Mrs. Hipple
Years ago there was in Austin a locally somewhat well known psychic named Mrs. Hipple. She lived in one of those little old-fashioned cottages just west of the campus. She is long-gone now. I saw her in about 1977, so it's been upwards of thirty years, and she was an old woman then. The house is still there. I saw it not long ago. You can tell which one it is by the white picket fence in front: it has the shapes of the suits of cards cut out in the pickets. A spade, a club, a heart and a diamond. She would read your fortune in cards.
I went to see her with my friend Diane, who told me all about her. They said she could tell you things she couldn't possibly have known that would turn out to be true. There were tales. Some of it was downright creepy.
Diane had been told by one friend that the way to do it was to go see Mrs. Hipple in pairs. They said that Mrs. Hipple talked rapidly and said a lot more than you could easily remember. If you went with a friend, you could take notes for each other.
So Diane and I went together one Saturday morning. We went in Diane's car, and we took Pirate. We tried to leave him in the car, but Mrs. Hipple somehow quickly divined that we had a dog with us, and she made us go back and get him.
Pirate seemed completely at home in Mrs. Hipple's house, and as she began handling the cards she remarked that there were four spirits in the room, meaning the three of us and Pirate. She rambled at length for each of us. Some of it was puzzling, some of it pretty vague. We were satisfied when we left.
Diane said she heard about two girls who went to see Mrs. Hipple. They were probably college-age girls. Mrs. Hipple refused to read for one of them. The girl insisted, so finally Mrs. Hipple said she would write something down and give it to her, but she wanted the girl to promise that she wouldn't read it until she got home. The girl promised. So Mrs. Hipple wrote something on a piece of paper and folded it up and gave it to the girl, who put it in her purse. On the way home the girl was killed in a car wreck. The friend got hold of the purse, found the note and read it. The note said, "You have no future."