The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1874-02-19
THE LOST CHILD.
A Trae Tradition Of Wachusett.
BY WILLIAM +. HARLOW.

nor building Pacific Railways, nor shaking
with chlls and fever i'll the valleys Of The
Sacramento and the \ 1elloWstone. Neither
chills nor railways had ever been heard of
But then, As now, fighting Indians wa,
the occasional neccesSitN of the pioneer
and if grizzlies did not then dispute the
pioneers right to his newly-iound nome
| divers Of their congeners, nearer or NOR,
remote. claiming seizin thereof for long
periods whereof memory ol neither mal
nor beast ran to the contrary. refused tC
recognize any other title than their own
whether based upon discovery, disseizil
or conquest The pioneers Of America
We're then rough-hewing New England
Robert keyes was hewing ont for HI
Wachusett Mountain. lin We township O
Princetown, in ye comtie of MiddleseN,
4 colonie OF Massachusetts Bay
Mountains, like everything else, are
great on small only by comparison, Wachu
sett may be a very humble mountain a.
compared with Shasta, and other snowy
peaks Of the great continental ranges OF
America. But in the estimation of the
people who live within sight OF WachuSctt
it is great mountain, and they call ii by
way of eminence. the mountain. DO they
not visit it. and boast that they actually
ascended its peak once. twice, thrice OF
more, in the course Of their lives? Have
not divers enterprising persons built fam
Gus summer taverns upon it and about it
for the accommodation of its admirers
Is not the mountain Il more mtalliblC
prophet than even Old Probabilities him
self to the farmer, who is able, according
as Wachusett hath his rain cap on or other
wise. in the morning, to divine the pros
pcct of the day for haymaking or other
fair weather work | have seen an alpen-
stock carried by Il Worcester county
traveller, WhercOn was at1ectionately en-
9rayed the name Of Wachusett in the same
column with the Jungfrau and the Natter
horn.
1t was in l75l that Robert keve5 com
menced his pioneering on the slope OF
Wachusctt; and the same year his wife
bore to him Il daughter, whom the parents
named Lucy, and who was to be the sub
ject of Il tragic mystery which batfled al
attempts to solve it for more than half q
century then to come. The keycs family
was the fourth to settle in Princeton, and
at that time the parties We're about forty
Years old Besides Lucy, they had also
two other daughters considerably older
than She. There was. at the distance OF
about u mile from the clearing which
Robert had made and in which he had
built his house, pond called Nachusett
Pond, whittier the two elder sisters went
one April morning in I135 to get sand tol
house-ceaning. The route to the pond
lay through the woods and was only in
dicated by blaZed trees. t'nobscryed by
the elder sisters, Lucy, then four wears
old, followed them into the woods The
mother felt no concern about the absence
Of the child, supposing her to be in the
care Of her elder sisters, till their return
without her; when it appeared that they
We're unaware that she had followed them,
and had seen nothing of her either going
OF returning.
Search is at once commenced by the
mother and elder sisters, who explore the
woods all the way to the pond, without
finding any trace of the missing child.
Loud and earnest calls Of the chld's name
are only followed by reverberatng echoes
from the mountain sides The father,
ploughing in his field, hears the eager
calls and Joins the scarchers. He suggests
some rocks, where she may have sat down
to rest or to play, and does not hear their
calls He raises his own voice to the high
est pitch and in the stiffness of that April
morning his call to his child might have
been heard for miles But there is no an
swer. The woods are more and more
widely and more carefully searched Every
place that could be supposed to conceal a
child is eXamined and the forenoon is
spent before they are aware OF it. 1t oc-
ours to the father that the child may have
fallen into the pond, whittier he hastens,
dreading the discovery that he expects
The margin OF the pond is sandy; and he
looks for little footprints in the sand, but
can find none. He peers anXiously into
the water, but fails to make the dreaded
discovery. Meantime it occurs to the
mother that while they have been looking
for Lucy in the woods, she may have her
self returned to the house, ca possibility
that she wonders they did not think of be-
fore) and with her daughters hurries home
The kitchen door is open just as they left
it; but no trace of Lucy's having been
there is visible. The whole house, barn,
and all the other buildings, enclosures and
possible places of concealment are search
ed in vain.
The father also returns home, and meets
his family near the door about to return to
the woods. Neither has any discovery to
report to the other He casts an anxious
look at the sun, which is noticed by both
mother and daughters. The sun is already
past the meridian, and has commenced his
descent of the western sky. Absorbed in
the anxiety of the search, they had taken
no thought of the flight OF time and their
usual dinner hour had come and gone un-
noticed by any of them. And the father
had forgotten that he had left his oxen in
the yoke, attached to the plough in the
flrrow. Besides the possibility that Lucy
might have fall into the pond and been
drowned, there are other possibilities which
all have thought Of, but none have dared
trust tongue to name. There are beasts
Of prey, wolves certainly, and perhaps
other wild beasts, upon the mountain And
there are hostile savages in the vicinity.
Lucy may have been carried Off by wolves
OF Indians. And as we shall have Ccca-
sion to speak of these possibilities again,
let us, for the sake Of breyity and distinc-
ton, designate them severally as the wolf
theory, the Indian theory and the pond
theory.
Night is coming; and an appalling sense
OF their situation seems, simultaneously
with the fathers glance at the descending
sun, to seize both parents and children.
All possible theories and fears seem to
occur to each of them at once The mother
burst out into a loud heart-rending wall
Of despair, vainly calling her child by
name, "AIy Lucy my Lucy !" She re-
proaches first herself, then her daughters,
and even her husband, for carelessness in
not looking after the child, and again walls
out her despairing cry for her Lucy. Nor
is the grief Of the sisters scarcely less
than their mothers. And the father him
*The northern part of Worcester County was
originally included in MiddleseX.