Sword and Pen / Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier

by John Algernon Owens

Thus a year sped on, and at the end of that time his father, as one means of adding something to his scanty resources, obtained the job of hauling a quantity of iron ore from the ore beds near Little York to a forge and furnace at Fullerville. Willard with an ox-team and his uncle Henry with a span of fine horses, were employed for the most part to do the actual hauling.

By this time Willard was quite familiar with the management of horses, and he had also learned to drive oxen, so that at the age of thirteen he worked with his ox-team as regularly and almost as efficiently as any of his grown-up uncles or even his father. The management of an ox-team, by the way, is quite different from that of horses, and at times it becomes very troublesome business, requiring for its successful accomplishment the very nicest admixture of courage, coolness and discretion. Willard, however, with the self-reliance that always characterizes a boy of his age, never for a moment doubted that he was adequate to the task, and as he had been placed in charge of a very fine yoke of oxen, took much pride in driving them in the same manner as he would have driven a span of horses, seated on the top of his load upon the wagon instead of being on foot and close by their heads, as prudence would have taught an older driver to do. The truth is, that if there was any human being before whom the boy delighted to exhibit himself as doing a manly part in his little circle of existence, that being was Henry Glazier.

Consequently, when his uncle's team was on the road, Master Willard took a position upon his own load with as important an air as if he were on the box of a coach-and-four, and guided his cattle as if they were animals of the most docile disposition, to halt at his whisper or proceed at his word. As the principal part of the work was performed at midsummer under the rays of a scorching sun, the cattle were, of course, irritable and restive to a degree that in colder weather would have seemed inconsistent with the phlegmatic characteristics of their race.

The road from Little York to Fullerville is a winding, narrow road, somewhat hilly in places, and neither very smooth nor level at any point. Midway between the two villages a brawling stream crosses the road, and making a turn empties itself, at the distance of about thirty yards, into the waters of the Oswegatchie. This stream is spanned by a rustic bridge at a very considerable elevation above the water. The banks are high and abrupt, and, as the traveler approaches them, he cannot fail to be attracted by the silvery sparkle of the waters far below. The view from the bridge takes in the white farm-houses with their emerald setting of rich grain-fields and meadowlands, the distant forge with its belching smoke-stacks, the winding Oswegatchie, and the distant blue hills. If the month happens to be August, the traveler may hear the cheerful hum of busy industry, the swinging cradles of the harvesters or the steady roll of the reaper. Upon a day, late in this richest of summer months—August—in the year of our Lord 1854, Willard and his uncle Henry were slowly wending their way towards Fullerville—the former with his ox-team and the latter with a spanking span of horses. The beasts of burden by their drooping heads and slow pace evinced the fact that the loads of ore they were drawing were unusually heavy, and this, combined with the sultry atmosphere, was telling upon the strength of even such powerful beasts as they.

Willard, as usual, was seated upon the top of his load, and, as they neared the bridge, despite his familiarity with every detail of the scene, a sense of its exquisite beauty took possession of him, and, for a moment, he forgot that he was driving an ox-team. For a moment he was oblivious to the fact that it takes all a driver's care and skill to prevent mischief whenever a thirsty ox obtains a glimpse of water upon a summer's day. As they neared the bridge, the fevered eyes of the cattle caught sight of the limpid stream away down below, and, just as a cry of warning from his uncle recalled the boy to a sense of the deadly peril of his position, the cattle made an oblique plunge over the edge of the bank with two tons of iron-ore in lumps varying from five pounds to fifty, pouring a huge and deadly hail over their reckless heads. With rare presence of mind for a boy of his age, the instant he heard his uncle's warning cry, Willard realized the situation and jumped sideways from the wagon. As he did so, his hat fell off and rolled a short distance away. At the same moment a lump of ore, weighing not less than one-hundred pounds, fell upon it and crushed it so deeply into the ground that it was completely hidden from view. Many months afterwards, some boys digging for fish-bait found the hat buried there, and returned to the village with a tale of some possible and unknown murder, committed when or by whom no one could tell.

TRAGIC EXPERIENCE WITH AN OX-TEAM.

As for the boy himself, he escaped with only a scratch or two and a few bruises, but that he escaped with his life or with sound limbs was almost a miracle; and, as his big-hearted uncle picked him up, he hugged the lad as one snatched from the very jaws of death. Willard was somewhat awed by the narrowness of his escape, and it was observed that his face wore an expression a shade graver than was its wont for several days after the occurrence.

The lesson, however, made no lasting impression. Scarce a week had gone by ere his life was once more imperilled, and this time the danger resulted from his own reckless over-confidence in himself.