What the Grave Bell Really Meant — Transcript

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1. 0:00They buried a man alive with a bell tied
2. 0:02to his finger. You see, people were so
3. 0:04scared of waking up in a coffin that
4. 0:06graves came with a little bell on top,
5. 0:08tied by a string to the body's finger.
6. 0:10Except when his bell starts ringing at
7. 0:112:00 in the morning, the guy next door
8. 0:13decides it's probably the wind. Then it
9. 0:15rings faster, and now the whole street
10. 0:17is out on their porches going, "You go
11. 0:19check. No, you go check." Somebody drags
12. 0:22the doctor out of bed, and he goes,
13. 0:24"Bodies twitch. He's dead. I signed the
14. 0:26paper myself." But his wife isn't on her
15. 0:28porch. She's sitting in the dark with
16. 0:30the shovel by the door because she knows
17. 0:31that ring. Three short, one long, the
18. 0:34exact signal they practiced. Wait,
19. 0:36practiced? Well, he was never dead. He
20. 0:38owed money to half the town, so he faked
21. 0:40his death, and the second that bell
22. 0:42rang, she was supposed to grab the
23. 0:43shovel, [music] dig him up, and skip
24. 0:45town with him. Instead, she just sits
25. 0:47there all night listening to it ring
26. 0:48fast, then slow, then once every few
27. 0:51minutes until sunrise, when it finally
28. 0:53stops. You see, with him in the ground,
29. 0:55every debt got buried right along with
30. 0:57him, and the house was all hers.