Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1885-10-08
A CURIOUS LEGEND.
BY A TRAVELLER.

stone, with gr0tesqne heads and faces
on every side, and behind it the head
and body of some liendisl-looking thing
"a sort of satyr it seemed-with such
fierce expression in it's carven eyes that
all children were afraid of it. A rustic
shed covered the well. Ivy crept over
1t, and half hid the stone face. And It
was certainly very picturesque object.
There had never been either windlass
or sweep; only chain fastened to the
roof of the shed, to which the bucket
was attached; but the water was always
so high that it was very easy to draw it
in this way.
In connection with this well, howev-
er, something very remarkable had oc-
Cured. In the year 1914, when the
house was first occupied by the family,
a young girl, Ka: hrine Doren 10y name,
the youngest daughter of the house. had
gone to the we'll in the edge of the eve-
ming to fill pail. She never returned.
Her friends went in search Of her. and
found the pail on the Wells curb.
1t was thought at first that she was
drowned, but this was not the case.
However, she was never seen again.
Her friends fancied she had been mur-
derei; strangers believed that she had
eloped with some lover ; but no one ey-
er knew what became of Cathrine Dor.
en-.
Meantime, her niece, a child at the
time, grew up, married, and had a
daughter, whom she named Kathrine,
after her lost aunt.
Forty years from the day on which
the first Kathrine had disappeared, this
second Kathrine, then seventeen years
old went in the cleaning of an autumn
day to the stone well to gil china
pitcher.
Again the same thing happened the
pitcner was found on the well curb, ,and
Kathrine was never seen again. The
whole country was secured !; posters
were pasted up in every town /; adyer-
tisements inserted in every paper; but
the mother died of grief without having
heard any tidings of her daughter.
Since then, in every generation. the
same thing had happened. Seven girls
had gone to the well for water and new
er been seen since, and strange enough,
each had been named Kathrine.
Yet so skeptical are the people of to-
day, that no one really believed all that
was said; and it was thought in the
neighborhcod that the Dorens were a
race given to elopement. and that the
girls took advantage of the legend Of
the well.
In the year 1874 the old house was
crumbling edifce, that rocked in the
wind when it blew strongly and the
widow of the last Doren, to whom it
fell on the death of her husbands faith
er, hesitated abost taking up her abode
there; but she was poor, and really had
little choice. SO to the old house she
went, with her one daughter, Kathrine
"a girl of eighteen, blue-eyed. golden
haired and bonny.
The widow had heard the story of the
disappearance of the girls, but had
scarcely believed it, and had never re-
peated it to her daughter. Kathrine
was in utter ignorance of it, and of the
we'll. She ran about the garden .discov-
ering new beauties at every turn, and
at last actually danced with delight be-
fore the old stone well.
Like well in an old fairy story,
mammal she exclaimed. as she descrlb-
ed it. 1T makes me feel as though We
really ought to find an old castle some
where to match it. just the well for q
trysting-plaee.'
IF remember rightly,it has been an
unlucky well enough for the Doren wo-
men, said the widow.
Tell me the story, mother cried
Kathrine.
No; idle tales like that are best un-
told, said the widow. No doubt 1t is
very good cold water but when you
meet your sweetheart, I hope it won't
be at the well, but under your mothers
eyes, in the house here
KathriIe laughed.
sThe sweetheart must come first,' she
said; and began to help her mother to
do the housework.
But she kept thinking of the well /;
and that evening, at dark, she took
from the shelf in the kitchen pitcher,
quaint as the house itself, and without
saying anything to her mother, ran
down the garden path. 1t was two
hundred years from the day on which
her ancestress, the first .:lost Kathrine,
has thus gone to the old stone we'll
two hundred years to the day and the
hour, if this, the eighth Kathrine. had
but known it. But she did not.
She tripped along to the well. swing
ing the old blue pitcher in her hand.
She reached it, and bent over the curb.
A dim reflection of her own face greet
ed her.
How high the water is y she said. L
can reach it with the pitcher and bent