The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1909-03-04
I he House of the Black
: e..:s Ring Copyright. 1905

Then, so runs the story. had come n
CHASTITY stencil Of birthstone and fire,
and Hartswick. seized by a panic, had
fled for his life, leaving his coat-tails
snatched at him as he bolted for the
door. A rife shot, a mad laugh, and a
volley of curses had followed him out
into the forest.
Thus ran the valley tradition.
That very winter the crew of men
which Hartswick had put in to cut the
pines had noted a strange thing. All
winter long there was no track in the
snow to the Heller hut, though a
smoke arose daily from the chimney.
And they noted with horror that in a
circle some 20 feet wide abou the
house there was no trace of snow,
though it lay piled deep over the rest
of the valley.
That was the beginning of strange
things.
Not once In 20 years that he lived
was Matthew Heller seen in the
circle. What he did. where he OBJ
tanned supplies, how he lived, no NOR
tai outside his home ever knew. None
visited him or his wife or his strange,
wild son. 1t was as IL they did not
live in the valley at all, save that they
furnished abundant food for conjecture
and for superstitious awe. Many
averred that they had seen the old
man during hunting trips in distant
valleys even in winter, and some were
positive that they had run across the
whole family on the ridges in berry
time, but no one ever saw any of them
on the valley lands, and, strange as 1t
may seem, though smoke arose daily
from the chimney of the old hut, no
track, year after year. was ever seen
through the snow to the dwelling. Fur
thermore, in all the century during
which the valley folk had known the
place not one flake of snow had ever
lain within the strange circle about the
cabin.
At length the old man had been seen
no more, though non knew when he
died, or If, indeed, he did die. Then
the old Wife came no more to the blue
berry ridges in midsummer, and the
son, a dark. silent man, liVed alone in
the hut. After a few years he had
brought from no one knew where a
dark-haired wife, who said little and
who encouraged no advances by the
valley folk. Then, after years, the
grandson of Matthew Heller, a man of
ambition and energy, had rebuilt the
old cabin. and later, in the early '40s,
had bought of Thomas H~artswick, heir
of the original John Hartswick, 80 acres
OF land at the entrance of the gap, and
had built on the little stream neal by
a set of modern farm buildings-those
now occupied by Allen Fafthing. At
$500 h'S AAeS lAhp iAS S'iA>
Andrew, who had inherited the shy,
hermit traits of the family, had re-
tired in early manhood to the ancestral
cabin, where he had lived much as his
grandfather had done, but the younger
son, a forceful fellow like his father,
had remained at home until an unfor-
tunate affair had forced him to fee
from the valley.
1t would seem from local tradition
that this younger Heller had possessed
I a - Il r,,1a p1xF 1,tt, - 10Y n~.l
personality, and that he had won with
ease the leadership of the valley boys.
AS q result, however, he had stirred
up a vcnomous hatred in the breast
Of u ira Hartwick, son of the
great estate, and hereditary heir to the
valley lordship. 1t was impossible that
there should be w leaders in He'll
Bottom. and the result was a war,
waged on one side with unutterable
meanness and on the other with a
stout defiance in the open. The eli
max had come suddenly. In a burs
OF passion over a taunt about his an
cestry, young Heller had given the
H~artswick scion a thrashing so severe
that the old squire had had him ar
rested at once for assault with attempt
to kill.
The plight of the young fellow was
then indeed a serious one. There was
no lack of witnesses who would swear
to anything the old squire desired, and
1T was hard to get a jury In the whole
county who would bring in a verdict
against his expressed wish. The out
come was not doubtful. Thereupon,
with the impetuousness OF youth, the
young man had promptly fled the wall
ley, a fact which naturally prejudiced
his cause. 1t was known after a time
that he had enlisted in one of the
Pennsylvania regiments, for the civil
war was in progress, and after Gettys-
burg his name a appeared on the
list of the union e Thus he had dis
appeared from the annals of the Yal-
ley.
Old Hartswick, however. a not
been baked of revenge. The son hay
ing escaped him, he began to persecute
the father. In five years the farm was
In his hands, and the parents, crushed
down by calamity after calamity. both
died in the old cabin where they had
begun their married life. The elder son
lived on alone, cut late in life he mar
ried the daughter of old Poppy Miller.
Both had died of sudden fevers some
years later, leaving twin children, a
boy and a girl, to be brought up by the
grandparents. The boy, Leon, a head
strong fellow, a disappeared one
summer day, drowned In a foolish at
tempt to run in a oat the whirlpool OF
Roaring Run, though his body was
never found; n now the girl, Leonora
the last of the Hellers, vas living. q
strange, seldom-seen creature, with hel
grandparents In the Gap.
So much for tradition and family his
Z tory.
! AS for the Hartswicks, they had beer
) men of property-hard, grasping drivers
Of business, who had answered in the
full the wild prayer of old Matthew
] Heller. And of them all the hardest
/ had been the present squire, Ira Harris
I wick, owner OF the village grocery and
4 half of the valley besides.
The center and focal point of Hell.
j Bottom was this store at the heel of tn,
stocking, under the shadow OF ole
81 Nance mountain, In the Jaws OF BALD
i Eagle gap. Near 1t We're the little
church of the community, the black.
smith shop, n the school house, all
+ on h mountain side OF the road, and
4 on the other side. to balance 1t all
was h farrnstead of Squire Harris.
d wick, a village In itself.
( First, there was the mansion-Harts.
: wick Hall-built when the was
: scarcely of age of blue limestone and
9 native mortar, q venerable old struc.
e + ture half hidden anon the locnsts ane
norss-chestnuts. Behind and around II
! sprawled a motley collection Of build,
+ s The original log cabin, a tumble,
y down affair, used now for a hog pen