The Project Gutenberg EBook of The White Feather Hex, by Don Peterson

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Title: The White Feather Hex

Author: Don Peterson

Release Date: November 3, 2007 [EBook #23308]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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The White Feather Hex

_BY DON PETERSON_

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales March 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
on this publication was renewed.]

Heading by the Author

[Illustration: You waited till the feather turned red.]

It all started with a Dutchman, a Pennsylvania Dutchman named Peter
Scheinberger, who tilled a weather beaten farm back in the hills.

A strong, wiry man he was--his arms were knotted sections of solid
hickory forming themselves into gnarled hands and twisted stubs of
fingers. His furrowed brow, dried by the sun and cracked in a million
places by the wind was well irrigated by long rivulets of sweat. When he
went forth in the fields behind his horse and plow, it wasn't long
before his hair was plastered down firmly to his scalp. The salty water
poured out of the deep rings in his ruddy neck and ran down his dark
brown back. As he grew older the skin peeled and grew loose. It hung on
him in folds like the brittle hide of a rhino.

It seemed that the more years he spent in his fields behind the plow
horse, the more he slipped back into the timeless tradition of his
forefathers. He was a proud descendant of a long line of staunch German
settlers commonly known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. He grew up in his
fundamental, religious sect having never known any other environment. He
was exposed to the sun, soil, and wind from the early days of his
childhood, and along with the elements he also was exposed to the evils
of the _hexerei_. The _hexerei_, or witchcraft, was something that was
never doubted or scoffed at by his people. Then why should he, a good
Pennsylvania Dutchman, doubt or scoff at such tradition?

Perhaps, had he moved away from his ancestra