There was talk of another investigation and the persons—well known to everyone but the law—were prowling the countryside, flashing dark lanterns under doors and shouting threats of what would happen to neighbors who dared tell what they knew. Paw woke one night and fired his squirrel rifle at what he thought was a lantern but which was only a suddenly-flaming fireplace ember. The bullet knocked a newel post off my bed.
Despite the campaign of terror Paw just had to drive to the county seat once a month for supplies. Always he promised to be back by sundown. Always he met some old Butternut cronies—comrades-at-arms in the Knights of the Golden Circle during Civil War days. And in talking about how they had outfoxed and outfought the National Guard sent to punish them for desertion from the Union Army he usually would be delayed until the night closed in.
Then, as Annette and I lay in our bed beside the fireplace, refusing to go to sleep because we knew Paw would bring us presents, Maw would open the front door, hook her bare foot around it and listen, tense with a fear which communicated itself to us.
The katydids might be quarreling. Or the baying of Mr. Morningstar's coon dogs might drift through the fall or winter air. A screechowl's sobbing might cause us to cling together in a shiver.
Finally we'd start whimpering. Then Maw would twist her wrinkled head back through the crack in the door and whisper, "Shhh! Listen, children.... Listen! I think I hear Josiah's wagon. They hain't got him this time."
Often the belated team turned down some side road. And she would murmur, hardly louder than the katydids, as she resumed her vigil, "Shhh! Listen, children.... Listen!"
When the hours of tension had set my whole body aching with what folks who don't know call "growing pains" and when the half-opened door had made the room almost as chill as the night, we would actually hear the faraway mournful creak of wheels on the gravel road, the jingle of trace chains, the rumble of a half-empty jolt-wagon bed.
"Thank you, dear just God!" Maw would breathe at last. Then she would follow her bare foot through the door and bustle about reheating the supper coffee and fixing a snack for Paw.
We would hear the wagon rumble into the yard. Next Paw would cuss Old Nell for her contrariness as he unhitched and led her to the stable. And at last a great grey-bearded man, his arms laden with bundles, would stumble through the front door to be greeted by two elves in long underwear, dancing about him and screaming, "Whatcha got for me, Paw? Whatcha got this time?"
Usually it was jawbreakers or peppermint sticks. Once, when we sold the hogs, it was a store doll for Annette and a marvelous steamboat for me that you wound up with a key and sank the first time I tried it in the branch.