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The Crossing by Winston Churchill
page 94 of 783 (12%)
grim smile.

"How could you, Gran'pa?" said Polly Ann, reproachfully.

"Wal," said Mr. Ripley, "the gun was gone, an' Davy. I reckon he ain't
sich a little rascal after all."

Polly Ann and I went up the next day, and brought the rest of the buck
merrily homeward. After that I became the hunter of the family; but
oftener than not I returned tired and empty-handed, and ravenously
hungry. Indeed, our chief game was rattlesnakes, which we killed by the
dozens in the corn and truck patches.

As Polly Ann and I went about our daily chores, we would talk of Tom
McChesney. Often she would sit idle at the hand-mill, a light in her
eyes that I would have given kingdoms for. One ever memorable morning,
early in the crisp autumn, a grizzled man strode up the trail, and Polly
Ann dropped the ear of corn she was husking and stood still, her bosom
heaving. It was Mr. McChesney, Tom's father--alone.

"No, Polly Ann," he cried, "there ain't nuthin' happened. We've laid out
the hill towns. But the Virginna men wanted a guide, and Tom
volunteered, and so he ain't come back with Rutherford's boys."

Polly Ann seized him by the shoulders, and looked him in the face.

"Be you tellin' the truth, Warner McChesney?" she said in a hard voice.

"As God hears me," said Warner McChesney, solemnly. "He sent ye this."

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