Toby’s Curse                                                                                Hank Hufnagel
 

A History in Stories

Please call me Susan Frolic. I was born and grew up in the town of Rimersburg, in Clarion County, Pennsylvania. In most ways, this was a delightful place, and I was a happy child of loving and successful parents. If I did have any marked peculiarity, it was that nearly my favorite thing to do at the end of a long day was to sit by myself and stare out our parlor window as darkness settled like a blanket over the rooftops of the town. Sitting there in the fading light, I felt deliciously alone and unique—different from the people hurrying toward their homes outside, different even from my own parents. I was sure someday, at just this hour, a mysterious stranger would arrive to announce I was a princess of the realm, or heiress to a great legacy.
     The stranger never did appear, but years later, at a time when my life was in tatters, I remembered my girlish dreams and began to wonder if, perhaps, they had come true. Was I, indeed, heiress to a great and terrible legacy? Was I some sort of tragic princess, after all? The questions haunted me, and I began searching for answers.
     There never was a time when I didn't know I was descended from pioneers who lived in Clarion County from its earliest days. This was a source of great family pride, and so I had heard the tales again and again while I was growing up. Now, I took the time to scratch at my childhood memories and capture the stories forever on paper. Some were easy—Papa Seth Frolic's old hunting tales, Aunt Jane Rawson's smiling stories of the old pioneer days. Others were more complicated and harder to get just right. This was especially true of Uncle Brady Frolic's adventures in early Rimersburg.
     As my collection of tales grew, I came to realize I must also record stories of my own days on this earth. Everything was tied together. Everything must be considered. That added to my labors, but as I was making some progress at finding my answers, I didn't mind in the least. Anyway, it was fun. So much fun, in fact, I continued with my collecting even after I thought I had found answers to my questions. By that time, you see, I had discovered something else I wanted to do with my stores. I would use them to make a history book!
     Most histories are just dry lists of names and dreary chronicles of events. There is no heart in them. My book would be different. I would use some of my collected tales to tell not only the story of my own family and myself, but also something of the entire two-hundred-year history of Clarion County, Pennsylvania. Wouldn't it be interesting to try to tell the story of the county through the stories of its people?
     Gradually, I came to see just how this could be done. I would include pictures from old books and newspapers to help set each tale at its proper place in time. I would put a story location map and part of our family tree right at the start. And, between the stories, I would add notes to splice the individual tales together and move the larger story along.
     Finally, I could see almost the entire book in my mind, but one problem still remained. History is a never-ending thing, and there seemed no particular place where I could say, "There, that is enough. My story is told." I'm a person who likes to have a clear idea of her destination before starting a long journey, and so this lack of an ending kept me from beginning my book for quite some time. It was irksome to wait, but life is long, and I was sure I would someday find my final chapter. Heaven knows, I had lots of other things to occupy my time.
     And then, late last night, as I sat by a small campfire listening to an old man tell a story, it came to me—here was my ending! Tired as I was when I got home, my thoughts were so a-tumble, I had trouble finding sleep. And, when I finally did nod off, I am sure it was with a wide smile on my lips at the prospect of finally putting pen to paper and making a start on my long delayed book.
     My ending may have been hard to discover, but I never had the tiniest whipstitch of doubt which story would appear first in this little history of mine. I will begin at the beginning—with Jed Frolic, as he hurries along through an endless forest, desperate to rescue Alma and Peter Henry from the Indians who have stolen them away.