At Length She
Determined To Drive The Bargain On Her Own Account, And If She
Succeeded, To Keep All The Gain To Herself.
Being of the same fearless temper as her husband, she sat off for the
old Indian fort towards the close of a summer's day.
She was many
hour's absent. When she came back she was reserved and sullen in her
replies. She spoke something of a black man whom she had met about
twilight, hewing at the root of a tall tree. He was sulky, however, and
would not come to terms; she was to go again with a propitiatory
offering, but what it was she forebore to say.
The next evening she sat off again for the swamp, with her apron
heavily laden. Tom waited and waited for her, but in vain: midnight
came, but she did not make her appearance; morning, noon, night
returned, but still she did not come. Tom now grew uneasy for her
safety; especially as he found she had carried off in her apron the
silver tea pot and spoons and every portable article of value. Another
night elapsed, another morning came; but no wife. In a word, she was
ever heard of more.
What was her real fate nobody knows, in consequence of so many
pretending to know. It is one of those facts that have become
confounded by a variety of historians. Some asserted that she lost her
way among the tangled mazes of the swamp and sunk into some pit or
slough; others, more uncharitable, hinted that she had eloped with the
household booty, and made off to some other province; while others
assert that the tempter had decoyed her into a dismal quagmire, on top
of which her hat was found lying.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 347 of 433
Words from 92532 to 92826
of 115667
