Alameda High School - Acorn Yearbook (Alameda, CA)

Page 26 text:

A BRAVE KEN By George Meyer [Note: This stery won the third prize in the “Star and Key”’ HE story I am about to tell is that of a brave girl who lived to be a braver woman. She was born and reared in the mountain regions of Kentucky at a time when clan feuds and warfare were at their fiercest. When she neared womanhood, her chose for her husband a young man from a friendly and announced his daughter's betrothal. But the girl loved another, and, to make matters worse, he was a member of a hostile clan. One dark night there was a descent via the traditional ladder into the waiting lover’s arms, and a wild dash on horseback through the darkness to the temporary home of the circuit-rider. There they were married, and in the early morning they rode back to the home of the bride. As they dismounted, her father and her eight gigantic broth- ers swarmed out to meet them. “I am Jimmy’s wife,” she said quietly. They knew the youth for their foe, and the weapon of the foremost brother leaped from the holster. “You're his widow!” he shouted, his f She flung herself before the pistol. “Shoot, if you dare!” she said. But in a second the young husband had swung her behind him and himself confronted the raging brother. “Yes; shoot, if you dare!” he repeated, and folded his arms. father family, face black with fury. Page 22 TUCKY (jIRk,, DONAL oson Story Contest] n the group For one long ment there was no movement in his holster, and Then the brother with the pistol replaced it extended his hand. “All right, Jimmy!’ he said quietly. “You-all can count me on your side « is.” And they were all on “You-all’s” side Then the “Big War”’—so the great states was ever called by the i etween the mountaineers—broke out. Ken tucky was seized and held in the Union by the armies of the North, so the members of the bride’s and groom’s families, threatened with arrest as Southern sympathizers, fled to Mis- souri. The young couple found a temporary refuge on the planta tion of an old family friend, Major McGuffin, at the time away from home and bravely fighting in the Southern army. He had heard of their trouble, and by means of a secret messenger made them heartily welcome to everything he had. There was the more reason his own absence in the fact that a strong force of Federals was camped in the vicinity of his home. For nearly a year the young husband and wife re mained at the plantation, and a baby girl came to them there. One day, while her husband was away, the young wife was startled by a cautious knock at a rear door. moment later Major McGuffin, tattered and bleeding, staggered in, to 1