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

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Still my mother did not know the fate of my father — and of course her mind and nerves were harassed to the point of breaking all through the long hours of the night. In this story I can only give the facts and trust that some power of understanding in every human heart may lead the reader to some appreciation of the tense situation—the web of destiny seemingly inextricably entangled, in which my parents had been caught.

After shooting his way out, my father had kept on going, and under protection of the night and the dense woods surrounding the house, eluded the mob. And after fifteen miles of weary tramping over the hills and through woods, after hours of worry for the safety of his family, he reached the Union lines, at daybreak. In the afternoon of that same day the family was moved to Clarksville, by solders sent out from the army.

The guerillas had burned my father’s tanyard and shoeshop, and his tobacco barn. They had stolen his horses — four fine grays which were kept on the plantation for plowing the tobacco fields and for hauling tanbark. And in the end, someone stole his farm. The trusted agent forgot to remit.