D'Ri and I by Irving Bacheller
page 37 of 261 (14%)
page 37 of 261 (14%)
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bring 'er 'long."
I caught her by the horn and brought her to the door quickly. Mother was throwing some clothes into a big bundle. Father met me with a feather bed in his arms. He threw it over the back of the cow and bound it on with a bed-cord. That done, he gave me the leading-rope to tie about her horns. The hoofs of the flying horse were hardly out of hearing when we were all in the road. My mother carried the baby, and my father his sword and rifle and one of the little ones. I took the three older children and set them on the feather bed that was bound to the back of the cow. They clung to the bed-cord, their hair flying, as the old cow ran to keep up with us, for at first we were all running. In a moment we could hear the voices of people coming behind. One of the women was weeping loudly as she ran. At the first cross-road we saw Arv Law and his family coming, in as great a hurry as we, Arv had a great pike-pole in his hand. Its upper end rose twenty feet above his head. "What ye goin' t' dew with thet?" my father asked him. "Goin' t' run it through the fust Injun I see," said he. "I 've broke the lock o' my gun." There was a crowd at Jerusalem Four Corners when we got there. Every moment some family was arriving in a panic--the men, like my father, with guns and babies and baskets. The women, with the young, took refuge at once in the tavern, while the men surrounded it. Inside the line were youths, some oddly armed with slings or clubs or cross-guns. I had only the sword my father gave me and a mighty longing to use it. Arv Law rested an end of his pike-pole |
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