Part 3

The first night that they were back from the honeymoon–it was just about midnight and Alvira was sleeping peacefully–Adam thought that he heard footsteps on the stairs. He could not be mistaken. Noiselessly the door opened, and the form of Yolande glided into the room; she was in her shroud, all white, and her face was whiter than the shroud, and her long hair never looked blacker.

Along the whitewashed wall by the bedside was a long row of hooks on which hung the dead woman’s wardrobe. It had never been disturbed; Alvira was going to cut the things up and make new garments out of them in the Spring. Adam watched the apparition while she moved over to the clothing, counting them, and smoothed and caressed each skirt or waist, as if she regretted having had to abandon them for the steady raiment of the shroud.

Then she came over to the bed and sat on it close to Adam, eyeing him intently and silently. Just then Alvira got awake, but apparently could see nothing of the ghost, although the room was bright as day, bathed in the full moon’s light.

Yolande seemed to remain for a space of about ten minutes, then passed through the alcove into the room where the children were sleeping and stood by their bedside. The next night she was back again, repeating the same performance, the next night, and the next, and still the next, each night remaining longer, until at last she stayed until daybreak. In the morning as the hired men were coming up the boardwalk which led to the kitchen door, they would meet Yolande, in her shroud coming from the house, and passing out of the back gate. On one occasion Alvira was pumping water on the porch, but made no move as she passed, being evidently like so many persons, spiritually blind. The hired men had known Yolande all their lives, and were surprised to see her spooking in daylight, but refrained from saying anything to the new wife.

Every day for a week after that she appeared on the kitchen porch, or on the boardwalk, in the yard, on the road, and was seen by her former husband many times, and also her night prowling went on as of yore. The hired men began to complain; it might make them sick if a ghost was around too much; these spooks were supposed to exhale a poison much as copperhead snakes do, and also draw their “life” away, and they threatened to quit if she wasn’t “laid.” All of them had seen spooks before, on occasion, but a daily visitation of the same ghost was more than they cared about.

Had it not been for the excitable hired men, Adam, whose nerves were like iron, could have stood Yolande’s ghost indefinitely. In fact, he thought it rather nice of her to come back and see him and the children “for old time’s sake.” But the farm hands must be conserved at any cost, even to the extent of laying Yolande’s unquiet spirit.

The next night when she appeared, he made bold and spoke to her: “What do you want, Yolande,” he said softly, so as not to wake the soundly sleeping Alvira at his side. “Is there anything I can do for you, dear?”

Yolande came very close beside him, and bending down whispered in his ear: “Adam,” said she, “how can you ask me why I am here? You surely know. Did you not, time and time again, promise never to marry again, if I died, for the sake of our darling children? Did you not make such a promise, and see how quickly you broke it! Where I am now I can hold no resentments, so I forgive you for all your transgressions, but I hope that Alvira will be good to our children. I have one request to make: After I left you, you were keen to find what I did with my share of daddy’s pot of gold. I had it buried in the orchard at my old home, under the Northern Spy, but after we moved here, one time when you went deer hunting to Centre County, I dug it up and brought it over here and buried it in the cellar of this house. It is here now. There are just one hundred and fifty-three twenty dollar gold pieces; that was my share. The children and the money were on my mind, not your broken promise and rash marriage, which you will repent, and which I tell you again I forgive you for. I want my children to have that money, every one of the one hundred and fifty-three twenty dollar gold pieces. I buried it a little to the east of the spring in the cellar, about two feet under ground, in a tin cartridge box; Dig it up tomorrow morning, and if you find the one hundred and fifty-three coins, and give every one to the children, I will never come again and upset your hired men. Why I have Myron Shook about half scared to death already, but if you don’t find every single coin I’ll have to come back until you do, or if you hold it back from the children, you will not be able to keep a hireling on this place, or any other place to which you move. Many live folks can’t see ghosts; your wife is one of these; she will never worry until the hired men quit, then she’ll up and have you make sale and move to town. Be square and give the children the money, and I’ll not trouble you again.”

“Oh, Yolande,” answered Adam in gentle tones, “you are no trouble to me, not in the least. I love to have you visit me at night, and look at the children, but you are making the hired help terribly uneasy. That part you must quit.”

“That’s enough of your drivel, Adam,” spoke Yolande, in a sterner tone of voice. “Talk less like a fool, and more like a man. Dig up that money in the morning, count it, and give it to the children and I’ll be glad never to see you again.”

To be reproached by a ghost was too much for Adam, and he lapsed into silence, while Yolande slipped out of the room, over to the bedside of the sleeping children, where she lingered until daylight.

Adam was soon asleep, but was up bright and early the next morning, starting to dress just as the ghost glided out of the door. By six o’clock he had exhumed Yolande’s share of the pot of gold which was buried exactly as her ghostly self had described.

It was a hard wrench to hand the money over to the children, or rather to take it to Ebensburg and start savings accounts in their names. But he did it without a murmur. The cashier, a horse fancier, gave him a present of a new whip, of a special kind that he had made to order at Pittsburg, so he came home happy and contented.

Night was upon him, and supper over, he retired early, dozing a bit before the “witching hour.” As the old Berks County tall clock in the entry struck twelve, he began to watch for Yolande’s accustomed entrance. But not a shadow appeared. The clock struck the quarter, the half, three quarters and one o’clock. No Yolande or anything like her came; she was true to her promise, as true as he had been false. It was an advantage to be a ghost in some ways. They were honorable creatures.

Adam did not know whether to feel pleased or not. His vanity had been not a little appealed to by a dead wife visiting him nightly; now he was sure that it wasn’t for love of him or jealousy, she had been coming back, but to see that the children got the money that had been buried in the cellar. And at last she had spoken rather unkindly, so the great change called death had ended her love, and she wasn’t grieving over his second marriage at all. However, he fell to consoling himself that she had chided him for breaking his word and marrying again; she must have cared for him or she would not have said those things. Then the thought came to him that she wasn’t really peeved at anything concerning his marriage to Alvira except that the children had gotten a stepmother. He wondered if Alvira would continue to be kind to them. Just as he went to sleep he had forgotten both Yolande and Alvira, chuckling over a pretty High School girl he had seen on the street at the ’burg, and whom he had winked at.

III. _The Prostrate Juniper_

Weguarran was a young warrior of the Wyandots, who lived on the shores of Lake Michigan. In the early spring of 1754 he was appointed to the body-guard of old Mozzetuk, a leader of the tribe, on an embassy to Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, to prevail on the holy men there, as many Indians termed the Moravians, to send a band of Missionaries to the Wyandot Country, with a view of Christianizing the tribe, and acting as advisors and emissaries between the Wyandots and allied nations with the French and other white men, who were constantly encroaching on the redmen’s territories.

Weguarran the youngest and the handsomest of the escort, was very impressionable, and across Ohio and over the Alleghenies, he made friends with the Indian maidens of the various encampments passed en route.

The reception at Bethlehem was cordial, but not much hope was held out for an immediate despatch of Missionaries as the Moravians were anxious to avoid being drawn into the warlike aspirations of the English and French, preferring to promote the faith in pacified regions, as very few of them were partisans, but if they had a leaning at all, it was toward the French. This was due to the fact that the French always understood the Indians better than the English, were more sympathetic colonizers, and while many French Missionaries carried forward the tenets of Rome, there was no religious intolerance, and Missionaries of every faith seemed to thrive under their leadership.

While at Bethlehem and Nazareth, Weguarran was much favored by the Indian maids of those localities, but did not wholly lose his heart until one afternoon at the cabin of an old Christian Pequot named Michaelmas. This old Indian, a native of Connecticut, lived in a log cabin on a small clearing near the Lehigh River, where he cultivated a garden of rare plants and trees, and raised tobacco. All his pastimes were unusual; he captured wild pigeons, which he trained to carry messages, believing that they would be more valuable in wartime than runners. He also practiced falconry, owning several hawks of race, goshawks, marsh hawks and duck hawks. The goshawks he used for grouse, wood-cocks and quails; the marsh hawks for rabbits, hares and ’coons; and the duck hawks for wild ducks and other water birds, which fairly swarmed on the Lehigh in those days. He was a religious old man, almost a recluse, strong in his prejudices, and was much enthused by the Wyandot embassy, giving his waning hopes a new burst of life for an Indian renaissance.

He took a great fancy to the manly and handsome Weguarran, inviting him to his cabin, and it was there that the youthful warrior met the old man’s lovely daughter, Wulaha. She was an only child, eighteen years of age. Her mother belonged to the Original People and was also a Christian.

Love progressed very rapidly between Weguarran and Wulaha, and as the time drew near for the embassy to depart, the young girl intimated to her lover that he must discuss the subject with old Michaelmas, and secure his approval and consent, after the manner of white Christians.

The old Pequot was not averse to the union, which would add another strain of Indian blood to the family, but stated that a marriage could only take place on certain conditions. Weguarran, in his conversations with Michaelmas, had told him of his military affiliations with the French, which had filled the old man’s heart with joy for the hopes of a new order of things that it seemed to kindle. When he asked the hand of the fair Wulaha in marriage, Michaelmas “came back” with the following proposition:

“Weguarran, I am getting old and feeble,” he said. “I may pass away any time, and I could not bear the thought of my squaw being left alone, which would be the case if you married Wulaha and took her to the distant shores of Lake Michigan. However, there are greater things than my death and my squaw’s loneliness, the future of the red race, now crushed to earth by the Wunnux, as we call the white men, but some day to be triumphant. You have told me that within this very year the French and Indians are sure to engage the English in a mighty battle which will decide the future history of the Continent. You can marry Wulaha right after that battle, if you are victorious; otherwise you can do as the Missionaries tell us the Romans did–fall on your sword. You can never return here, as I do not want my daughter to marry and continue the race of a beaten people. I would far rather have her die single, and have our seed perish, for if this victory is not won, doomed is every redman on this Continent. The only wish of the English is to encompass our extermination. Wulaha will remain at home until after that battle, when you can come for her and claim her as your own, and we will give her to you with rejoicing.”

“What you say is surely fair enough, Father Michaelmas,” replied Weguarran, “for I would see no future for Wulaha and myself if the English are victorious in this inevitable battle. As soon as it is won–and it will be won, for the high resolve of every Indian warrior is to go in to win–I will hurry back to the banks of the Lehigh, never stopping to rest, sleep or eat, to tell you of the glad tidings, and bear away my beloved Wulaha. I want to ask one special favor of you. I have admired your wonderful cage of trained wild pigeons, which you say will carry messages hundreds of miles. Lend me one of these pigeons, and as soon as the victory is won, I will release the bird, and while I am speeding eastward on foot, our feathered friend will fly on ahead and end the suspense, and bring joy to yourself, your squaw and Wulaha.”

“I will gladly let you have my best trained pigeon, or hawk, or anything I possess, if I can learn of the victory, but in turn I will ask a favor of you. I listened with breathless interest to your tales of the Prostrate Junipers which grow on the shores of the great lakes, which cover two thousand square feet, and are hundreds of years old. You promised to bring me a scion of one of those curious trees, so that I might plant it in my garden of rare trees and shrubs. Now, here will be a chance to associate it with the great victory; pluck a stout but small scion, and if the victory is won, affix it firmly to one of the pigeon’s legs and let it go. If it comes back without the twig of Juniper I will know that our cause has lost, and while you fall on your sword, I and my family will jump into the Lehigh.”

“I will gladly do as you say, Father Michaelmas,” said Weguarran, “and will send a twig that will grow, and some day make a noble tree, and in years to come, our people will call it Weguarran’s Victory Tree. The fact that it is a Prostrate Tree makes it all the more appropriate, as it will represent the English race lying prostrated, crushed by the red race they wronged, and by our kindly and just French allies.”

Weguarran was so inspired by the thought of the pigeon messenger, the sprig of Prostrate Juniper, and the impending victory that it assuaged his grief at the parting from Wulaha, sending him away determined to give a good account of himself in all things.

Old Michaelmas selected a handsome cock pigeon, with a dragon’s blood red breast–his very best and most intelligent, and surest flyer, named Wuskawhan, which he placed in a specially built, bottle shaped basket, which had no lid, yet the top was too small for the bird to escape. In this way it could rise up and peer out, as it was carried along, and not bruise its wing coverts or head, as it would if it flew against the top of a square basket with a lid.

After a touching parting with Wulaha, her mother and father, the young warrior went his way with his precious burden.

The Indians, even old Mozzetuk, were rapid travellers, and in due time they reached the country of the Prostrate Junipers on the shores of Lake Michigan. They arrived in what seemed like an armed camp, for all the braves had been called to arms, which plotted to drive Indians and French to the uttermost ends of the earth.

Weguarran was quickly mobilized, and a musket in one hand and tomahawk in the other, while on his back he bore the sacred pigeon, he marched toward his foes. In the excitement he had not forgotten to slip into his pouch at his belt a sprig of the Prostrate Juniper, which would be the emblem of the English race prostrate under the foot of French and Indian allies.

In due course of time the army of which the picked Wyandot warriors formed a part, met their English foemen on Braddock’s Field, completely routing and all but annihilating them. General Braddock himself was shot from behind by one of his own men in the wild stampede, and the French and Indians were completely victorious.

Surveying the gorey scene, every wooded glade lying thick with dead redcoats and broken accoutrements, Weguarran carefully opened the panther skin pouch at his best, taking out the sprig of Prostrate Juniper. Then he lifted the handsome wild pigeon from its bottle-nosed cage of oak withes, and with a light leathern string, affixed the little twig, on which the berries still clustered, to the bird’s leg, then tossed the feathered messenger up into the air.

The pigeon quickly rose above the trees, circled a few times, and then started rapidly for the east, as fast as his broad, strong wings could carry him.

This done, Weguarran visited his chief, obtaining leave to proceed to Bethlehem to claim his bride, promising to report back with her on the banks of the Ohio as speedily as possible. The pigeon naturally had a good start, and by the next morning was flying over the palisaded walls of John Harris’ Trading Post on the Susquehanna.

A love story was being enacted within those walls, in the shadow of one of the huge sheds used in winter to store hides. Keturah Lindsay, Harris’ niece, an attractive, curly-haired Scotch girl, was talking with a young Missionary whom she admired very much, Reverend Charles Pyrleus, the protege of Col. Conrad Weiser.

Unfortunately they had to meet by stealth as his attentions were not favored by the girl’s relatives, who considered him of inferior antecedents. They had met in the shed this fair July morning, whether by design or accident, no one can tell, and were enjoying one another’s society to the utmost.

In the midst of their mutual adoration, the dinner gong was sounded at the trading house, and Keturah, fearful of a scolding, reluctantly broke away. As she came out into the sunlight, she noticed a handsome wild pigeon drop down, as if exhausted, on one of the topmost stakes of the palisade which surrounded the trading house and sheds.

Keturah, like many frontier girls, always carried a gun, and quickly taking aim, fired, making the feathers fly, knocking the bird off its perch, and it seemed to fall to the ground outside the stockade. In a minute it rose, and started to fly off towards the east. She had reloaded, so fired a second time, but missed.

“How strange to see a wild pigeon travelling through here at this time of year,” she thought, as carrying her smoking firearm, she hurried to the mess room of the big log trading house.

The messenger pigeon had been grievously hurt, but was determined to go “home.” On and on it went, sometimes “dipping” like a swallow, from loss of blood, but by sheer will power keeping on the wing. As it neared the foothills of the South Mountains, near the village of Hockersville, with old Derry Church down in the vale, it faltered, spun about like a pin wheel, and fell with a thud. Gulping and blinking a few times, it spread out its wide pinions and lay on its breastbone–stone dead–the twig of Prostrate Juniper still affixed to one of its carmine feet. There it lay, brave in death, until the storms and winds shivered it, and it rotted into the ground.

Weguarran was a rapid traveler, and in forced marches came to the shady banks of the Lehigh in three or four days. He was so excited that he swam the stream. He brought the first news of the great victory in the west to the surprised Michaelmas and his friends. But where was the prized wild pigeon, Wuskawhan? It could not have gone astray, for such a bird’s instinct never erred. “Caught by a hawk or shot down by some greedy fool of a Wunnux” was the way in which old Michaelmas explained its non-appearance.

The news spread to the white settlements and to the towns, and there was consternation among all sympathizers with the Crown–with all except a few Moravians who were mum for policy’s sake, and the Indians, whose stoical natures alone kept them from disclosing the elation that was in their hearts.

“The English never wanted the Indians civilized,” said Michaelmas, boldly. “They drove the Moravians out of Schadikoke and from the Housatonic when they saw the progress they made with our people; were it not for the Quakers in Pennsylvania, they would have had no place to harbor; those of us who felt the need of these kind friends followed them in their exile, but we can never forgive that we had to leave the Connecticut country of our birth under such circumstances. I am glad that our enemies were beaten and annihilated.”

Weguarran was baptized, and he and the lovely Wulaha were married by one of the Moravian preachers, and started for the great lake country, which was to be their permanent home.

Michaelmas and his squaw were too old to make the long journey, but they were happy in their garden of rare trees and plants, the wild pigeons, the hawks of race, and the dreams of an Indian _renaissance_. They lived many years afterwards, and are buried with the other Christian Indians at Bethlehem.

Out in the foothills of the South Mountains, overlooking old Derry Church, in the fertile Lebanon Valley among the pines and oaks and tulip trees, a strange seedling appeared in the spring of 1756, different from anything that the mountain had known since prehistoric times. Instead of growing upward and onward as most brave trees do, it spread out wider and greater and vaster, until, not like the symbol of the Anglo-Saxon prone beneath the heel of French and Indian, it was the symbol of the all diffusing power of the English speaking race, which has grafted its ideals and hopes and practical purposes over the entire American Continent. Nourished by the life’s blood of the travelling pigeon that bore it there, it had a flying start in the battle of existence, and today, after all these years, bids fair to last many years longer, to be the arboral marvel and wonder of the Keystone State.

Well may the Boy Scouts of Elizabethtown feel proud to be the honorary custodians of this unique tree with its spread of 2,000 feet, for apart from its curious appearance and charm, it has within it memories of history and romance, of white men and red, that make it a veritable treasure trove for the historian and the folk-lorist, and all those who love the great outdoors in this wonderful Pennsylvania of ours!

IV. _Out of the Ashes_

Last Autumn we were crossing Rea’s Hill one afternoon of alternate sunshine and shadow, and as we neared the summit, glanced through several openings in the trees at the wide expanse of Fulton County valleys and coves behind us, on to the interminable range upon range of dark mountains northward. In the valleys here and there were dotted square stone houses, built of reddish sandstone, with high roofs and chimneys, giving a foreign or Scottish air to the scene. Some of these isolated structures were deserted, with windows gaping and roofs gone, pictures of desolation and bygone days.