some old school history, or send
your memory on a backward pilgrimage to the olden days, and a country
road may carry you into a past as glorious as that which lies along
the Appian Way.

For a long time we rode in silence. On crowded streets and in towns
one must talk; but out of doors in the country there is a Voice
continually speaking in a language as old as the song of the morning
stars, and if the soul hears that, human words are not needed.

Aunt Jane was the first to speak. "Ain't it sweet and peaceful this
time o' the year!" she said. "I look at these pretty fields and woods
all fenced in, with good roads runnin' alongside, and it don't seem
like it could be jest a little more'n two generations between now and
the time when this was the Dark and Bloody Ground, and the white men
was fightin' with Indians and bears and wildcats to git possession of
it. Why, right over there on that ridge o' hills is the place where
Sam Amos's grandfather run the ga'ntlet when he was captured by the
Indians. Sam used to have the old tow-linen shirt with the bloodstains
and the cut on the shoulder where one o' the Indians struck him with a
tomahawk. I ricollect Parson Page used to say that life was jest a
runnin' of the ga'ntlet. There's enemies on each side of us, and every
one of 'em is strikin' at us. And we can't run away, and we know that
there's one stroke comin' some time or other that's certain to bring
us down. And all we've got to do is to stand up and keep goin' right
on, and be ready for the last blow, whenever it happens to fall. And
here's Devil's Holler," she continued; "look down that bluff, and
you'll see it."

I looked and saw a deep cup-shaped valley, dark with the shadows of
overhanging rocks and trees, and luxuriant with ferns and underbrush
that grew rankly out of soil made rich by the drifted leaves of a
hundred autumns.

"Some folks say that the old stage road used to run past here, and a
band o' robbers used to hide by the side o' the road and waylay the
stage and rob the passengers, and maybe murder 'em and bury their
bodies at the bottom o' the holler. And"--she lowered her voice--"some
folks say the place is ha'nted. Sam Amos declared the devil come out
o' that holler and chased him for half a mile one dark night when he
was late comin' home from town. But I reckon the only devil that
chased Sam was the devil in the bottom of his whiskey-jug, and Uncle
Billy Bascom says there never was any stage lin