Short stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
the other way from which she had come--nothing but a waste of water and
woods. Suddenly, from a point up over the nearer woods a little sparkle
caught her eye; there must be a house there, she thought; they might
have matches, and she would go back and get some. But there it was
again--it moved. There was another--another--and something black moving.
She sprang to her feet and strained her eyes. Good God! they were
coming! In a second she had turned the other way, rushed across the
bridge, and was dashing through the water to her waist. The water was
not wide that way. The hill rose almost abruptly on that side, and up it
she dashed, and along the road. A faint curl of smoke caught her eye and
she made for it through the field.
It was a small cabin, and the woman in it had just gotten her fire
well started for the morning, when a girl bare-headed and bare-footed,
dripping wet to the skin, her damp hair hanging down her back, her face
white and her eyes like coals, rushed in almost without knocking and
asked for a chunk of fire. The woman had no time to refuse (she told of
it afterward when she described the burning of the bridge); for without
waiting for answer and before she really took in that it was not a
ghost, the girl had seized the biggest chunk on the hearth and was
running with it across the field. In fact, the woman rather thought she
was an evil spirit; for she saw her seize a whole panel of fence--more
rails than she could have carried to save her life, she said, and dashed
with them over the hill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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