The Warphans

By George M. Goodwin

When both their parents are killed by Union soldiers near Collierville Tennessee at the end of the civil war, fourteen year old Albert Mitchell takes himself and his eight year old sister Penny across the country all the way to Dallas Texas. There a young cowboy named Johnny Gladstone befriends them when he helps them out of a bad situation. Not knowing at the time it would also help him out of one and lead all of them to a wonderful new life together. 
             

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pale Horse Publications
• Release date: May 31, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227620866

George M. Goodwin

George was born in 1960 in Jefferson County Alabama. The fifth of nine children, eight boys and one girl. The family was raised poor, but not poorly raised. At home, George was taught morals, ethics and respect. Reading, writing and arithmetic at school. Love, honor and obedience to God at church. He grew up on John Wayne movies, country music and the writings of Louis L' Amour, Robert Louis Stevenson, H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.  

Book preview

1

A lbert, are you sure about this?

Yes Pen, I’m very sure.

Ma and Pa had been kilt by the Yankee’s and the cabin blowed all to pieces. We got nowhere to live and nobody to take care of us no more. Not unless you want to go live with ole Zachariah and Mrs. Burgess and slop hogs ever day for the rest of your life.

We gotta go.

Albert, what’s a warphan? Pen asked him.

A what Pen? Mrs. Burgess said, we was warphans. She said, we’re war orphans Pen and we are. But what does it mean? she asked.

It means that Ma and Pa was kilt by soldiers, he told her.

How will we eat Albert? she asked.

I’ll find a way Pen, I promise you. We have the mule to ride. Thank the Lord, them yanks didn’t find her where I had her hid down by the creek. I dug my way into the root cellar too, so we have food from there that’ll last us for some little while. I wish I had a rifle to hunt with, but they took it when Ma went out there to help Pa and they kilt her. Then when the cabin blowed up, Pa’s ole shotgun went with it.

Albert, how far is it to west? asked eight-year-old Penny Mitchell.

West ain’t a place Pen, it’s a direction, Albert told her.

They got towns and people there? she asked.

I reckon, he said.

But we’re just kids, she said.

I know, he said, but if we want to be grown-ups one day, we got to git out of Collierville and in a hurry.

2

Iheard Pa telling Ma just before the soldiers came that the south was done for. "We goin to camp by the creek tonight and light out first thing tomorrow.

Fourteen-year-old Albert Mitchell was just as scared as his sister, but he wouldn’t let her know it. If so, she wouldn’t listen to nothing he said. Right now, she trusted him. They had no kin now with Ma and Pa gone. It was up to him to get ‘em out of Tennessee and take care of his sister. He had four silver dollars he’d found in Pa’s hiding spot in the root cellar. Before they left town, he would try to buy a rifle. Collierville was five miles in the wrong direction for them, but he had to try. He tried to sleep too, but could hear cannons and rifle fire some ways off.

He was afraid he’d sleep too sound and somebody would come up on them. Just before daylight it got quiet, the battle was over. One side had won and the other lost. Something inside him told him which the south was.

They rode toward town slowly ever alert for anybody