The way I heard it, Soap Sally lived in a small mill town somewhere in Georgia, or maybe it was North Carolina or Tennessee. Anyways, wherever it was, Soap Sally lived on the top of a big old hill near the local swimming hole. She had three big black kettles in her front yard where she did the washing for the whole town. All around those three kettles she had long clotheslines stretched between crossed supports to hang the laundry up.

On a windy day her yard a beautiful sight, with clothing of all colors fluttering on the lines like flags of every nation. In fact, if you saw Soap Sally during the day you’d think she was just a regular little old washerwoman. But folks that lived in that mill town knew otherwise.

If you stayed around town after dark and looked up on that hill by the swimming hole, you could see the fire and embers still burning under those big kettles. See, Soap Sally did the washing by day, but by night she made soap. And it wasn’t any ordinary soap.

Sally roamed the town at night gathering up children who had misbehaved. She’d stuff them in a croaker sack, take them home, kill them, then use the fat in their bodies to make her soap.

Children around the town were constantly warned: “Be home by dark or Soap Sally will get you, “Stay out of those fields or Soap Sally will get you,” “If you don’t mind your ma, Soap Sally will come and get you!” The children who obeyed survived, while those who didn’t vanished as quickly as a soap bubble pricked by a needle. Some folks said that the parents of really bad children didn’t even wait for Soap Sally to come collect their wayward youngsters, they just gave them to her.

Years passed and Soap Sally died. Now before you breathe a sigh of relief, let me tell you, they say her ghost still roams the South every night. And rumor has it that she’s still in the soap-making business.

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