This last tree must have started to fall suddenly. Lumen ran
the wrong way and was caught under the top of one of the lodged trees as
it came crashing down. The marks showed that he had tried, probably for
hours, to cut off with his pocket knife one large branch that lay across
his body. They found the knife with the blade broken. He had also tried
to free himself by digging with his bare fingers into the hard, rocky
earth. If Lumen had been to blame for the quarrel, he paid a fearful
penalty.
Afterwards, however, Althea declared that she had been to blame; and if
that were true, she also paid a sad penalty. During the few remaining
years of her life she was never in her right mind. She used to imagine
that she heard Lumen calling to her for help, and several times, eluding
her parents, she made her way back to the clearing. Every time when they
found her she was wandering about the place, stopping now and then as if
to listen, then flitting on again, saying in a sad singsong, "I'm
coming, Lumen! Oh, I'll come back!"
Naturally, persons of a superstitious nature began to imagine that they,
too, heard strange cries at the deserted farm, for no one ever lived
there subsequently.
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