John Stevens' Courtship: A Story of the Echo Canyon WarGates, Susa Young
General
John Stevens' Courtship: A Story of the Echo Canyon War
Gates, Susa Young
Latter Day Saints -- Fiction; Utah Expedition (1857-1858) -- Fiction
"Don't cry," still teased the young fellow; "do be a good girl," then
joking in his rather clumsy fashion, he added, "Come and kiss yoo papa."
"Never mind, youngsters," sang out Tom Allen, "I'll help you," while
Harvey and Josephine both flew to assist Lucy Winthrop.
Lucy sprang into the tent in an angry flame, while her mother followed,
herself too annoyed at the liberty the young man had taken to answer at
all. But she soothed the two little girls, and they all came out and
finished the corn. Rachel herself carried some up to Henry and Dian,
who now sat cozily far up on the hill-side, under the dense shadow of
the trees.
The younger ones slipped away from the fire, and the laughter and song
there died down; but the young couple still sat under the dark shadow,
far up on the hill-side.
Henry was entertaining Dian with long tales about his former home in
the British Isles. He gave glowing pictures of the castle belonging to
a distant relative in Staffordshire. The girl listened with increasing
interest; for who could fail to sympathize with the neglected cousin,
even if a third one, of a real lord and earl. The narrator's allusions
to himself were a little broad and fulsome, but Dian was inexperienced,
if shrewd by nature. A feeling of deeper respect for this good
looking and highly connected youth was growing momentarily in her
breast--he certainly was such a fine dancer, and he always picked up
a handkerchief so gracefully! She could but feel flattered by these
confidential revelations of superior virtues and titled relations. The
sounds were hushed from tree to tree, and the canopy of silence was
unfolding in all the majesty of the mid-night hour.
Suddenly there was a pounding crash and roar above them on the
hill-crest, and down through the brush and trees came bounding some
terrible wild animal.
Dian screamed, and Henry jumped wildly in the air, yelling at the top
of his voice.
"Run, run; it's a bear."
He took his own advice so quickly that the girl was barely on her feet
before he was half-way down to the camp fire, still yelling, "Run, Run!"
As the young man reached the full blaze of the fire, a quick chorus of
childish voices, above them on the hill-side from which he had fled,
high falsettos, trebels, and one deep bass voice, united in a blasting
sing-song:
"Come and kiss yoo papa; come and kiss yoo papa."
And the children, in one derisive row of merciless tormentors, stood
just in the upper shadow line, repeating the refrain with painful
insistence, until Boyle himself was glad to retreat into the silence of
his own tent for the night. There were sounds of laughter from every
near-by tent. What Dian thought of this absurd adventure could only
be conjectured from the scornful expression of her rosy lips, as she
gathered the two little girls in her arms and drove the still jeering
boy, Harvey, and Tom Allen in the darkened back-ground, away into the
far seclusion of their own tent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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