White Christmas, bloody Christmas by M. Bruce Jones, Trudy J Smith

look at it.
    As the minutes ticked by and the news spread, more and more people began arriving...
    Because it was only a fifteen minute walk into Germanton by the railroad tracks, Arthur and Sanders had only just arrived at the general store when Rufus burst in and told Arthur that something terrible had happened back at his house. Arthur was sick with fear. So many fights with his
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    father, so many threats. Surely, it couldn't be what he so dreaded it would be. After all, today was Christmas. Surely, it had been safe to leave today.
    Several people were already at the scene by the time Arthur and Sanders arrived. He frantically pushed his way through the onlookers and onto the front porch. He tried to open the door but it only came against his mother's shoes with an impersonal scrape. Arthur collapsed in tears with his hands on his mother's feet. The shock and the pain of it was more than he could bear. He had to be physically helped from the porch.
    The air seemed to grow even colder as the afternoon wore on, and a roaring bonfire was built in the front yard of the home. The crowd was unwilling to leave and they were cold, but most important was everyone's concern for Arthur. They brought a rocking chair from the house for him to sit in. They placed him in front of the warm fire and wrapped him in heavy quilts. He continued to shake. He sat there in front of the fire, rocking back and forth, shivering and sobbing quietly to himself. Everyone tried to comfort him, but Arthur simply could not be comforted.
    High Sheriff John Taylor from Danbury finally arrived and joined Dr. Helsabeck who was the official coroner for the area. The house was roped off and the crowd made to stand clear while the murder scene was investigated.
    The neighborhood men had brought their guns along with them and a quick decision was made to station some men around the immediate area of the house and barns as a safety measure. After all, the murderer had not been found and Charlie Lawson was still missing too.
    Two or three hours had now passed since the murders had been discovered. The bodies were still lying silent in the house. Where was Charlie Lawson? Little did they know that Charlie Lawson was still alive—still on the property. He was still walking his circle deep in the snowy pine thicket...
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    One of the men who was stationed around the farm was Wesley Linville. H e was positioned about thirty to fifty yards from the house at a corn crib near the main barn.
    He glanced nervously around him. Everything was very quiet. As the minutes ticked by, and nothing happened, he began to breathe a little easier.
    Suddenly, there was a movement in the top of the corn crib. Cobs of corn began to rumble noisily down through the crib. Stricken with the fear that the murderer had hidden himself in the corn crib, Linville lunged sideways pleading, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"
    The last ear of corn tumbled to the bottom of the crib, and again, everything was silent. It had only been a normal shifting in the corn, causing a small avalanche of cobs to spill down through the crib.
    His heart racing, Mr. Linville cautiously crept back toward the corn crib. There had been no one rising up from beneath the cobs of corn, but he continued to keep a careful watch in all directions.
    Later, Mr. Linville would retell the incident many times saying that, "it nearly scared the life out of him." He insisted that he must have jumped a full six feet sideways! Much later, he would see a great deal of humor in his actions. That day, however, there was nothing funny about it at all.
    BackattheLawson house, the sheriff and other authorities were still going over the murder scene. The bodies of Carrie and Mae Bell were brought to the house and laid inside with the other victims. To spare him the sight of the bodies being moved, Arthur was taken to another home in the area.
    The Lawson's large, black male cat made his way gingerly through the deep snow toward one of the