"The Lucases they owned the farm we live on now; and it's a right good one, as soon as Vosh is old enough to handle it himself. That was away back when your uncle Joshaway was a young man, and he and Alvin Lucas were the closest kind of friends; and there wasn't a likelier young man around here than Alvin was, unless it was Vosh's father or your uncle Joshaway. It was before either one of 'em was married; and the war broke out the spring before, and it seemed as if all the young men was half crazy before harvestin' was over. There was eighteen of the very best and pick went right out from Benton Valley, and twice as many more from over Cobbleville way, first thing, as soon as the grain was in, and some of the after-ploughin' was done. It was queer, but somehow, when they came together, they elected Alvin Lucas captain of that company; and a young fellow from Cobbleville was next; and Levi Stebbins was only a corporal at first; and your uncle Joshaway was a private, but he got to be a major before the war was over; and Vosh's father he came home a captain, with a big scar on his right arm, and he'd lost one of his front teeth in a scrimmage. But I must go right on to the wolf part."
"O Mrs. Stebbins!" exclaimed Pen with a long breath, "I'd forgot all about the war."
"So has most people," said Mrs. Stebbins; "and it's well they have, for it's only a root of bitterness now, and it ort not to be dug up for ever and ever. But that first winter after the war begun was an awful cold one, up hereaway. Leastwise, there kem a bitter snap, like the one we're having now; and somehow it seemed as if we never missed all those young men so much, not even in the fall work, as we did after winter sot in. There was a good many fire-places like this all over the country, where the folks missed the best face they had, for the one that isn't there always kind o' seems to be the best; and old Mrs. Lucas she counted on Alvin, most likely, a good deal as I do on Vosh. He was away down on the Potomac with his company, and there hadn't been a man of 'em hurt up to the time of that cold snap, and they sent letters home as reg'lar as clock-work; and people thought the war wasn't sech a dreadful thing, after all, so long as nobody got killed from Benton Valley and Cobbleville. Your folks lived right here, and mine away over on the other hill, nigh the dividing-line into the Sanders school-district; and your grandfather and grandmother Farnham were alive, and Susie Farnham she hadn't married Reuben Hudson and gone to the city, and Judith she was a young woman; and those two gals was at home with the old folks one evening"—
Just then Deacon Farnham got up from his chair, and sat down again; and aunt Judith rubbed her spectacles very hard indeed, and Mrs. Farnham looked at her, sidling, as if to see if she were interested in the story; and Pen looked around at every one, for she knew that Mrs. Stebbins must be getting pretty near the wolf now.
"It was one bitter cold night, and all the Lucases were at home, except, of course, Alvin; and there were four younger than he was; but he was the likeliest, as well as the oldest, and his next brother didn't go into the war till the second year. Old Mrs. Lucas wasn't nervous generally, but that night there seemed to be something the matter with her; and it was as dark as a pocket, as well as being so cold you could hardly keep the hens from freezing. She kept a-going to the window; and her husband, I heard him tell my mother about it, how she seemed to be listening for something, and all of a sudden she broke out, 'John, it's a wolf! Hear him! He's out there in the road! Something's happened to Alvin!' Now, I ain't a mite superstitious, and she wasn't, and John Lucas wasn't; but there was a charge of buckshot in his gun, and he took it up, and went right out"—
"Was the wolf there?" asked Pen with widely open eyes; for Mrs. Stebbins paused a moment, as if for breath, and aunt Judith's knitting had dropped into her lap, and she was staring hard at the fire.
"Yes, Pen," went on Mrs. Stebbins, "and he was nigher the house, and he howled again; and he sot still, and held his head up to howl, till John Lucas and his next son—Roger, his name was—got within shot of him; for he was crazed with the frost, jest as wolves will get in sech times."
"Did they kill him?" asked Corry.
"Dead as a mackerel," said Mrs. Stebbins. "And he was the biggest kind; but it didn't seem to comfort Mrs. Lucas a mite, and it was the strangest kind of a thing, after all. There isn't any superstition in me: but, when the next letters kem from the war, there'd been a scrimmage on the Potomac that very night; and Capt. Alvin Lucas, and four men from Benton Valley, and twice as many from Cobbleville, had been killed in it."
"I don't believe the wolf knew a word about the skirmish," said Port. "He couldn't, you know."