...it was Colleen's mother, Doris Kelly, who first saw the barn's resident ghost. One day when she was in charge of the [Cranberry Book Barn] she saw a black dog dash behind one of the glass bookcases. Thinking she had seen Mocha, Colleen's mixed shepherd and Lab--whom she'd assumed to be outdoors--Doris went looking for the dog. She searched throughout the store, even the attic, until happening to glance out a window she saw Mocha tethered outside

Colleen dismissed her mother's account of the incident--until something similar happened to her. Stationed behind the cash register, with customers in the store, she glimpsed--out of the corner of her eye--a black dog passing behind the glass bookcase. At the same time, she saw her own dog, Mocha, tied outside.

Colleen's daughter Kelly (who happens to be a vet) was skeptical when she heard both her mother and grandmother talk about the mysterious black dog that would suddesnly appear, then as suddenly vanish. She's still skeptical, I'm told--though thtere was the time when, apparently, she saw something in the barn and exclaimed: "What dog was that that just went by?"

Whenever the black dog makes an appearance, it always vanishes in the same spot: just as it enters a recent addition to the barn--at the exact line where the old barn used to end.

Although Colleen cannot saya for sure why the ghost of a black dog haunts her bookstore, she does have a theory that may account for its presence. Her daughter Kelly was talking to an older resident in town one day and--without mentioning the barn's canine specter--learned that back in the 1950s a man kept a black Labrador retriever in the barn. Unfortunately he was known to mistreat the dog. Feeling sorry for it, the neighborhood kids would often sneak into the barn to feed it and otherwise try to make its life more bearable.

Oddly, when Mocha died two years after Colleen opened her bookstore, the ghostly dog stopped appearing, and Colleen and her mother soon forgot about it. For several years the only dog on the premises was a small dog owned by Kelly. Then Colleen acquired Sandy, a friendly shepherd. And the black dog began to be seen again.

Colleen believes that the ghost of hte mistreated dog is seeking a kindred spirit, that it felt comfortable with the large, friendly Mocha, and feels at home with the equally amiable Sandy.

One spring before the first guests arrived, the manager discovered that the lights were on in Room 3. He turned them off and returned to his apartment. The next time he looked, the lights were on again. Three times he retraced his steps to turn off lights. On his last trip, just short of the door he heard the sound of the switch as the light was turned off. "Good, leave them that way," he said aloud. And she does.

One manager said every time he replaces a light bulb, he scolds, "Mary, please leave it alone!" And she does.

Some workers became accustomed to the unexplained happenings, but one maid was very startled when new logs in the cold fireplace of Room 5 suddenly flamed bright red on their own.

Happenings in the bowling alley and recreation center are more visible. A few years ago, a director was setting up for a play that was to be performed in the recreation center. He was alone. Suddenly a crash reverberated through the building, followed by stumbling, shuffling sounds. With the hairs on his neck standing on end, he left the building and refused to return until accompanied by a lodge employee.

Still stranger is the shadowy figure of a man who keeps showing up in pictures taken in the bowling alley and recreation hall. One guest, who insisted there was no ghost, took his video camera, set it up in the bowling alley and waited. When he heard a noise he clicked on the camera. The view finder was blank. No indicator lights clicked on. The camera was dead.

He took the camera outside and checked the view finder again. It worked just fine-there was the pagoda on the lawn and the lake beyond. Mystified, he returned to the bowling alley and again set up the camera. Something scraped across the floor. He quickly peered through the lens. Blank again!

Is the shadowy figure on film Frank’s brother Harry? Or Frank himself, trying to make it home?