Читать книгу Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories. Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas онлайн

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And as with the prairie fire—only with positive conviction this time—I must again rely on what has been told me. Reaching under the bed and hauling me out, Sandy said, “Why, I’d risk my life any time for this here boy Johnny—or any of you-all.” And that was just what he was doing that night.

When the mob had withdrawn after starting a fire against the house, Sandy ran back and kicked the blazing sticks away from the building—and then made a dash for the door. He was now afraid of the mob and did not leave the house again that night. Good old boy — Sandy, Pal, Protector. Just why you were out with those guerillas that night has never been explained to me.

My father did not come back into the house, and my mother believed that he had been killed, or mortally wounded, as she could plainly hear the groans of the dying man outside. And she was, of course, frantic with grief. After hours of agony, when she could stand it no longer, she took a lighted candle and went outside to investigate.

My mother’s name was Martha. The wounded man kept groaning, “Oh, Lordy.” And my mother thought it was my father calling her name. It took some tension off when she discovered the dying man was not my father — but she was horrified to find he was the son of a close neighbor. The young man asked for a drink of water, and wanted someone to pray for his soul. She gave him water. And she prayed for him. At daybreak the young man’s companions took him to his father’s home where he died a few hours later. He told his people that he got what he deserved, that he had no business in permitting the mob to persuade him to go out with them that night.