Allegheny Episodes / Folk Lore and Legends Collected in Northern and Western Pennsylvania

by Henry W. Shoemaker

That night, in the old stained four-poster, in his tiny, cold room, he slept not at all. “Yet he feared to dream.” Though his thoughts carried him all over the world, the little postmistress was uppermost in every fancy. Among the other things, he wished that he had asked her to ride with him to the cave. They could have visited the subterranean marvels together. He got out of bed and managed to light the fat lamp. By its sputtering gleams he wrote her a letter, which came to an abrupt end as the small supply of ink which he carried with him was exhausted. But as he repented of the intense sentences penned to a person who knew him so slightly, he arose again before morning and tore it to bits.

There was a white frost on the buildings and ground when he came downstairs. The autumn air was cold, the atmosphere was a hazy, melancholy gray. There seemed to be a cessation of all the living forces of nature, as if waiting for the summons of winter. From the chimney of the old inn came purple smoke, charged with the pungent odor of burning pine wood.

With a strange sadness he saddled his horse and resumed his ride towards the west. He thought constantly of Caroline–so much so that after he had traveled ten miles he wanted to turn back; he felt miserable without her. If only she were riding beside him, the two bound for Penn’s Valley Cave, he could be supremely happy. Without her, he did not care to visit the cavern, or anything else; so at Jacobsburg he crossed the Nittany Mountains, leaving the southerly valleys behind.

He rode up Nittany Valley to Bellefonte, where he met the agent of the Snow Shoe Company. With this gentleman he visited the vast tract being opened up to lumbering, mining and colonization. But his thoughts were elsewhere; they were across the mountains with the little postmistress of Stover’s.

Satisfied that his investment would prove remunerative, he left the development company’s cozy lodge-house, and, with a heart growing lighter with each mile, started for the east. It was wonderful how differently–how vastly more beautiful the country seemed on this return journey. He fully appreciated the wistful loveliness of the fast-fading autumn foliage, the crispness of the air, the beauty of each stray tuft of asters, the last survivors of the wild flowers along the trail. The world was full of joy, everything was in harmony.

Again it was after nightfall when he reined his horse in front of Stover’s long, rambling public house. This time two doors opened simultaneously, sending forth golden lights and shadows. One was from the tap-room, where the hostler emerged; the other from the post office, bringing little Caroline. There was no mail that night, consequently the office was practically deserted; she had time to come out and greet her much-admired friend. And let it be said that ever since she had seen him her heart was agog with the image of Mifflin Sargeant. She was canny enough to appreciate such a man; besides, he was a good-looking youth though perhaps of a less robust type than those most admired in the Red Hills.

After cordial greetings the young man ate supper, after which he repaired to the post office. By that time the last straggler was gone; he had a blissful evening with his fair Caroline. She anticipated his coming, being somewhat of a psychic, and had arranged to spend the night with the Stovers. There was no hurry to retire; when they went out on the porch, preparatory to locking up, the hunter’s moon was sinking behind the western knobs, which rose like the pyramids of Egypt against the sky line.

Sargeant lingered around the old house for three days; when he departed it was with extreme reluctance. Seeing Caroline again in the future appeared like something too good to be true, so down-hearted was he at the parting. But he had arranged to come back the following autumn, bringing an extra horse with him, and the two would ride to the wonderful cavern in Penn’s Valley and explore to the ends its stygian depths. Meanwhile they would make most of their separation through a regular correspondence.

Despite glances, pressure of hands, chance caresses, and evident happiness in one another’s society, not a word of love had passed between the pair. That was why the pain of parting was so intense. If Caroline could have remembered one loving phrase, then she would have felt that she had something tangible on which to hang her hopes. If the young Philadelphian had unburdened his heart by telling her that he loved her, and her alone, and heard her words of affirmation, the world out into which he was riding would have seemed less blank.

But underneath his love, burning like a hot branding iron, was his consciousness of class, his fear of the consequences if he took to the great city a bride from another sphere. As an only son, he could not picture himself deserting his widowed mother and sisters, and living at Snow Shoe; there he was sure that Caroline would be happy. Neither could he see permanent peace of mind if he married her and brought her into his exclusive circles in the Quaker City.