The Portland daily press., 1875-10-21

Hi! Yi-i-ee-eeV
81 guess we ought to 60 back" said Titus,
pretty soon; Titus was so much more likely
to remember to be good
"Oh, no., said Tam. who was generally a
| little bad when there was chance.
''Father said to come home pretty soon,"
| said Titus.
But" urged Tam, with bright air,
"mother said to hold on tight. Hi! Vi! Yip'
All! what was that? What was it? Could
Jerusalem answer? Can the wild winds
talk? Will the mad prairie speak? The
sunshine is tongue-tied, and the great sky is
dumb. But something answered Tam
| O'Shantor's shout
so. there! o, Titus Quick. quick. Quick
| Turn him round, Tam! Turn Jerusalem
round! IDjuns! IDjuns! Oh, l wish we
hadn't come! What shall we do, what shall
we do? Oh, Tam, What shall we do? Oh,
Tam, they've all got horsess.and they're COM
ing straight! Get up! Get up! Oh, Jerusa-
lem, do hurry! Old fellow, 90 get us home |!
Good boy! Good old fellow!
".Oh, Tam they've got arrows, and they're
going-to-shootr
Pretty little Mrs. Jacobs had got the new
est baby to sleep, and got the baby that
wasn't quite so new to sleep, and given Bet
ty her patchwork, and sent her husband out
his beer, and swept the kitchen, and built
the fire, and started supper on the way, aud
don't know what else besides, when that
fine mothers ears of hers detected, through
the sough of the wind upon the prairie, a
sharp, uneven, and, to her notion, rather
ugly sound.
Betty was sitting in the door, but she
heard nothing. The sleeping babies did not
stir from their baby dreams. John was in
the garden, but John heard never a sound.
Only the mother heard it, Only the mother
grew lynX-eyed in an instant, and in an in
slant was out with hand upraised-just so,
Observation-Disclosures, stern-mouthed, anxious
hearted, watching as those watch who have
lived much face to face with death-without
word. She did not even call her husband.
The time had not come to speak.
1t might have been three minutes: it might
have been less or more; who could tell?
VIXEN John Jacobs, digging heavily over an
obstinate potato, felt hand laid lightly upon
his shoulder. His wife stood beside him.
She was as pale as ore many hours dead; but
she stood quite still.
"John," she said in a low voice, "come in
to the house minute"
"Whats the matter, Susan? Anything
wrong? Amt the boys in? What? YOU
don't-mean-''
He bolted 10.
''Lock everything. Draw the shutters.
Fasten them with case-knives besides the
buttons. Is the cellar door tight? Is every
thing tight? Betty, take care of the babies
minute for mother. John. come herep'
She led him to the little attic, and from the
narrow, three-cornered window pointed to
the prairie, still without word.
And still, how beautiful it was! How the
wind played like one gone crazy for Joy with
the tender tops OF the unbrOken, unbounded
grass. And soft, as if the world had gone to
sleep for very safety, fell the magnificent
western sun. Beautiful, terrible, treacher-
GUS thing
Cutting through the soft horizontal line,
sharp as the knife through shrinking flesh,
six dark figures doomed against the sky.
Wildly before them, with the gigantic strides
of long-stepped roadster. fled a big, garnt,
homely, grand old horse. And clinging with
little bare feet to his white sides, and with
little despairing arms clinging to one another.
my God! They are our boysp'
John Jacobs threw up his arms and ran.
Quick as woman's thought ran, his wife was
before him, and had bolted the attic door.
'Where are you going, John?"
She spoke, he thought, in her natural
tones, though she tIem5led horribly. Where
was he going? Why, to meet them, save
them-get his gun-blow these devils brains
out--what did she mean? Why did she keep
'My husband,' said Susan, still In those
strangely quiet tones, 1--WE cannot save our
boys. Look for yourself and see. They will
be shot before they reach the house. We
have three children left. You must save
them, and for their sakes, yourself, John.
Keep the door locked. Keep the windows
barred. Keep the shutters drawn. Give me
the old pistol and my gun. Take your own
and guard the door. There's chance that
they'll live to get here and be let in. But not
one step outside that door, John Jacobs, as
you're the father of three living children!
Oh, John, John, John! My poor little
boysp'
He thought she would have broken down,
at that. He thought he could never get her
from the attic floor, where she lay trembling
in that horrid way, with her chin on the
window sill, and her eyes set upon the six
dark figures, and the grand, old, ugly horse
upon which the slipping, Keeling, hopeless
precious burden chung. But all he could hear
her say was mothers poor little boysv'
Mothers poor little boys indeed and in
deed! Leap your mighty leaps, Jerusalem;
they're none too large; your great legs that
Tam and Titus have so often made fun of,
are none too long for their business now.
How the splendid muscles throbbed beneath
the tiny, terrified bare feet No wondering
which was horse and which was boy this time.
1t was all horse now. There was no will, NO
muscle, no nerve, no soul, but the brave soul
Can he ever ever keep ahead so long? o,
how the arrows fly by! We shall be hit, we
shall be hit! O, mother, mother, mother!
"Tam, why doesn't father come to meet
usP Why don't they do something for us,
Tam? Has mother forgotten us %
That, 1 think, must have been the cruelest
minute in all the cruel story.
And yet, perhaps, not SO cruel as the min
ute when the mother, at the attic window,
limo loW oohnpn opd
staggering from her post, down stairs to
say-still in that STANCE voice that mothers
such as she will have at such a minute.
John, they are hit; the arrow struck them
both. Let me to the kitchen window. You
stay at the door. There's just a moment
now"
There was but moment, and like wild
dream, the whole dreadful sight came sweep
ing up, over the garden, into the yard.
Now John could not see anything but the
mighty form of the horse Jerusalem. To this
day, he saws that the saddle, to his eyes, as
the magnificent creature leaped by, was
empty as air. He only saw the horse-and
the horse made straight for the barn.
But why did the savages pursue riderless
horse? And whooping and shooting cruelty
after it, into the barn they plunged.
-" The boys are on the horse" in a hoarse
whisper said the mother; 81 saw them both.
They are bleeding and falling. The arrow
has pinned them together, John, but they've
kept their seat"
''My boys are pretty good riders,'' said
John, turning his white face round with a
grim, fathers pride, even then; ''but even
my boys can't keep a horse after they're shot
through the body. Fright has turned you
brain, Susan"
tell the story just as it was told TO me;
and the way of that was this: how Jerusalem
leaped into the barn, with the boys, or so the
mother thought, bleeding upon his back;
how the savages secured the barn, the yard,
the garden, plundered little here and there,
and fitfully attacked at intervals the barricad-
ed house; how John, brave and white at one
dool, and Sasan, white and brave at the
other, abundance of powder and unfinchng
hearts, and the love Of three helpless babies,
drove them by and by sullenly away; how,
when they had been long, safe hour gone,
the parents, shivering and sad, crept out
with white lips, little by little as they dared,
to hunt for the bodies of their murdered boys.
"They amt in the barn." said the father,
bringing his hand heavily across his eyes.
"I'll 90 to the woods 7 SunnOse thew scaIned