A gentle pioneer

It was a grave little company which sat around the big fireplace of the Kennedy farm-house one night in March. Outside the wind howled and blustered, and even though a huge log...

It was to Polly that Agnes went one afternoon when her father had been absent all day and the gloom of the great encircling forest had oppressed her more than usual. Polly was b...

That evening Polly returned to her own home, but the M’Cleans remained at the fort, and the next day Jeanie told Agnes that her mother was bent upon going nearer to the settleme...

The sharp bark of a dog announced the arrival of a stranger. One or two tow-headed children peeped around the corner of the house and then ran away. Agnes stood still for a mome...

But it was not long before an event occurred which decided Agnes to make other plans. All through the winter she had been content to stay with her father at the new home of the...

The summer would have passed happily enough but for a rumor that there had been seen some hostile Indians in the next settlement; and this information so affected Fergus Kennedy...

It was some weeks later that the gaunt form of a young man might have been seen stretched on the bed in one of the loft rooms. The place was very still. Upon the homespun curtai...

Agnes was right in charging Archie with doing a deal of thinking, for, ever since the meeting-house had become an assured fact, his yearning for the ministry had increased, and...

It was quite early in the spring before the willows that bordered the run at the foot of the garden had put on their first green, and long before the pawpaw bushes showed their...

The next morning Parker started forth in search of his land. Agnes watched him from her loft room; a new feeling of interest possessed her. This man who had come to them first a...

“Well, you are a stranger,” was Jeanie’s greeting. “You’ve not been here for two weeks, and I hardly had a glimpse of you on Sabbath day. We have heard from Archie since then an...

Polly’s face beamed a welcome on the travellers. The fact that the little cabin contained but the living-room and the lean-to downstairs and the two little loft chambers above,...

It was two days after that Dod Hunter appeared at the clearing. Agnes was busy outside the house at the hominy block; it took a deal of hominy these days to satisfy so large a f...

By the time they had reached the house, Parker was sufficiently aroused to be able to tell something of his adventure. He was waylaid in the woods on his way to Dod Hunter’s, an...

It was, without doubt, David who was coming pounding along the path up from the woods, and who, dusty and travel-stained, drew up his reeking horse before the door. The men gath...

The summer had come upon them before Parker was ready to issue his invitation for his friends to come to take supper with him in his little shanty, for being very comfortable at...

The mystery surrounding the copy of the will which had been extracted from Parker’s box was solved the next week, and by no less person than Jimmy O’Neill, who came in chuckling...

With the appearance of young Carter Ritchie, the neighbors arrived at the decision that Parker Willett would not return, and that eventually this cousin of his would take his cl...

It was a few days later that Dr. Flint appeared again. In the meantime Agnes had been aware of a midnight expedition, in which Jimmy O’Neill had taken part, and from which he ha...

It was, of course, weeks before Fergus Kennedy could take his place among his fellow-men; there was still need for quiet, and he was spared much excitement, so that only at inte...