The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-06-01

'ftN lN tif HNlrN. ttD INt soc
aNH slpNmafura' fo whom such evidence
as this-mcrc idle breath to the worldly
auo educated mind was as an oracle
Tie bad no trouble now Bon cettur a
ShtflH and party 0i friends to so 90
John house with him and investigate.
ils solitary octuIaat met thcm with %
scorniul defiance. and mockod and iearcd
tnem while they searched The black
smith from the settlement was among the
party, and hc presently turned out from
The ashes I'm the fireplace. and RECOGNIZED
the heel-irons he had made FOR John S
boots not month before While those
i'll the room stood hcsitatinC and the
woman S face and form seemed actually
70 olacken and dllatc with the cross of fur
lous passions that were gathering 70 their
maj explosion. those scarchers outside
came IN with Mortified and averted faces.
bearing among them some poor mutilated
fragments of what had been John Silvers.
some one In the aweStruck group voiced
the popular superstition that the muir
derer dare not touch his victim, and the
woman screamed, Dissent! No they das-
sent! III show you, " and sprang upon those
JhlngS the strong men scare dared look
at, with her naked hands. and would have
rent and torn them in her senseless rage.
When restrained, she turned upon the
onlooKers. She saw that concealment
could serve her no longer, and she flung
II aside with relief, and leaped at once
into the character of beast of prey, who
1eels neither shamenOr remOrse for the
deed it has done
She stood up before her cowed and
shaken listeners and ragged out the details
OF her incredible deed She told how
John came in from hunting, and making
MN up big fire, stretched himself
! across the hearth in front of it like a
weary hunter, putting the baby girl on
his breast, holding her there in the hol-
low of his arm. They had had the last
words OF bitter quarrel, just before he
lay down, over his intention to go west,
she telling him she would never go with
hlm-nO, nor he should never go, either
80, when he and the baby were asleep,
she took the child from under his arm,
went out and got the AK and killed him.
She chopped his body up and burned
what she could of it, carrying hickory
chips in her apron to make hot fire
When the weather cleared away and peo-
pie began to pass occasionally she was
afraid to continue this, and hid what re-
manned.
After her fit of fury had spent itself
| in shrieking out these dreadful details
she went, in sullen silence, with the
sheriff down to Asheville, then the
county seat for nearly the whole of West
SIu NOfJl carolina.
She was tried, convicted and sentenced
to be hanged. Some of her people fol
lowed her down there; and as there was
no hope of reprieve or pardon for so
openly confessed a crime. used every
means to compass her escape. , They
bribed her iailcrs, succeeded in smuggling
her out, and she lay in hiding in a cellar
for weeks. Then wagon was got, her
hair was cut off, she was dressed in mems
clothes and, with one of her brothers,
started out of town. But as fate willed it,
they met the very sheriff who had ar
rested her, and who had known her from
childhood
With true mountaineer stolidity he
looked up at her and said, 'Howdy,
frankie" The wretched brother, who
had been scheming for the escape for
months, was so cOnfounded that he could
only calculate feebly, "Why-her name
amt F'rankie-her names Bill - in spite
of which assurance the sheriff took her
back, and she paid the penalty of her
crime, being, my informants always used
to wind up, the only woman ever hanged
in North Carolina before the war
This is the epic tragedy of this people,
handed down in legendary form from old
to young: told you by the grandma who
remembers il all as the great sensation of
her youthful days or by the younger gen
GRAFTON, TO whom 1t has been repeated on
many moonlit evening, or by the hearth
stone. .... ,..
frankie and her victim have passed
into a Valhalla of their own, a shadow
land of literature. And of stormy eve
ming, when the little groups gather to
talk by the fireside they walk again. The
murderess sl1ullzs in the shadows about
the further corner of the cabin, as the
| fame f1ickers up or dies down; her victim
walls in the wind over the low rock
chimney.
| OF course, he grows handsomer and
better, she wakes fiercer, more cruel
with the years. So grew Bluebeard
Robin Hood and the myths of old.