Nobody Living Inside

I passed by an abandoned house on Tulls Creek Road in Moyock, NC.  I was drawn to it.

I wonder what the rhythm of the falling rain sounded like on that old tin roof...

As I explored the old place, a song started playing in my head, the sound track of my life that my brain plays at odd moments:

Well there's too many windows 

in this old hotel 
And rooms filled with reckless pride 
And the walls have grown sturdy 
And the halls have worn well 
But there is nobody living inside 
Nobody living inside...

I picked my way past the abandoned garden... 

and the pond...

To peer in the windows and see one of at least three wonderful old fireplace mantels...

As always, I wondered about the house and how it ended up empty with the curtains still on the windows.    I took this black and white pic through a broken front window.

I stopped by at the library just behind the old house to inquire about it. A kind librarian handed me a fact sheet about square footage and numbers of bathrooms.  But that so wasn't what I wanted to know.

What woman stood in the kitchen in a gingham apron and put up preserves?  What children romped and shrieked and raced through the hallways?  Did they run down to that parlor with the fireplace to see what treasures Santa had left for them while the entire world was at war?   Did women with pearls and starched A-line sleeveless dresses play bridge in that parlor on July afternoons,  gently stirring the breeze with fans printed with funeral home advertisements?

Whose footfalls echoed down those stairs day after day?  When did they stop, leaving only the sound of the wind scattering the early fall leaves as the goldenrod gently swayed in the front yard?