My mother, her sleeves rolled high over her round white arms, was in the dark interiorof the milk-house as I passed, and spoke to me laughingly; and I could perceive my fathersitting in his great splint-bottomed chair just within the front doorway, and I marked howthe slight current of air toyed with his long gray beard. The old Bible lay wide open uponhis knee; yet his eyes were resting upon the dark green of the woods that skirted ourclearing. I wondered, as I quaffed the cool sweet water at the spring, if he was ...
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My mother, her sleeves rolled high over her round white arms, was in the dark interiorof the milk-house as I passed, and spoke to me laughingly; and I could perceive my fathersitting in his great splint-bottomed chair just within the front doorway, and I marked howthe slight current of air toyed with his long gray beard. The old Bible lay wide open uponhis knee; yet his eyes were resting upon the dark green of the woods that skirted ourclearing. I wondered, as I quaffed the cool sweet water at the spring, if he was dreamingagain of those old days when he had been a man among men. How distinct in each detailthe memory of it remains! The blue sky held but one fleecy white cloud in all its wide arch;it seemed as if the curling film of smoke rising from our chimney had but gathered thereand hung suspended to render the azure more pronounced. A robin peeked impudently atme from an oak limb, and a roguish gray squirrel chattered along the low ridge-pole, withseeming willingness to make friends, until Rover, suddenly spying me, sprang hastilyaround the corner of the house to lick my hand, with glad barkings and a frantic effort towave the stub of his poor old tail. It was such a homely, quiet scene, there in the heart of thebackwoods, one I had known unchanged so long, that I little dreamed it was soon towitness the turning over of a page of destiny in my life, that almost from that hour I was tosever every relation of the past, and be sent forth to buffet with the rough world alone.
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Add this copy of When Wilderness Was King A Tale Of The Illinois Country to cart. $14.92, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2025 by Alpha Edition.
Add this copy of When Wilderness Was King a Tale of the Illinois Country to cart. $18.25, new condition, Sold by Just one more Chapter rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Miramar, FL, UNITED STATES, published 2025 by Alpha Edition.
