Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1905-01-06
luICKLYS WOODS
BY IL. w. TAYLOR
80 ==

mldnlgnt train that awoke her Sha d;d
not Know. There was no striking of
clocks, and there was not sufficient Iob+
from the wide open south gable windo1,,
to enable her to see the hands Of her
watch, and so she could not make ont
that 1t was the reverberating roar of the
train from the distant city that broke her
rest into unequal segments.
der PED was drawn out in front of the
open window so that the cool soft night
breeze coming out of the woods and
across the broad river could lave her hot
face IN its refreshing eddies and ripples
w hatever had awakened her, she law
there looking out into the shady street a
little DIT dlmmed with q summer nights
1og She was sure then that she was
tully awake, and that she saw in the
road, not sixty feet away, Mr.. Will Ma
son walking slowly toward the river, and
having his face turned over his right
shoulder and his head thrown back Just
far enough to allow him to fix his eyes
upon that window, that he knew was
the window of her bedroom.
He passed on; and she was so anxious
to know more of this lonely walk of his,
because his very presence seemed to as
sure the establishment of a sort of
communication with the hero of her
dreams -Huntley-that she arose and
glided to the side of the window farthest
from the pedestrian.
She had to cross in front of the open
window, and she thought there was some
danger that he might see the glimmer of
her long, white nightdress against the
black background of the dark room.
N1ryr1 11xr l.
doubling back till she sat upon her small,
bare feet, and forward till an elbow rest
ed upon the low sill of the window, she
looked out and saw him standing with his
face turned directly toward her. Her
heart leaped hard against the soft, plant
walls of her little chest, and she drew
back into the darkness.
In an instant she peeped out to be
Mortified at the spectacle of a gigantic
black figure, half enveloped in the thick
err fog toward the river, and seeming to
undulate threateningly, and to elongate
in an upward direction, as some of the
make-believe giants of the circus and
the farce are seen to do.
Then, while she lay there in a frozen
horror of fascinated, wide-eyed gazing,
the huge specter dimmed and vanished.
How she got back to bed, and what
brought her mother running to her room,
she only knew from her.
Mrs. Wickly lay down. taking her
frightened daughter in her arms, as she
was in the habit of doing yet at times,
and endeavored to reassure her by tell
ing her that it was simply the climax Of
some hideous dream. Her father COM
ing in, more deliberately sat by the win
dow and told her that this was simply
phenomenon OF the fog-an unusual one,
to be sure, in all it's details, but clearly
explicable upon maxims of physical sci
ence.
For instance, the undulatory motion
and the elongation of the specter IN
vertical direction, were visual phenom-
ena. The mist concealing the feet or
the man concealed all the ground about
him, and thus left no object within the
range of vision for comparative measure
ments, such as the eye makes automat-
ically every instant.
The uudulating movement upward was
the pulsating or wavelike advance OF the
fog bank toward her, thus putting the
gradually disappearing body and head at
farther and farther distances, as more
and more of the foreground was en-
croached upon by the advancing fog
bank. That might all be good physical
science. but she had seen something that
frightened her horribly. And she felt
that some dreadful misfortune was COM
ing upon her, she couldn't imagine what.
The bright sunlight of the next day
did more to explain away the specter
than all the physical science that all
Sandtown possessed.
All Sandtown, however. got hint of the
story in some understandable way, and
told it with much multifarious, ingenious
and original additions, amendments and
substitutions, so that it got out that
chant" was a walkun the "Overcoat
Road''-as the strictly ex-urban portion
of the continuation of Main street nau
been called from a time so remote that
r. was lost in legendary incertitude