Category: Historical Novels
It was on the night of my thirteenth birthday, I know, that the old farm-house was burned over our heads. By that reckoning I must have been six or seven when I went to live with Farmer Beech, because at the time he testified I had been with him half my life.
HE’S all right; you can look for him here right along now, any day; he _was_ hurt a leetle, but he’s as peart an’ chipper now as a blue-jay on a hick’ry limb; yes, he’s a-comin’...
2. CHAPTER II--JEFF’S MUTINYThe farmer came in from the fields somewhat earlier than usual on this August afternoon. He walked, I remember, with a heavy step and bowed head, and, when he had come into the...
9. CHAPTER IX--ESTHER’S VISITThe next day, Saturday, was my birthday. I celebrated it by a heavy cold, with a bursting headache, and chills chasing each other down my back. I went out to the cow-barn with t...
4. CHAPTER IV--ANTIETAMOn all the other farms roundabout, this mid-August was a slack season. The hired men and boys did a little early fruit-picking, a little berrying, a little stone-drawing, but fo...
7. CHAPTER VII--THE ELECTIONSOON the fine weather was at an end. One day it was soft and warm, with a tender blue haze over the distant woods and a sun like a blood-orange in the tranquil sky, and birds tw...
1. CHAPTER I--ABNER BEECHIt was on the night of my thirteenth birthday, I know, that the old farm-house was burned over our heads. By that reckoning I must have been six or seven when I went to live wit...
6. CHAPTER VI--NI’S TALK WITH ABNERIt must have been a fortnight before we learned that Jeff Beech and Byron Truax had been reported missing. I say “we,” but I do not know when Abner Beech came to hear about it....
12. CHAPTER XII--THE UNWELCOME GUESTAbner and Esther stood for a bewildered minute, staring at the rough unpainted boards through which this astonishing inquiry had come. I scrambled to my feet and kicked aside th...
5. CHAPTER V--“JEE’S” TIDINGSTime was when I had known the Hagadorn house, from the outside at least, as well as any other in the whole township. But I had avoided that road so long now, that when I came up...
10. CHAPTER X--THE FIRE“That was Roselle Upman that hollered,” remarked Janey Wilcox, breaking the agitated silence which had fallen upon the supper table. “You can tell it’s him because he’s had all...
3. CHAPTER III--ABSALOMOnce, in the duck-season, as I lay hidden among the marsh-reeds with an older boy, a crow passed over us, flying low. Looking up at him, I realized for the first time how beauti...
11. CHAPTER XI--THE CONQUEST OF ABNERSome time during the night, I was awakened by the mice frisking through the hay about my ears. My head was aching again, and I could not get back into sleep. Besides, Hurley was...
13. CHAPTER XIII--THE BREAKFASTThe big table was among the things saved from the living-room, and Esther spread it again with the cloth which had been in use on the previous evening. There was the stain of th...
8. CHAPTER VIII--THE ELECTION BONFIREThe election had been on Tuesday, November 4th. Our paper, containing the news of the result, was to be expected at the Corners on Friday morning. But long before that date we h...