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It was papa’s grandmother Cockrill
(Frances Jones) who was hunting the cows and got lost. She had a little Indian
boy with her. It was she who was going to mill. Now the tradition was that
papa’s grandmother, hunting her cows, got lost and stayed in the woods all
night; that she saw what she supposed was someone carrying a light and followed
it. This was said to have been a jack-a-lantern (ignis fatuss). I have
read that because it is a gas, lighter than air, that when you follow it, the
air you drive before you makes it move forward; that if you retreat from it
will follow in the vacuum you leave. Rather creepy, I should think, to have it
happen under such circumstances. As for the going to mill, now remember it was
early times... However, in my time when one took a grist to mill it was likely
to be in a bag thrown across the horses back with perhaps only the empty part
of the bag as a saddle; or in lieu of a saddle. It is thus in my mind I have
pictured this great grandmother’s riding sidewise, of course. And of
course my picture may be wrong. Be that as it may, she was barefooted. Looking
up she saw her lover, on horseback, I think, coming toward her. Now I
can’t tell the times I have heard my father relate this, but I think I
never heard him tell it with out saying at this point, 'She put up her hand to
brush away shame', meaning that being embarrassed at having her lover see her
in this condition she instinctively put her hand to her face as any woman may
understand. When she looked up again he was gone. The story goes that at that
very hour his horse threw him against a tree and dashed his brains out.
However, in the light of wireless telegraphy, that may have really happened
with nothing supernatural about it either.
Another story passed down orally
is that she got lost one night and slept the night in a cave. On returning to
her family in the morning she said she didn’t get cold because a large dog
came in and snuggled next to her. On searching the area, they found bear
tracks. Whether a bear or not and whether Frances or an earlier generation,
that’s the tale.
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