The Forrest City times., 1894-05-18
CLARE'S FRIGHT,
How Plucky Little Schoolma'am
 Was Frightened.

A schoolma'am in the far west-a hardworked, scantily paid little drudge, who boarded round" at the various farmhouses, log cabins and one-storied shanties within an area of ten miles, and consequently enjoyed a panoramic view of human nature in a pleasing variety of aspects-this was not the sort of a career that Sophy Clare had looked forward to when she graduated with so much ecIat from the Massachusetts state normal school and carried off her blue bboned di- ploma! But she had come out west, lured by glittering prospects and fair promises, which had turned into mere will-o'-the- wisps on nearer view, and now it was either work or starve with our courageous little Yankee.
 So she had taken the West Athens district school at twelve dollars a month and her board.
 After all," said Sophy, valiantly. tits rather fun to teach here in the wilderness. One sees all sorts of char acters boarding round And I'm sure, if l were a novelist, 1 could make my fortune by pen-and-ink sketches of their strong points. To be sure, it's a long walk to the schoolhouse-and rather a lonely one-Dut the forest path is so lovely, now that it is all fallen leaves, and the roar of the river in the glen below and the rush of the wind through the treetops is grander than any orchestra.
 And involuntarily the little school teacher broke out into the refrain of a song as she walked along with light, elastic steps, her empty lunch-basAet on her arm. and the scarlet-frilled hood tied around her fresh little face. For the western sun had dipped below the edge of the woods, and Sophy was on her way home to Hosea Harkins the miller's, where, just at present she was making her home, with Mrs Harkins and the twelve little Har- kinses-a seven-mile walk from the old, red schoolhouse on the river shore.
 But as the twilight darkened, and the purple shadows began to cluster, like spectral figures, in the silent aisles of the woods, Sophy Clare shran!i with in herself, and involuutarily quickened her footsteps.
 "They shot a bear in these woods, last spring." she thought within her self, with little apprehensive thump of her heart And Charles Harkins was quite sure he saw panther stealing through the underbrush in Dead Mans glen, only week before last. l wish l hadn't stayed in school so late, cor recting those compositions"
 And as Sophy fled swiftly along. her scarlet hood gleaming like a tropic bird, through the dark aisles of the forest, her overstrained imagination converted every rustllng leaf into the stealthy tread of wild beast.
 But suddenly, as she reached copse of dark pines at the bend of the path the sound of low, mutfied voices struck upon her ears She paused with curi- ous sensation, as if every drop of blood in her veins were standing still.
 It was two men crouching by fall en log which lay in the pine copse, mantled over with gold-green moss. and half hidden with tall weeds. Evl- dently, they were quite unaware of the approach of anyone and, as Sophy shrank back into the shadows of black-green laurel push, she could hear their muttercd words quite plainly.
 But to kill her!" said one And she's such little beauty, too!'
 "Pshawr' growled the other. Don't be fool, Hal Tucker. It's only one stroke of a sharp knife and the things done, and can't be undone."
 But it seems so cruel3'
 "Stuff and nonsense! Ain't It done every day%
 But what will the children say9'
 "They'll miss her, suppose, just at first, but they'll soon get accustomed to another one.
 Would you do it at night?" said the man called Hal Tucker
 "To-night will be the best time, said the other. "Harkins' folks are all going out to singing school tonight, and the coast will be clear. You have the wagon at the door to carry 1t away and I'll undertake to make clean job of it with my new knife before she has time to cry out"