won't you come, please?" the little girl begged.

Despite the harsh weather, Weir stated he was now off-duty and suggested the pale child seek another doctor in town, but the girl, with frozen cheeks and icy tears demanded that Weir tend to her mother before it was too late. So, wrapping up warm and braving the nightly chills, Weir followed the girl through the snow storm that had erupted from the zenith. He was taken to the door, rushed upstairs and found a woman sick with pneumonia. The doctor immediately worked on the poor lady, and told her, "Thank goodness your child knocked at my door and persuaded me to come to your aid."

The woman gave the doctor a look of utter shock and told him to look in the cupboard, and when he did, he saw, hanging there, a child's dress and shawl, the same garments the little girl had been wearing, and bone dry.

"My little girl died more than a month ago!" the woman whispered.

Image Credit: Flickr user evdaimon