E-text prepared by Al Haines Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 17156-h.htm or 17156-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/1/5/17156/17156-h/17156-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/1/5/17156/17156-h.zip) THE SOLDIER OF THE VALLEY by NELSON LLOYD Illustrated by A. B. Frost [Frontispiece: They called to me as a boy.] Charles Scribner's Sons New York ------------ 1904 Copyright, 1904, by Charles Scribner's Sons Published, September, 1904 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS They called to me as a boy . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ "Welcome home--thrice welcome!" Tim and I had stopped our ploughs to draw lots and he had lost "Well, old chap!" Josiah Nummler He did not stop to hear my answer Swearing terrible oaths that he will never return No answer came from the floor above The tiger story He had a last look at Black Log "He pumped me dry" "Nanny is likely to get one of her religious spells and quit work" I was back in my prison "'At my sover-sover-yne's will'" Perry Thomas stands confronting the English warrior "You'll begin to think you ain't there at all" I saw a girl on the store porch Aaron Kallaberger Leander "Her name was Pinky Binn, a dotter of the house of Binn, the Binns of Turkey Walley" William had felt the hand of "Doogulus" "Aren't you coming?" young Colonel seemed to say Sat little Colonel, wailing The main thing was proper nursing Well, ain't he tasty "But there are no ghosts," I argued "Of course it hurts me a bit here" "An seein' a light in the room, I looked in" Tip Pulsifer leaned on my gate The horse went down "And I'm his widder" Then Tim came Old Captain When we three sit by the fire THE SOLDIER OF THE VALLEY I I was a soldier. I was a hero. You notice my tenses are past. I am a simple school-teacher now, a prisoner in Black Log. There are no bars to my keep, only the wall of mountains that make the valley; and look at them on a clear day, when sunshine and shadow play over their green slopes, when the clouds all white and gold swing lazily in the blue above them, and they speak of freedom and of life immeasurable. There are no chains to my prison, no steel cuffs to gall the limbs, no guards to threaten and cow me. Yet here I stay year after year. Here I was born and here I shall die.