Drums Along the Mohawk Read Online Free PDF

river, and broad-framed houses, was like a release after the woods. Lana knew, as she looked about her, that their place was only a few miles farther on. It would not seem so far out of the world, now that she had seen these healthy farms.
    Some people came to the fences to watch them by. They greeted Gil by name and looked curiously towards Lana. They asked for news, and when Gil said he hadn’t heard any worth telling, they smiled and said, “You’ve brought along quite a piece of news of your own, though.”
    They were half an hour traversing Schuyler. Then once more the woods closed in on the road and river, great elms, andwillows and hemlock along the brooks. Now and then through swampy pieces the cart lurched and tottered over corduroy, and the mare had to set her feet carefully.
    When they reached Cosby’s Manor, it seemed to Lana a queer lost place. There was a fine house by the river, and a store built of logs, and a tenant’s house. But all had a forgotten aspect.
    A woman came to the door of the store, shading her eyes with her hand. She did not seem like a live and healthy person. She seemed like someone in a trance. And she did not call to them, but met Lana’s shy nod with a dull stare.
    Gil came hurrying up beside the cart.
    “Never mind her, Lana. She’s queer. They’re Johnson people here, and they haven’t got friends.”
    “Who is she?”
    “It’s Wolff’s wife. I get along with Wolff all right, but people here don’t speak to them much. I guess she gets lonely.”
    He lifted his voice to call good-day to her.
    “Hello,” she said, flatly, and turned as if to reënter the store.
    “You all alone, Mrs. Wolff?” Gil asked.
    “John’s round somewhere,” she replied over her shoulder. “You want him?”
    “No. I only thought the place looked lonely.”
    “Thompsons left last Thursday,” she said.
    “Left?”
    “Yeah. They went for Oswego. They say the Congress is going to fix the fort at Stanwix, and that means trouble. I wanted John to go, but he said he couldn’t afford to. You can’t leave if you ain’t got cash money to live on up there, he says.” She tilted her head to the northwest, stared at them, and then went into the store.
    Gil and Lana looked after her. Then he turned to the house. “They’ve boarded the windows,” he said. That explained the blankness. “I guess they’ve taken their cattle, too.”
    In spite of herself, Lana shivered.
    “Do just she and Mr. Wolff live here?”
    “I guess so. He’s got a daughter married to Dr. Petry. But Doc’s a Committee member, and I guess he don’t let her come up here any more.”
    “It’s a terrible thing,” whispered Lana.
    Gil glanced quickly at her.
    “It don’t have to bother us,” he said. “We’re all the right party.”
    Lana did not answer. They were in the woods again now, and the road had become both narrower and rougher. Their pace was reduced to a mere crawl under the hazy slanting bars of sunlight, yet for the first time every step the mare took seemed to Lana to be drawing her an irrecoverable distance from her home. She told herself, “But we’re going home.” But it didn’t mean the same thing any more.
    The light through the leaves softened, became more golden. Off on a hill to the right a cock grouse began drumming, starting with slow beats, and gradually gathering pace.
    A great mess of flies collected round the mare’s head, like sparks in the sunlight, deer flies, and horseflies an inch long, that drew blood when they bit. The mare kept shaking herself. She stopped to bite at them, and kicked and snorted, and then went on with a sullen resignation. Lana could have cried. She looked back at Gil and saw that he was switching the cow with a branch of maple; and the cow had moved up close behind the wagon.
    “Are they always like this, Gil?” Lana asked.
    “There’s always flies in the real woods,” he said shortly. “It must be going to rain, though, the way they take hold.”
    He