The New Bloomfield, Pa. times. (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1877-188?, 1880-04-06
Strange Results Of a Dream.


Portable farm and house. Rachel, the
daughter, was engaged to young far
mer of the neighborhood. On Satur-
day evening in July, having finished
her weeks work, she dressed herself
tidily and started to visit her married
sister, who lived on farm about five
miles distant, intending to return on
Monday morning. She tied up her
Sunday gown and hat in a checkered
handkerchief, and carried her shoes and
stockings in the other hand, meaning to
walk in her bare feet and to put them
on when she came In sight of her desti-
nation, after the canny Scotch fashion.
She left home about seven o'clock In
order to have the cool evening for her
walk; the road to the farm was lonely
and unfrequented. The girl did not
return on Monday, but no alarm was
felt, as the family thought her sister
would probably wish to detain her for
few days; and it was not until the latter
part of the week that it was found she
had never been at her sisters. The
country was secured, but In vain; the
alarm spread, and excited a degree of
terror in the peaceful, domestic commu-
nifty which would seem inexplicable to
city people, to whom the newspaper has
brought budget of crime every morn
ing since their childhood. To children
raised in those lonely hamlets and hill
farms murder was far.off, unreal hor-
ror; usually all they knew of it was
from the doings of Cain and Abel set off
with hideous wood-cuts in the family
Bible.
The girl had left home on Saturday
at seven o'clock. That night, long be-
fore ten o'clock, Farmers usually going
to bed with the chickens,) woman liv-
ing in Green county, about forty miles
from Plymire farm, awoke her husband
in great terror, declaring that she had
just seen murder done, and went on to
describe place she had never seen
before-a hilly country with a wagon
road running through it, and girl with
bundle tied in a checkered handker-
chief, her shoes and white stockings in
the other hand, walking briskly down
the grassy side of the road. She was
met by young man-the woman judg-
ed from their manner the meeting was
by appointment; they sat down on a
log and talked for some time. The man
at last rose, stepped behind her, and
drawing out hatchet, struck her twice
on the head. She fell backward on the
wet, rotten leaves, dead. Presently the
man was Joined by another, also young,
who asked, sis it done p'' He nodded,
and together they lifted the body and
carried it away out of her sight. After
awhile they came back, found the bum
die of Sunday finery and the shoes and
stockings, all of which were stained
with blood. There was ruined old
mill near the road, they went into it,
lifted loose board in the flooring, put
the bundle, shoes, etc., with the hatchet,
underneath and replaced the board
Then they parted and went through the
woods in different directions. The far
mer's wife told her dream to her hus-
band that night; the next day-Sunday
going to little country church, she
remained during the intermission be-
tween the morning and evening services.
The neighbors, who had come from
circuit of twenty miles to church,
gathered according to their homely
habit, in the churchyard, to eat their
lunch and exchange the news. Our
dreamer told her story again and again,
for she was impressed by it as if it had
been reality. After the afternoon service
the congregation separated, going to
their widely-scattered homes. There
were thus many witnesses ready to GER
tify to the fact that the woman had told
the dream the morning after the murder
was committed at a distance of forty
miles, when it was absolutely impossi-
ble that the news should have reached
her. There were no telegraphs, we
must remember, and no railways, those
days-not even mail carriers in those
secluded districts.
When the story of the girls disap-
pearance was told over the country at
the end of the next week, the people to
whom the dream had been repeated
recalled it. Nowadays the matter
would only serve as good material for
the reporters, but the men of those days
still believed that God took an oversight
even of their dreams. Might this not
be hint from Him. The Rev. Charles
Wheeler q Rantist CLERGYMAN of Wash