staying one step ahead of the news
fiction
Edward w Pritchard
Some one from the village had to make the arduous journey up the snowy steep mountain sides to give old hermit Crenshaw the news of the world.
Usually it was one of the elder men but if it was too snowy or cold one of the teen age boys would be sent.
When I was about seventeen they sent me in a blizzard to tell the hermit that the German armies had over run France and the Nazis were in Paris.
Mr. Crenshaw asked me into the cabin and gave me some heated brandy as we talked about the causes of War among civilized nations and people. We also talked a long time while I warmed up about life in the village and how different people hermit Crenshaw knew had changed in the last few years.
Before I left I spent a couple of hours splitting wood for Mr. Crenshaw's fire and used his axe to crack and carry ice from his pond to be boiled for water during the next cold snap if the well froze up.
Years later when I had children of my own I enjoyed telling my daughters about hermit Crenshaw and they used to enjoy trying to figure out the motivations of a hermit who chose to live in inaccessible places when there was so much going on in the villages and towns of the world.
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