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Show Pioneer poster-story winners named good-night and turned out the light. Dozing off. I told myself 1 would never forge 'his as long as I lived. Space does not permit including the other three prize-winning stories, stor-ies, so they will be published in our next article. NEXT MEETING of the Society will be held in the City Hall. Wednesday. May 21. Program Chairman Smith Randall is planning plan-ning another of his splendid prog-rams. prog-rams. We'd love to see you there!; growing up in the town of Centerville." Center-ville." We all let out a sigh of relief and I closed my eyes and fell back into the sofa letting out a great big 'phew.' Grandpa, being a man of practical jokes, grabbed an old Indian In-dian headdress, put it on. and started toward us a hootin' and hol-lerin'. hol-lerin'. You would think we fainted dead away. We scrambled out of the room, screaming our heads, off. until grandma finally calmed us down and scolded grandpa for being so childish. THEY EACH gave us a kiss i GRANDPA'S STORIES By Christine Smith Finally the day had ' come. The day I got to go to : Grandpa Parrish's house for the ' weekend. It's my favorite thing to 1 do in the whole wide world. Nothing No-thing beats his stories about when he was growing up in Centerville. They're worth the whole trip. Mom piled my two little brothers and me into the station wagon, and we were off to good old Centerville. WE GOT there about supper time. Mom left for home, and we sat down for some of grandma's homemade cooking. We then retired re-tired to the family room where a nice warm fire was brewing in the fireplace. Grandma turned off the television set and all the lamps. We sat around hypnotized at the flames reflecting their light on our faces for a while. Then grandpa started. "It was a cool October day when I was in my mid-twenties. Grandma Grand-ma had sent me off to Centerville Canyon to chop some wood for the winter season, expected to be the longest and coldest in history." he said. GRANDMA'S eyes lit up and she gave a knowing smile. This is going to be a good one. I thought. "1 had started chopping wood about noon and before I knew it. six o'clock came. I decided that was a good excuse for taking a break. I remember hearing a strange noise just then. Being a young fool. 1 thought it was a squirrel squir-rel or some other little critter and paid no attention. Moments passed. pas-sed. I heard another noise. "GETTING a little suspicious now. I turned around. I couldn't believe it. There, right before me stood one of the biggest, meanest and ugliest looking, wild Nomad Indians I'd ever laid eyes on. He was looking me straight in the eye with a dirty old grin on his face. Just when I thought it was all over, and things couldn't possibly get worse than this, it did. Two of his buddies crawled out of the bushes with the same dirty old grin on their faces and two more on horseback. "Now. there is something I must tell you about Indians. There are bad Indians, and there arc good Indians. In-dians. These Indians happened to be the worst Indians history has ever known. They wanted their land back, and they let the white man know they did by burning barns, stealing cattle (things of the worst tortures). There I was, stiff as a board, staring at these very Indians." WE SAT in silence, my little brothers and I on the edge of our seats and eyes fixed wide open. A few minutes passed, but it seemed like hours. "Aw, come on. grandpa." grand-pa." I protested. ,"Oh, all right, if you can't take a little suspense," he said with a grin. "1 finally turned around, grabbed my gun, and took off a runnin". The woods were heavy with trees and it was difficult to run but 1 managed somehow to get a good sized lead ahead of them. Pulse running wild, I kept on running run-ning harder and harder and. ..and then. ..and then 1 got my foot stuck under some roots in the ground and it sent me falling off balance to the ground. My gun fell out of my hands, and though I wildly ran my hand across the leaves and dirt, I couldn't find it. This is the end. I thought. "BUT something told me to keep on moving. I got back on my feet and stumbled through the oak brush. I could hear them. 1 could hear their feet and their wild breath right behind me. But I had to keep running. Running for my life. A long time passed and I got another good lead on them. I reckon we had been running for two miles now. We were getting deeper and deeper into the canyon and it was getting darker and darker. "After a while I came to a clearing. clear-ing. Right before me was a pond, a beaver pond with little lodges dotted dot-ted across it. There was no place else to go but into the water. I took a great big breath and jumped in. After a while I had to come back up for air. One of the Indians saw my head come up and yelled to the others, pointing at me. Frantically. I dived back down and about then the idea hit me. Why not swim up into one of the beaver lodges? After Af-ter feeling around in the cold, slimy mud. 1 found an opening where the beavers go up. Being a rather tall and lanky man back then. I started inching my way up the beaver opening. I finally got my head and shoulders through it. after moments mo-ments of struggling, actually up into the beaver lodge. I was hyperventilating. hyper-ventilating. My breath was coming out long and hard. "MY BODY stiffened. Through the wood and sticks I could see an outline of a pair of legs searching through the water. I grabbed my mouth in horror and held my breath. "A long while went by and I got my breath slowed down. I must have stayed in the lodge nearly all night, for I figured if I did. the Injuns In-juns would believe I had drowned and they would leave. I inched myself my-self back out and came up above the water. It was pitch black. I then realized the only way opt of this mess was to feel my way out. And that's exactly what I did. For the remainder of the night. I felt my way through scrub oak and pine trees. "BY DAWN I had made it out of the canyon. I still don't see how I made it home, because my eyes had been scratched so badly, they were swollen shut. Grandma says I was out cold for two days. And that, my grandchildren, is another true story about your grandpa i |