In the Saddle

by Oliver Optic

Those familiar with the locality would have recognized it as the abode of one of those small farmers found all over the country, who were struggling to improve their worldly condition on a very insufficient capital. The house was hardly finished, and the want of skill was apparent in its erection from sill to ridgepole.

Swinburne Pickford was the proprietor of the dwelling and land. He worked for farmers, planters, and mechanics, for any one who would give him employment, in addition to his labor in the cultivation of his land; and with the sum he had been able to save from his wages, he had bought the land, and started the small farm on his own account. He had a wife and two small children; and, as his time permitted, he had built the house with his own hands alone.

The section of the State of Kentucky in which this little place was located had been sorely disturbed by the conflicts and outrages of the two parties at the beginning of the War of the Rebellion, one struggling to drag the State out of the Union, and the other to prevent its secession. As in the other States of the South, the advocates of disunion were more violent and demonstrative than the loyal people, and after the bombardment of Fort Sumter appeared to be in the ascendant for this reason.

The entire South had been in a state of excitement from the inception of the presidential campaign which resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln, and the industries of this region suffered in consequence; and it looked as though Pickford's house would never be entirely finished. With the exception of the chimney, placed outside of the building, after the fashion of the South, he had done all the work himself. Titus Lyon, the mason of the village of Barcreek, had done this portion of the labor, and the bill for its erection was still unpaid.

Inside of the house two young men, the older about eighteen and the younger sixteen, both armed with muskets, had dragged the proprietor of the house to the floor. One of them had his foot on the chest of the fallen farmer, and the other was pointing his gun at him. Pickford had evidently endeavored to protect himself from the assault of his two assailants, who had got the better of him, and had only given up the battle when pinned to the floor by the foot of one of them.

"Will you pay the bill I have brought to you?" demanded Sandy Lyon, who was the principal aggressor in the assault. "Dr. Falkirk paid you over fifty dollars to-day, and you have got the money to pay the bill, which has been standing two years."

Swin Pickford made no reply to this statement; but just at that moment he heard the clippetty-clip of a galloping horse in the road in front of the house. With the foot of one of his assaulters on his chest, and the other with an old gun in his hand at his side, Pickford realized that nothing could be done but submit. Shooting in that locality and at that time was no uncommon occurrence; for there seemed to be no law in the land, and men generally settled their own grievances, or submitted to them.

"Help! Help!" shouted the victim of the present outrage, with all the strength of his lungs, which gave him voice enough to make him heard a quarter of a mile distant.

"Shut up your head!" savagely yelled Sandy Lyon, as he pressed his foot down with all his might by throwing all his weight upon the breast of the prostrate farmer.