the squatters (standard:Inspirational stories, 3406 words)
Author: stanley mcqueen kentucky backwoods writer	Added: May 23 2009	Views/Reads: 3079/1974	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
this story is about a family who find a place to live when they had some bad fortune in virginia and traveled to kentucky to find a place to work and settled down

The squatters 

it was on Friday and paw and I had been riding fence line to repair
broken our fence, It was not hardly dark when we come across a wagon . 
It was in a clearing on our land , the people were squatters and they 
had a fire built and they were five of them a Man and a woman and three 
children, the oldest looked to be about my age, my paw never liked his 
land to be invaded by anyone ,the two of us rode toward them and the 
man in the camp walk to greet us, howdy the bearded man said “ as we 
approached them. Its” sure hot he said trying to be friendly to us paw 
looked at the large man standing before our mules, its” hot yes , but 
that is beside the point, paw muttered” do you know what land you have 
camped on belong to paw asked? Well sir we have no idea who be the 
owner of this land , we are just traveling is all and we're looking for 
a place to make it our home, and we mean no harm sir the man kindly 
tells” paw' the man can tell that paw is not happy with the lot of them 
, and he guess that the land was paws” because of the question paw 
directly asked” I own this point where you all are camping and I want 
you to take your wagon and move off my land , not later not tomorrow 
but right now paw demanded' sir we have done your land no harm, we did 
kill a rabbit or two for some food, but they are plenty game here he 
tells” paw' Why should you care if we don”t harm you in anyway he asked 
paw? Paw scratches his head removing his hat now Mr stranger I mean 
what I say so you all take up you camp and head off and out of my land 
or you'll be looking at the sheriff come tomorrow paw is a hard man and 
it seems to me that these stranger are just a mess of poor travelers 
trying to find a spot of land to settle on and live ,but paw don't see 
it that way, he looks at all men to be squatters, the young gal that 
looks to be about sixteen  my age"she  peeps out of the wagon front, 
her eyes are as blue as the summer sky and she is sort of dirty faced 
probably by the smoke of the camp fire they had build in front of the 
wagon. Paw reins his mule and turns his horse around to head in the 
same direction we had previous come from. He looks back and tell the 
man we will be back soon to see if you have left as we ride toward home 
I tell paw that these folks are just down on their luck and seem 
harmless to me. They want do anything to harm our land so why don't you 
allow them to stay a while till they can move along their way I asked 
him? Son squatters come and kill off game and cut trees down and tear 
down fences crossing men land , and I don't what our land spoiled by a 
bunch of know good squatters, paw tells me that I am too tender hearted 
toward things to make proper judgments on matters such as this' 

I couldn't help feeling sorry for the people we had on our land, the
young girl had sparked a interest to  me, she was pretty those blue 
bird eyes has charmed me somehow, and I am aimed to get paw to allow 
them to stay a spell on our land, that next day me and paw saddled our 
horses and rode again to the camp and found them still their , and paw 
is mad now and I am afraid of what he might do, he carried his old 
pistol along this time and that worried me some. 

The father of the crew meets paw again, and paw asked him why he was
still here and not gone ? And he tells paw that his wife is sick with a 
fever, and too sick to be moving about in a wagon, and paw demanded to 
see the sick woman, we get down off our horses and the man leads us to 
the wagon and we both look inside the covered wagon, and just as the 
man said we see a very fevered woman laying on a matt in the belly of 
the wagon, she is very sick her lips are parched looking, and she grunt 
in pain, paw is a hard man but felt sorry for the man wife, paw told 
the man that she need to see a doctor and he told the man to hooks his 
team of mules to the wagon and follow us to our place . The other two 
children were both boys the oldest seem to be about twelve and the 
other one looked to be about eight or so. 

The man follows our lead and we are soon at our place and paw tell the
man to carry his wife inside our house and that maw would show him what 
bed to lay her in, the man did as paw advised and the others stayed 
outside in front of the barn, the little squatter gal that was my age 
went to paw who was taking off the saddle of his horse and she looked 
at paw with those blue eyes and she thanked paw for allowing her mother 
to be tended to in her sickness, I could tell paw was taken by her 
humble thanks, and that was good because I wanted to get to know her, 
paw tells her that he regards her thanks and that she is welcome. It 
seems paw now understand that these people are not really squatters but 
just folks that probably have fallen on hard times to which they have 
come from, and I was glad that paw was showing them pity.  Paw and the 


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