Strange Stories of the Great Valley: The Adventures of a Boy Pioneer — John Shaqi
Strange Stories of the Great Valley: The Adventures of a Boy PioneerGrosvenor, Abbie Johnston
General
Strange Stories of the Great Valley: The Adventures of a Boy Pioneer
Grosvenor, Abbie Johnston
Frontier and pioneer life -- Ohio River Valley -- Juvenile fiction
But Doby himself was restless. He went to the spring and filled his
bucket. It was a good spring and most attractive to boys. For the two
famous Vevay brothers, Edward and George Cary Eggleston, who years
later wrote delightful stories of this part of Indiana and other
histories of their country, found as much fascination and beauty around
the hillside springs as Doby did.
Several times during the day he wandered back to the spring. At each
one he found himself taking a round-about way past the jail to get
another peep at the outlaw. He shuddered till his bucket rattled
when he recalled how this criminal had suddenly turned the friendly
villagers into a vindictive mob.
After supper he tried to explain his nervousness by saying: "This
moonlight gives me fidgets. I guess I'll run up to the spring again and
get us all a fresh drink before we go to bed. I'm not a bit sleepy."
"It's rather late for boys to be out," objected his mother.
"It is," agreed his father. "But 'tis such a bright night that I'll sit
here and watch you climb. I do not feel sleepy myself."
The open hillside had seemed inviting as Doby viewed it from the boat.
As he mounted higher and higher the perspective changed. The sheltering
home boat sank in lonesome distance. The shadows of the trellises
twisted grotesquely at his feet as if to twine about them. Calls of
"whip-poor-will" came mournfully from afar. The May night was turning
chill. The solitary path had lost its accustomed look. He began to
shiver.
"This isn't as pleasant as I thought 'twould be. I'll get the water and
hurry home," he resolved as he knelt at the spring. In the damp loam
where the spring dribbled in front of him were the prints of the feet
of one who had been there before him. They were fresh and distinct.
Born and bred near the frontier and raised to read its signs, he
understood the prints at a glance. But he bent nearer in the moonlight
to be sure he was not mistaken.
One was of a broken boot sole. The other was a moccasin impression.
There was nothing else.
He did some thinking. "This is odd. A white man wouldn't hop up on one
foot to drink. Neither would an Indian. And no one man would wear a
moccasin on his right foot and a boot on his left." Oh, wouldn't he?
Doby's memory jumped. The scarecrow on the wharf, the prisoner in the
jail, had just such feet.
He retreated from the spot as though the culprit himself stood in
the tracks. He was not thirsty any more. He told himself in quaking
thoughts: "Even if I didn't notice the prints this afternoon, they must
have been there. They can't be fresh, 'though they _do_ look so. The
man has been in jail for hours."
Perhaps so; but the boy could not drive himself back to the spring. The
moonlight only served to make the shadows blacker. They threatened him.
He seemed paralyzed where he stood. Nothing was real but the dread that
filled him. Even the earth and sky were changing hideously.
From the town came the cry of, "Fire! fire! fire!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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