Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1891-08-28
PEG.

1t was not ''pitch dark" night,
though there was neither moon nor
stars. The road lay white aud glim-
mering, as roads will lie even on such
nights. Perhaps the moon was some
where behind the clouds.
Peg, the toll-keeper at the gate, had
often seen the pike appear just 50; and
so had jim Wagner, plodding along the
road
One might keep safely along, or
might instead, by accident or a sudden
Tightening of the rein, turn square down
the Silver Thread, thinking it was the
pike especially if one were dreaming.
But Jim had passed the Silver Thread
safely. In soothing tones he was be-
seeching Black Fan to ''go it keerful
and not to clank her hoofs, as eff she
couldn't make enough noise.
For answer, Black Fan in a senseless
and provoking manner clanked her hoofs
louder than before, and lifted her head
and whinnied.
There was no light in the dollhouse
nor sound OF life about the place; every
thing was quiet and dark as it should be
at almost twelve o'clock at night. But
as Black Fan clauked her hoofs almost
in front of the little porch, the door Of
the house flew open and Peg came out
to take the toll
1t was the rule CT the pike that, after
nine O'Clock at night, the gate could be
left untended, or the keeper, if she
choose, might keep for herself the few
copPers that came.
Il b'lieve she'd set up watchiu' for a
fellcr till mcrnin'," gru'n5led jim, as
Back Fan ratified on toward home
"she's the stingiest woman in these
parts"
Bill Walsh, Pegs husband, had his
blacksmith shop close by the toll-gate.
If, ten years before, be had not gone to
the Eastern Shore and brought back the
chills AM fever, he would have got on
well enough. But the chills and fever
and the blacksmith trade were never
meant to 20 together.
"He'll set an1 shake day after day,
mebbe for weeks at time, and then not
be over it," said Josh Bernet, explaining
this curious disease to neighbOr; "au'
his face about the color of them there
ashes"
There were four children at the toll
house.
One was little girl who had way of
leaning out at the garret window and
shaking her fist at people who, she i'm
agiued, were planning to keep her
mother waiting after dark. She was
such very pretty little girl that people
only laughed when they saw her shaking
her fist.
There were the two boys who went to
school whenever they were sent; and
then the bad little boy who generally
sat on the porch in fine weather, wearing
his Sunday shoes every day. He was his
mothers pet.
None of Pegs children were sent to
school regularly. They went when their
clothes were new; and when these gar
ments were old, faded ar1 patched, the
children stayed at home.
For Peg was proud. Her neighbors
we're aware OF it, and Stunned her ac-
cordingly. Poverty was, in their minds,
something sent by the Lord, and moth
ing to be ashamed of. Sickness was a
trial sent from heaven; but pride was
crime which they could not forgive.
Peg did not love her neighbors any
more than they loved her. Perhaps
there was little jealousy intermixed
with the feeling she bore them. Most
of them were not nearly so poor as she.
Some were farmers, with well-cultivated
acres. There we're Mr.. Jones, the droy-
er, and Mr.. Ed Coon, who had set up
rival blacksmith shop on the other side
of the creek, and got plenty of work.
"Ef Bill warn't sickly, we might hev
a house like his'n," Peg had often
thought, as she sat alone in the dark
with bitter feeling creeping about her
heart.
If Peg had sent the children to school
in old clothes as well as new; if she had
allowed Bill to buy on credit just bit
down at the store, to show he could be
trusted; if she had sometimes let people
slip through the gate in the evening
without paying the coppers that made the
pike no richer; and above all, if it hadn't
been reported that she'd said, 'if her or
any o hern was sick, she didn't want
'em to come with their custards and their
gelatine, things might have been differ
ent.
When Bill found her, during his 9th
efwise unhappy sojourn on the Eastern
Shore, he saw, under her tilt-d-back
sunbonnet, the biggest of black eyos,t the