Speaker 1: Charles Ashmore's Trail by Ambrose Bierce. The family of Christian
Ashmore consisted of his wife, his mother, two grown daughters,
and a son of sixteen years. They lived in Troy,
New York, were well to do, respectable persons, and had
many friends, some of whom reading these lines will doubtless
learn for the first time the extraordinary fate of the
young man. From Troy, the Ashmores moved in eighteen seventy
one or eighteen seventy two to Richmond, Indiana, and a
year or two later to the vicinity of Quincy, Illinois,
where mister Ashmore bought a farm and lived on it.
At some little distance from the farmhouse was a spring
with a constant flow of clear, cold water, whence the
family derived its supply for domestic use at all seasons.
On the evening of the ninth of November eighteen seventy eight,
at about nine o'clock, young Charles Ashmore left the family
circle about the hearth, took a tin bucket, and started
toward the spring. As he did not return, the family
became uneasy, and going to the door by which he
had left the house, his father called, without receiving an answer,
He then lighted a lantern, and with the eldest daughter, Martha,
who insisted on accompanying him, went in search a light.
Snow had fallen, obliterating the path, but making the young
man's trail conspicuous. Each footprint was clearly defined. After going
a little more than half way, perhaps seventy five yards,
the father, who was in advance, halted and elevating his lantern,
stood peering intently into the darkness ahead. What is the matter, father,
the girl asked. This was the matter. The trail of
the young man had abruptly ended, and all beyond was smooth,
unbroken snow. The last footprints were as conspicuous as any
in the line. The very nail marks were distinctly visible.
Mister Ashmore looked upward, shading his eyes with his hat
held between them and the lantern. The stars were shining.
There was no cloud in the sky. He was denied
the explanation, which had suggested itself doubtful, as it would
have been a new snowfall with a limit so plainly defined.
Taking a wide circuit round the ultimate tracks so as
to leave them undisturbed for further examination, the man proceeded
to the spring the girl following, weak and terrified. Neither
had spoken a word of what both observed. The spring
was covered with eyes hours old. Returning to the house,
they noted the appearance of the snow on both sides
of the trail its entire length. No tracks led away
from it. The morning light showed nothing more smooth, spotless, unbroken.
The shallow snow lay everywhere. Four days later, the grease
stricken mother herself went to the spring for water. She
came back and related that in passing the spot where
the footprints had ended, she had heard the voice of
her son, and had been eagerly calling to him, wandering
about the place as she had fancied the voice to
be now in one direction, now in another, until she
was exhausted with fatigue and emotion. Questioned as to what
the voice had said, she was unable to tell, yet
avered that the words were perfectly distinct. In a moment,
the entire family was at the place, but nothing was heard,
and the voice was believed to be an hallucination caused
by the mother's great anxiety and her disordered nerves. But
for months afterwards, at irregular intervals of a few days,
the voice was heard by several members of the family,
and by others. All declared it was unmistakably the voice
of Charles Ashmore. All agreed that it seemed to come
from a great distance, faintly, yet with entire distinctness of articulation.
Yet none could determine its direction, nor repeat its words.
The intervals of silence grew longer and longer, the voice
fainter and fainter, and by Midsummer it was heard no more.
If any one knows the fate of Charles Ashmore, it
is probably his mother. She is dead. The End of
Charles Ashmore's Trail by Ambrose Bierce