Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History BookOpen Original Text in' war true," she murmured, her face
still turned to the western spurs, and the moon sinking slowly toward
them.
With a sudden resolution she rose to her feet. She knew a way of
telling fortunes which was, according to tradition, infallible, and
she determined to try it, and ease her mind as to her future. Now was
the propitious moment. "I hev always hearn that it won't come true
'thout ye try it jes' before daybreak, an' kneelin' down at the forks
of the road." She hesitated a moment and listened intently. "They'd
never git done a-laffin' at me, ef they fund it out," she
thought. . . . [She went out into the road.] She fixed her eyes upon
the mystic sphere dropping down the sky, knelt among the azaleas at
the forks of the road, and repeated the time-honored invocation: "Ef
I'm a-goin' ter marry a young man, whistle, Bird, whistle. Ef I'm
a-goin' ter marry an old man, low, Cow, low. Ef I ain't a-goin' ter
marry nobody, knock, Death, knock."
There was a prolonged silence in the matutinal freshness and perfume
of the woods. She raised her head, and listened attentively. No chirp
of half-awakened bird, no tapping of wood-pecker or the mysterious
death-watch; but from far along the dewy aisles of the forest, the
ungrateful Spot that Clarsie had fed more faithfully than herself,
lifted up her voice, and set the echoes vibrating. Clarsie, however,
had hardly time for a pang of disappointment.
While she still knelt among the azaleas, her large deer-like eyes were
suddenly dilated with terror. From around the curve of the road came
the quick beat of hastening footsteps, the sobbing sound of panting
breath, and between her and the sinking moon there passed an
attenuated one-armed figure, with a pallid sharpened face, outlined
for a moment on its brilliant disk, and dreadful starting eyes, and
quivering open mouth. It disappeared in an instant among the shadows
of the laurel, and Clarsie, with a horrible fear clutching at her
heart, sprang to her feet. . . . the ghost stood before her. She could
not nerve herself to run past him, and he was directly in her way
homeward.
. . . . . . . . .
"Ye do ez ye air bid, or it'll be the worse for ye," said the "harnt"
in a quivering shrill tone. "Thar's hunger in the nex' worl' ez well
ez in this, an' ye bring me some vittles hyar this time ter-morrer,
an' don't ye tell nobody ye hev seen me, nuther, or it'll be the worse
for ye." . . .
The next morning, before the moon sank, Clarsie, with a tin pail in
her hand, went to meet the ghost at the appointed place. . . . . .
Morning was close at hand. . . . . . the leaves fell into abrupt
commotion, and he was standing in the road, beside her. He did not
speak, but watched her with an eager, questioning intentness, as she
placed the contents of the pail upon the moss at the roadside. "I'm
a-comin' agin ter-morrer," she said, gently. . . . Then she slowly
walked along her misty way in the dim light of the coming dawn. There
was a footstep in the road behind her; she thought it was the ghost
once more. She turned, and met Simon Burney, face to face. His rod was
on his shoulder, and a string of fish was in his hand.
"Ye air a-doin' wrongful, Clarsie," he said sternly. "It air agin the
law fur folks ter feed an' shelter them ez is a-runnin' from jestice.
An' ye'll git yerself inter trouble. Other folks will find ye out,
besides me, an' then the sheriff 'll be up hyar arter ye."
The tears rose to Clarsie's eyes. This prospect was infinitely more
terrifying than the awful doom which follows the horror of a ghost's
speech. "I can't help it," she said, however, doggedly swinging the
pail back and forth. "I can't gin my consent ter starvin' of folks,
even if they air a-hidin' an' a-runnin' from jestice." . . . .
FOOTNOTE:
[47] By permission of Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, Boston.
DANSKE DANDRIDGE.
~1859=----.~
MRS. DANDRIDGE was born in Copenhagen, when her father, Honorable
Henry Bedinger, was minister to Denmark. In 1877 she was married to
Mr. Stephen Dandridge of Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Her first name,
Danske, is the pretty Danish word for Dane, and is pronounced in two
syllables.
WORKS.
Joy, and other Poems.
Mrs. Dandridge's poems are as dainty and airy as if the elves
themselves had led her to their bowers and discovered to her their
secrets; and this is truly what her poetic sense has done, for the
poet is a seer and singer of the secrets of nature.
THE SPIRIT AND THE WOOD SPARROW.
(_From Joy, and other Poems._[48])
'Twas long ago:
The place was very fair;
And from a cloud of snow
A spirit of the air
Dropped to the earth below.
It was a spot by man untrod,
Just where
I think is only known to God.
The spirit, for a while,
Because of beauty freshly made
Could only smile;
Then grew the smiling to a song,
And as he sang he played
Upon a moonbeam-wired cithole
Shaped like a soul.
There was no ear
Or far or near,
Save one small sparrow of the wood,
That song to hear.
This, in a bosky tree,
Heard all, and understood
As much as a small sparrow could
By sympathy.
'Twas a fair sight
That morn of Spring,
When on the lonely height,
The spirit paused to sing,
Then through the air took flight
Still lilting on the wing.
And the shy bird,
Who all had heard,
Straightway began
To practice o'er the lovely strain;
Again, again;
Though indistinct and blurred,
He tried each word,
Until he caught the last far sounds that fell
Like the faint tinkles of a fairy bell.
Now when I hear that song,
Which has no earthly tone,
My soul is carried with the strain along
To the everlasting Throne;
To bow in thankfulness and prayer,
And gain fresh faith, and love, and patience, there.
FOOTNOTE:
[48] By permission of the author, and publishers. G. P. Putnam's Sons,
N. Y.
AMÉLIE RIVES CHANLER.
~1863=----.~
MRS. CHANLER, or AMÉLIE RIVES as she still styles herself in writing,
was born in Richmond, Virginia, but passed her early life at the
family place in Albemarle County, called "Castle Hill." She is a
granddaughter of William Cabell Rives, once minister to France and
author of "Life of Madison"; and her grandmother, Mrs. Judith Walker
Rives, was a woman of much ability, and left some writings entitled
"Home and the World," and "Residence in Europe."
She was married in 1888 to Mr. John Armstrong Chanler of New York and
has since spent much time in Paris, studying painting for which she
has as great fondness as for writing.
Her first stories were written in the style of the time of Shakspere;
the best of them is "Farrier Lass o' Piping Pebworth." They created a
sensation as they came out and were said to be the work of a girl
under twenty. She has also written stories of Virginia life and of
modern times; besides poems, and dramas, in which last her talents
seem to reach a higher plane than in any other kind of writing.
WORKS.
A Brother to Dragons.
Farrier Lass o' Piping Pebworth.
Virginia of Virginia.
The Quick or the Dead?
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