The Project Gutenberg EBook of Forest Glen, by Elijah Kellogg
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Title: Forest Glen
or The Mohawk's Friendship
Author: Elijah Kellogg
Release Date: September 9, 2020 [EBook #63160]
Language: English
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* * * * *
BOOKS BY SAME AUTHOR.
ELM ISLAND STORIES.
Per Vol., $1.25.
_LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND._
_CHARLIE BELL, THE WAIF OF ELM ISLAND._
_THE ARK OF ELM ISLAND._
_THE BOY-FARMERS OF ELM ISLAND._
_THE YOUNG SHIP-BUILDERS OF ELM ISLAND._
_THE HARD-SCRABBLE OF ELM ISLAND._
PLEASANT COVE SERIES.
Per Vol., $1.25.
_ARTHUR BROWN, THE YOUNG CAPTAIN._
_THE YOUNG DELIVERERS OF PLEASANT COVE._
_THE CRUISE OF THE CASCO._
_THE CHILD OF THE ISLAND GLEN._
_JOHN GODSOE'S LEGACY._
_THE FISHER BOYS OF PLEASANT COVE._
THE WHISPERING PINE SERIES.
Per Vol., $1.25.
_THE SPARK OF GENIUS._
_THE SOPHOMORES OF RADCLIFFE._
_THE WHISPERING PINE._
_THE TURNING OF THE TIDE._
_WINNING HIS SPURS._
_A STOUT HEART._
All Handsomely Illustrated.
LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE BEAR FIGHT.--Page 238.]
* * * * *
THE
FOREST GLEN SERIES
BY
REV. ELIJAH KELLOGG.
FOREST GLEN.
_LEE & SHEPARD, BOSTON._
* * * * *
THE FOREST GLEN SERIES.
FOREST GLEN;
OR,
THE MOHAWK'S FRIENDSHIP.
BY
ELIJAH KELLOGG,
AUTHOR OF "ELM ISLAND STORIES," "PLEASANT COVE STORIES,"
"THE WHISPERING PINE SERIES," ETC.
Illustrated.
BOSTON:
LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS.
NEW YORK
CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM
COPYRIGHT,
1877,
BY ELIJAH KELLOGG.
PREFACE.
The story here presented not only grasps those terrible vicissitudes in
which the frontier life of our forefathers was so prolific, but at the
same time conveys many useful lessons and incentives to manly effort,
and much curious information in relation to a period in the history of
Pennsylvania, when her soil was occupied by a population comprising
many different races and religious sects, having little in common, and
held together by the fearful pressure of an Indian war.
Here we behold the strange spectacle of the Quaker tilling his land,
and pursuing his ordinary duties, while his more belligerent neighbor
sleeps with the rifle within reach of his hand, sits in the house
of God with the weapon between his knees, goes armed in the funeral
procession, which is often attacked, the mourners killed, scalped, and
flung into the grave of the corpse they were about to inter.
The noble response of the Delawares to the appeal of the Quakers
evinces that the red man is no less sensitive to kindness, than
implacable in revenge; capable of appreciating and manifesting the most
tender and generous sentiments.
Our breasts throb with sympathetic emotions, as, after having noted
with interest the progress of the strife, we see this determined band
emerge in triumph, with thinned ranks but courage undiminished, from
the terrible ordeal.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 11
CHAPTER II.
THUNDER FROM AFAR 22
CHAPTER III.
FOREWARNED 30
CHAPTER IV.
PREPARING FOR THE WORST 43
CHAPTER V.
THE STORM BURSTS 56
CHAPTER VI.
GATHERING COURAGE FROM DESPAIR 73
CHAPTER VII.
A CONTRAST 83
CHAPTER VIII.
TREADING OUT THE GRAIN 91
CHAPTER IX.
A LITTLE SUNSHINE 102
CHAPTER X.
LIBERTY IS SWEET 115
CHAPTER XI.
THE RAFT 129
CHAPTER XII.
A DAY OF UNALLOYED PLEASURE 143
CHAPTER XIII.
CANNOT GIVE IT UP 156
CHAPTER XIV.
THE BEAN-POT 167
CHAPTER XV.
THE SURPRISE 177
CHAPTER XVI.
THE DAWN OF A LIFE-PURPOSE 193
CHAPTER XVII.
SELF-RELIANCE 209
CHAPTER XVIII.
FRUITS OF PATIENCE AND PERSEVERANCE 226
CHAPTER XIX.
TRIUMPH OF THOUGHT AND INGENUITY 246
CHAPTER XX.
UNCLE SETH'S SURPRISE 264
CHAPTER XXI.
NED RANGELY 273
CHAPTER XXII.
CARRYING THE WAR INTO AFRICA 294
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE QUAKER'S APPEAL TO THE DELAWARES 309
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE RETURN OF THE CAPTIVE 323
FOREST GLEN;
OR,
THE MOHAWK'S FRIENDSHIP.
CHAPTER I.
THE BREWING OF THE STORM.
Our story opens at that period of the year when summer is fast verging
to autumn.
As the wind that had blown fresh during the night diminished, about
eleven o'clock in the forenoon, to a gentle breeze, the heat in
the valley of Wolf Run, hemmed in by mountains, became excessive.
Corn-blades rolled up, pitch oozed from the logs of which the houses
were built, all broad-leaved plants wilted, and the high temperature
was adapted to produce an unusual sluggishness.
Stewart, who held the day-watch at the fort, seated on the platform
over the gate, was sound asleep. Half a dozen sheep lay in the shade
of the walls, panting, with mouths wide open. Not a person was to be
seen in the vicinity of the houses or in the fields. Not a rooster had
sufficient courage to crow, or even a dog to bark. The windmill inside
the stockade made one or two revolutions; but, as the wind died away,
gave up with a groan, and remained motionless.
The profound silence was rudely broken by the successive discharge
of fire-arms. The sentinel awoke, and grasped his rifle; but, after
listening a few moments, settled back in his corner, and was soon once
more asleep. Two of the sheep rose up, but in a few moments lay down
again.
The firing continued at intervals for more than an hour, no notice
being taken of it by the sentry, who, in the mean time, finished his
nap.
If our readers will go with us in the direction of the river, we will
endeavor to find out what it is all about, and shall perceive that the
settlers were improving the leisure interval between hay and grain
harvest, in making preparations for future exigencies.
On a level plat of ground, not far from the bank of the river, were
assembled a band of lads from twelve to fifteen years of age, engaged
in firing at a mark, while several of the settlers were seated on the
grass, looking at them.
The fearful peril of their position, together with their inferiority
in numbers, had compelled the parents to train their children to arms,
even at that tender age; and, though unable to hold out a gun steadily,
they were no mean marksmen when shooting from a rest.
These little folks had organized themselves into a company, with the
ferocious title of "The Screeching Catamounts," in rivalry of the older
boys, who styled themselves "The Young Defenders."
They had hewn the bark and sap-wood from a lone pine, and a black spot
in the centre of the white wood served as a target. Eighty-five yards
was the distance for a smooth gun, while for rifles, with which some
of the boys were armed, it was a hundred. A rest was made by driving
two stakes into the ground, and putting a withe across for them to fire
over. Sam Sumerford, Archie Crawford, and Tony Stewart hit the black
circle, though neither of them in the centre, but not varying half
an inch; several touched the edge of it; and no one missed the tree,
although one or two put their balls in the bark, outside the white
spot, or "blaze" as it was called in frontier phrase.
They next engaged in throwing the tomahawk; after which, forming ranks,
the band marched to the fort, and deposited their arms.
It is needful briefly to inform those who have not read the previous
volumes, of the circumstances of the settlers to whom they are rather
abruptly introduced, and the probable nature of those exigencies in
view of which they had long been making preparations.
When the Indian war broke out, the Provincial government gave up the
original frontier, from which nearly all the settlers who survived the
Indian attack had already fled, and established a line of forts nearer
the old settlements, behind which it was supposed the savages would
not penetrate, and where the fugitives might cultivate the land in
comparative safety.
This system of defence had, upon trial, proved utterly inadequate. The
greater part of the money raised for that purpose was expended at the
very outset in building, arming, and provisioning the forts; and even
then they were but scantily provided, either with arms or ammunition.
A commissioner reported that in one of them he found but four pounds
of powder. Flints were often wanting; many of the guns were unfit for
use, the locks in some instances being fastened on with strings. So
great was the poverty of the Province, that a man who brought his own
gun and blanket was allowed a dollar per month for their use above
his pay. In addition to this, the forts were eight, ten, sixteen, and
even twenty miles apart. The great cause of all the destruction of
life and property that took place arose from the want of any military
organization.
The original population of Pennsylvania were entirely opposite in all
their views and practices to the settlers of Virginia, Maryland, and
the New-England States, who came armed and prepared for self-defence
or conquest. But the government of Pennsylvania was based upon the
principle of non-resistance. The Quakers came unarmed; and, as they
made no resistance, so they gave no offence. They did as they would be
done by, while the savages on their part did as they were done by; and
thus matters went on smoothly for nearly seventy years.
In process of time, other races came in, and people with other views.
The Scotch and Irish settlers, and those from Maryland, Virginia, and
the New-England States, who were by no means careful of giving offence,
looked upon the natives as vermin to be extirpated like the wolves and
bears, to make room for others. Though in a minority, they inflicted
injuries upon the Indians, and stirred them up to revenge.
But the bulk of the population were Quakers, Germans, Swedes, and
English. The Germans only desired to till the ground, with no wish to
fight, unless compelled to in self-defence. The English and Swedes were
much of the same mind. Thus while the Indians, through a series of
years, had been irritated, there was in the Province no militia-law:
the inhabitants were incapable of acting in concert; and, when the
storm long brewing burst, were, as a whole, defenceless, unarmed, and
divided in sentiment, and ran at the attack of the Indians like sheep
before wolves.
It was from such a population that the majority of the men to man the
forts and protect the country must be drawn, the hunters, trappers,
and Scotch-Irish preferring to defend their own families, or to go on
scalping-expeditions, which were vastly more profitable than serving
for the small pay given the soldiers, and there was no law to _compel_
service.
When the forts were built, it was supposed that the garrisons in them,
by patrolling from one to another, would keep back the savages. It was
also made the duty of the commanders in the several forts to detail a
certain portion of their men to protect the farmers while planting and
gathering their harvest, as well as promptly furnish a refuge to which
the inhabitants might flee in case of an invasion.
We shall now see how comparatively useless this method of defence
was, because there was no militia-law, and in the population none of
the spirit which such a law creates. Forts are of little use without
suitable soldiers to defend them. A few facts would set this matter in
a striking light, and afford our readers a clear view of the situation.
The commissioner appointed to examine the condition of the forts
reported: At Fort Lebanon he called out the men, and put up a mark
for them to fire at eighty yards distant, and but fifteen out of
twenty-eight could hit within two feet of the bull's eye. At Fort
Allemingle, he put the mark on a tree eighty-five yards distant; and
only four out of twenty-five hit the tree, and not one the bull's eye.
So much for the marksmanship of these fort soldiers: now for their
courage.
It is on record that Hugh Micheltree was attacked by Indians within
speaking distance of Patterson's fort; and though he begged the men in
the fort to rescue him, telling them there were but six Indians, they
had not the courage to leave the fort, but permitted the savages to
take him off before their eyes.
Forts were often built at gaps of mountain-chains for the purpose of
commanding these passes. Those might have been formidable obstacles
to regular troops encumbered with baggage and artillery, but not in
respect to savages. Every place is a pass to an Indian with a little
parched corn in his pouch, and armed with rifle and tomahawk: he sets
forth, and neither swamps, mountains, nor rivers bar his progress when
on the war-path. He can eat ground-nuts, mice, frogs, wood-worms,
or snakes: nothing comes amiss; or, if afraid of discovering his
whereabouts by discharging his rifle, he can kill game with the bow.
Noiselessly as the gliding snake they passed between the forts, easily
eluding the scouts posted on so long and thin a line, and were often
butchering the inhabitants in one direction while the scouts were
looking for them in another.
The history of that period records that in several instances while a
band of soldiers from the forts were guarding farmers gathering their
harvest, the Indians have crept up, shot the soldiers, and afterwards
butchered the farmers thus left defenceless.
The Indians, whom nothing escaped, often improved the opportunity, when
the number of a garrison was reduced by details, to attack the forts.
Ascertaining that there was but a small supply of ammunition in Fort
Granville, they attacked and took it, when twenty-three men, three
women, and several children fell into their hands. After promising to
spare the lives of the garrison if they would surrender, they fastened
to a post the very man who opened the gate for them, and thrust red-hot
gun-barrels through his body.
A very different sort of people from those just described, were the
settlers of the Forest Glen; rough-handed, high-spirited men of the
frontier, who could plant the second bullet in the same hole with the
first, and drive it home. Disdaining the aid of soldiers whom they held
in utter contempt, they had thus far, though suffering fearful losses,
held their own, inflicting more injuries than they received, and had
been busily employed for a few weeks in putting themselves in a posture
of defence preparatory to gathering the harvest.
Rifles had been put in order, tomahawks ground, the roofs of the
buildings fresh plastered with clay mortar as a protection against the
fire-arrows of the Indians, and gun-flints manufactured from Indian
arrow-heads by Holdness to eke out their scanty supply, and the woods
and ravines carefully examined every day to detect signs of lurking
savages. Though the settlers were living in their own houses, for the
greater convenience of harvesting, the cattle were driven at night to
the garrison.
Notwithstanding their preparations for a stout defence, the settlers
could not avoid anxiety, in view of the fact that the savages had
during the last few months changed their method of attack. Finding that
the log houses of the whites, when resolutely defended, bade defiance
to the efforts of their scalping-parties, consisting usually of but
twelve or fifteen, they had latterly come in bodies of seventy and even
a hundred, often led by French officers, with French soldiers in their
ranks, and bringing field-pieces.
There were, however, no signs of perturbation, and whatever anxiety
they felt was manifested only in increased watchfulness; and many
of them, having completed their preparations for defence, occupied
themselves in clearing land for future crops, a portion keeping watch
while the rest labored.
Others devoted the time to rest, perhaps considering it very doubtful
if the isolated settlement survived the attacks that were to be
expected during harvest.
We trust that what has been said will render the story that follows
intelligible to those not familiar with the other volumes of this
series, or the history of the period.
CHAPTER II.
THUNDER FROM AFAR.
Perhaps many of our readers would like to know how Mr. Seth Blanchard
(who was the only man in the Glen not possessed of fighting qualities)
was busying himself all this time.
They doubtless recollect that when, after a desperate effort, the
mill was nearly completed, the settlers placed the upper stone on the
spindle by fastening a hide rope to wooden pins in the edge of the
stone, and then putting a long lever into the bight of the rope.
In a regularly constructed mill, this is done by means of an iron
bale or crane, and an iron screw working in the crane, or by a tackle
attached to the crane. The stone, being lifted from the spindle in this
manner, can be easily swung off by moving the crane, and turned over
in the bale in order to pick the under side. They had used up every
particle of iron in building the mill, and been reduced to the greatest
straits for want of that necessary article.
When, after much labor and contrivance, the stone was safely landed on
the spindle, Mr. Seth said,--
"By the time this stone needs picking, I'll make a bale to take it off
and put it on without an ounce of iron."
Honeywood, who was a blacksmith, laughed at him, and said it was
impossible; to which Mr. Seth replied,--
"A man who has always worked in iron has very little idea of what can
be done with wood."
He was now leisurely at work, redeeming that pledge. Having procured
from the woods a rock-maple tree of suitable shape, he made a crane of
proper size and shape to swing over the stone, hewing the timber to a
proud edge, and working it smooth with adze and plane. In that portion
of the arm that when the crane was set up would come directly over the
centre of the stone, he made a five-inch hole, perfectly smooth and
plumb, and cut a screw-thread on the inside of it with a rude machine
of his own invention.
His next labor was to make a screw to work in this arm; and he made it
from a piece of timber that he had blocked out when the mill was built,
and put away to season.
While thus engaged, Mr. Seth had the company and heartfelt sympathy
of all the children of any size in the Run, and most of their elders,
as there were but very few in the settlement who had ever seen a
screw-thread cut, or even a wooden screw.
When the crane was put in its place, the screw entered in the arm, and
Mr. Seth turned it up and back again, that the spectators might see the
working of it, those who had said, and at the time firmly believed,
that it was impossible for him or any one to make a wooden bale that
would take off a mill-stone, began to change their opinions.
Tony Stewart probably expressed the general sentiment when he
exclaimed, "Zukkers! a man what can do that can do any thing! Can't he,
Sammy?"
With his usual consideration for the wishes of children, Uncle Seth
fastened a two-bushel basket to the screw, and, packing it full of
children, turned up the screw. The mill floor was quite large; and the
children had plenty of fun riding in the basket, and pushing the crane
round by turns.
After waiting till the children had screwed up and swung each other
round on the crane a while, Mr. Seth left the place, telling them they
need not come to the mill any more, as he should not begin on the bale
at present.
The next morning Mr. Seth and his brother Israel ground their axes, and
started for the woods to fell trees for a burn, expecting to find other
neighbors there, and a guard. They had gone but a little way, when Mr.
Seth said,--
"Israel, I sha'n't be able to go, at least this forenoon. See yonder
wind-clouds: there's quite a breeze now; and I've several grists in the
mill that the neighbors want ground. I must go to the mill."
It was soon known in the neighborhood that the mill was going; and
persons were seen approaching it from different directions, some
because they had business there, and some to talk over matters of
common interest with others whom they expected to find there.
Most of them were the older members of the community; the young men
being on the scout that day, or guarding those chopping.
"Neighbors," said McClure, seating himself upon a bag of meal, with his
rifle across his knees, "have you heard the news?"
"Where should we get news, who are a hundred miles from anywhere, and
cut off from all the rest of mankind?" said Proctor.
"I spoke to Honeywood as I came along. He was out on the scout
yesterday: he told me he met Dick Ellison and sixteen men. Dick has
been one of the Black Rifle's men. Dick told him the Indians had
murdered twenty-eight people at Shamakin; that they took their trail,
but couldn't overtake 'em, they had so much start."
"Then they must have been in strong force. I wonder how many Indians
'twould take to kill twenty-eight men like us?"
"'Twould take five hundred, if we had a fort overhead, Proctor; but you
can't judge of their numbers by the people killed: most like, there
wasn't more'n ten or twelve Indians, and the people they killed were
German farmers with some old gun,--the lock too weak to throw the pan
open,--or only a pitchfork to defend themselves with, and skeered ter
death at that, or else they were fort soldiers, that ain't better'n our
children would be, nor half so good, only let 'em have a rest to fire
from."
"What else did Dick say?"
"He said the governor had offered a bounty for sculps. For every Indian
man, or boy over ten years old, one hundred fifty dollars; for every
squaw, or girl over ten, one hundred thirty dollars; for the sculp of
every Indian man, or boy over ten, one hundred thirty dollars; and
for every squaw's or girl's sculp, fifty dollars. Dick reckoned there
wouldn't be many prisoners taken on that lay."
"Of course there wouldn't. What a fool a ranger would be to take an
Indian prisoner, have to feed him and watch night and day, run the risk
of his getting away, or of being killed by him in the night, and have
to carry him perhaps a hundred miles to a government fort to get one
hundred fifty dollars, or one hundred thirty if 'twas a woman, when he
could get one hundred thirty or fifty for their sculp that are nothing
to carry, and could hang fifty on 'em to your belt, and no trouble
'cept to knock 'em on the head, and take the sculp off!"
"Honeywood," continued McClure, "thinks, after hearing this news, we
ought not to wait to get the harvest, but go into the garrison right
off. He says, and it's a fact, that McDonald and his family were all
murdered last year, just by staying out one day too long."
"Did he say where the Black Rifle was?" asked Armstrong.
"At his cave in the mountain: he's going ter stop there quite a while."
"Then we sha'n't be troubled with Indians as long as he's round."
"Don't be too sure of that: they've found out that it don't pay to come
as they used to, in small numbers; and now it's said there are from
seventy to a hundred and fifty Indians under one of their chiefs."
"There were five hundred French and Indians at the taking of Fort
Granville. Such a crowd as that wouldn't pay much attention to the
Black Rifle," said Wood.
"We've given them cause enough to dread and hate, and want to wipe
us out. They've driven all the other settlers out of the valley, or
butchered 'em. They know very well that we are planted out here beyond
all help, or hope of it; and I believe our turn'll come to take it
worse than ever before during this harvest time," said Mr. Seth.
"The women," said Proctor, "hate mortally to go into garrison. It
is hot in the block-houses, they have no place to keep their milk,
the children torment them to death, and they're afraid of the
garrison-fever at this time of year. I think, however, 'tis better to
go into the fort than to be listening for the war-whoop, or looking to
see if the fire's not flashing out 'twixt the rafters, all the time you
are harvesting."
"Well, neighbors," said McClure, "all here are agreed about it, and I
have spoken to the others: they think as we do, and we kalkerlate to go
inter the fort day after to-morrow at the outside; and I'm going ter
leave my grist in the mill, then 'twill be here."
Mr. Seth had finished grinding; and they all left the mill to prepare
for the worst, except Proctor, whose turn it was to keep guard that
night. One man was kept on guard at the mill, even when the settlers
were in their own dwellings, to open the gate, and fire the alarm-gun
in case of need.
CHAPTER III.
FOREWARNED.
When the settlers left the fort in the spring, Honeywood moved into the
house of his father-in-law, Israel Blanchard, his own dwelling being
at a greater distance from the fort than any other at the Run. He,
however, became tired of going so far every day to his work, and chose
to go back to his own home when he had recovered from a wound received
in a skirmish with the Indians in hoeing-time. His family consisted of
himself, wife, and two children; the eldest boy about six, the other a
little child.
Cal Holdness had come over to take supper with them; and, having
despatched the meal, they were variously occupied.
The mother was undressing Eddie, and the youngest child was asleep in
the cradle. Cal's rifle was out of order; and he had brought it with
him, that Harvey might repair it. He laid the weapon across his knees,
and proceeded to take off the lock, Cal holding a lighted sliver of
pitch-wood to give him light. It was a sultry night, and the house,
built of hewn timber, excessively warm. The doors and bullet-proof
shutters being closed, there was no ventilation except by means of the
chimney, and the loop-holes which were only large enough to admit the
barrel of a rifle. Honeywood, noticing the drops of perspiration on the
face of his wife, said,--
"Sarah, I've a good mind to open the door: see how that child in the
cradle sweats, and you are well-nigh roasted. If I open the door 'twill
make a good draught up the chimney, and cool the house off for the
night."
"Don't, husband, I beg of you: it's just the time of year when Indians
are most likely to come; we've just heard that they've been killing
people at Shamakin. It's not long since they took Fort Granville, and
killed all the garrison but one; and this very day you've been telling
the neighbors that we ought to go into the fort, and not wait to reap
the grain first; and now you want to open the door, and there may be a
dozen Indians around it. Have you forgotten that this very last spring
Mr. Maccoy's family were sitting one evening with the door open, and an
Indian was creeping up to it, when the Black Rifle shot him, or they
would all have been murdered? I know it's warm, but I had rather bear
the heat than have you open the door."
"I don't think there's any danger: there's two of us here."
"My rifle can't be depended upon," said Cal.
"But there's two more loaded in the brackets, and two smooth-bores; and
we're not obliged to sit near the doors."
"Oh, don't, husband! an Indian always seems to me just like the Evil
One: you can't hear or see him till he is upon you. They may be lurking
round the house this moment." She had scarcely finished when there was
a loud rap on the door.
Cal, placing the pine sliver in a stone made to hold it on the hearth,
took a rifle from the wall. Honeywood said, "Who is there?"
"Wasaweela," was the reply in the unmistakable tone and accent of a
savage.
"We shall be murdered," cried Mrs. Honeywood, catching the sleeping
child from the cradle. "O Edward! fire right through the door, and
kill him."
"I shall do no such thing: he's an old friend of mine;" and he
instantly began to unbar the door. His wife ran into the bedroom with
the child in her arms, little Eddie following in his nightgown, holding
fast to his mother's clothes, and screaming lustily in concert with his
brother. Cal Holdness, on the other hand, a true frontier boy cradled
amid alarms, restored to the bracket the rifle he had held ready to
fire.
As the door opened, an Indian stepped in, so very tall (though he
stooped considerably as he entered) that the single feather on his
scalp-lock brushed the lintel. He was not painted for war; naked except
a breech-cloth, and his only arms were the knife and tomahawk in his
belt. His moccasons and leggings were torn, and his whole body reeking
with perspiration, as though he had undergone great and prolonged
exertion. He, in the language of the Mohawks, greeted Honeywood, who
replied in the same tongue.
After drinking some water, he took the seat offered him, and remained
silent some time, either to collect his thoughts, as is customary with
Indians, who are never in haste to speak, or perhaps to regain his
breath; while Honeywood, familiar with the customs of the savages,
waited till he should see fit to speak.
Mrs. Honeywood was a woman of fortitude, reared on the frontier; but
the news of recent murders by the Indians, the knowledge that her
husband, a most resolute man, had warned his neighbors that no time
should be lost in getting into garrison, coupled with the sudden
appearance of the Indian, all conspired to excite her fears till they
were beyond control. She had also been brought up with such prejudices,
that it was almost impossible for her to believe that any confidence
could be safely reposed in a savage. But observing that the Indian
was not in his war-paint, but partially armed, that he manifested no
concern when her husband barred the door, thus placing himself entirely
at the mercy of him and Cal, also recollecting that she had seen him
at her father's, and how faithfully he at that time performed an
engagement, her fears subsided, and she began to soothe the terrified
children.
Meanwhile every feature of Cal's countenance manifested the intense
desire he felt to know the meaning of this singular and abrupt visit,
for it was evident enough that his was no idle errand; neither could he
sufficiently admire the noble proportions of a form in which strength
and agility were so happily blended.
At length rising to his feet, he said, "Brother, listen. We have eaten
of each other's bread, drank of the same cup, and spread our blankets
at the same fire. Though the Great Spirit has made us of a different
color, we are one in heart."
Extending his hand as he uttered these words, it was grasped by
Honeywood. He then proceeded, "Brother, open your ears. Your king and
the French king have dug up the hatchet. The Delawares, Shawanees,
Monseys, and some other Indians, have joined the French. They have
struck the English very hard, and killed their great chief who came
over the water. The Delawares and Shawanees have taken the scalps of
a great many of your people, and driven them from the land that the
Delawares say belongs to them, and that your people took and never paid
for. Is it not so?"
Honeywood made a gesture of assent.
"The Six Nations do not like the French. We have struck them very hard
in days that are past; but we do not wish to interfere in the quarrel
between the thirteen fires and the Delawares, though the Delawares are
our nephews.
"We cannot always keep our young men in subjection: therefore some of
them may have gone with the Delawares and the French. This we cannot
help: we did not send them; if you take their scalps, it is no cause
for quarrel between us.
"Brother, open your ears. The Delawares and Shawanees have struck your
people, and you have done the same to them, and struck the Delawares
much harder than they have struck you; you are great warriors. The Six
Nations do not think it right or just that the pale-faces should take
the land of the Delawares without paying them for it: therefore they
look on, and let them strike you. You are my brother; I know you to be
a just and brave man, though you live among very bad people: therefore
I've run a great ways and very fast to tell you that the Delawares
are coming to take your scalp and the scalps of all your people, that
their young men whose scalps your people have taken may rest in their
graves."
"I thank you, brother. When will the Delawares come?"
"At break of day, after the sun comes and goes."
"How many of them?"
The Mohawk took from his pouch seven kernels of parched corn, placed
them in a row on the table, and spread out his fingers over them,
saying,--
"So many Delawares."
Then, taking away all but two of the kernels, he again spread his
fingers, saying, "So many Shawanees," and then signified that there
would be the same number of Monseys. Honeywood then inquired if there
would be any French officers or soldiers with them, to which the Mohawk
replied that there would not.
"It is well, brother: we will be ready."
While all were attentively listening, the little child had left the
mother's side (who was too much occupied with the fearful tidings to
heed his motions), and, venturing farther and farther, at length crept
to the feet of the Indian, and began playing with his leggings, which
were of a bright red color.
The little creature, gradually becoming more bold, at length stood up
on his feet by holding the lacings of the leggings, and looked proudly
around, crowing and laughing, no doubt thinking himself the central
figure of the group, and the object of universal attention.
"One hundred and ten raging Indians! Our time has come: we shall all be
murdered!" exclaimed the mother.
Honeywood set food before the Mohawk, then took off his moccasons,
which were worn, and his leggings, and gave him some water for his
feet. The Indian signified his wish to sleep till within an hour of
daybreak. Honeywood spread blankets on the floor, promising to watch,
and rouse him at the proper time. Wasaweela, wrapping himself in a
blanket, was asleep in a moment. The others retired to the bedroom,
where they conversed in low tones.
"Sarah, you've heard your father say many times, and you, Cal, have
also heard your father say, if an Indian war should break out, that
this Mohawk who then hunted with me, and was apparently so friendly,
would be the very first to take my scalp and those of my family. Now
you see what he has done,--travelled through woods and swamps, forded
or swum rivers, much of the time on the run night and day, to save the
life of one (and the lives of his family) who had merely treated him
kindly."
"Isn't he a noble-looking man?" said Cal. "Isn't he handsome,
beautiful? What an arm and leg he's got! and his breast, and so
tall--just as straight as a pine-tree. Didn't you see him smile when
the baby stood up and held on to his leggings? and what a pleasant
smile it was too! Oh, I wish I was such a man!"
Cal's conception of beauty lay in thews and sinews.
"But, husband, what will become of us? A hundred Indians, only think of
it!--seventy Delawares, twenty Shawanees, and twenty Monseys; and the
Delawares are the most bloodthirsty of all. It seems to me that you or
Cal ought to go this moment, and rouse the neighbors, and get into the
fort before morning: you might both go, but I couldn't be left alone
with this Indian."
"Not after he made such efforts to save you and the children's lives?"
"No: I suppose I ought not to feel so, but I cannot help it."
"There's no cause, wife, for alarm, nor for haste. There are no
Frenchmen coming, and of course there is no artillery. The fort is
well prepared for a much longer siege than is to be apprehended from
Indians. It is well provided with water, provisions, and ammunition;
and we are all at home, and every man fit for duty, not a disabled man
amongst us. There's time enough to move after daylight."
"Most of our provisions are in the fort now," said Cal; "never have
been taken away. Every family can move in three hours."
"If," continued Honeywood, "they could have come upon us by surprise,
and caught each family in their own home, our case would have been a
desperate one; but, forewarned and prepared, it is entirely another
matter. Now, wife, you and Cal had better try to get some rest, for
to-morrow will be a busy, trying day."
"I can lie down; but as for sleeping, it's no use to think of it."
"Well, lie down, then: 'twill rest you."
"I'll divide the watch with you, Mr. Honeywood," said Cal; "and when I
think by the moon it's twelve o'clock, I'll call you."
Honeywood went to bed, and slept as soundly as though no danger
threatened him or his. Such is the result of strong nerves, and
familiarity with peril. His wife, on the other hand, lay sleepless; or,
if for a few moments she dozed, would awake with a start, imagining she
heard the sound of the war-whoop.
At midnight Cal woke Honeywood, but, instead of going to bed, lay down
on the floor, as he wished to be at hand when the Mohawk left, and to
witness the parting.
He was unwilling to lose any opportunity of contemplating a being who
by his splendid physical proportions, and the noble qualities of his
heart, had quite won the affections of the enthusiastic youth.
Honeywood woke the Mohawk, and placed food before him, of which the
latter partook heartily; he also presented him with a new pair of
moccasons and leggings, to replace his that were so much torn, also
a pipe filled and lighted. After smoking, apparently with great
satisfaction, he rose, drew his belt round him, and, extending his hand
to Honeywood, said,--
"Brother, be strong: the Delawares are many, but they are cowards; we
have put the hoe in their hands, and made women of them. If they master
your scalp, your people will revenge your death. Farewell." With the
noiseless step of a savage he left the house, and disappeared in the
shades of the forest.
CHAPTER IV.
PREPARING FOR THE WORST.
It was fortunate for these settlers, that, in view of contingencies,
they had made thorough preparations for defence.
By noon of that day their household effects had been removed to the
fort, troughs filled with water to extinguish fire, and the cannon in
the flankers loaded.
"Neighbors," said Honeywood, "there are too many of them for us to meet
in the field. If we wait in the fort for them to attack us, they'll
first burn our houses and barns, kill the cattle, tread down or pull up
the corn: that is too green to burn, but the grain is not. And we shall
have to look on and see it done. Rather than do that, I counsel we
ambush their advance: it is possible we may rout them altogether; and,
if not, we can fall back to the fort."
"I," said McClure, "like Honeywood's plan, and I don't like it: there's
much to be said on both sides. I know very well that if we don't make
any fight except behind the walls of the fort, they'll destroy every
thing outside of it; but suppose they do: we're not going to quite
starve. It's no great to build up the log houses again. A good part of
our hay is inside the stockade, and we could get the cattle through the
winter on browse; we've considerable of last year's corn, grain, and
pork, in the garrison; we can drive the hogs and cattle inside; and,
though it would be a dreadful calamity to lose our corn and grain, we
could keep life in us by hunting.
"Now as consarns ambushing, we of course should take but part of our
force, and leave the rest in the fort; and that part would be so small,
that if there's as many Indians as the Mohawk said, they would be
surrounded and killed without making much impression on the Indians;
and that would leave a very weak garrison to hold so large a fort."
"Indians," said Armstrong, "always march in Indian file, except they're
going to attack, or apprehend danger, when they come two abreast.
They'll be likely to come now in Indian file till they cross the
river, 'cause they expect to surprise us. In that case there wouldn't
be rifles enough to kill many, 'cause you can't take aim right in the
night, and firing at men in a long line is not like firing into a
crowd, when if you miss one you'll hit another. They would know by our
fire that our number was small, and would take trees till daylight, and
then surround us."
"What do you say, Brad?" inquired McClure, appealing to Holdness.
"I'm in favor of the ambush. You see, they're coming down here with a
force large enough to divide, and then attack every house at once. The
Mohawk says there are seventy Delawares. These Delawares were driven
off from here: they know every inch of the ground, every house and
every man, and can guide the rest. It would be a great backer ter 'em
when they expected ter find us all in our houses unprepared, and ter
wipe us out as easy as a man would snuff a candle, and pay off old
scores, ter be ambushed themselves, and met with a rattling volley; and
they might break, and give it up."
"But, neighbors, that's all _perhaps_: there's another thing that
ain't. One hundred nor five hundred Indians can't drive us out of this
fort; and in it our families are safe if we are there to defend it.
If we were all single men, I'd say, Ambush 'em; let's have a right
up-and-down fight, and try their mettle: and I'm for it now, if we can
reduce the risk for the women and children in any way."
"The greatest difficulty 'bout an ambush," said Blanchard, "is, we
don't know which way they'll come. The Mohawk told Honeywood they would
start from their town Kittanning; but whether they'll take either of
the war-paths, or come through the woods where there is no path, we
can't tell."
"Whichever way they come in the daytime," said Armstrong, "when at
night they come near to us, they'll take the path that leads direct to
the ford. There's so many of 'em, they'll be bold: they won't hesitate
to take the water at the regular fording-place, because they know the
country is all their own, and that they've killed or driven off all but
us."
"Why not lay an ambush there, where we cannot be flanked, because we
shall have the stream at our backs, nor be so far away but what we can
fall back and reach the fort?"
"We must of course fall back if the Indians don't," said Grant; "and
then we shall be exposed to their fire while we are crossing the river,
when they'll be under cover, and probably but very few of us would get
across. I should like to have one slap at 'em. They'll take very good
care to keep out of rifle-shot of the fort; and all we can do will be
to stand on the platforms and grind our teeth, while they are burning
our houses and destroying our crops."
"I see there's but one feeling among us," said Honeywood: "that is, to
preserve our crops if it can be done without risking the lives of our
household. Suppose we do this: Let one party lay in ambush at the ford
among the bushes and drift timber on the edge of the bank on the side
next the fort, and another party lay in ambush on the opposite bank in
the woods; then both parties hold their fire till a good many Indians
are in the water crossing, and then open fire on them. It will be a
great deal lighter on the river than in the woods, as there will be
part of a moon; and, looking out of the darkness into the light, we can
see them better than they can see us. So heavy a fire as both parties
can throw will stagger them; and in surprise they will fall back, as
Indians always do when they lose men. Then the party on the western
side can recross, join the others, and we can hold the ford, or retreat
to the fort, as we think best."
"I like that," said Holdness: "then the party on the western bank can
be protected while crossing by the fire of the others, if the Indians
attack 'em in the water."
"Harry Sumerford," said Grant, "you seem to have something on your
mind, and we would like to hear it."
"I think there are people here whose opinions are of much more value
than mine, Mr. Grant. I was going to say that Dick Ellison told Mr.
Honeywood that the Black Rifle was at his place in the mountains,
and was going to stay there quite a spell. Now, he generally has ten
or a dozen men that he can lay his hands on when he wants 'em for a
scalping-scrape, and perhaps they might help us. They are men to be
depended upon, or the Black Rifle would have nothing to do with them."
"I'll go," said Nat Cuthbert: "I know the road."
"Take my horse," said Armstrong, "and ride for your life, and all our
lives: if you kill him, no matter."
"What shall I say to him?"
"Just tell him a hundred Indians are on the road from Kittanning, to
attack us at daybreak to-morrow morning. He'll know what ter do; and
he'll want no coaxing ter come ter such a party, I kin tell you," said
Holdness.
"If I ain't back by midnight, you may know he's coming, and that I'm
coming with him."
"Where were all our wits, that we could none of us think of that," said
Honeywood, "when Dick told me, and I told the rest of you, that the
captain was about getting up a scalping-party? God grant they may not
have started before Nat gets there!"
"He may be alone," said Grant; "may not have got his party together
yet."
"If he is alone," said Holdness, "he'll come: and his war-whoop is
worth a dozen men. There ain't an Indian this side the Monongahela, but
knows the Black Rifle's yell, for it don't sound like any thing else in
this world; and, when they hear it, they'll think their game is up."
The settlers now proceeded to make their final arrangements. To
Honeywood were assigned Harry, Alex and Enoch Sumerford, Ned Armstrong,
Hugh Crawford, jun., Stewart, James Blanchard, Cal Holdness, Andrew
McClure, and nearly all Harry's company of the "Young Defenders." This
was done because these youth had been engaged together in several sharp
conflicts with Indians, had been accustomed to act together under the
command of Harry, and had always come off victorious. They were also
greatly attached to Honeywood, and reposed the most implicit confidence
in his judgment and courage.
The other party consisted of Holdness, McClure, Grant, sen., Ben
Rogers, Wood, Holt, Maccoy, Armstrong, Proctor, and Heinrich Stiefel.
Israel Blanchard was left in command of the fort. With him was his
brother Seth (who was of no account as a fighting man), Daniel
Blanchard, and the boys who had been drilled to fire from a rest,
had participated in several actions, some of whom had been wounded,
of which they were sufficiently proud. This band comprised all the
"Screeching Catamounts."
These two parties, who were to meet a hundred and ten Indians, all
picked men, were in the proportion of more than five savages to one of
the settlers: yet so high was their courage, and so inured were they to
danger, that when they might have remained behind their defences, and
repulsed the foe, they hesitated not to take the fearful risk, rather
than see their grain destroyed when almost ready for the sickle.
"I have thought of another thing," said Holdness, as, after having
selected the place for ambush, they were returning to the fort. "You
know for the last year we've been taking more or less smooth-bores and
rifles from the Indians we've killed; then we've all got more than one
gun apiece that we had before the war broke out; and, when we went
after the salt, we bought more: now we kin take two rifles, or a rifle
and a smoothbore apiece, and then leave extra arms in the fort for the
women ter load or use if worst comes ter worst; and that will be almost
the same as doubling our forces, at any rate for the first fire."
"If," said McClure, "instead of coming, as we expect, before or about
the break of day, they should not get along till after sunrise, they
would stop short, hide in the woods, and put off their attack till the
next morning before daybreak; but then they would send scouts ahead,
who'd creep round and find that we had left our houses and gone ter the
fort, and discover our ambush."
"Well, I'll send Harry and Ned Armstrong ahead," said Honeywood, "to
watch their motions, and give us notice; and then we must retreat to
the fort, and let them burn and destroy; for it's no use for us to
think of fighting such a host, except we can surprise them; for if
we stay here, and they discover us, as they certainly would in the
daytime, they would find ways to cross the stream and surround us. But
I think they will be here at the very time the Mohawk said. Indians are
not like a regular force, that are liable to be impeded by a thousand
things, under the command of several officers. Nothing stops an Indian
on the war-path: there is but one leader and one mind among 'em."
As they assembled in the kitchen of the fort that night for supper,
it seemed well-nigh certain that some of those seated at that table
would never eat together again; yet the men ate heartily, and even
cheerfully. But it was a solemn parting, when, soon after nightfall,
they moved silently from the fort, in Indian file, to take up their
positions.
The mothers and children stood at the gate watching the departing
forms of their kindred till they could no longer be distinguished, and
when the great bars that closed the entrance were dropped into their
mortises with a dull thud, it reminded more than one of the fall of
clods on the coffin-lid.
There were but two men left in the fort,--Israel Blanchard and Mr.
Seth. As for the negro, he had not been seen since the inhabitants went
into garrison.
"What a pity Scip is such a miserable coward! He is an excellent
shot, and might do good service at the loop-holes. I suppose he's hid
somewhere," said Israel Blanchard.
In this state of things, the boys held the watch; and, as there were
so many of them, they stood but an hour each, Blanchard keeping guard
during the two hours before daybreak.
The women were busily employed scraping lint, preparing bandages and
ointments, the virtues of which they had learned from the Indians, or
by long experience had found to be efficacious in the case of gun-shot
wounds. It was a season of anxious foreboding: none cared to converse,
and they plied their labors for the most part in silence. The only
exceptions were to be found among the boys, who, confident in the
prowess of their fathers and brothers, elated with the idea that they
were holding the fort and intrusted with guard-duty, seemed raised far
above all perception of danger or possibility of mishaps, and were in a
state of most pleasurable excitement.
It increased the sadness of their parents to see them thus, and often
the tears sprang to the mother's eyes as she thought of the terrible
fate that awaited them, should those who had gone out to engage in such
an unequal conflict be overcome.
Under the influence of these depressing anxieties, all that they could
do being done, Mrs. Honeywood proposed that they should go into the
schoolhouse, and spend a season in prayer.
Upon this Israel Blanchard said to Mr. Seth, who looked pale and
anxious,--
"Brother, you had better go with the women."
"You mean, Israel, that I am good for nothing else."
"I did not say that; for, if He who made you has denied courage, he has
given you grace. You're a better man than I am, Seth,--better fitted
either to live or die. Go with them; for we need divine aid now, if we
ever did since we broke ground here."
The settlers had now reached their positions, where they were concealed
not merely by trees and underbrush, but by large quantities of
drift-wood brought down by the floods, and left on the banks by the
falling of the water. Having set their watch, the rest lay down and
slept as coolly as though their own lives and the lives of those they
held most dear were not at stake.
"Ned," said Holdness to Honeywood, "they pay us a fine compliment,
coming a hundred and ten against twenty, for these Delawares know about
what our number is."
"True: they have a pretty thorough knowledge of what they may expect at
our hands."
CHAPTER V.
THE STORM BURSTS.
It was little past midnight when Holdness, who held the watch, espied
two persons coming from the garrison, who, to his astonishment, proved
to be Tony Stewart and Sam Sumerford.
"Who sent you here?" he exclaimed.
"Where's my father?" inquired Tony, instead of answering the question.
"On the other side of the river, with Mr. Honeywood."
"Where's our Harry?" said Sam.
"He's over there with 'em."
"You won't tell Tony's father nor our Harry that we are here, will you,
Mr. Holdness? 'cause we've both of us got rifles, and we want to kill
Indians. You know Tony killed an Indian; and I want to kill one, and he
wants to kill another. We ain't no good in the fort, the Indians won't
come there: we want to be where the Indians come."
"Well, now, do you start right back just as quick as you kin go, or
I'll take my ramrod to you. Why, your mothers'll be worried to death
about you. How did you get out of the fort?"
"We came out when all the rest did."
"Where have you been all this time?"
"We went into Mr. Armstrong's barn, and went to sleep on the hay."
"Well, go right back: you're no use; you'll only get killed, and won't
do any good, but in the fort you will. Don't go up ter the gate till
daylight, for Blanchard'll shoot you. Go back to the barn, and sleep
till sunrise."
Slowly and sulkily the boys started off in the direction indicated by
Holdness.
"What little tykes they are! if that ain't grit, I'd like ter know what
is."
Honeywood, perceiving by the moon that it was not far from daybreak,
roused his men. Scarcely had he done so, when Harry and Ned Armstrong,
who had been sent in advance, returned to report that the Indians were
coming along the ordinary path, but at some distance.
Now ensued a period of intense expectation: every ear was strained
to catch the faintest sound that might betoken the approach of the
foe. But the mighty forest was silent as the grave; not a breath of
wind stirred the foliage; not even the howl of a wolf, or the cry of
a night-bird, was heard. The light murmur of the stream among the
rocks that here and there strewed the shallows of the ford alone broke
the silence of that lovely morning, that seemed made for repose, not
slaughter.
The day was now breaking fast; and, even amid the dim shadows of the
forest, objects near at hand could be distinguished: still no foe
appeared.
At length the cracking of a dry stick was heard, but so faintly as
only to be perceptible to the trained ear of the frontier-man; and
the long line of dark forms came gliding along the path noiselessly
as the panther steals upon his prey. The foremost Indian stooped as
he reached the bank, examined the ground, and listened intently. The
least sound--a loud breath, the click of a gunlock, or even the least
footprint in the soil--would have alarmed the keen senses of the
savage. There was neither sound nor sign; for Honeywood and his party
well knew with whom they had to deal, and had not crossed at the ford,
but at some distance above.
The leader now touched with his finger the warrior next him, and that
one the next. When the signal had thus passed along the line, the
last man marched to the front, thus bringing them two abreast, in
which order they entered the water, keeping close. Six had mounted the
opposite bank, and the rest were following, when the deep stillness of
nature was broken by the roar of fire-arms; and the greater part of
those forms but an instant before instinct with life, and breathing
vengeance, sank beneath the wave, or, after a few convulsive struggles,
were borne away by the rapid current; and the rays of the rising sun
gleamed on waters red with blood. Another volley instantly succeeded,
completing the slaughter; two only were seen to crawl on their hands
and knees, sorely wounded, to the shelter of some bushes that grew
on the water's edge; but, ere they could reach the covert, Armstrong
rushed down the bank, tomahawk in hand, and despatched them.
[Illustration: THE AMBUSCADE.--Page 59.]
Elated with the success of their ambush (for the two volleys had swept
away the Indians on the borders of both banks and those in the water,
while, being under cover, the settlers had received no harm from the
fire that the Indians in their surprise returned), Holdness and his men
instantly dashed across the ford, and joined Honeywood, resolved to
follow up their advantage.
Although meeting with a severe loss of men and a severe resistance,
when they had expected to surprise their foes, the savages did not
retreat, but took trees, and, confident in their superior force,
renewed the contest.
Holdness now had reason to regret, that, under the impulse of the
moment, he had not acted with his usual caution in thus crossing the
stream; for, although the river protected the rear of the little band,
the savages, by occupying the bank both above and below them, could
command the ford; and thus they were prevented from retreating without
being exposed to the fire of the Indians while crossing the stream,
while the latter would be under cover.
In another manner they made their superiority in numbers tell to the
disadvantage of the settlers. Behind some of the largest trees, two
Indians stationed themselves, one standing, the other lying flat on
the ground; and whenever a settler, knowing that the Indian opposed to
him had fired, incautiously exposed himself to load, he was liable to
be hit by the other. Before this stratagem was discovered, three of the
settlers were killed, and several wounded.
An Indian was stationed behind a large sugar-tree within half
rifle-shot of Harry Sumerford, and they had long been trying to kill
each other. At length the Indian fired, but missed; and Harry, knowing
his rifle was empty, stepped from behind his tree to take better aim,
and would have been shot by another (who, unbeknown to Harry, was lying
behind the same tree), but at that moment a rifle cracked, and the
savage fell over, shot through the head; and a well-known voice cried,--
"Zukkers! I've shot another Indian!"
Looking round in surprise, Harry espied Tony Stewart, on his knees
behind a windfall, his rifle resting on it, the smoke yet rising from
the muzzle, and Sam also crouching behind the same tree.
"You little plagues!" exclaimed Harry, "what sent you here right into
the thickest of the fire?"
"If I hadn't been here," retorted Tony, "you'd 'a' been killed; for,
when I shot that Indian, he had his finger on the trigger."
"Is that so?"
"Yes," said Sam; "and there's two Indians behind most every tree."
It came out, that, after being sent home by Holdness, they sauntered
off in that direction till beyond his notice, and then went along by
the bank of the river. There they found the raft on which Honeywood
and his party had crossed, and which they had set adrift. They sat
down on the raft, and waited till the conflict began, and the Indians
had fallen back; when, no longer able to resist the temptation, they
crossed on the raft.
Once across, they crept along beneath the high bank near to where the
settlers were posted, and, concealing themselves among the drift-wood,
lay unnoticed till the Indians, returning by degrees, had obtained such
positions as to command the ford.
There was now no such thing as sending them home; and well they knew
it, and no longer hesitated to show themselves and take part in the
conflict.
Great was the alarm of the parents at home when Sam and Tony did not
make their appearance at the breakfast-table, and when they found their
beds had not been slept in.
Their fears were by no means allayed when (after the most searching
inquiries of the other boys, mingled with threats of summary punishment
if they refused to tell) they ascertained, partly from Ike Proctor and
partly from Archie Crawford, where they had gone.
"Did ever anybody in this world see such children?" said Mrs.
Sumerford. "That's what comes of letting them have rifles, tomahawks,
and scalping-knives, and bringing them up like wolves, as Mr. Honeywood
says."
"It's a sair thing, nae doubt, to hae the weans sae greedy for fight
when they've nae come till't; still I ken there's nae knowledge mair
needfu' than the knowledge o' fighting in these waefu' times, for it's
just kill or be kilt," said Mrs. Stewart, who took a more practical
view of the matter.
It was a source of great mortification to Sam Sumerford, that he had
never yet been able to kill an Indian, although Tony had killed two;
and he was prepared to incur any risk to accomplish that feat; and,
after long waiting, the opportunity was presented.
The Indians are extremely dexterous in carrying away their dead, and
even during the time of action will generally contrive to remove or
conceal their bodies.
Tony saw a savage conveying away the body of another who had been shot
by Holdness. Having fastened a line to the head of the corpse, this
savage, lying flat on the ground, taking advantage of every inequality,
was worming himself along, and almost imperceptibly drawing the body
after him.
Sammy crept along after him, gradually drawing near, till within
short range. The body at length came in contact with a log: and, the
Indian cautiously raising himself from the ground to lift it over the
obstacle, Sammy, firing, killed him.
Entirely occupied in endeavoring to accomplish his purpose, he had
crawled much farther than he was aware. The next moment an Indian,
rushing out of a thick clump of trees, caught the boy, and, holding him
before him as a protection from the fire of the settlers, began to walk
slowly backwards.
A cry of horror arose from the ranks of the whites; while the Indians
filled the air with yells of exultation, and increased their fire to
prevent rescue.
The Indian was within a few feet of the clump from which he had issued,
slowly retreating amid the silence of friends and foes, all intently
watching his progress, when the report of a rifle rung through the
forest, and the savage fell, shot through the very centre of his
forehead.
"God bless you, Mr. Honeywood!" shouted Harry: "you had help to do
that."
"I asked for it," was the reply, as he leaned against the tree behind
which he stood, pale and weak with emotion.
The savages endeavored to shoot the lad as he lay on the ground; but
the noble fellow pulled the body of the savage over his own, thus
sheltering himself till Harry and Alex, rushing forward, rescued him,
Harry escaping unharmed, and Alex with a slight flesh-wound.
"They are not such shots as Honeywood, or neither of you would have
come back," said Holdness.
"Hope you've got enough of it now, youngster," said Harry as he put the
boy down.
"I want to kill another Indian, and I mean to, 'cause Tony's killed
two."
The settlers now found themselves in a position of great peril, being
too few in number to advance, while, at the same time, they could
not recross the ford without exposing themselves to the same fearful
slaughter which they had inflicted upon the Indians.
The latter soon made it evident that they were fully sensible of their
advantage. With great skill and promptitude they made a raft which
they covered with brush, and on it placed their arms, then, swimming
alongside, pushed it across the stream, and, seizing their arms, took
the most direct route to the fort.
"They'll capture the fort, and massacre our families," said Armstrong.
"We must brave their fire, cross the river, and go to the rescue at
whatever cost of life."
"Not so," said Holdness. "If the fort was empty, they couldn't enter it
in a hurry. There's a choice man in command, who has no flinch about
him: the boys'll do good service at the loop-holes, and so will the
women, and the cannon rake the walls. We'll hold our ground till night,
and, if we must fall back, do it under cover of night."
The Indians who remained now increased their fire, accompanied with
fearful yells. Their yells, however, went for nothing with the
settlers; and having, in consequence of detailing a part of their
number to attack the fort, reduced themselves to one man at each tree,
they were deprived of the advantage in shooting they at first enjoyed,
and inflicted no injury upon the settlers, while they, who never fired
at random, frequently brought the death-yell from some savage.
Finding they were losing ground, and fruitful in expedients, some of
the Indians swam the stream, and brought over the raft that had been
used by their comrades, and, placing their arms on it, crossed to the
other side.
Having rifles which had been furnished them by the French, and the
stream being narrow, they intended to attack the settlers in the rear
by firing across it, while sheltered themselves by the trees that
grew along the bank. In this manner they hoped soon to destroy their
stubborn and implacable foes, while the others should capture the fort.
Concealed from the frontiersmen by a bend of the stream, they were
making their preparations. Holdness (versed in Indian wiles) suspected
their design by seeing a number of the warriors going in one direction.
"Boys," said he, "one of you climb that bushy hemlock, and see what
these redskins, so many of them, are going over that knoll arter.
They're working some plot to circumvent us."
Detecting by this means the intentions of their enemies, they quickly
threw up a breastwork of drift-wood and saplings, which they cut with
their tomahawks; and, when the Indians attained their position on the
opposite bank, they found the frontiersmen effectually intrenched, and,
foiled where they had counted on success, they hastened to aid in the
capture of the garrison.
The Indians possessed quite an accurate knowledge of the number of
men in the Run, and knew by the firing and observation that there
could not be more than two or three men left in the fort, and felt no
apprehension in approaching quite near the walls.
But they did not know there was a large number of boys, who, firing
from a rest, were as good or even better marksmen than themselves, were
most of them armed with rifles, that many of the women could shoot,
and that they were under the command of a man who was not inferior to
themselves either in subtlety or vindictive feeling.
Observing the approach of the savages, Blanchard placed the boys at
the loop-holes, and with them Mrs. Honeywood, Joan, and Mrs. Holdness,
Mrs. Grant, Lucy Mugford, Mrs. Sumerford, Mrs. Stewart, and Maccoy's
wife, with orders to be ready, but not to put the muzzles into the loop
till they received a signal to fire. The large gun in the flanker, that
raked the whole side of the fort on which was the main entrance, and
that was loaded with bullets and buckshot to the muzzle, and concealed
by a bundle of straw flung over it, was given in charge of Will Grant,
one of Harry Sumerford's "Young Defenders," a cool, resolute young
fellow, in his nineteenth year. Thus there was no show of defence
visible from without.
Blanchard said by way of encouragement, after counting the number of
the Indians: "Neighbors, there's no cause for alarm, not a mite: the
ambush was a raal thing, and give the imps a downright raking, I know
by the death-yells; and our folks are holding their own now, or else
they would have spared more Indians to come here; and, if I don't teach
'em a lesson that'll stick, my name's not Israel Blanchard, and I
wasn't born in the Eastern woods."
The Indians, confident that the inmates of the fort were nearly all
women, and still more confirmed in the opinion by observing no guns at
the loop-holes, nor any persons on the platforms (for Blanchard had
ordered every one to keep out of sight, but to be ready at a moment's
notice), and a bundle of straw in the embrasure of the flanker,
approached the walls without the least hesitation, and one of them made
signals for a parley. Blanchard accordingly mounted to the platform
over the gate, and asked the spokesman what he wanted.
"Pale-face let Indians come in, Indian no hurt him. Pale-face make
fight, then Indian take the fort, kill him."
"You can't take this fort soon: we can hold it till our people come
back."
"Your warriors never come back: most all dead. Delawares all round 'em,
shoot 'em down just like one pigeon."
"You lie. I know the ground and the men; I can see the smoke of the
guns; they've got a good cover, have killed many of your people, and
will hold their own."
Finding that he could not deceive the frontiersman in this way, the
savage changed his ground. "S'pose good many Indians keep your warriors
good while: we take the fort soon, then we kill squaw, pappoose, all,
every one, burn some. S'pose you give up, no hurt you."
"We can kill a good many of you before you can take this fort, and if
we give up you'll kill all the same when you get us: so be off with
you," grasping his rifle.
"Indian no hurt you," persisted the savage.
"What will you do with us?"
"Let you go to the Susquehanna. You no belong here: this Delawares'
land."
"Will you let us take our cattle and mules and goods and arms?"
"Every thing."
"You told the people at Fort Granville if they would surrender you
wouldn't hurt 'em; and then you roasted the man who opened the gate to
you, butchered and scalped all but one, and would have killed him if
you could."
"We killed them because they killed a good many of our people: you no
kill us, we no kill you."
"Well, I'll open the gate."
Blanchard made a great show of removing bolts and bars, the Indians
meanwhile eagerly crowding up to the gate and walls; and, perceiving
through a crevice in the timber that they were compact together, he
made a signal to Grant, who applied the match.
"Ay!" cried McClure as he listened to the firing, "as pretty a volley
as one would want to hear, and the cannon too. That tells the story:
some of the sarpents have caught it. Israel Blanchard's not the man to
waste powder himself, nor to let anybody else." Israel threw the gate
open, and went out to look at the dead.
"What makes you open the gate, Mr. Blanchard?" said his wife.
"It might as well be open as shut: not another Indian will you see
round this fort to-day. They'll not come here agin in a hurry. A pretty
sprinkling of deed Indians: there's more money value in the scalps
lying here than in our whole harvest."
He now proceeded coolly to tear the scalps from the heads of the slain.
CHAPTER VI.
GATHERING COURAGE FROM DESPAIR.
The few savages who escaped fled in the direction of the river, where
they were met by the band coming to re-enforce them; and, being by no
means disposed to make another attempt upon the fort, they carried the
news of their defeat to the main body.
Wrought up to frenzy by such repeated failures, and thirsting for
revenge, the Indians rallied all their energies for one decisive blow.
Their numbers were now increased by the return parties; and, by holding
the edge of the bank both above and below the settlers, they were able
to command the ford with a cross-fire which seemed sufficient to insure
the destruction of any party that might attempt to cross. They were
favored in their plans by the shape of the shore, the settlers being in
the centre of a curve, while they held the two extremities, the ford
lying between.
The wind, that had been gradually rising during the morning, now blew
a gale in the direction of the ford, and right across the position
occupied by the settlers.
It was a period of drought, and the woods were full of combustible
material as dry as tinder.
"What's that?" cried Holdness as he smelt the smoke.
"They've set the woods afire," said McClure; "and we can take our
choice,--be burnt to death, or cross the ford in the face of their
fire. They've trapped us with a vengeance."
A bright flame was now seen rising in several places, and creeping
along the ground behind the Indians' line, that now began to open right
and left as the flames came on rapidly before the wind, heralded by the
exulting shouts of the savages, who now felt their long-sought day of
vengeance had come, and began to mass their force along the bank as the
flames came on.
Gathering courage from despair, the settlers prepared to dash across
the ford in a long line, hoping in this manner, and by the swiftness of
their passage, to escape in some degree the enemy's fire.
"Follow me, neighbors!" shouted Honeywood: "there's death behind, and
no mercy before."
His voice was drowned in a rattling volley, followed by the
death-shrieks of Indians, while far above the din rose the wild,
exulting, peculiar war-whoop of the Black Rifle, like nothing else in
the world as Holdness said, and which was instantly recognized both by
the settlers and their foes.
This was immediately succeeded by the blast of a conch, by which he
directed those who from time to time followed his lead.
Israel Blanchard, who was perched on the roof of the block-house,
listening anxiously to every sound that came from the battle-ground,
saw the flames rising, and understood but too well the object for which
they were kindled. Hard upon this came the volley, and the blast of the
horn.
"It's the Black Rifle and his men: Nat's got 'em," shouted Blanchard.
He flung open the gate, and rushed to the scene of conflict with all
the lads at his heels, whose yells justified abundantly their cognomen
of the "Screeching Catamounts."
"I do believe Israel has lost his senses," said Mr. Seth, as he shut
and barred the gate his brother had left open in his headstrong flight.
"Then he's lost a good deal," said Mrs. Sumerford, who heard the remark.
They were too late to join in the conflict; for when they reached the
spot the Indians had fled, pursued by the Black Rifle and his band.
From the scattered hints to be gathered from history and tradition, it
appears that there were quite a number of men very much like McClure
and Holdness, who were at any time disposed to follow the lead of
the Black Rifle, and to make up a scalping-party to kill Indians of
whatever tribe, although for the most part he preferred to go alone.
Revenge was so sweet a morsel to this singularly constituted being,
that he was seldom willing to dilute by sharing it with others.
The governor having offered a large bounty for Indian scalps, twelve
men were camping in the woods near the cave of Capt. Jack, waiting for
others who were to join them, and make up a party of twenty to start on
a scalping expedition; and, when Nat Cuthbert brought tidings of the
expected attack at Wolf Run, they marched on the instant.
Their leader, discovering by the sound of rifles the exact position
of the Indians (whose attention was fully occupied with the enemies
in front), gained their rear unperceived, and poured in a fire every
bullet of which told.
This most unexpected blow; the fearful slaughter at the fort, which
caused them to fear there were soldiers in it who might at any moment
bring a re-enforcement to the settlers, added to the terrible presence
of the Black Rifle, who the Indians believed bore a charmed life,
effectually discouraged them; and, though picked warriors, they sought
safety in flight.
The losses of the settlers were less than might have been expected
from the duration of the contest, and the overwhelming odds against
which they fought. Heinrich Stiefel, David Blanchard, and Wood were
killed; and all except Harry Sumerford, Ned Armstrong, and Stewart were
wounded, but most of them slightly.
"If this Indian war holds on much longer," said Holdness, "I shall have
to be made over; for I sha'n't have a square inch of flesh without a
scar, or a single bone without it's callous."
Sammy Sumerford was found lying beside the dead body of the second
Indian he had killed, and was wounded.
He instantly became an object of envy to all his mates, who crowded
around him.
Stewart now for the first time became aware that his boy had been in
the action, Tony having been very careful to keep out of his father's
sight. Though several recollected having seen him during the conflict,
he could not be found.
Stewart was very much moved; for, notwithstanding his rough ways, he
was a man of warm affections, ardently attached to Tony his only son;
and, though often vexed by the mischievous pranks of the lad, was
excessively proud of him; and instantly commenced an eager search,
assisted by his neighbors.
"Dinna ye ken wha hae became o' my bairn?" said he to Sammy; "for I ken
richt weel ye canna be sundered by ordinar mair than soul and body. I
trust he's come by nae skaith."
"He was down there by that log," said Sammy, pointing behind him,
"and said he was going to crawl to a spring he knowed about, and get
a drink, and wanted me to go too; but I didn't want to, because this
Indian was behind a little small tree, and I wanted to shoot him,
'cause Tony shot two Indians, and I wanted to. He went to the spring,
and I didn't see him after that."
Stewart went in the direction pointed out by Sammy, found the spring,
the rifle of Tony, and the prints of his knees in the soft ground where
he had knelt to drink; but neither the lad nor his body could anywhere
be found. The spring was not far from the position occupied by the
Indians, and it was concluded that he had been seen and carried off
by them: but there were so many wounded, that pursuit was impossible;
and it was thought that the Black Rifle's band would be more likely to
rescue the lad than any party that could be sent from the Run.
Holdness and others scalped the dead; and McClure told Stewart (without
thinking of what he was saying) to scalp the Indian Tony killed.
"I winna he did nae want it done: I maist like'll nivir see him mair. I
hae been strict wi' him mayhap ower muckle, and I winna do it nor let
it be done."
He then proceeded to cover the body with rotten wood, brush, and
leaves, McClure and Holdness helping him. As for Sammy, though his
moccason was full of blood from a flesh-wound in his thigh, he would
not consent to be moved until he obtained a solemn promise from Harry
that neither his two Indians, as he termed them (those he had shot),
nor Tony's, should be scalped, but covered up with brush; "because,"
said Sam, "me and Tony and most of my company of the 'Screeching
Catamounts' don't believe in taking scalps. We feel just as Mr.
Honeywood does: he says it's a mean thing, and 'tain't right."
Harry gave the promise.
"Tony's father covered his Indian up, and wouldn't have him scalped,"
said Johnny Crawford; "and we'll help cover up yours."
Grant had a heifer that he was fatting, intending to kill her when the
weather became cool enough. This creature had been overlooked when the
rest of the cattle were driven into the stockade.
The Indians, finding the animal, killed her, meaning, no doubt, after
butchering the settlers and setting the buildings on fire, to have had
a grand dance and feast of victory.
She was dressed, the meat taken to the fort, and formed a meal for the
settlers. It was a singular assemblage: nearly every one had received
some injury. One had a patch on his head, where a bullet grazed;
another carried his arm in a sling; the hands of several were bound up.
Grant and Maccoy sat with their legs extended on stools, one being
wounded in the foot, the other in the thigh. There were three who were
wounded in such a manner, they had to be fed by others; and, in the
majority of the cases, the blood from the wounds had come through the
bandages. Nevertheless they were in high spirits at having defeated the
savages and saved their crops, and were resolved to enjoy themselves.
"It's a sore thing ter have our neighbors killed by our side," said
Holdness; "and there's no one of us but feels for those who are
mourning the loss of husbands, fathers, and children; but we ought
certainly ter feel thankful it's no worse. It's a sad thing for
neighbor Stewart and neighbor Blanchard to lose their boys. A smart lad
was Tony, and David was a nice, likely young man, and had good larnin';
but Stewart and his wife shouldn't be too much cast down. The Indians
won't kill Tony, that's sartain: they seldom do a boy of that age;
they've lost a great many men in this fight, and they'll adopt him to
fill up some gap, and treat him just like their own children."
"The Black Rifle's people may rescue him," said Proctor; "or, when the
war is over, he can be redeemed."
"I wad be loath our misfortune should mar the joy we a' suld feel, and
gratitude to One above," said Stewart, "seeing there's good ground for
hope in respect to the bairn. It's not like finding him on the field
with a tomahawk in his head, or a bullet in his breast."
CHAPTER VII.
A CONTRAST.
The next day was devoted to the burial of those killed in battle.
Directly afterwards, with that recklessness so characteristic of all
frontier population, they left the fort to occupy their own dwellings;
although, now that their wounds had become stiff, it was necessary
to haul some on sleds, and there were not able-bodied men enough to
furnish a scouting-party, nor to gather the harvest.
But the frontier-women were equal to the exigency, and able to
assist the men who were well or slightly wounded. Most of the women,
especially those of Scotch descent, could handle the sickle. The
children likewise did their portion of the work, the boys in the field,
and the girls doing the housework while their mothers were harvesting.
Frontier life is one of sharp contrasts, constituting, perhaps, its
charms for rugged natures.
It was a clear day of bright sunshine: the women and every man who
could manage to work were busily employed. Mrs. Grant was singing at
her work; and the cheerful notes of the harvest-song floated up over
fields that but two days before echoed to the roar of cannon and the
war-whoop of the savage.
"Indeed, neighbor McClure," said Mrs. Sumerford, wiping the sweat from
her brow, and laying the sickle over her shoulder as the horn blew for
dinner, "I don't mind the hard work nor the hot sun one mite: it's far
better to be reaping and getting bread for the children than to be
making shrouds for the dead, and putting dear friends and neighbors in
the grave, as we've been doing so often for the past year."
"I dinna mind the work a windle strae," said Mrs. Armstrong. "I hae
reaped mony a bushel o' sowin' in my ain countrie, and whiles I like
better to be in the field than to do housework. Ay, I've reaped mony
a long day for sma' wages, and gleaned and wrought sair; but I like
better to be reaping my ain grain than ither people's. Is it not sae,
Jean Stewart?"
"Indeed it is. We wad hae reaped nae grain of our ain had we bided in
bonnie Scotland, though oftenwhiles my thoughts will travel back among
the lochs and the braes where I first drew breath. I could na' keep the
tears frae running down my cheeks while Maggie Grant was singing; for
many's the time I've heard my auld mither sing those same words owre
her sickle, when I a wee bairn was gleaning after her."
Sammy Sumerford could not bear to stay in the house with Jane Proctor,
who had engaged to mind the baby while Mrs. Sumerford was in the field,
and also to get dinner; and so persuaded his mates to carry him to the
field, and set him up against a stook of grain. They then brought him
some long coarse grass, of which he made bands to bind the grain.
Here he found at work Holdness, whose chin was ploughed by a bullet
that had taken the skin and flesh to the bone. The wound, though not
dangerous, was extremely sore and sensitive. He could not reap, because
the heads of the grain that were very stout, brushing against his
chin, kept constantly irritating the wound. He therefore bound up the
sheaves, while Sam made bands for him; and, as both were wounded, they
frequently left off work to rest and talk.
"Mr. Holdness, didn't you like Tony?"
"Yes, I liked him much: he was a brave boy. I'm right sorry for his
loss. It's a loss ter all of us, as well as ter his father and mother."
"I loved Tony: he's played with me ever since I can remember. I can't
remember the time I didn't play with Tony. I know I never shall love
another boy as well as I loved Tony. What will the Indians do to him,
Mr. Holdness? will they kill him?"
"Kill him! no. I'll tell you. A good many of the Indians we killed the
other day were quite young men. When they get Tony to one of their
towns, some of the fathers or mothers of them what's killed will take
him for their own, in place of the one they've lost. That's the Indian
fashion."
"Then they won't kill, scalp, nor roast him alive?"
"No, indeed! If they could get hold of me or McClure, or Tony's father,
or Mr. Honeywood, they would torment us all they knew how; but, as for
him, they won't hurt a hair of his head: though if the Black Rifle
should overtake them, and they found they couldn't get away, they'd
tomahawk him in a minute before they would let the Black Rifle get him."
"What do Indians want a white boy for?"
"They want ter make an Indian of him. They'll be just as good ter him
and treat him just as well as they do their own, and larn him every
thing they know themselves. He won't get the lickin's he had at home,
for the Indians never strike their children."
"When he gets bigger, he can run away and come home."
"They'll watch him at first; and it won't be long afore he'll forget
his father and mother and everybody he knew, and turn into an Indian.
He won't have any thing white about him but his skin, and hardly that;
for they'll grease him, paint and smoke him, and he'll go half naked in
the sun and wind, till he's about as red as themselves. He'll come ter
have Indian ways and feelings, and never will want to leave 'em."
"Oh, Mr. Holdness! Tony will never forget me and his father and mother
and sister. Mr. Holdness, Tony hates an Indian: he's killed two on 'em."
"I tell you he'll turn into an Indian, just as a tadpole turns into
a frog, and like 'em just as much as he hates 'em now, and love his
Indian father and mother better than he loves his own father and
mother, and like their miserable way of living better'n the way he was
brought up in."
"I don't see how it can be."
"Neither do I; but I know it will if he stays among 'em any length
of time, which I hope to God he won't do, because every boy, or girl
either, that goes among the Indians at his age, does just so. But you
can't make a white man out of an Indian, any more'n you can make a hen
out of a partridge. But don't tell his folks what I've said, 'cause it
would make 'em feel bad."
Holdness now took up a handful of bands, and went to tie up wheat.
The boys talked the matter over after he was gone. Sammy appeared sad:
the tears stood in his eyes as he said,--
"Mr. Holdness never told me any thing before that I didn't believe
every word of: but I can't believe Tony could forget me; I'm sure I
never shall forget him."
"I don't believe Tony will ever forget his sister Maud. He would do any
thing for Maud: he loved Maud more'n he loved himself," said Jim Grant.
"I don't believe he'll forget Alice Grant neither," said Ike Proctor:
"'cause don't you know, Sammy, when we were going to have the party
down to Cuthbert's house, and you and I didn't want to have the gals,
he stuck up for havin' 'em, and 'twas only 'cause he wanted Alice Grant
to come."
"I should think," said Dan Mugford, "they'd want to kill him, 'cause he
killed one of them; but perhaps they won't know as 'twas him who killed
him."
"Mr. Holdness says they'll like him all the better for that; 'cause it
shows he's brave, and knows how to shoot, and they'll know he'll make a
great chief," said Johnnie Crawford.
The boys could not possibly bring themselves to believe that Tony could
or would forget parents, playmates, kith and kin; and, the more they
discussed the matter, the more confirmed they became in their previous
opinion.
The subject of conversation was now changed at the approach of the
girls, who, having done up their housework, had come to assist in the
field.
"If they ain't going to have scouts out any more," said Dan Mugford,
"and the Indians have got scared and won't come any more, then why
can't they let us go swimming in the river?"
"Yes: and we can have our bladders that we've been keeping so long, and
swim with 'em; and when the acorns, chestnuts, and walnuts are ripe, we
can go nutting," said Sam.
"We can go with you, and have nice times, same as we did before the
war," said Maud Stewart.
"There was ever so much powder in the Indians' pouches, and Mr. Holt
turned it into a basket: I saw him," said Ben Wood. "Maybe they'll give
us some; and then we can kill deer and coons, and all of us could kill
a bear."
"I don't believe they'll let us go where we are a mind to," said Jim
Grant: "all the reason they don't send out scouts now is 'cause they
can't. There's so many wounded, there ain't enough men to go on the
scout, and get the grain too; and they've got to get the grain, 'cause
if they don't we won't have any thing to eat next winter."
Thus the children speculated respecting the future, and lightened their
toil by building castles in the air.
CHAPTER VIII.
TREADING OUT THE GRAIN.
During the past season, wheat and other grain had assumed in the eyes
of the settlers a greater relative importance than ever before.
Wheat, oats, and barley could be raised abundantly on the burnt land;
but hitherto there had been very little inducement to raise either of
those grains, because they could not make use of them as articles of
food to any extent, and they did not pay when carried to market.
Corn had heretofore been their main dependence: that they could pound,
and make into bread. With corn they could keep and fatten swine; and,
in time of peace, hams paid when carried to market on pack-horses; and
pork was also the staple article of food.
But the Indians and the mill had effected a complete revolution. The
different grains were now of more value to them than Indian corn,
because they could grind the grain. The Scotch could have their
oatmeal; and the others, wheat flour, barley, and rye, to mix with
their corn-meal; and they were delivered from the drudgery of the
hominy-block.
It was less work to sow grain than to plant corn and hoe it: therefore
there was less exposure to Indians while doing it. Grain was not so
much exposed to the depredations of crows, blue-jays, coons, squirrels,
deer, and bears. Deer could be kept out by fences, but birds, bears,
coons, and squirrels could not.
When a bear enters a corn-field, he goes among the corn, sits on his
breech, stretches out his paws, and, gathering between them all the
corn he can reach, lies down on the heap, and munches the ears that lie
on top; then going along, breaks down more, thus destroying a great
deal more than he eats. The coons make up in numbers what they lack in
size, and are often more destructive than the bears. There is nothing,
except honey, that bears and coons love so well as corn in the milk:
the grain does not possess such attraction.
There was still another reason that diminished the importance of corn
in the opinion of the settlers at this juncture of their affairs. Corn
had obtained its paramount importance because it was the best, and,
indeed, was considered the only food suitable for fattening swine;
and pork, beef, and corn-bread were the great staples of life. But
neither pork nor beef could be preserved without salt, and salt could
be procured (while the country was filled with hostile Indians) only
with great labor and at the risk of life. In the grain, however, that
the mill enabled them to make use of, they found a substitute; and so
much less pork and other meat was required, that, with what salt they
had on hand, they could, by securing a good grain-crop, preserve meat
sufficient to carry them through the winter.
In this condition of things the settlers had planted but little corn,
and kept but few hogs, but had sown a large breadth of wheat, rye,
oats, barley, and pease, and planted a good many beans; intending to
eat more bread and less meat, as cattle and hogs were liable to be
killed by Indians, and hunting and fishing could only be prosecuted at
the risk of life.
The harvest was abundant; and the settlers were making the most
strenuous efforts to secure it, although many of them worked in misery
by reason of their wounds. Those who had the use of but one arm brought
the sheaves to the stacks with the other. Those who had the use of both
arms, but were wounded in the leg, made bands for the binders; or going
about the house on crutches, with a child to help them, superintended
the cooking while their wives and mothers were at work in the field.
Some who were wounded in the head or trunk of the body managed to rake
together in bunches for the binders.
Our young people will thus perceive the importance of the grain-crop to
the settlers, and likewise why they were willing to incur so fearful
a risk to preserve it, when they might have remained behind their
defences, and repulsed the foe with safety to themselves.
When the wheat was put in stooks, the other grains housed, and the
pease and beans secured, the wounded and the women were excused from
labor.
There was still, however, much to be done; for so long as the grain
was in the stack, or even in the barns, it was liable to be destroyed
by Indians, and even more so, as it was more compact. In order to be
secure, it must be inside the fort.
Threshing with flails was hard work, in which the wounded could not
engage, and it was a slow process. It was necessary to lose no time, as
they might be attacked again.
When the mill was built, some plank were left; and with a whip-saw
Israel Blanchard and Seth manufactured some more, and laid a platform
on the ground near the fort, within rifle-shot, and built a fence
around it.
On this platform they laid a great flooring of grain; and having kept
the horses and mules without food over night, and exercised them
beforehand to empty their stomachs, turned them into the enclosure, and
drove them over the grain with whips.
When one flooring was threshed they put on another, and thus beat out
the grain much faster than they could have done it by hand, had they
all been in a condition to labor.
The grain, chaff and all, was carried into the stockade, and put on the
floor of the block-house and flankers in heaps. It was now safe from
foes and weather. Afterwards, as the wind served, it was carried out
and winnowed on the same platform. The mill afforded an excellent place
in which to store it, being dry, and well ventilated by loop-holes.
The settlers now obtained the rest so much needed; and the greatest
care was bestowed upon the wounded, who had evidently not been
benefited by the labor absolute necessity had compelled them to
perform. Such is the life of a people living on the frontiers during
an Indian war. Wherever you go, and whatever you are doing, it is
necessary to be armed and on your guard; for life is the forfeit of
negligence. You can never commence any work with the certainty of
finishing it. When you lie down at night, the weapon must be within
reach of your hand.
The human mind possesses a wonderful power of adapting itself to
circumstances, and becoming reconciled to those apparently calculated
to produce prolonged torture. Surrounded by too many _real_ causes of
anxiety to concern themselves about _imaginary_ ones, these people,
when not under the pressure of actual suffering, were cheerful, patient
in trial; and no one entering their families would have suspected
from appearances that they were at any moment liable to be called to
struggle for their lives, and also perfectly sensible of it.
During the stormy times we have described, Scipio was nowhere to be
found. It was in accordance with the usual course of things for Scipio
and Mr. Seth to retire from action in times of danger.
It was taken for granted that the negro had concealed himself
somewhere, and would appear when the danger was past. During the season
of greatest peril, all were too much occupied to waste a thought on the
matter; but Scipio was an excellent reaper, and when they began to cut
the grain the black was both missed and needed.
"Boys, what has become of Scip? Hunt him up. He's hid away somewhere,"
said his master.
"We have hunted, Mr. Blanchard," said Archie Crawford, "in the
potato-hole, under the pig-pen, in the flankers, and everywhere we
knowed; and can't find nothing on him."
"Perhaps he's hid away in the old Cuthbert house."
"No, sir: we've looked there and in the mill."
The matter was dropped for the time; but when the harvest was
gathered, and no Scip made his appearance, there was a general
anxiety manifested, for the negro was a valuable member of the little
community. He was a good mechanic, his master having taught him the use
of tools. He was very strong and good at any kind of farm work. Unlike
most slaves, he was not indolent, and would allow no man to outdo him.
He was a great wrestler, and could jump and run with the best; he was
also an excellent shot at a mark, any small game, or deer, but was too
much of a coward to face a wolf or bear. He was an excellent cook, and
a great favorite with the good wives. Nobody could bring the butter
so quick, or tie a broom to the handle so fast, as Scip: and he was a
capital basket-maker, a lucky fisherman, could sing and play on the
jew's-harp, and beat a drum.
Scip loved the children with all his heart; and they returned his
affection with interest, and shared whatever they had with him, though
they sometimes amused themselves by working on his dread of the
Indians. Scip had two prominent failings,--he would steal eggs, and lie
to cover the theft.
It was not at first thought possible that the black, who cherished
a chronic fear of Indians, would leave the fort, a place of safety;
but, when every part of it had been searched in vain, Israel Blanchard
said,--
"It's plain he's not in the garrison: he's taken to the woods, and
got lost; or else he's got into the river to hide, and the current's
carried him off, and he's drowned."
"He may have got lost in the woods," said Holdness, "that's likely
enough; but there's not water enough in Raystown branch to drown that
darky: he swims like an otter."
"I'll tell you what to do," said Mrs. Honeywood: "take something Scip
has worn, a stocking or shirt, let Fan smell of it, and set her to
seek; she'll find if he's above ground, or, if he's under ground,
she'll find where he's buried."
"It's too late, wife: the scent's all gone, long ago. The slut can't
track him."
"Well, then," said Harry Sumerford, "we boys'll take all the pups and
the old slut to boot; and, between them and ourselves, we'll find him."
Harry, the young men, and all the children started with no less than
seven dogs, and went in different directions through the woods, the
dogs being divided among them.
Cal Holdness and Harry were together, accompanied by Fan; the slut
running through the woods, and then returning to them. At length they
heard her barking at a distance in the woods.
"She's treed something," said Harry,--"most like a bear or a coon. A
bear ought to be in decent order now."
Following the sound, they found Fan sitting at the butt of a great
pine. As they approached, she began to bark, whine, and scratch the
dead bark off the roots of the tree.
"A bear wouldn't be denning this time of year. I'll wager it's Scip,"
said Harry.
The tree was nearly dead; had a short butt, that, after running about
eighteen feet, divided into three large branches; and an ash, uprooted
by the wind, lay in the crotch. After quieting the dog, Harry, standing
at the foot of the tree, began to call Scip by name, and tell him that
the Indians were gone. For some fifteen minutes there was no answer;
but at length Scip's woolly head appeared in the crotch of the tree,
and by degrees was followed by his body. Harry and Cal always contended
that he was pale.
"Come down here, Scip," shouted Cal: "the Indians are gone."
"Won't dey come back?"
"Not without they come from another world: we've killed most of 'em."
"Hab dey killed Massa Blanchard and all de rest but you?"
"No: they haven't killed but three,--Mr. Stiefel, Wood, and David
Blanchard. Come down."
Scip, now satisfied, quickly descended along the trunk of the windfall,
to the great joy of Fan, who almost flung him down, jumping on him, and
licking his black face.
"How did you know about that tree, Scip?" said Harry. "How'd you know
'twas hollow?"
"Massa McClure kill a bear dere last fall."
When Scip heard that more than a hundred Indians were coming to attack
the fort, he felt sure they would take it, and determined to flee
to this tree, taking provisions with him. When asked how he came to
take that course, he replied that he recollected when the Indians
killed Alexander McDonald's family, that his nephew Donald was at some
distance from the house, in the woods, and, by hiding away there, saved
his life; and so he thought it best to hide in the woods, for he knew
the Indians would take the fort.
CHAPTER IX.
A LITTLE SUNSHINE.
A week had passed since the occurrence of the events just narrated.
It was a sunny morning; and Mrs. Sumerford was busily employed in
weaving, having in the loom a web of linen.
The dwelling of this motherly woman, so much beloved by her neighbors
and especially by all the young fry, was a log house of the rudest
description; still there was about it that air of neatness and comfort
that a thrifty woman will create under almost any circumstances.
The walls were of rough logs, and the openings between them stuffed
with moss; but it was driven as hard as the oakum in a vessel's seams,
and trimmed at the edges with a sharp knife. The bullet-proof shutters
were hung with wooden hinges from the top, and, instead of sliding,
swung up to the chamber floor, that was made of peeled poles.
The kitchen presented one feature not precisely in keeping with the
rest of the house; namely, a nice board floor, which, after the
advent of the whip-saw, Harry had substituted for the original one of
flattened poles (or puncheons).
In one corner was a bedstead; for the room served the different
purposes of kitchen, sleeping-room, and place of common resort. At the
windows were curtains of bulrushes; the floor was white and sanded; and
the bed boasted a linen spread, beautifully figured. In a side room was
the loom at which Mrs. Sumerford was weaving. All the clothing for four
boys and herself was spun and woven from flax and wool, and made up by
this goodly, pains-taking woman, who, though extremely sensitive in
respect to any danger that menaced her family, did not hesitate, as we
have just seen, to handle the rifle in their defence.
Stretched at full length on the hearth, lay a white-faced bear sound
asleep, with his right paw on his nose; and between his hind and fore
legs was the baby, also sound asleep, his head pillowed on the bear,
and his right hand clutching the creature's fur.
Sammy, with his wounded leg resting in a chair, was making a fancy
cane, by peeling the bark from a stick of moose-wood in a serpentine
curve, and so as to show the white wood in contrast with the dark and
mottled bark.
Alex and Enoch were dressing each other's wounds, and permitting the
dog to lick them; the tongue of a dog being considered, by the frontier
folks, a wonderful specific for healing gun-shot wounds.
Harry was on his knees in the corner of the fire-place, running
bullets, and melting his lead in a wooden ladle. Somebody may wonder
how he could melt lead in a wooden ladle. Well, he made the fire
inside, with bits of charcoal; and, as the coal was lighter than the
lead, when the latter melted, the charcoal and dust floated on top,
and could be blown off. The ladle burned up after a while, but not
very speedily; and it cost nothing but a little work to make another.
All were busily engaged; and there was little to break the quiet of
the morning, save the monotonous sound of Mrs. Sumerford's loom, as
she sprung the treadles, and beat up the filling with the beam, when
a great clamor of voices was heard outside, and a whole flock of
children, girls and boys, rushed in at the open door.
The dog began to wag his tail, and rub up against the children for
recognition. The bear took his paw from his nose, and gaped, showing
his white teeth; but, as the baby did not wake, went to sleep again.
"Well, well, what's in the wind now?" said Mrs. Sumerford.
"Don't you think, Mrs. Sumerford," cried Bobby Holt, "they've given
us some of the powder what the Indians that was killed had in their
pouches; and we're going to shoot wild pigeons, and go in swimming: we
hain't been in swimming this year."
"Us girls," said Maud Stewart, "are going after blueberries on the
mountains, while the boys are gunning and swimming."
"I wish I could go," said Sam.
"We'll bring you some pigeons, and you can go with us when you get
well," said Archie Crawford.
"I don't know about you children going in the woods. Who told you you
might go?" said Mrs. Sumerford.
"Mother said we might go," said Jane Holt.
"Father said I might go," said Ike Proctor.
"Did Mr. Holdness, or McClure, or Mr. Honeywood, know you were going?"
"I don't know as they did; but father said the Indians had had such a
browsing lately, they'd be shy of meddling with Wolf Run folks for a
spell."
"That wouldn't hinder them from prowling round, and snapping you up.
Only think of Prudence Holdness. There hadn't been an Indian sign
seen anywhere, and she only went out to pick a few herbs for her sick
father, and was carried off; and it was of God's mercy, and of the
Black Rifle, that she ever got back."
"We've got guns, we know how to shoot, and we'll shoot 'em," said
Archie proudly, "if they come near us."
"Oh, my! hear the roosters crow. You won't be behind the loop-holes
down there in the woods.--What do you think of it, Harry?"
"Let 'em go, mother: I don't think there's any danger. Only look at it:
these children were cooped up in garrison all winter; in the spring
they had but little liberty, for since Prudence Holdness was carried
off they have been kept in; and it's a hard case."
"Well, Harry, I sha'n't have one minute's peace if they do go."
"Well, mother, let 'em go; and, if you feel so, I'll get Mr. Holdness
and Nat Cuthbert, and we'll take our guns and follow 'em. You know we
haven't got so many hogs this year as usual, and the pigeons help out
the pork-trough. I think we ought to kill all the game and catch all
the fish we can."
"O mother!" cried Sammy: "you've got flour now; and won't you make some
berry-pies, and a pigeon-pie with crust, for me, 'cause I'm wounded and
can't go? Won't you, ma'am?"
"Yes; but I don't feel, I can't feel, it's what ought to be, for all
these children to go into the woods, even if the men do go. Three of
'em can't have their eyes everywhere, and watch so many; and they may
shoot each other, so many guns in children's hands."
Mrs. Sumerford sat down to her loom in a frame of mind far from quiet.
"We wanted Scip to go," said Jim Grant, "and Mr. Blanchard said he
might: he was dying to go, but he was so scared of the Indians! but if
Mr. Holdness, Harry, and Nat go, he won't be. I'll go and get him, and
come after with him and the men."
Whatever Mrs. Sumerford's opinion might be in respect to the
capabilities of the children, she knew very well that Harry would not
come home empty-handed. So after an early dinner, she got out the sieve
(a moose-hide punched full of holes with a burning-iron) and flour, and
mixed the dough ready for use when needed.
First came the girls, with their pails full of berries; then the boys,
each with a load of pigeons slung on his gun; finally Harry came with
as many as he could carry, saying he believed there were half as many
pigeons in the woods as leaves on the trees.
Sammy wanted all of them to stay to supper, especially Scip. Mrs.
Sumerford, who could never have too many children round her, was as
desirous to have them stop as was Sammy; but she said it would never
do, because they would want to stop and play a while after supper, and
their parents would think the Indians had carried them off. Didn't Mr.
Crawford go out to shoot pigeons, and come within one of being shot by
an Indian, and would have been, hadn't the hog took at the Indian?
The children wanted so much to stay, and Sammy was so anxious to have
them, that Nat Cuthbert, who came in with Harry, said he would get on
the horse and take some pigeons (as there were ten times as many as
they could eat), and give to the families around, and tell them the
children were safe.
"Well, Scip," said Mrs. Sumerford, "if you are going to stop, you may
make the pigeon-pie, and I'll make the berry ones."
This announcement was received with shouts by the children, for they
well knew Scip had no rival for getting up a savory mess.
After he had washed his face and hands, Mrs. Sumerford put an apron on
him, and he set to work.
The girls picked over the berries, and the boys plucked the
pigeons. There were many hungry mouths, and Scip made corresponding
preparations. There was no oven: but Scip lined a kettle with crust,
put in his pigeons and other things, and put on the upper crust; then,
putting a large iron bake-pan over the mouth of the kettle, set it on
the coals, and filled the pan with hot coals.
Mrs. Sumerford's plates were all either wood or pewter; but she was
better off than some, for she had one large earthen pan for milk, and
one smaller one. She made her pie in the small one, and baked it in the
Dutch oven which she borrowed from Mrs. Honeywood for the occasion: she
also made a berry-cake, and baked it on a board set before the fire,
with a stone behind to hold it up. Potatoes were baked in the ashes.
Notwithstanding the lack of the customary utensils, and more than all
of an oven, she made a capital pie: it was not only good, but a good
deal of it. Scip was equally successful, and made a glorious pie.
"Dere, chillen [setting it on the table in the kettle], he good stew
ebber man put in his mouf: under crust done, upper crust jes brown."
The very dog began to lick his chops as he inhaled the savory smell.
After the repast they decorated the house with boughs of sassafras,
locusts, wild flowers, and the pods of the cucumber-tree, and Scip
played on the jew's-harp. You would have thought they had just got out
of prison, they were so wild and full of tickle; and in one sense they
had, having been confined to a limited circle around their homes, kept
hard at work in the field, or set to fight for their lives with the
Indians.
None of the inmates of the garrison, old or young, were so supremely
happy as Scip; and before they separated he hugged the children all
round, and they hugged him, and Dan Mugford made the philosophical
reflection, that if the Indians had killed them all, Scip never could
have made that pie, nor could they have enjoyed the pleasure of eating
it.
The children now naturally supposed that the bars were all to be taken
down, and that they were to enjoy their old-time liberty: therefore the
next morning, the moment the chores were done and the cattle turned to
pasture, they were about to set forth on a fishing expedition, when, to
their no small surprise and grief, they were told that this liberty had
been granted them because of their long confinement in close quarters,
and also to show how highly their good behavior and pluck (when the
fort was threatened by the Indians) was appreciated, but that they
could not go again for a week at least. It would be useless for me to
attempt to describe how slowly and wearily the hours dragged along for
some days. The settlers were restricted from hunting as much as usual,
on the account of the risk of life and scarcity of powder and lead.
They had raised a less number of cattle and hogs, because the animals
were liable to be killed by prowling Indians in the pasture, and there
was a lack of salt with which to preserve pork and beef.
In this condition of affairs, the settlers, ever fruitful in
expedients, hit upon another method to supply themselves with food,
namely, by rearing a great number of fowls. These could be kept on
grain, of which they had an abundance, and, in the event of their being
compelled to live in garrison, could be kept very well inside the
stockade; and the eggs and flesh would afford a constant supply of food.
The children were therefore encouraged to raise chickens and other
kinds of fowl; and they engaged in the business with a will. They
set every hen, duck, and turkey, that wanted to sit, and a good many
that did not; fastening them on the nests with baskets and boxes of
birch-bark, and even tying them on with strings. When, as was often
the case, two hens had each a small brood of chickens, they gave both
broods to one hen to bring up, in order that the other might go to
laying; and the same with turkeys and ducks.
The greatest rivalry took place among the boys, each anxious to carry
off the palm. Cut off from their ordinary sources of amusement, they
gave their whole soul to this work, till fowl increased to such a
degree that Holdness said, "You can't step without treading on eggs or
chickens, nor go into the hovels to look for any tool, but a sitting
hen will fly up in your face."
Those were glorious days for Scip: he could steal all the eggs he
wished to; there were so many, no one suspected him.
Archie Crawford had reared a noble flock of ducks, of which he was
excessively proud. He took great delight in watching them, as, after
being let out in the morning, they waddled off to the swamp in Indian
file, the bright colors on the necks of the drakes glistening in the
rays of the morning sun, returning at night in the same manner.
Three of those dreary days had passed; and, on the morning of the
fourth, Archie had fed and was watching his ducks as they ate up the
corn. With him were Bobby Holt and Ike Proctor. The faces of the boys
were clouded, and they added to their discontent by talking about the
hard experience they were just then undergoing.
Their conference was interrupted by the loud "quack, quack," of the old
drake as he started for the swamp, the ducks and young drakes falling
into line behind him, with responsive but more subdued quacks.
"Wish I was a duck!" said Archie moodily.
"What do you want to be a duck for?" said Ike Proctor.
"'Cause I could go to the swamp or the river, go a-fishing or frogging,
or anywhere I had a mind to, then; but, 'cause I'm only a boy, I have
to stay in prison."
Hugh Crawford, who was putting a handle to an axe before the door,
heard the remark. The disconsolate tone in which it was uttered touched
him; and he said,--
"You shall go fishing, Archie; and Ike and Bobby too. I'll take my
rifle, and go with you, as soon as I put this axe-handle on, and wedge
it."
The boys ran to get their lines and bait, and were soon following the
trail of the ducks.
CHAPTER X.
LIBERTY IS SWEET.
The wounded men were now rapidly recovering; and, in proportion as
their means of defence increased, the anxieties of the settlers
diminished; and, feeling that it was hard treatment of the children to
deprive them altogether of going upon these excursions, so dear to the
young, they followed the example set by Hugh Crawford. First one and
then another would take three or more children with them into the woods
and to the river, shooting pigeons, picking berries, and catching fish;
and this all helped the food supply. Very little powder was expended
in killing pigeons, they were so numerous; and thus it was felt that
the operation paid. Thus, also, in respect to the powder given to the
children: they were allowed but a small quantity; if they wasted it,
and did not make good shots and bring home either the powder or an
equivalent in game, they got no more, and had to content themselves
with the bow and arrow, with which weapon they could kill pigeons,
wild turkeys, coons, and even fish in shoal-water. This tended to make
them accurate marksmen, a matter of vital importance to the settlers;
and therefore they seldom begrudged the powder and lead given to the
children.
This arrangement operated very well for a time, it was in such pleasant
contrast with the previous rigorous confinement; but it soon wore
threadbare, and the children began to complain that they didn't have
any good times. They didn't want to go out two or three together, under
guard, they didn't like to fool afore the men; but they wanted to go
out by themselves, just as they always did.
When the majority of those who were wounded had recovered, a strong
scout was sent out, as formerly; and the children (with many misgivings
on the part of the anxious mothers, and abundance of cautions that were
forgotten the next moment) were allowed to go.
At the welcome announcement, boys and girls rushed whooping to the
pastures, bearing guns, tomahawks, and baskets, in addition to which
each boy carried, tied to his person, a number of inflated bladders.
The extravagant spirit of boyhood vented itself in various ways; some
procured sticks, and, getting astride of them, pranced and neighed like
horses; some rolled over on the grass, turning somersaults; others
played with the dogs that accompanied them; while a few found great
enjoyment in simply shouting to imaginary Indians to come on.
"There'll be something going on now, you may depend," said Mrs.
Mugford, as she looked after the party, "since Sammy Sumerford has got
well of his wound, and is among 'em."
The jubilant troop kept together till near the river, where they
separated, the girls going to a high bluff where berries grew, and the
boys to the river, as they said, to go in swimming, although none of
them, except Sam Sumerford, Fred Stiefel, and Jim Grant, could swim
more than half a dozen strokes.
There was a short bend in the river, quite narrow, in the middle of
which was a deep hole. Those who could dive amused themselves by
seeing who of them could dive to the bottom and bring up two handfuls
of mud as an evidence of success; and the stream in this place was so
narrow, that, with two or three strokes, they could reach shoal-water.
The others began to float and try to swim on bladders. Ever since the
previous winter, these boys had been imagining what a great time they
would have swimming on bladders whenever they were again allowed to be
at liberty, and had added fuel to the fire by talking it over amongst
themselves; but, after all, it did not prove upon trial such excellent
fun as they had anticipated.
They could, to be sure, float about as long as they pleased; but it
is necessary to lean forward to swim, and the bladders held them
perpendicularly in the water, like a spindle buoy on a ledge; and they
found it hard work to make any progress in the water. They therefore
soon became tired, and abandoned them for logs that they could push
wherever they liked. As the bladders had not been as useful as they
expected, nor productive of so much amusement, Sammy proposed to make a
raft of them.
This suggestion was unanimously approved. They selected dry logs from
the drift-wood, and lashed several of them together with cedar bark;
for these boys were apt scholars, and had learned from their elders the
backwoods arts. The raft was long in proportion to its breadth, and
held together by crossbands about two feet apart. They had brought more
than thirty bladders, nearly all belonging to the last year's crop of
hogs, some from hogs killed the year before, a few having been given to
their mothers to put lard and bear's grease in, and others to be used
as syringes for cleansing wounds.
The bladders were secured to the poles by strings made of bark stripped
very fine, and which while green is quite strong.
After fastening them to the upper side of the raft, they turned it
over, thus bringing them underneath. It was a magnificent affair,
twenty feet long by ten wide, and floated as light as a feather,
although the poles were of small size, because buoyed up by the great
number of bladders that were placed under the ends.
They had made it large enough to carry themselves and the girls, who
were to dine with them, and whom they intended to give a sail on the
raft. The boys were exceedingly proud of their workmanship, and often
exclaimed,--
"Isn't it nice? Wouldn't Tony Stewart like to be here?"
Ike Proctor and Archie Crawford now went to shoot pigeons; others built
a fireplace, and brought wood and clay in which the birds were to be
enveloped and baked. The girls, who were expected to cook the dinner,
had brought bread, salt, spoons, and knives. Birch-bark furnished
plates, and likewise drinking-cups that were made by folding the bark
in a peculiar way, and sticking thorns at the corners.
This is a very nice way to make drinking-cups or a vessel to hold sap
in; it is done in a moment, but it is not easy to describe. While this
was going on, Sammy and Will Redmond cut long poles with which to move
and steer the raft.
All was now ready, and they shoved off, holding in their hands boughs
to catch the breeze; and away they went before the wind and current,
laughing, shouting, and enjoying themselves to the top of their bent.
No such good time as that could the older people have got up for them.
Children are best by themselves, even if they do meet with head-flaws
once in a while, and pay the penalty of rashness. Experience must be
obtained in this way, to a greater or less extent.
They had a splendid sail down stream, but were obliged to push the raft
back with setting poles, and against the stream. However, it was not
very hard work, as they kept near the bank where the current was not
very strong, and in some places an eddy-current setting up stream.
They had just commenced another voyage, and were discussing a proposal
of Jim Grant to coax their mothers to make them a flax rope, or,
failing in this, to persuade Uncle Seth to make a bark one for them, in
order that they might be able to anchor their raft, and fish from it,
when all at once the bladders under the after end of the raft floated
out, the bark strings that fastened them having become slippery by
being wet; and they went souse into the stream. They, however, regained
the raft, and held by the forward end that was supported by the
bladders, and managed to keep their heads out of water. In this shape
they drifted along towards a large rock that rose in the middle of
the stream, and upon which they made out to scramble just as the raft
came to pieces, and the logs and bladders went drifting down stream.
Though safe, they were not in a very enjoyable position. The rock was
so far from either bank, that no one of them felt equal to the task of
swimming to the land in order to obtain help for the rest.
In plain sight on the bank lay the pigeons and all the preparations for
cooking. The girls would soon be along to get dinner; and they were
cooped up on a rock in the middle of the stream.
"Mr. Holdness," said Will Redmond, "has got a dug-out behind his house,
what they sometimes go down to Mr. Honeywood's place in; and they'd
come and get us, if they only knowed we were here."
"Let's screech," said Ike.
They did screech: the "Catamounts" never screeched louder; but the
wind was blowing against them, and they screamed themselves hoarse, to
no purpose. The wind, however, that carried the sound from the fort
and the dwellings, bore it to the ears of the girls, who, terribly
frightened, dropped their pails and baskets, and ran to the nearest
house, which happened to be Armstrong's, with eyes full of tears,
panting, and screaming that Indians were killing the boys, and then ran
to spread the tidings.
Armstrong, his son Ned, and Will Grant (who happened to be there),
seizing their rifles, hastened to the river, and, when arriving where
they could see the boys, slacked their speed, much wondering how they
came on that rock. The next moment the alarm-gun at the fort sent out
its summons; and Stewart, Holdness, Harry Sumerford, and McClure came
running to the spot.
Harry was sent round to stop the women who were fleeing to the fort;
and Ned Armstrong crossed the ford to tell the scouts who were seen in
the distance, hastening home, that it was a false alarm.
They were now in no haste to relieve the boys.
"Let 'em screech," said Holdness: "it's the best place for 'em. I don't
know but 'twould be a good thing to leave 'em there all night and
to-morrow, to supple 'em a little."
After some little time, the dug-out was hauled down, and the boys
brought to the bank. They begged hard to be allowed to keep the
dug-out; but the parents were so much provoked with them on account of
the alarm and anxiety they had occasioned, that the entreaty met with a
stern denial.
Congratulating themselves that they were not ordered home and shut up
(as they fully expected to be when they saw how angry the old folks
were), and joined by the girls, who sympathized with them, they made
the best of their misfortune.
Some of the boys kindled the fire, others brought the berries from
the mountain (the girls having dropped their baskets when they heard
the screams of the boys), and Maud Stewart and Jane Proctor began the
cooking.
They had an excellent dinner, and the best time imaginable, eating,
lolling on the grass, drying themselves in the sun, talking over their
mishap with the girls, and telling them all about it, and that they
were going to give them a sail after dinner if the raft had not come to
pieces.
"Let's go pick up the bladders, and make another," said Sam.
"If we do," said Dan, "maybe 'twill come to pieces; and we don't want
to get the girls on it, and have it come to pieces, and drown 'em. I
think we've made fuss enough for one day."
"Why don't you coax Uncle Seth to make one? then it won't come to
pieces," said Maud.
"He's so frightened of Indians, you never could get him to come down
here. I'll coax mother to get our Harry and Knuck and Elick to come
here, and shoot pigeons, and guard him; then he'll come," said Sam. "My
mother'll do most any thing for me now, 'cause I've been wounded; and
so my brothers will, 'cause they know I haven't got Tony to play with
me any more, never."
"Oh, how I do wish this Indian war would be done!" said Alice Proctor;
"then we could go anywhere without being afraid, and our mothers
wouldn't be all the time worrying. I think it's awful: seems as though,
if it keeps on, we shall all be killed, because we keep having fights,
and, every time we have a fight, somebody's killed. There's more of the
Indians than there is of us; and so they'll keep coming till we are all
killed."
"If it wa'n't for the Indian war, we shouldn't have guns of our own,
and so much powder and lead," said Jim Grant.
"They wouldn't think so much of us, neither," said Fred Stiefel. "We
wouldn't be nothing but boys: now they count on us. Didn't they set us
to hold the fort, and stand watch? and didn't we kill a lot of Indians?
I tell you, we'd 'a' got an awful lickin' to-day if it hadn't been for
what we did this time and the other time, when the Indians tried to
take the fort."
"I know Mr. Armstrong wanted to lick us, and Mr. Holdness said we all
ought to have a good beating; and we'd got it, if 'twa'n't for our
fighting so well. I'd ruther kill Indians than pull flax," said Sam.
"I'd ruther fight, and be wounded too," said Archie Crawford, "than
knock sprouts off the stumps, and pull fire-weed all day."
"Fightin' ain't so bad," said Sam. "I love to fight. When it's all
still, just afore they begin, and the Indians come, lookin' so savage,
all painted, a body feels kind of bad; but when the Indians begin to
yell, and you begin to yell, and the rifles crack, and Mr. Blanchard or
Mr. Honeywood sings out, 'Now we'll see who's a man and who's a mouse!
fire!' then the bad feelin's all gone. Nobody wants to be a mouse: and
you don't care one bit after the first of it."
"If it hadn't been for the Indian war," said Archie Crawford, "my
father wouldn't have been killed, and Dan's father, and Fred's."
"They might have died," said Sammy.
"They couldn't have died, if they hadn't been killed nor hurted."
"Yes, they might: folks die 'cause they're sick."
"I don't believe that nobody in this Run ever died 'thout they was
killed. How can anybody die, 'cept they're killed or drownded? they
can't, I know."
"I tell you they can: they'll be took sick, and grown all pale, and
their flesh'll all go away, and they'll go to bed, and grow weak; and
bime-by they'll get so weak they can't live. I've heard my mother say
how her father died. Mr. Holdness might have died. Mother says the
rheumatism what he had kills folks sometimes."
"I had a little sister," said Will Redmond, "that her throat all
swelled, and she couldn't breathe, and she died."
Archie still being incredulous, Maud Stewart said,--
"Why, Archie, there is a man buried in the graveyard that the Indians
didn't kill,--Mr. Campbell. I've heard mother tell how he is all the
one in this Run who ever died, and wasn't killed by Indians. Don't
you know the reason Mrs. Sumerford wanted to move out of the fort was
because she said that so many in a small place, all stived up, and
cattle round, might breed the garrison-fever? and she told my father
that would be as bad as the Indians."
No one of the children had ever known one of their number to die
of disease. All their knowledge respecting the matter was obtained
from their parents; and nothing could more strikingly illustrate the
perilous life the settlers led than the fact that Archie Crawford
considered death by the rifle, tomahawk, or some violence, the natural
end of mankind. He had never been out of the Run; there was not an old
person there, and he had not the least conception of death by decay of
nature.
Just below the scene of their mishap, the stream was so crooked that it
resembled very much a bean-vine encircling a pole. Here they found the
greater portion of the bladders, which they valued somewhat.
CHAPTER XI.
THE RAFT.
The children prevailed upon Mr. Seth to make the raft, with much less
difficulty than they had anticipated, and likewise obtained the aid of
Harry, Alex, and Enoch.
Mr. Seth stipulated, however, that but one of them should go
pigeon-shooting at a time, thus leaving two to guard him. The boys also
took their guns, and thus he was protected by ten or twelve rifles.
"Well, Uncle Seth," said Harry, "I'll take my broad-axe along; for, if
I am to stay by you, I might as well help."
They found many cedars that had been killed by forest fires, and dry on
the stump. Some of them had large hollow butts. They plugged up these
ends, thus making air-chambers that rendered the logs very buoyant:
therefore there was not the least need of bladders, though the boys
insisted on having a number enclosed in the logs. These logs were hewed
on the top and flattened on two sides, brought close together, and then
confined by cross-ties at each end and in the middle. These cross-ties
were treenailed to each log, thus making it impossible for any log to
work out, or the raft to get apart; and the water could not slop up
between the logs, they were so closely jointed and bound together. Long
pins were driven at the four corners, by which to fasten the raft. To
crown the whole, they made proper setting-poles and an oar to steer
with, and drove two stout pins in the centre of each end, between which
the oar was dropped to confine it.
Mr. Seth, who now entered into the matter with as much interest as the
children themselves, told Sam and Ike to go and tell his brother Israel
to send him a bark rope that he had made several months before, and put
in the corn-crib. He said he would give them the rope to fasten their
raft to the shore with, and made them a fisherman's wooden anchor to
hold the raft when they went a fishing.
When they came back with the rope, they were accompanied by Mr.
Honeywood, whom they had persuaded to come and see what Mr. Seth and
Harry were doing for them.
When Mr. Seth had finished making the anchor, he put it on the raft
with the rope, and said, "There, boys, there you are: that raft won't
drown you if you only keep on it."
With joyous shouts, the boys leaped on it, jumping, capering, and
yelling like wild creatures, and, seizing the poles, pushed off into
the stream. After looking at them a few minutes, Mr. Seth picked up his
tools, and went home; but Mr. Honeywood and the others sought game in
the woods.
When they came back, the boys had been some distance down the stream,
and returned, and were in the middle of the river.
"Shove the raft in here, boys," said Honeywood, "and I'll show you
something."
They did so, and Honeywood took the steering-oar, put it between the
pins, and began to scull the raft against the current at a great rate.
This was something new to the boys: they were mightily pleased, and
wanted to try their hands at it. Honeywood instructed them in a short
time. Sam, Ike, and the older boys, learned the motion, were able to
keep the oar under water, and move the raft, and kept at it till it was
time to go home.
If Mr. Seth before he made the raft (to quote an expression of the
lamented Tony) "was the goodest man that ever was," his goodness now
must have been beyond the power of language to express. The boys lay
awake half the night, telling each other of all his goodness, and
planning as to what they should do, now they had got the raft.
The next forenoon was all taken up in learning to scull, there were so
many of them to practise; then they had to talk, and fool, and fuss so
long about it. Every few minutes the oar would slip or come out of the
water while some boy was doing his "level best;" and he would fall flat
on his back, receiving a poult on the nose from the end of the oar,
that would make him see stars.
Archie Crawford was trying his hand, when Ike, who was looking at him,
exclaimed,--
"Oh, pshaw! what sculling that is! let me show you how it's done."
Seizing the oar, he made several mighty strokes; the raft was moving
lively, when one of the pins broke, and away went Ike into the river.
They now anchored the raft at a little distance from the shore, as far
as they thought they could swim, and then, diving, made for the shore.
The diving, being in a slanting direction, carried them a good part of
the distance to the bank. After practising in this manner a while, they
moved the raft a little farther from the bank; and, thus doing, they
learned to swim faster than by any other method.
Those who could not swim a stroke were not afraid to dive in the
direction of the shore, when, as they came up, they could feel the
bottom with their feet; and in this way they became sensible of the
power of the water to support them, and that it was not easy to reach
the bottom while holding their breath. It was a great deal better
method than wading in. The next move was to fish from the raft; and
while thus engaged they amused themselves in a manner by no means to
be commended. It must be considered, however, that they were frontier
boys, and their training had not been of a character to cultivate the
finer feelings and sympathies of humanity.
We remember that they had resolved never to take a scalp, though most
of their parents believed and taught them that scalping an Indian was
no more harm than scalping a wolf.
Bobby Holt proposed fastening two of the largest fish together by their
tails, and then tying a bladder to them, which was no sooner proposed
than done. The fish would make for the bottom, and for a while succeed
in keeping there; but, becoming tired, up would come the bladder, and
the fish after it. Again, the fish would swim with great velocity along
the surface of the water till exhausted, then turn belly up, and die.
Others would swim in different directions till they wore one another
out.
Probably the words of Holdness, McClure, and Israel Blanchard did not
produce much impression upon the minds of the children; but those of
Honeywood did, who told them they were as bad as the Indians, who took
pleasure in torturing their captives, and that it was wrong in the
sight of God, who did not give mankind authority over the animals that
they might abuse them. He went on to say, that cruelty and cowardice
were near of kin; and that many a man would run at the sound of the
war-whoop, and turn pale at the sight of an Indian alive, tomahawk
in hand, who would be mean enough to scalp the unresisting dead, or
torture a helpless fish. The reproof of Uncle Seth, however, cut the
deepest, who said that if he had once thought they would do as they had
done (as he had heard they had done, for he could hardly credit the
story), he certainly would not have made the raft. He made it for them
because he loved them, that they might amuse themselves; but how could
he love boys that were so cruel?
Upon this Sam Sumerford got up in his lap, and said he was sorry,
and would never torment a fish or any other creature again; so they
all said, and would not be satisfied till he told them that he truly
forgave and loved them as aforetime.
I never knew a boy who didn't like to play in water, and paddle about
on a raft, even if it consisted of only two or three boards or parts of
boards, whose floating capacity was not sufficient to prevent the water
from washing into his shoes, with a mud-hole for a pond, or an old
cellar partly filled with rain-water.
Therefore it may well be doubted whether Mr. Seth could have
constructed any thing out of which those boys would have obtained more
fun and innocent amusement than they contrived in various ways to get
from that raft. From it they could dive; on its smooth floor, could
leave their clothes while bathing, bask in the sun to dry off, and run
about barefoot without getting splinters in their feet; and they could
move it to any spot where the depth of water and quality of the bottom
suited them.
Borrowing an auger and gouge from Mr. Seth, they made a three-inch hole
in the cross-tie at one end of the raft, and another in the middle tie.
Into these holes they put two large hemlock bushes as large as they
could possibly handle, and sailed under them before the wind at a great
rate.
The return was not quite so romantic, but they contrived to extract
amusement even from that.
They took down the bushes, kept near the shore, and the trip afforded
an excellent opportunity for learning to scull.
After making their trial-trip, they invited the girls to sail with
them, and fish from the raft. Satisfied with sailing, they began to
fish; and rocks, sheep's heads, catfish, sunfish, and at times a trout,
were flapping on the raft.
In order that what follows may be intelligible to transient readers, it
is necessary to inform them, that, some months before the period under
consideration, Sam Sumerford and Tony Stewart captured three bear-cubs,
and brought them home. One of them, that had a white stripe on his
face, was instantly appropriated by Mrs. Sumerford's baby, and went
by the name of baby's bear. The other two were the boys' pets. One of
them proving vicious, they were both killed. Baby's bear, however, was
as mild as a rabbit, and when small used to lie in the foot of baby's
cradle. As the bear grew larger, the child would lie down on him and go
to sleep.
There were seven or eight large wolf-dogs belonging to different
neighbors, savage enough, and prompt at any moment to grapple with bear
or wolf; but when pups, and while the settlers lived in the fort, they
had been reared with the cubs, and always ate and slept with them. No
one of the dogs ever had any difference with baby's bear, though they
often quarrelled with each other. The boys were very fond of these
dogs, and always at play with them.
It chanced on this particular day, that Tony's dog (who, since the
loss of his young master, had been very lonely) started off on a visit
to Archie Crawford's Lion, and the twain went over to make a friendly
call on Sam Sumerford's Watch.
They snuffed round a while, poked their noses into every place where
they imagined their friend and his master might be; and, not finding
him, began to feel lonesome and disappointed. After a while, Lion
lighted upon Sammy's track, and of some of the other boys who had come
to Mrs. Sumerford's to start with Sammy, told his companion what he had
discovered, and proposed that they should follow the trail.
Off went the two dogs with noses to the ground, and tails in the air,
and soon came to the river; and, sitting down upon the bank, they began
to bark and whine. They were soon joined by Sam's Watch, who, missing
his master, had been looking for him in another direction, and, hearing
the others bark, came to the stream.
"Look," said Archie, "there's Sammy's Watch, my Lion, and Tony's Rover,
all sitting on the bank."
When the dogs started, baby's bear was half asleep in the sun on the
door-stone, and hardly noticed them when they came and smelled of him.
After they had gone, he roused up, stared round, and shook himself,
and, feeling lonesome too, moved along after them.
Instead of sitting down as the dogs had done, when he reached the bank,
he entered the water, and swam towards the raft.
"Oh!" shouted Sammy, "only look at baby's bear coming to see us fish:
isn't he good? we'll have him on the raft with us."
"Yes, and the dogs are coming too: won't it be nice to have 'em all?"
said Maud.
It proved, however, not to be so very nice, after all. The raft was
already loaded nearly to its capacity; and when the bear (which weighed
three hundred pounds when dry, much more wet) put his fore-paws on the
raft in order to mount, he pressed it to the water's edge. The girls
began to scream, and the boys to kick the bear, and pound him on the
head, to make him let go. And now came the dogs: the bear was resolved
to get on the raft, and the dogs too. In this exigency the boys all
jumped into the water, holding by their hands to the raft, in order
to lighten it, upon which the dogs relinquished their purpose, and
kept swimming round the boys; but not so the bear, who, scrabbling on
the raft, shook himself, drenching the girls with spray; and, seating
himself in the middle, cast approving glances round him from his wicked
little eyes.
It was found that the raft would bear part of the boys; and Sam and Ike
Proctor, getting upon it, pulled up the anchors, and sculled to the
shore; the bear meanwhile regaling himself with fish, thus making it
evident why he was so anxious to get on the raft.
There was no harm done: the girls, to be sure, were pretty well
sprinkled, but it was no great matter, as they were all barefoot.
After reaching the shore, the girls concluded to go on the mountain,
and pick berries in the hot sun till their clothes were dried.
Mrs. Armstrong had sent word for the boys to catch some blood-suckers
(leeches) to apply to her husband's wound that was inflamed. The boys,
therefore, thought best to get them while the girls were berrying, and
while they were wet. They all went to a frog-pond near by, stripped
up their trousers, waded into the water, and, when the blood-suckers
came to fasten on their legs, caught them in their hands, and put them
into a pail of water. Some of the boys, who wanted a new sensation,
would permit them to fasten on their legs, and suck their fill till
they became gorged, and dropped off of their own accord. Sam Sumerford
had no less than three on his right leg, and was sitting on a log
with his legs in the water, patiently waiting for the leeches to fill
themselves, with his head on his hands, half asleep.
Suddenly he leaped from the log, with a fearful yell, and ran out of
the water, dragging a snapping turtle after him, as big over as a
half-bushel, that had fastened to his right foot. They all ran to his
aid.
"He won't let go till it thunders," said Dan Mugford: "they never do."
"Cut his head off, then: cut him all to pieces," cried the sufferer.
"If you can bear it a little while, Sammy," said Jim Grant, "till we
pry his mouth open easy, we can keep him, and have him to play with,
and set the dogs on him."
"I guess, if he had your foot in his mouth, you wouldn't want to bear
it, Jim Grant: kill him, I tell you, quicker!"
Archie held the turtle, and Ike pulled his head out of his shell, and
cut it off. Even then the jaws were set so hard that it required some
force to open them.
The injury was above the roots of the great and second toes, and severe
enough to wound the flesh and cause blood to run freely; but the
resolute boy plastered some clay on it, and went berrying with the rest.
Before starting for home with the leeches, they consulted in respect to
the manner in which they should amuse themselves the next day.
This, of course, implied that they should do something with the raft.
"We've sailed, fished, and learned to scull; and now we want to do
something we never did do," said Ike.
"Then let's sail up to the leaning hemlock," said Mugford, "where
there's plenty of fish; and get clay and flat stones, and build a
fire-place on the raft, borrow Mrs. Honeywood's Dutch oven, get
potatoes, pork, and fixin's, and have a cook on the raft."
CHAPTER XII.
A DAY OF UNALLOYED PLEASURE.
The boys flattered themselves that they had made all their arrangements
for a good time the next day; but on the way home they met Mr. Seth,
who said that he and Israel were going to junk and pile logs on a burn
the next day, and he must have all of them to nigger off logs.
"We can't to-morrow, Uncle Seth," said Sammy; "'cause we're going to
make a fire-place on the raft, and have a cook, and have the Dutch
oven, and have Scip, and the biggest time we ever did have."
"But you can't have Scip, because he'll have to chop with us; but you
can have a first-rate time niggering logs: you can have a fire in a
stump, and roast potatoes and ears of corn."
"We ought to help Uncle Seth, 'cause he's the goodest man ever was,
'cause he's made us the raft," said Sam.
"So we will help, Uncle Seth," said Will Redmond; "and we'll let you
see what we kin do."
"That's good boys; and we'll have a long nooning; and I'll tell you
about Mr. Honeywood, how, when he was a little bit of a boy, he went to
sea on a tree, and was picked up by a vessel."
"What's a sea, and what's a vessel?" said Bob Holt.
"I'll tell you all about it; and, when we get the piece ready to sow,
I'll ask Israel to let Scip go with you on the raft. But you mustn't
tell him Indian stories, nor say any thing about them; for, if you do,
he won't be good for any thing for a fortnight."
"No, Uncle Seth, we won't, and we won't scare him for fun as we used
to," said Ben Wood.
These frontier boys had never seen a vessel, nor even a tug-boat; all
the craft they were acquainted with was a birch canoe or a dug-out; and
they wondered much what Uncle Seth meant by the sea for though some of
them had read some pieces at school, in which references were made to
vessels and the ocean, yet as they had never seen a map, and could only
read by spelling many of the words, they had no definite conception in
regard to the subject.
The next morning the boys took their guns and provisions with them to
the field. The place was not far from the fort; there was a strong
party on the scout; and the boys were able to persuade Mr. Seth to say,
that, when noon came, he would eat with them in the field.
Mr. Seth, Israel, and Scipio now began to cut into proper lengths the
large logs that the clearing-fire had spared, and the boys went to
niggering. They placed a large stick across a log, put brands and dry
stuff beside it on the log, and set it on fire, in order to burn the
log off, until they had twenty or thirty logs on fire at once, which
kept them running from one to the other tending the fires. In this way
they rendered good service, and niggered off logs faster than the men
could chop them in two; and they liked the work right well.
Mr. Seth had brought bread and butter and some slices of bacon. Scip
brought a jug of milk; and the boys roasted eggs and potatoes in the
ashes, and ears of corn before the fire; and, after dinner, Mr. Seth
told them what happened to Mr. Honeywood; then he described the ocean,
and tried to give them some idea of a vessel by whittling out a
miniature one with his knife.
The next day these scorched and half-burned logs and brands (over which
the fire had run, burning up all the limbs and tops) were to be piled
up and entirely consumed. The men and boys came to the field, dressed
in tow frocks and trousers. Maccoy and Grant came to help with oxen;
and the logs were drawn together, and rolled up in piles, and all the
large brands picked up and flung on top or tucked under the piles,
which occupied the whole day.
The next morning they set all the piles on fire, and tended them, in
order to make a clean burn, throwing in the brands and branches. They
were, every one of them, just as black as a smut-coal; and at night
they went to the river, washed both their persons and clothes, and put
on clean garments.
The lads now entered with new enthusiasm upon preparation for their
postponed expedition on the river.
It is the nature of a well-constructed boy to receive peculiar delight
from any thing of his own contrivance. The rudest plaything of his own
invention or manufacture is dearer to him than a much better one that
is the workmanship of another.
Boys who are possessed of any pluck, and are worth raising, delight in
the development of their own powers, both of brain and muscle: you may
observe it in a little child taking its first steps, and holding the
father's finger.
The little thing toddles on demurely enough, so long as led; but the
moment it leaves the father's finger, and strikes out boldly for the
safe harbor of its mother's lap, its eyes are dancing in its head,
hands going up and down in high glee, and, screaming and crowing with
delight, it tumbles into those extended arms breathless but in ecstasy.
That feeling of self-help, so dear to the child, is no less so to the
boy or to the man, of whom the child is the father. Therefore, though
the boys were under great obligations to Mr. Seth for putting the raft
into their hands, and to Mr. Honeywood for teaching them to manage
it, and thus contributing to their amusement, they were under still
greater obligations to them for opening before them such a field for
contrivance, furnishing them with resources, and placing them in a
position that stimulated their own energies.
They commenced operations by boring two holes with an auger into the
cross-tie at the centre of the raft, into which they drove two crotches
some five feet in length. Clay from the frog-pond, and sand from the
river, were mixed together and well worked, and wooden trowels made to
handle it with. Several of the boys made use of the shoulder-blades of
moose, which made very good substitutes for steel trowels. The shell
of the snapping turtle, and pieces of pine and hemlock bark, were used
to carry the mortar on. Plastering the floor of the raft with this
mortar to the depth of a foot, they bedded flat stones in it to form a
hearth, then built up a fireplace with three sides but open in front,
plastering the stones with clay both inside and out.
A stout green stick was laid in the crotches, and a withe fastened to
it to hold the Dutch oven. Leaving their work to dry in the hot sun,
they cut dry hard wood in short pieces, and, going to the burn, brought
from thence in a basket some hard-wood coals and brands to cook with.
The object of cutting the wood fine, and procuring the charcoal,
was that they might have a hot fire without much blaze that would
be likely to burn their crotch pole and withe, which as a further
safeguard they smeared with clay.
It is evident that all this implies forethought, calculation, and
practice.
"Don't let us go home for bowls, plates, or spoons," said Johnnie
Armstrong: "we can make 'em ourselves."
"I and Jim Grant, Dan Mugford, and Johnnie Armstrong can make the
spoons and plates," said Fred Stiefel.
"We can make square trenchers good enough out of a chip," said Archie;
"but we can't bowls: 'twould take all summer."
"I know a better way than that," said Sam. "We don't want but one or
two bowls, one big one to hold the stew; and we can make bowls and
plates out of clay."
"That'll be the best fun that ever was," said Archie. "I'd sooner make
the dishes than eat the vittles."
"I wouldn't: I'd rather do both."
Part of them with axes split blocks of proper wood to make the spoons,
and shaped them rudely with tomahawks, while others prepared clay for
the bowls. They had been accustomed to make marbles of clay, and bake
them on the hearth, though it must be confessed they frequently split
into halves in baking; they had also made moulds of clay in which to
run bullets, and had helped make clay mortar to plaster the chimneys.
They treated this clay in the same manner, mixing sand with it. Thus
they were occupied till the horn blew for dinner, at which time Archie
obtained a crooked knife made to dig out bowls, spoons, and trays,
having a rest for the thumb.
During meal-time the boys were much questioned by the girls; but they
preserved a dignified silence, looking unutterable things, and saying,
as they left home, that, if the girls presumed to come peeking and
prying round, they shouldn't go with them, not one inch.
Fred Stiefel was master workman of the spoon business; and while his
gang were seated in the shade, manufacturing those utensils, Sam and
his fellow-potters began the making of earthen-ware.
They adopted a singular method, originating in the inventive brain
of Sammy. Selecting a level spot in the dry, tough clay ground, they
removed the turf, picked out the grass-roots, smoothed the surface, and
swept off the dust. Upon this surface they laid some of the square
wooden plates or trenchers used by the settlers, and cut into the clay,
then hollowed the centre with a crooked drawing-knife made to hollow
the staves of tubs and pails. This was the mould, and they made numbers
of them. Moulds for bowls were made in the same way; and, when the
draw-shave did not accomplish the purpose, they worked out the bottom
of the moulds, and smoothed them up with the bowl of a horn spoon, the
handle of which had been broken off.
Into these moulds they put the clay, plastering it on the sides and
bottom to a proper thickness, and, removing all superfluous clay with
wooden scrapers and the spoon-bowl, pressed and smoothed it with their
fingers and a bunch of wet moss, that left the surface smooth and
shining.
They became more and more interested in their work, and endeavored to
excel each other in the shape and ornamentation of their vessels, for
they even aspired to that. The square trenchers with their large margin
afforded ample space for designs.
Archie made a row of sharp points round the edge of his plate, and
between each two a round dot by pressing a buckshot into the clay; and
also cut his name on the bottom.
Ike Proctor made a vine; and outside of that he made quite a pretty
figure by pressing beechnuts and the upper surface of acorn-cups into
the clay.
Sammy Sumerford excelled all the others. In the first place, he traced
a vine round the outer edge, and did it quite well; having found in the
house the wheel or rowel of a spur he printed it in the clay inside the
vine; not satisfied with this he obtained some garnets, and, pressing
them into the clay, left them there.
"How did you cut that vine so true, Sam?" said Bob Holt, who was
admiring the work.
"I laid a little small spruce-root, not so large as a knitting-needle,
all round the edge, and made all the turns as I wanted to have 'em, and
put thorn spikes to keep 'em from moving while I pressed 'em into the
clay."
It was now time to drive up the cattle; and, dusting their work with
sand, they covered it with boughs to keep off the dew.
The next morning the plates and bowls were carefully dug out of the
moulds, and placed in the sun to dry the outside; then they were put in
the fireplace, the top of which was covered with flat stones and clay
to keep in the heat; and they were burned as red as a brick. Some of
them fell to pieces. All of them were full of small cracks; but they
would hold water some time, though it soaked out gradually.
The remainder of the day was spent in killing and plucking pigeons, and
making preparations for the morrow.
Early next morning came the girls and Scip, bringing with them whatever
other articles of food or seasoning were needed.
The girls were much pleased with the fireplace, and especially with
the bowls, spoons, and platters; and the boys were the recipients of
compliments that put them in excellent humor.
Shoving off, they went up to a part of the stream that was wider, in
order to have a better opportunity to sail. They now discovered, that,
to all his other accomplishments, Scip added that of an excellent
oarsman. He was a Baltimore negro, and was purchased in that place (as
most of our readers know) by Israel Blanchard, on his way to settle at
Wolf Run; and had been accustomed to go in boats, and scull rafts of
lumber on the Patapsco River. He disdained the use of pins or a notch
to keep his oar in place, but would scull right on the side of the raft
anywhere, shoving his oar perpendicularly into the water and keeping
it so, which afforded him a greater leverage in sculling against the
stream.
With Scip at the oars, and the boys at the setting-poles, they went
along lively when returning from a trip and against the wind and
current.
When tired of sailing, they fished; and then, bringing the raft under
the branches of a leaning hemlock, the boys went on shore to pick
berries for a dessert, while Scip and the girls were getting dinner.
The fireplace worked to a charm, and the dinner proved to be all that
could be desired. They enjoyed the pleasure of eating afloat, something
new to them, and, with no mishap to mar the pleasure of the day, had
the best time imaginable. They also had berries to carry home.
On arriving home that night, the boys were told that they had enjoyed a
good long play-spell, and that the next morning they must go sprouting.
In clearing land the stumps of the trees send up a great many sprouts:
these the boys were set to beat off, or cut with hatchets, in order to
kill the stumps. When the sprouts become dry they are piled up around
the stumps, and burned, which tends still more to kill them; and by
doing this a few times the roots are exhausted.
The next employment was to cut down the fire and pigeon weed among the
corn, and to pull the pease and beans. Then there was flax to pull;
and, though only the men and largest boys could do that, yet any of
them could carry it off the piece, and spread it on the grass to rot
the stalk, and make it separate from the outside skin or fibre, which
is the part used to make thread.
One thing coming thus after another, it was a long time before they
were given another holiday.
CHAPTER XIII.
CANNOT GIVE IT UP.
Occurrences very trifling, in themselves considered, often lead to
important results. The boyish whim of making a fireplace on the raft,
and constructing dishes from clay, developed a capacity in Sammy
Sumerford of the existence of which he was before unconscious; and was
productive of most useful results, affecting the entire community in
which he lived.
The other boys, when they had succeeded in making and burning the
bowls, satisfied with accomplishing their present purpose, seemed to
have exhausted their enthusiasm in that direction. It was far otherwise
with Sammy. At night, morning, and even sometimes at noon, he would
steal away by himself to the clay-pit. He also held a good many private
conferences with Mr. Seth, going to the mill for that purpose. We will
take the liberty to repeat one of them.
"Mr. Seth, you know my mother's got an earthen milk-pan, and Mrs.
Holdness has got two: where did they come from?"
"Baltimore."
"Who made 'em?"
"A potter by the name of Bickford. He makes pans, jugs, bowls, and
teapots, out of clay."
"My mother's pan don't leak a drop, not when she puts hot water in it;
but we boys made some things out of clay, and baked 'em just as we do
our marbles, and the water and soup we put in 'em soaked through."
"It didn't soak through faster than you could eat it, did it?"
"No, sir; but when we let it set, after a good while, it did. What's
the reason milk nor nothing else won't go through mother's pan?"
"'Cause it's glazed, and probably burned harder than yours. Didn't you
see that the inside was of a different color from the outside, and
there was something smooth and shiny all over it? That's the glazing,
that makes it as tight as though it was made of glass. That's a secret
they keep to themselves; but I believe they burn lead, and mix other
things with it, put it on, and then bake it in. But the potter's ware
that is not glazed will hold water well enough: the water won't drop,
and it takes a long time to soak out; all the trouble is, whatever you
put into it soaks in, and you can't keep it so clean as though it was
glazed."
"Then what made ours leak so fast?"
"Were there cracks in it?"
"Yes, sir; lots of 'em."
"Did you put sand in your clay, just as we do when we make mortar?"
"Yes, sir."
"What else did you do to it?"
"Worked it with the hoe, just as we do mortar."
"Was that all?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, the potters don't put any sand in their clay as a general thing,
and never but a very little: the sand made it leak. You didn't make
earthen: you made brick. And they take great pains to work their clay.
I think it is very likely there were sticks and grass-roots in yours,
and it was raw, and not worked enough; and that made it crack and blow.
If you had worked it as much as your mother does her dough, not put in
any sand, and baked it harder, it would have done better."
"Uncle Seth, I love to make things in clay, and I'm going to try to
make a bean-pot for my mother. You won't tell anybody, Uncle Seth. Will
you?"
"No, indeed, and I'm real glad you are going to try. It's a great deal
better to spend your time in trying to make something useful than to be
fooling or doing mischief."
"You know everybody likes Harry 'cause he's brave, kills Indians and
bears, and can foller a trail. Ain't I brave?"
"Yes, you're brave."
"Folks like Harry 'cause he can do so much work,--make tubs, pails,
baskets, and drums. You and Mr. Israel like to have him with you, and
let him have your tubs, and mother, she says he's the best boy ever a
mother had, may the Lord bless him!
"I want to make things too; 'cause I love to, and 'cause I haven't got
Tony to play with me any more, and 'cause I don't want everybody to
say I'm a plague above ground, and a real vexation: that's what Mrs.
Mugford said."
"That's right, my lad: if you do that you'll be a great benefit, and
everybody will love you. How did you make your bowls and platters the
other day? What did you have to make 'em by?"
"We made 'em in the ground."
"That's the last way I should have thought of," said Uncle Seth,
laughing. "How did you get 'em out?"
"After they dried, we dug the ground away with our scalping-knives,
till we could pull 'em out."
"If the ground hadn't been as dry as an ash-heap, they never would have
dried in the ground so that you could have taken them out; and, if
there had come a shower, they'd been full of water."
"What's a better way to do?"
"Make a wooden mould, and put the clay on it: then the inside will be
smooth, and just the shape of the mould, and you can make the outside
just as you like; and when you put it in the fire the wood will burn
out. Or you can do as the Indians do,--make a basket, and put the clay
on the inside of the basket; and the basket will burn off."
Sammy went away, and pondered a long while upon what Mr. Seth had told
him; but he thought he could not make a wooden mould very well, nor a
basket, and took the funniest method imaginable; but then, you know, he
was a Sumerford, and own brother to Harry. He dug his clay, made it as
thin as porridge with water, and strained it through a riddling-sieve.
"I guess there ain't any sticks or grass-roots in that," said Sammy.
After the clay had settled to the bottom, he turned off the water, and
worked it with a hoe, then dragged the tub into the woods where the
boys would not be likely to see it, and left it, as Uncle Seth had said
it ought to lie a while.
After the work referred to in the last chapter was done, the boys were
given a day to go fishing; but, to their great surprise, Sammy, who was
generally the leader in all such enterprises, didn't want to go.
The boys were no sooner out of sight than Sammy ran to the clay-pit,
dragged the tub from the bushes, and gave the clay another working.
Then, hunting among the corn, he found a hard-shelled pumpkin which
suited him in shape. The bottom of it was slightly hollowing; but Sammy
cut it perfectly square, and likewise cut a piece from the stem end,
in order that both the top and bottom might be square.
Sammy knew his mother would want a big pot; for there were three
strapping boys to eat beans, and, if half the children in the Run
happened to be at Mrs. Sumerford's near meal-time, she would have them
stop to eat: therefore he had selected the largest pumpkin of the right
shape that he could find, on which to mould his pot.
Over this pumpkin he plastered the clay, and regulated the thickness
by marking the depth on a little pointed stick which he thrust into
the clay from time to time. Knowing his mother would be obliged to
cover the top of the pot with coals and ashes, it must of course have a
cover. He turned his tub bottom up, and, using the bottom for a table,
rolled out a strip of clay, and placed it round the edge of the pot
on the inside, for the cover to rest on; then, cutting out a piece
of birch-bark to fit the top of the pot, moulded his cover by that,
punching up the clay in the middle for a handle to take it off by, for
he did not know that handles could be made and stuck on to clay vessels
when they are half dry.
All this accomplished, Sammy was quite delighted, clapped his hands,
and danced round his work, exclaiming,--
"I never did feel so good in all my life. What'll my mother say? I
guess Harry'll think something. Oh, if Tony was only here to make one
for his mother!"
He was now seized with a strong desire to ornament his work, which was
quite rough, and covered with finger-marks. The first thing needed was
a smooth surface on which to make figures. He sharpened a stake at both
ends, drove one end into the ground, and stuck the pot on the other,
running the stake into the pumpkin to hold it.
He then moistened the clay, smoothed it with wet moss and a flat stick,
and afterwards with a piece of wet bladder, till it was perfectly
smooth and level; and sat down to consider in what way he should
ornament the surface. Several methods suggested themselves, none of
which were satisfactory. At length an idea entered his mind, that he
hastened to carry out in practice.
Rolling out a piece of clay on the bottom of the tub till it was a foot
square or more, he took a beech-leaf, and, placing it on the clay,
pressed it carefully into the surface; then taking it up by the stem,
he found the full impress of it left on the clay. Delighted with this,
he gathered the top shoots of cedar, and beech-leaves of various kinds,
and ferns, and took impressions from all of them, till he had quite a
gallery at his command. The large-ribbed, deeply-indented leaves gave
the best impression; while the ferns, though very beautiful, afforded
an indistinct outline, and the cedar the most marked, the leaf being
thick, and going deeper into the surface.
After long deliberation, he settled down upon the beech, cedar, fern,
and locust, choosing the extremities of the smallest branches, which he
pressed carefully into the surface of his pot, and left them there to
be burned out when the pot was baked.
Sammy now took a thin flat stone, sprinkled it with sand, turned the
pot on it, and set it in a hollow tree; intending as soon as the clay
had hardened sufficiently, and the pumpkin had become tender by decay,
to dig out the meat, leaving the shell to be burned out.
He then flatted out a large piece of clay, and began to search round
after other leaves and objects of which to take impressions. So
absorbed did he become, that he forgot his dinner, taking no note of
passing time, and meditated new devices till he was roused by hearing
the voices of the boys coming from fishing; and, instantly putting away
his implements, ran home.
He didn't want the boys to know what he was doing, for fear they would
tell his mother; and he wanted to surprise her.
Before reaching the house, he met his mother coming after him.
"Why, Sammy Sumerford, where have you been this livelong day?"
"Down to the river."
"Down to the river, indeed! Didn't you hear me blow the horn? I was
afraid the Indians had got you. What could you find to do there without
any dinner, and all alone?"
"I've had a good time, ma'am."
"Well, if you have, I'm glad of it; but it must have been a very
different good time from any you ever had before: for never since you
came into the world could you have any sort of a good time without half
a dozen boys round you; and, if there were as many girls, so much the
better."
The moment he had swallowed his supper, he ran off to report to Mr.
Seth; who had a good laugh when Sammy told him he had moulded on a
pumpkin, and reckoned he could not dig out till it was thoroughly
rotten, without breaking the pot.
He was, however, singularly favored in this respect: not being able
to visit the place for two days without the notice of the other boys,
when he did go he found the pumpkin entirely covered with ants, who had
devoured nearly the whole of it.
"Good on your heads!" said he. "You can dig it easier and better than I
can, and won't break the pot neither."
The interior of the old tree was damp; and when the ants had devoured
all of the meat, leaving only the shell of the pumpkin, Sam, watching
his opportunity, removed the pot to the garret of the house, where it
might dry thoroughly.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE BEAN-POT.
Mr. Seth had told Sammy that one reason his bowls and platters cracked
was because they were baked too quick: that to bake a potter's kiln
required forty-eight hours; that the baking must commence gradually,
and be discontinued in the same way. Another reason was, that they were
of unequal thickness; and the thin places shrunk before the thicker
ones, and pulled them apart.
One morning, while the pot was drying, Sam came into the house, and
heard his mother up garret. He thought she was making his bed, but,
listening a moment, found she was rummaging round. Alarmed, he said,--
"Mother, what are you doing up there?"
"Doing? I'm hunting after a 'sley' that belongs to the loom."
"Come down, marm, and I'll come and find it."
"You find any thing? umph! You can't keep the run of your own clothes.
I have to find your hat for you half the time. I expect now I'll have
to move half the old trumpery in this garret."
Grown desperate, Sammy flung a mug of cold water in the face of the
baby, who was sitting on the floor. The child set up a terrible
screeching.
"Sam, what does ail that child?"
"I don't know, marm. Guess he's going to have a fit. He's holding his
breath."
Mrs. Sumerford was down the ladder in an instant, and catching up
the child, who was purple in the face from temper and strangulation,
thumped him on the back, exclaiming,--
"Poor blessed baby! was he frightened 'cause his mother left him? Well,
mother won't;" and the next moment, "Why, this child's all wet! Sam
Sumerford, what have you been doing? Have you been throwing water on
this baby?"
Sam, who was in the chamber, and had hid the pot in his bed, to change
the subject replied,--
"Yes, marm, I--I'm trying to find it."
"Well, you look for it. I must go to the barn, and get some eggs for
Harry's breakfast."
Harry had stood watch in the night at the fort, and was in bed.
Taking the child with her, Mrs. Sumerford left the house, when Sammy
went and hid the pot in the pasture, in a hollow fence-log on high
ground, and where a current of air circulated through that kept it dry.
Sammy thought it would be a fine thing to have his mother's name on the
pot, or at least the words "For mother," and knew that, though it was
dry, he could cut them in. He persuaded Mr. Seth to cut the inscription
on a piece of bark taken from a young pine; and then, pasting the bark
with flour paste to the surface to keep it from moving, he cut out the
letters by the pattern, moistening the clay a little, that it might not
crumble at the edge. The bark was quite thick, which served better for
guiding the point of the tool with which he worked.
New difficulties now arose in respect to the baking. Uncle Seth had
told Sammy it took forty-eight hours to bake a kiln of potter's ware,
but, where the fire was all directed to one pot, that perhaps one day
and one night would be sufficient.
Sammy perceived at once that he could not hope to do this without the
knowledge of his companions; and, making a virtue of necessity, took
them to the pasture, showed them the pot, and told them all his heart.
They instantly entered into his plans, promised to keep the secret, and
do all they could to help him, and instantly set about preparations.
"Where can we bake it?" said Sammy. "We can't do it on the raft; 'cause
we've got to keep a fire all night, and our folks won't let us be down
to the river all night nor one minute after sundown."
"Bake it down to Cuthbert's house, in the big fireplace. Make a kiln
right in that," said Mugford.
"They wouldn't let us stay there all night."
"What matter will it be," said Archie, "if we let the fire be at night,
and then kindle it up in the morning? S'pose you put in a lot of hard
wood when you left it: 'twould be all hot in the morning; 'twouldn't
get cold; then there won't be no trouble."
"I don't know," said Sammy. "I'll ask Uncle Seth."
Mr. Seth, being appealed to, said he didn't think it would make any
difference if they put in wood at night, kept it warm, and started the
fire in the morning slowly; that the reason potters and brick-makers
kept their kilns burning all night was to save time and wood; that it
would require a great deal less wood to keep it going all night, than
to let the kiln cool off, and start it again.
There was no need of going to the river for clay, as there was a
pit in the pasture just back of the Cuthbert house, from which the
settlers had dug clay to plaster the roofs of the block-houses. They
therefore began to build the kiln with rocks and clay right before Mrs.
Sumerford's door, part of them working on the kiln, and the rest making
marbles to bake in it.
Mr. Seth had told them that the fire must not come directly to the pot:
so they built a square of rocks and clay, and in the middle made a
place in which to put the pot, marbles, and several bowls and platters
that the boys made on the spot. In this little apartment they left
openings to admit the heat, having fire on all sides of it: then they
covered the top with two flat stones about four inches apart, and left
below two holes to put in wood, and plastered the whole all over with
clay. They then covered each end of the slit on top with flat stones
and clay, except a short space in the middle left for draught, and
which could be closed with a stone laid near for the purpose.
They had received general instructions from Uncle Seth, and were
carrying them out in their own way with the greatest possible
enthusiasm. There were quite a number of articles in the receptacle
with the pot, that the boys made and moulded from the clay with which
the kiln was built; but some of the boys had brought up some of the
clay Sam had worked, and made platters and marbles.
The piece of land on which they had recently been burning the logs was
full of the ends of limbs and half-burned brands, just the thing to
make a hot fire and to kindle readily. They gathered many of these, and
plenty of other wood; and, their preparations being all made at night,
they kindled the fire at sunrise next day.
They made a regular holiday of it, roasting corn, potatoes, and eggs
in a separate fireplace constructed for the purpose; and Scip came
occasionally to partake of their cheer.
They borrowed Mrs. McClure's big skillet, and Mrs. Sumerford made
bread for them: this was on the second day, when the fire had been
burning long enough to make plenty of ashes and coals. They swept the
hearth of their fireplace clean, put the dough into the skillet, turned
it bottom up on the hearth, and covered the skillet with hot coals.
With the coals on top and the hot hearth beneath, it baked splendidly;
and they had their dinner before the kiln.
Harry shot two wild turkeys, and gave them one; and they baked it, and
had a great feast, and kept the fire up three days; and when on the
forenoon of the fourth day they opened it, the pot came out without a
crack, and baked to a bright red.
The little stems of the cedar and beech were baked to a coal; and Sammy
picked them out, leaving the impression sharp and clear.
He then mixed up some lamp-black that Solomon Lombard, the Indian
trader, had given him, and filled the letters that composed the motto,
which brought them out finely in contrast with the red ground on which
they were cut. The other articles fared quite otherwise: many of the
marbles split in halves, some cracked, others blistered or fell to
pieces; but a few came out whole and fair.
It was found, however, that the marbles and dishes made of clay brought
from the river were the ones that stood the baking and were bright red,
while the others were lighter-colored. Mr. Seth said they stood the
fire because the clay had been worked more, and that the deeper color
was due to the greater quantity of iron in the river clay.
Sammy had taken his pot to the pasture among the bushes, to fill the
letters with black, and was joined by the other boys as soon as they
had cleared the kiln.
Their conversation, as was often the case, turned upon the virtues of
Uncle Seth, without whose advice it was allowed Sammy would never have
succeeded in making his pot.
"What a pity," said Dan, "such a good man should be a coward!"
"He isn't a coward," said Sammy.
"Yes, he is. Didn't he shut himself up in the mill when the Indians
attacked the fort, scared to death? and didn't his own brother Israel
say it was the first time he ever knew a fort saved by a coward?"
"What is a brave man, what ain't a coward?"
"Why, a man what ain't scared of any thing."
"Then there ain't any brave men, and every man in the Run is a coward;
for there ain't one of 'em but's afraid of something,--afraid to go
into the house where McDonald and his folks were killed. Mr. Holdness
nor McClure wouldn't go in there in the night, sooner'n they'd jump
into the fire: don't you call them brave men?"
"Yes."
"Uncle Seth isn't afraid to walk up on a tree that's lodged, and cut
it off, and then come down with it, or jump off. He isn't afraid to
go under a tree that's lodged, and cut the tree it's lodged on; he'll
ride the ugliest horse that ever was; walk across the water on a log
when it's all white with froth; and when there was a great jam of drift
stuff stopped the river, and was going to overflow the cornfield, he
went on to the place, and cut a log what held it, and broke the jam;
and there wasn't another man in the Run dared do it. He said he'd lose
his life afore the water should destroy the corn."
While Sammy was defending Uncle Seth from the charge of cowardice, his
face reddened, his eyes flashed fire, his fists were clinched, and he
threw his whole soul into the argument, and carried his audience with
him.
They resolved on the spot that Uncle Seth was not a coward, though
_he was afraid of Indians_. They could not endure the thought that an
imputation so disgraceful in their eyes as that of a coward should rest
upon the character of a man whom they so dearly loved.
CHAPTER XV.
THE SURPRISE.
It is perhaps needless to inform our readers that Sammy did not find
the "sley" on that eventful day when he threw the water in the baby's
face; but his mother got the baby to sleep, and found it. On the
morning of the third day, she had just entered the door of the kitchen
with a pail of water in her hand, when she encountered Sammy (followed
by Louisa Holt, Maud Stewart, Jane Proctor, and a crowd of boys) with
the bean-pot in his hand, which he placed upon the table with an air of
great satisfaction.
It was some time before the good woman could be brought to believe that
Sam made it. She knew that of late he had been much at the mill with
Mr. Seth, and supposed he must have made and given it to him; but, when
she became convinced of the fact, the happy mother clasped him in her
arms, exclaiming,--
"Who says Sammy's fit for nothing but mischief? Who is it says that?
Let him look at that pot, as nice a one as ever a woman baked beans in,
and a cover too. Harry has made pails, tubs, a churn, and a good many
other things; but he never made an earthen pot, nor any man in this
place. My sakes! to think we've got a potter among us! what a blessing
he will be! There's not another woman in the settlement has got a
bean-pot."
"Mrs. Sumerford, only see the printing and the pictures on it," said
Maud Stewart.
"Pictures and printing! I must get my glasses."
After putting on her spectacles, the happy mother expressed her
astonishment in no measured terms.
"'For Mother:' he's his mother's own blessed baby. But did you truly
make the letters, and the leaves on there, your own self?"
"Yes, mother: I did it alone in the woods; only Mr. Seth made the
letters on some bark for me, but I put 'em on the pot."
"Now I'll bake a mess of beans in it, just to christen it. Girls, you
help me pick over the beans; and I'll put 'em on to parboil afore we
sit down to dinner, and have 'em for supper. I want you all to stay to
dinner and supper both. The boys can play with Sammy; and the girls and
I'll make some buttermilk biscuit for supper, and a custard pudding.
"Girls, I'm going to draw a web of linen into the loom; and you can
help me, and learn how; play with the baby and the bear: baby's bear'll
play real good; he's a good creature. He'll tear all the bark off the
tree with his claws; but, when he's playing with baby, he'll pull 'em
all into the fur, so his paw is soft as can be. Harry, Elick, and
Enoch'll be home from the scout; and what think they'll say when they
come to know that Sammy's made a pot, and his mother's baked beans in
it?"
"Mother, may I ask Uncle Seth to come to supper? I want him to see the
pot, 'cause he told me how to fix the clay, and bake it."
"Sartain: I'd like to have Mr. Seth come every night in the week. This
pot isn't glazed, to be sure; but I'll rub it with tallow and beeswax:
I've heard my husband say that was the way the Indians used to do their
pots."
"Mr. Seth said the Indians used to make pots, mother."
"Sartain, dear, the Indians clear back; but now they get iron ones of
the white folks, and people reckon they've lost the art. If you look on
the side of the river where the old Indian town used to be, where you
go to get arrow-heads, you'll find bottoms of pots washing out of the
banks, and sometimes half of one."
The good woman stuffed the pot thoroughly with tallow and wax, dusted
some flour over it, and put it in the beans and pork.
Mrs. Sumerford had no oven; but that did not in the least interfere
with baking the beans. With the kitchen shovel she threw back the ashes
and coals on the hearth, and took up a flat stone under which was a
square hole dug in the hearth (the house had no cellar), lined with
flat stones. Into this hole she put wood and hot coals till it was
thoroughly heated: then she cleaned the cavity, put in the pot, covered
it with hot coals, and left the beans to bake; for there never was a
better place,--that is, to give them the right flavor.
The boys could not leave till this important operation was performed;
when, finding the mill was in motion, they concluded to go there, and
invite Uncle Seth to supper, and, after having a swim, and a sail on
the raft, escort him to Mrs. Sumerford's. The mill had not yet ceased
to be a novelty; and they loved dearly to watch the grain as it dropped
from the hopper into the shoe, and from the shoe into the hole in the
upper stone.
It was also a great source of amusement to go up into the head of the
mill, and hear it crack, and feel it jar and quiver when the wind blew
fresh, and put their hands on the shaft as it revolved. They were
more disposed to this quiet pastime, from the fact that they had been
prohibited the use of powder and lead for the present.
When Harry, Alex, and Enoch came home, nothing was said about the
bean-pot, though it was hard work for Mrs. Sumerford, and especially
for the girls, to hold in.
"Come, mother," said Harry, "we're raving hungry: ain't you going to
give us any supper?"
"I should have had supper on the table when you came, but Mr. Seth's
coming: the boys have gone after him, and I knew you would want to eat
with him."
It was not long before they all came in; and after putting the dishes
on the table, and other provisions, Mrs. Sumerford took from the Dutch
oven the biscuits, a custard pudding she had baked from a kettle, and
then, placing a bean-pot in the middle of the table, exclaimed with an
air of ill-concealed triumph,--
"There! Harry, Elick, Enoch, look at that pot, and tell me where you
suppose it came from."
They examined it with great attention; and, the more they looked, the
more their wonder grew.
"It was made by somebody in this place, of course," said Alex; "because
nobody has been here to bring it, and nobody could go from here to get
it. I guess Mr. Honeywood made it, because he's lived in Baltimore
where they make such things."
"Guess, all of you; and, when any one guesses right, I'll say yes."
"I," said Enoch, "guess Mr. Holt made it, 'cause he came from one of
the oldest settlements, where they have every thing; and he made the
millstones."
Harry, who had been examining it all the while, thought he recognized
Uncle Seth's handiwork in the inscription, and said,--
"I think, as Elick does, it must have been made here, because there's
no intercourse betwixt us and other people; and no regular potter would
have made it that shape; it would have been higher and straighter, like
some I saw at Baltimore when we went after the salt: so I guess Uncle
Seth made it."
"Come, Mr. Blanchard, it's your turn now."
"I guess little Sammy here made it."
This assertion raised a roar of laughter; and, when it subsided, Mrs.
Sumerford said,--
"Yes; Sammy made it."
"O mother!" cried Harry, "you needn't try to make us believe that,
because it's impossible."
Sam had ever been so full of mischief, that it was new experience for
him to receive commendation from his brothers; but now it was given
him with a liberality amply sufficient to remunerate him for its lack
in the past. A proud boy he was that evening; but he bore his honors
modestly, and his face was redder than the surface of the pot on which
he had bestowed so much labor.
When the cover was removed, much to the surprise of Mrs. Sumerford, it
was found that the pot had not lost any portion of its contents.
"Why, I expected to find these beans dry,--most of the juice filtered
out,--'cause it wasn't glazed; but I don't see but it's about as tight
as an iron pot, though, to be sure, I rubbed it with wax and tallow,
and dredged flour over it."
"That pot," said Mr. Seth, "is very thick,--as thick again as one a
potter would make,--was made of good clay, quite well worked, and hard
baked; and it is no wonder that it would not let any thing as thick as
the bean-juice through it. Good potter's ware, if it isn't glazed, will
hold water a long time: it won't leak fast enough to drop; it will hold
milk longer still; and after a while the pores will become filled up,
and 'twill glaze itself, especially if anybody helps it with wax as you
have. I wish every woman in this Run had plenty of earthen dishes, pots
and pans, if they were not one of them glazed."
"If there's so little difference, why ain't the unglazed just about as
good?"
"Because you can't keep 'em so clean: after a while, the unglazed ware
gets soaked full of grease, butter, milk, or whatever you put in it,
and becomes rancid; you can't get it out, and it sours and taints
whatever you put in it: that bean-pot will after a while; but, when
ware is glazed, nothing penetrates, and you can clean it with hot
water, scald it sweet. There's another trouble with ware that is not
glazed: if you put water in it, and heat it on the fire, the water
swells the inside, and the fire shrinks the outside; and it is apt to
crack."
"Uncle Seth, you said, when we made the dishes down to the river, that
we made brick. What is brick?" asked Sam.
"It's made of clay and sand worked together; and this brick mortar is
put into a mould that makes each brick about seven and a half inches
long, and three and a half inches wide, and two and a half inches
thick; then they are dried and burnt hard in a kiln; and in old settled
places they build houses of 'em, chimneys, ovens, and fireplaces: they
don't make chimneys of wood and clay, and fireplaces of any stone that
comes to hand, as we do."
"Did you ever see a house made of brick?"
"Yes, a good many. Israel and I made and burnt a kiln of bricks, and
had enough to make a chimney, fireplace, and oven, in our house where
we used to live; and, if this terrible war is ever over, I mean to make
brick, build a frame house, and put a good brick chimney, fireplace,
and oven, in it. Israel's wife misses her oven very much."
"I never had an oven, nor saw one; but I've heard of 'em, and I expect
they are good things. I think a Dutch oven is a great thing for us
wilderness-folks; but I suppose the one you tell of is better," said
Mrs. Sumerford.
"I guess it is better. Why, Mrs. Sumerford, if you had a brick oven,
you could put a pot of beans, twice as many biscuits as you've got in
that Dutch oven, a custard, and an Indian pudding, and ever so many
pies, in it all at once, and shut up the oven, and then have your
fireplace all clear to boil meat, fry doughnuts or pork, or any thing
you wanted to do."
"It must be a great privilege to be able to do so many things at once:
I can't boil and bake more than one thing at a time now, except beans
or potatoes, because I have to bake in a kettle."
"If you had a brick oven, you could bake a pumpkin, or a coon, or
beaver, or joint of meat, or a spare-rib. Why, by heating the oven
once, you could bake victuals enough to last a week; and then, any
thing baked in a brick oven is as good again as when it is baked in
iron. These beans wouldn't have been half so good if they'd been baked
in an iron pan set into the Dutch oven or a kettle, because that place
in the hearth is what you may call an oven."
"What kind of moulds do the potters in the settlements have to make
their things of?" asked Sammy; "or do they make 'em in holes in the
ground or on a basket?"
"No, indeed! they make 'em on a wheel."
"Oh, do tell me about it, Uncle Seth! tell me all you know."
"That won't take long. What is called a potter's wheel means not only a
wheel, but a good many more things with it; but they all go by the name
of the potter's wheel.
"In the first place, there's a rough bench made; and then there's an
iron spindle goes through this bench, and not far from the bottom is
a crank; and below this crank, about three inches from the lower end,
a wheel is put on it as big over as the bottom of a wash-tub, with
a gudgeon at the end that goes into a socket in a timber. Upon the
other end that comes up about a foot above the bench, a screw-thread is
cut, and a round piece of hard-wood plank is screwed on the top of the
spindle about a foot over; on this the potter puts his lump of clay,
and smashes it down hard to make it stick fast.
"There's a treadle fixed to this crank on the spindle, just as there is
to your mother's flax-wheel. The potter puts his foot on this, sets the
clay whirling round, sticks his thumb into it and his fingers on the
outside, and makes it any shape he wants. After the vessel, whatever it
may be, is made, he takes off the finger-marks, and shapes it inside
and out more to his mind, with little pieces of wood cut just the shape
he wants; then takes it off the wheel, and puts it away to dry."
"Does it take him a good while to make a pot?" asked Harry.
"No, indeed! he'd make a pot as large as that bean-pot in five minutes,
and less too. A potter'd make a thousand of four-inch pots in a day.
In their kilns they burn thousands of pieces according to size, of all
kinds at once; as it don't take much longer, nor is it any more work,
to burn a thousand pieces than two hundred."
"That isn't much like me, two or three days making one pot," said Sammy.
"Sometimes, instead of having a crank on the spindle, they put a pulley
on it, and have the wheel on the floor, and a band run from this big
wheel to the pulley; but then it takes another hand to turn the big
wheel."
"O Uncle Seth! how much you do know, don't you?"
"I don't know much about pottery, Sammy, because it's not my business;
but I've seen a little of it, and it's the most interesting work to see
a man doing, that I ever looked at. I've seen their kilns, and seen
them bake their ware, but it was a good many years ago: so you must not
take all I say for gospel, 'cause I may have forgotten. I always take
notice of what I see, because sometimes it might be a benefit. I've
taken more notice of brickmakers and masons: I can make brick; I think
Israel and myself could build a chimney, between us, and make an oven
and a fireplace. It wouldn't be like one made by a mason, but would
answer the purpose, and be a great comfort here in the woods."
"We don't know any thing," said Mrs. Sumerford; "and no wonder we
don't, here in the woods with wild beasts and wild Indians."
If our young readers will call to mind that these frontier people had
never seen many of the most common conveniences of daily life, nor
witnessed any of the usual mechanical employments, they will perceive
at once how intensely interesting the conversation of Uncle Seth must
have been to this family-circle, and also how much mankind can dispense
with and yet be happy.
To no one of the circle was it more absorbing than to Sammy, who longed
to know more about the matter, and asked what the glazing was made of,
and how they put it on.
"As I told you once before, my lad, I don't know much about that;
because it's one of their secrets that they don't care to let folks
know, though I've seen some put it on. When I was a boy, and lived with
my grandfather in Northfield, Mass., afore we went into the woods, I've
seen an old English potter by the name of Adams make a kind of glaze
that's on your mother's milk-pan. He used to take lead, and heat it
red-hot till he made a great scum come on it, which he would skim off
till he burnt it all into dross; then he pounded that all fine, and
mixed it with water, clay, and a little sand, about as thick as cream,
and poured it into the things he wanted to glaze, rinsed it round, and
then turned it out; sometimes he put it on with a brush. What little
water there was would soak into the ware, and the lead would be on the
outside; then he put 'em into the kiln, and started the fire. When the
pots got red-hot the lead would melt; and I s'pose the sand melted some
too, and run all over the inside, and made the glaze. I don't know as
I've got it just right, but that's as near as I can recollect; and I
know I'm right about the lead.
"He said that in England they flung a lot of salt into the kiln to
glaze some kinds of ware; but he didn't, and his glaze was just like
that on your mother's pan."
"What an awful sin," said Mrs. Sumerford, "to burn up salt!"
"Oh, what a worse sin," said Harry, "to burn up lead! I should rather
go without pots and pans all the days of my life: I'm sure there are
ash and beech whorls enough in the woods to make bowls of."
"Indeed," said Mr. Seth, "salt and lead are not such scarce articles
in the settlements as they are amongst us, I can tell you."
Some who read these pages may think these boys to be very much inferior
to themselves, and be almost inclined to pity them; but are you sure,
that, considering the advantages both parties have had, they may not
be far your superiors? Notwithstanding all your advantages, is it not
probable, that, turn you right out in the world, you would either beg
or starve?
But turn one of them out into the woods, with a rifle, tomahawk, flint
and steel, and I would risk him: he would do neither.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE DAWN OF A LIFE-PURPOSE.
After the conversation referred to in the preceding chapter, there was
a pause; and Harry, well knowing Mr. Seth's habits, filled a pipe, and
handed it to him.
While he was enjoying his smoke, Mrs. Sumerford washed up her dishes
with the help of the girls, and the boys related to each other the
incidents of the scout.
Sammy, on the other hand, sat with his hands clinched over one knee, as
still as a mouse, occasionally casting a glance towards Mr. Seth; and,
the instant the latter laid by his pipe, he leaped from his stool, and,
running up to Mr. Seth, cried out,--
"O Uncle Seth! will you make me a potter's wheel, and show me how to
make a pot on it, and show me how they fix the glaze, so I can make my
mother and all the neighbors bean-pots, bowls, and milk-pans, and glaze
'em just like the potters do?"
"I can't, child! I couldn't make a wheel, because there's a crank that
must be made of iron, and we haven't got any iron. If I should make a
wheel, I couldn't show you how to make a pot on it, for I don't know
how myself. A potter's trade is a great trade, takes years to learn it.
It's not every one who can learn it; and I have only happened to see
them work a few times in my life."
"You could make a windmill without hardly any iron; and you're going to
make a bail to take off the millstone without one mite of iron, when
Mr. Honeywood said 'twas impossible. Everybody says you can do any
thing you be a mind to. I should think you might help me."
Adopting the method he had ever found to be most effective with his
mother, Sammy burst into tears; and so did the girls, who sympathized
with him.
"Dear me! what shall I do with the child?" exclaimed Uncle Seth, whose
whole heart went out to a boy so interested in a mechanical pursuit.
"Do help him if you can, Mr. Blanchard. I'm sure if he wants to think
about or do something besides killing Indians, and risking his life on
rafts, I do hope you'll gratify and encourage him, if it's only for the
sake of his mother, and tell him something to pacify him."
"Well, Sammy, if I can't make you a wheel nor tell how to use it,
there's one thing I can do: I can show you how to mould brick, and you
can have a brick-yard and a kiln, and make your mother a brick oven
that will be worth three times as much to her as the bean-pot; and she
can bake beans, bread, and meat in it."
"I don't want to make no brick oven. I wouldn't give a chestnut-burr
for a thousand brick ovens. I want to do what the potters do."
"Well, I'll tell you all about how the potters work their clay; and
then you can make a good pot or milk-pan on a mould as you do now, and
I'll make moulds for you. I'll keep thinking about a wheel; and perhaps
we may have to go to Baltimore or Lancaster for salt or powder, and can
get some iron: then I'll make a wheel; or perhaps I shall think of some
way to make it without iron."
In this manner Mr. Seth continued to pacify Sammy, who, wiping up his
tears, got up in his benefactor's lap, and wanted to know when he
would show him how to fix the clay.
Mr. Seth replied, "To-morrow morning," well knowing he should have no
peace till it was done.
Sammy then wanted to know when he would tell him about the glaze; to
which he answered that it was no use to think about that till the
Indian war was over, as neither lead nor salt could be spared for the
purpose, and if the clay was well worked, and the articles well baked,
they would do good service without any glaze.
Harry, Alex, and Enoch now took their rifles, and went home with the
children; but Mrs. Sumerford persuaded Mr. Blanchard to tarry all night.
"What do you think has got into this boy, Mr. Blanchard?" said the
mother, after Sammy had gone to bed, "that he should set out all at
once in such a fury to make things of clay?"
"Well, Mrs. Sumerford, almost everybody in this world has a turn for
some one thing more than another; and you know that all your boys have
a turn for handling tools: Elick and Enoch have, though not so much as
Harry."
"That's true, Mr. Blanchard; and they take it from their father: he
could make almost anything; he would make a handsome plate out of an
ash-whorl; and he made me a churn that he dug out of a round log, and
swelled the bottom in, then put hoops on; it was the handsomest you
ever did see."
"The child's got that natur in him; but he's been so full of other
things since the war broke out, been stirred up all the time, that it
never came out till they began to build that raft. He was the head
of that; but when he got hold of the clay, and started the notion of
making dishes to play with, he was like a man who is digging a well,
and all at once strikes water. He found the thing that suited his turn;
and it became real earnest with him, though it was nothing but play
to the others. When the rest of 'em wanted to make dishes out of wood
and bark, he said, 'Let's make 'em out of clay.' He didn't know what
he was fumbling arter in the dark, didn't know he was chalking out his
whole life; for, mark my words for it, sooner or later that boy'll be a
potter, and no power on earth can hinder it. Mary Sumerford, I believe
there's a higher Power has to do with these things; and I verily
believe we have our own way least when we think we have it most."
"From my soul I believe as you do, Mr. Blanchard, and always did."
"I know how it is: he's had a call to do that thing, and you'll see how
'twill be. I know all about it: it's no new thing to me, it was just so
with me when I began to work wood. If he could be in the settlements,
he would learn a potter's trade in no time; but what we shall do with
him here, I'm sure I don't know."
"Then you don't think he'll give it up. Boys, and my boys, are apt to
take hold of some new thing pretty sharp for a time, and then give it
up, and go into something else."
"He'll not give it up as long as the breath of life's in him: it's
clear through him, in his marrow and in his bones, and must and will
come out."
"But I don't like to have him down to the river: the Indians might
carry him off."
"I'll get him to go to the old Cuthbert house: there's good clay there,
and the spring where Cuthbert got his water."
The next morning Mr. Seth said to Sam,--
"Your mother don't like to have you down to the river: it's too far
away; the Indians might come; we don't any of us think it's safe. You
must play with your clay at the Cuthbert house: it's near the garrison,
and then you'll all be safe."
"It isn't play," said Sammy, straightening him self up: "what makes you
call it play? It isn't foolish play to make a bean-pot and things for
folks to use, and that they have to buy at Baltimore: it's real work.
It isn't a bit like making mud-puddin's, cob-houses, or playing marbles
or horse, or having a war-post and making believe kill Indians."
"Indeed it's not," said Uncle Seth, more delighted than he cared to
express, and patting the young enthusiast on the head.
"I don't want to go to the Cuthbert house, 'cause it's handsome down
to the river; and the raft's there, and the fireplace, and water, and
plenty of wood to bake the pots; and the clay down there is real soft,
and just as blue as indigo, and feels greasy; and I can cut it with my
knife, and it won't dull it one mite."
"I know that; but it's not so good clay to make pots as the gray at the
Cuthbert house. It will do to make bricks by putting sand with it; but
it's liable to crack, blister, and melt in the fire, 'cause there's so
much iron in it."
"It don't look so red when it's burnt, that Cuthbert clay don't."
"Well, then, you can bring up a little of that from the river to color
it: 'twon't take but a mite. There's more wood lying round Cuthbert's
door than you can burn in six months; then you can have the house to
dry your ware in, and to work in when it rains, and the great fireplace
to build your kiln in."
"What shall I do for water?"
"There's a spring on the side of the hill where Mr. Cuthbert got his
water; and there's a great trough in the kitchen that he used to salt
pork in, and you can have that to put your clay in, and a table. I'll
ask Nat to let you have that to make your things on."
When Mr. Seth concluded, Sammy expressed himself reconciled. He
then told him to dig the clay, and pick out any little sticks or
gravel-stones he found, put it in the trough, pour in water enough to
cover it, and let it soak till after dinner, when he would come down,
and tell him what to do with it.
With the help of his mates, Sammy was not long in filling the trough
with clay and water when they went to haul wood. The settlers hauled
their fire-wood as they wanted it, and did all their work in companies
for safety.
After dinner Mr. Seth, with all the boys at his heels, went to look
at the clay, and told them to strip up their trousers, get into the
trough, and tread the clay by turns with their bare feet, while he sat
on the door-stone to smoke his pipe.
The boys entered upon the work with great good-will; but the longer
they tramped, the stiffer the clay grew as it absorbed the water, and
the harder the work became. In the course of fifteen minutes they
asked,--
"Isn't it trod enough, Uncle Seth?"
"Not yet."
They then wanted to put more water to it, but Mr. Seth would not
permit that. The clay grew more dense: and the boys began, one after
another, to get out of the trough. They suddenly recollected that
they were wanted at home, till at the end of a half-hour only Will
Redmond, Archie Crawford, and Sammy were left. Mr. Seth then looked at
it, rubbed it between his fingers, and told Sammy to let it lie till
supper-time, then give it another treading, and he would tell him what
to do next.
When the time came, Sammy could not get a single boy to help him. Their
interest in pottery had evaporated. They had the cattle to drive up,
chores to do, and plenty of occupation. Not so, however, with Sammy:
his enthusiasm lay deeper. He got into the trough, and trod as long
as he could see, till his legs ached, and he perceived that the clay
became much tougher and finer. Just as he was about to go, he saw Uncle
Seth coming from the mill, and they went home together.
When Uncle Seth came the next morning to look at the clay, he said,--
"You see, my lad, we always do every thing with a better heart when we
understand the reason for doing it."
He then took a piece of clay, placed it on the table, and cut it in
halves with a knife, and made Sammy notice that there were a good
many little holes and bubbles in it, and some little hard lumps, and
sometimes he picked out a little gravel-stone.
"If," said he, "these air-bubbles are not removed, when the ware is
put into the kiln, that air will expand with the heat, and burst the
clay; if there are stones, they will crumble; if there are sticks they
will make steam, swell, and cause a flaw. The potters work their clay
more than a woman does her dough: it is a great deal more work to
prepare the clay than it is to do all the rest. After they have worked
their clay, they let it lay in a heap to settle together, and break
the bubbles, and close the holes: sometimes they dig it a whole year
beforehand, and let it lie and ripen, as they call it."
"I don't care how hard I work, if I can only make a real good pot."
"That's a manly principle. You know how hard we all worked to build the
mill; and see what a blessing it is. Every thing, my lad, comes from
labor: it's the root and foundation of every thing worth having. The
Indians won't work, and see what a miserable life they lead."
Mr. Seth now made some of the clay into large lumps, and, taking up
one, slapped it down on the table with all his force three or four
times, and then kneaded it, and made Sammy take notice that when he
kneaded it he folded the dough back on itself so as to keep the grain
in one direction; and then cut it in halves, and Sammy saw that the
air-bubbles were closed up.
He told Sammy, if he just stuck together several lumps, just as an
eave-swallow does to make her nest, and made a dish out of it, that
when it came to dry it would be full of seams, a seam for every lump.
He then gave him a mallet, and told him when he was tired with slapping
he could pound it with the mallet.
"Why couldn't I put it in Mr. Cuthbert's hominy-block that is right
here before the door, and pound it same as we used to the corn? I could
get the boys to help, and pound up a lot."
"That would be just the best thing that ever was; and get them to help
you all you can the first going-off, while it is a new thing, for
they'll get sick of that sooner than they did treading the clay in the
trough."
Sammy found it was just as Mr. Seth said: the boys thought it was nice
fun at first; but they soon became tired, and one after another found
their folks wanted them, or they had something to do at home. In vain
Sammy begged them to stay; but, no, they could not.
"You'll want me to go 'long with you some time, and then I won't go,"
said Sammy, and began to cry.
Soon Mr. Seth came along with some tools in his hand, with which he had
been working at the mill.
"What's the matter, Sammy?"
"The boys have all gone off, and won't help me; and I can't lift the
pestle. I wanted to pound all what was in the trough, and they ain't
pounded more'n half of it."
"Don't cry, lad: I'm going to the house, and I'll send Scip to help
you."
He felt so bad to have all his mates leave him, that he could not
recover himself immediately and Scip (with whom Sammy was a great
favorite) found him in tears.
"What de matter wid my leetle Sammy?" cried Scip, taking the lad in his
arms, and wiping off his tears.
"The boys won't help me,--Archie won't, nor Will; and I can't lift the
pestle."
"Nebber mind dem. Scip help you much you want: you tell Scip what you
want."
Scip was a powerful fellow; and, though he had always avoided the
hominy-block before the mill was built, he now stripped himself to the
work, and soon pounded what remained of the clay that had been trod in
the trough, then carried it into the house. Sam cut it up into lumps
with a tomahawk; and Scip would take them up, and slap them down on the
table with a force that filled up the pores of the clay, and made it
compact.
Sammy hugged Scip, and told him he never would scare him again, would
give him half of all the maple-sugar he got, make him an earthen mug to
drink out of, and give him a lot of his hens' eggs.
It is not probable that Sammy would have obtained much help from his
companions, except for two reasons; one, that they could not have a
very good time without him, and also that he (by his influence with
Uncle Seth, and through him with Israel Blanchard) could obtain the
company of Scip on their expeditions.
Thus it was for their interest to help Sammy, in order that they might
have him and Scip to go with them. Sammy knew this, and made the most
of it while they were disposed to make the least of it, and help him as
little as would answer the purpose.
Sammy found that this clay was a very different material from any he
had used before: it was fine, tough, and did not stick to his hands in
the least; and with a mallet he could flat it out into broad sheets,
and roll it with a rolling-pin as his mother did her pie-crust.
As Mr. Seth became interested in Sammy's work, he recollected many
things that at first did not occur to him, and told Sam that the
potters put handles on their wares after they were partly dried; that
they rolled out a piece of clay of the right shape, and then stuck it
on with a little "slip" (that is, clay and water of the consistency of
thick cream), smoothed it with a wet sponge; and after the wares were
baked it would not show, but all look alike, and that a rag would do
as well as a sponge. Mr. Seth had offered to make moulds of wood for
him to mould his vessels on, but Sammy resolved to do it himself; and,
as he knew that the quality of the clay would improve by lying, took
time to think over the matter, and collected a number of hard-shelled
pumpkins, gourds, and squashes, which suited his fancy in shape, boiled
them, and scraped out the inside with a spoon instead of waiting for
the meat to rot, or trusting to the wood-ants.
He wanted to make a bean-pot for Mrs. Stewart, and especially for Mrs.
Blanchard, because Uncle Seth would eat of the beans in that, and, in
respect to it, wished to do his best.
He could not brook the thought of making a pot, that was, in truth, to
be a present to Uncle Seth in acknowledgment of favors received, and at
the same time ask him to make the mould to form it on. The boy likewise
felt, as every one does who has accomplished any thing, that he now had
a character to sustain.
This is the operation of right and wrong notions and doings with a boy.
When he has done one or two good things, he naturally feels anxious to
do more, and maintain and add to the reputation he has obtained.
On the other hand, when he has done several bad things, and feels that
he has lost character, he grows reckless: it becomes up-hill work to
get back, and he finally gets discouraged. Thus it happens to him as
the Scriptures declare: "For he that hath, to him shall be given; and
he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath."
CHAPTER XVII.
SELF-RELIANCE.
The boys wanted Sammy to go hunting with bows and arrows, as they were
not allowed any more powder for gunning at present; but he recollected
how they had disappointed him in respect to the hominy-block, and went
to the mill, hoping something might drop from Uncle Seth that would aid
his thought.
The good man having constructed the crane and screw with which to lift
the upper millstone, and swing it off the spindle, was deliberating
upon the method in which he should make a bail by which the screw was
to be attached to the stone. He knew that among the trees that grew
on the banks of the stream or among the bowlders on the hillside,
where roots of trees were turned from their natural course by various
obstructions, it was not difficult to find a root or branch that
would form the upper part or crown of the bail; and then, by cutting
a mortise in each end, he could attach two strong straight pieces of
wood to drop over the edge, and be fastened to it by wooden pins,
thus forming a kind of wooden chain similar to the brake on the
driving-wheel of the wind-shaft.
He knew if such a root or branch was found, it would be a rough affair,
not a true curve, would probably be crooked, at least one way; and that
it was not at all probable that one would be found large enough to hew
to a square edge, and that here and there portions of bark would need
to be left on. Should he make the crown from a large, slightly sweeping
stick, it would be necessary to cut the wood so much across the grain,
there would not be sufficient strength.
Mr. Seth was sitting flat on the floor, with his back to the wall,
chewing a chip. Sammy, who also had a burden on his mind, seated
himself at a little distance, waiting patiently for a proper
opportunity to speak.
At length Mr. Seth began to talk to himself: "I know what I'll do. I
won't get a natural crook; 'twill be rough, crooked, full of bunches,
and won't come to the stone as it should. It will look just like cart
and sled tongues that I have seen people make out of a crotched tree;
and I always despise 'em. I won't make it in pieces either. I'll take
a tough piece of wood, and bend it to exactly the shape I want; then
I can finish it up smooth. Of course it won't be quite as strong as a
natural crook, but I'll make it larger."
"O Uncle Seth! how can you bend such a great piece of wood?"
"Ha! you there, my little potter? You can do any thing, my lad, if you
only have pluck and patience."
"Then," thought Sammy, "I can find some better way to make pots, if I
have pluck and patience."
"Sammy, have you got your rifle with you?"
"No, sir. They don't let the boys have powder and bullets now."
"Well, I'm going home to get the oxen to haul a walnut-butt: run down
to your house, and ask Harry and the other boys to go into the woods
with me. Israel'll go too. And tell Harry to bring his broad-axe: I
want him to help me."
After hauling home a walnut-butt twenty feet in length, Mr. Seth
rolled it upon blocks, and began to hew the bail from the large end
of it; hewing the wood to a proud edge, and leaving a much greater
quantity of wood in the middle, where the screw was going through, than
at the ends.
Israel Blanchard and Harry began to make a form on which to bend this
great piece of timber by treenailing logs together, and hewing them in
the form of half the millstone the bail was to lift, or rather little
more than half as room must not only be left for the stone to turn
easily in the bail, but also for the head of the screw between the bail
and the stone, and also at the ends, as the holes for the pins that
attached it to the stone could not be very near the end, but space must
be left to admit treenails to prevent splitting.
On the sides of this form they fastened strong uprights opposite each
other, at proper distances, and strong yokes to slip over the ends of
them, and fastened by pins through the uprights, that could be put on
and taken off at pleasure; and made a number of large wedges to drive
under the yokes.
It was now sundown; and Sammy, who had been much more interested in
watching the work than he would have been in hunting, went home to
milk, and reflect upon the matter nearest his heart, having enjoyed
some little opportunity to converse about it with Uncle Seth.
Sammy did not like the pumpkins and gourds as forms to mould his dishes
on; neither did he like a mould of wood, or a basket. He knew the
basket would leave the outside rough.
He sat down in the yard to milk his cow, and began; but became so
absorbed in thought, that the cow put her foot in the pail all
unnoticed by Sammy, who kept on milking mechanically.
"Why, Samuel Sumerford! are you out of your senses? Don't you see that
cow has got her foot in the pail? What in the world can you be thinking
of? Now go give that milk to the hogs, and get a clean pail.--I
declare, I don't know what has got into that child: he was always
tearing round, couldn't live without half a dozen boys round him,
always complaining that he couldn't have no good times, till sometimes,
betwixt him and that little sarpent of a Tony, I was afraid I should go
distracted; and now he goes right down to the Cuthbert house the moment
he gets his breakfast, or up to the mill with Mr. Seth; and there he
stays. He don't seem to care about company, nor about his hens, nor any
play. I don't believe he's taken a bow and arrow nor a gun in his hand
this ten days; and seems all the time in a study."
"I'm sure, mother, I should think you'd be glad of it," said Enoch:
"you couldn't take any peace of your life for him; at any rate, all the
rest of us are glad."
"So am I, Enoch; but it seems so kind of unnatural!"
If the cow did put her foot in the pail, and if while it was there
Sammy was leaning his head against her, he got an idea that after
sleeping on he resolved to carry out in practice. But scarcely had he
despatched his breakfast when several boys made their appearance with
bows and arrows, and wanted him to go with them on a ramble.
"Can't go."
"What's the reason?" asked Stiefel.
"Don't want to."
"If you don't go with us never, we won't help you tread clay."
"I'll go some time: don't want to go to-day."
The boys went off; and Mrs. Sumerford said, "Sam, what made you so
short with the boys? I know they didn't like it. If you wanted to work
with your clay, why didn't you tell 'em that was the reason you didn't
want to go to-day? then they would have gone down to the Cuthbert house
with you."
"I knew they would, marm; and that was just the reason I didn't tell
'em. I didn't want 'em down there: I wanted to be alone to contrive
something. Mother, if you was going to draw a piece of linen into the
loom, and study out a new figure that you never wove before, would you
want all the neighbors in, gabbing?"
"No, I'm sure I shouldn't."
Sammy went to his workshop; and his mother began to wash the
breakfast-dishes, saying, "Well, these are new times: I shouldn't think
I'd been talking with Sam Sumerford."
The first thing Sammy did was to gather up all the pumpkins, gourds,
and squashes he had been at so much pains to select and dig out, and
throw them on the woodpile: he had brought with him a piece of ash
board (a remnant that was left when Harry made a drum, and had given
him), also a large piece of thick, smooth birch-bark pressed flat as a
board, and Harry's large compasses. He sat down at the table, and began
to talk to himself:--
"I heard my brother say, and tell Jim Blanchard, he didn't want to
eat other people's cold victuals, but he liked best to build his own
campfire. I don't want to eat anybody's cold victuals neither. I'll
make my own moulds: I won't ask Uncle Seth to make 'em. If I can't make
'em, I won't try to be a potter."
Sammy had found that the bean-pot he had made for his mother was about
the right size, but the shape did not suit: he knew that everybody who
looked at it would see that it was just the shape of a pumpkin. To use
his own expression, it was too "pottle-bellied;" and the mouth was not
large enough to admit a piece of pork the right size. The cover of this
pot dropped inside the rim of the pot; and, as nearly all the settlers
baked their beans in a hole under the hearth, it was not so good a form
for keeping out the ashes, as to have the cover shut over the rim, with
a flange on the inside of it.
With the compasses he struck out a circle on the table, the exact size
of the bottom of his mother's bean-pot, of which he had the measure,
and, boring a hole in the centre, stuck up a round, straight willow
stick considerably longer than the height of the original vessel.
Around this stick and in this circle he built up a mass of clay as high
as the stick, and much larger in circumference than the old pot.
His object in putting the stick in the centre of his circle was to
obtain a guide, a plumb-line centre from which to work.
"When they build a haystack," said he, "they always set a pole in the
middle, and then they get all sides alike."
Having thus provided plenty of material to go and come upon, he ran
home, and got his mother's pot, and placed it on the table beside his
pile of clay; then with the compasses marked on a piece of bark the
size he intended to have the mouth of his pot, and cut it out, levelled
the top of the clay, and, making a hole exactly in the centre of the
bark, slipped it over the upright rod and downward till it rested upon
the surface of the clay; and put some flat stones upon it to keep it in
place.
He now had the centre of the top and bottom, and by measuring found
the centre of the side, and marked it in four places; and with those
guides began with his scalping-knife to slice off the clay, form the
sides and swell and taper of the vessel, and by placing a rule across
the mouth obtained another guide, till he thus formed a model to suit
his eye. Sometimes he took off a little too much in one place, and made
a hollow: then he filled it with clay and cut again, until he felt that
he could make no further improvement.
It was of much better proportions than the original, which was manifest
as they sat side by side: still the capacity of the vessel represented
by the mould was about the same. If it was a little deeper, and had a
larger mouth, it was less bulging in the middle, tapering gradually
each way.
Sammy cleaned up the table, and was walking round it, viewing his
pot from different standpoints, once in a while making some trilling
alteration, or smoothing the surface with a wet rag, when he was
greatly surprised by the entrance of his mother.
"O mother! did you come to see me work?"
"Not altogether, my dear. Nat Cuthbert said there was a pair of
wool-cards in the chamber, that he would lend me. Run up, and look for
them."
Sammy soon returned with the cards, when his mother said,--
"Had you rather be down here alone, than at play with the boys?"
"Yes, marm: I'm having a nice time."
"What made you throw all those punkins, squashes, and gourds away, my
son, after you had taken so much pains to boil and scrape the inside
out?"
"'Cause they wasn't the right shape. They had their bigness all in one
place. The punkins had their bigness all in the middle, the squashes
and gourds at the bottom. They wasn't good moulds, marm."
"Wasn't the moulds the Lord made good enough for you to work from?"
"The Lord don't make bean-pots, mother; he only makes squashes and
punkins and such like: if he did, he'd make 'em right, 'cause he makes
the beans, flowers, and every thing right. Marm, there's both pots: now
which do you think is the best shape? Truly now, marm."
"Well, Sammy, I think this last is the best shape, and it has a larger
mouth to take in a good piece of pork. Come, you'd better go home with
me. It's only about an hour till dinner-time."
"Has the mill been going this morning?"
"Most all the forenoon, but the wind is nearly gone now."
"Then Uncle Seth hasn't touched his bail; but he'll work on it this
afternoon, and I'll see him."
He now made a profile just the shape of the outside of his pot, from
the thin piece of ash-board, then set it off an inch from the edge, and
cut the other side to correspond: thus the inside of the profile gave
the outside of the mould, and the outside of the profile the inside of
the vessel to be made. He then placed the great compasses each side on
the middle of the mould, and by that measure cut out another birch-bark
pattern: thus he had the measure of the diameter in three places,
bottom, middle, and top. After putting the profile and pieces of bark
carefully away, he tore down his mould, flung the clay in with the
rest, laid away the stick for future use, and ran home to dinner.
He had worked out all his plans in his head and in part with his
hands, knew he could do it, and felt easy; could go to the mill now.
But to have gone in the morning, and left that idea undeveloped--he
would not have done it to see Uncle Seth make a dozen bails.
When he came near the mill he met Uncle Seth, Israel Blanchard, Mr.
Holdness, Cal, and his brother Harry, who had been to dinner with
Israel, coming to help Mr. Seth bend the bail that he blocked out in
the stick the day before, and had not meddled with since: there having
sprung up a "mill-wind," he had been occupied in grinding. Thus Sammy
was in season.
A fire was made in the block-house, and water heated. The part of the
tree on which the bail was made being covered with straw, hot water was
poured on it till it was thoroughly steamed: then all those strong men
lifted the whole stick, and put the finished end on the mould between
two uprights, put a yoke over, and Uncle Seth drove a wedge between the
yoke and the bail, bringing it snug to the mould, and gave the word,
"Lower away." They now gradually let down the heavy unhewn end of the
stick that was in the air, the great leverage bringing it down easily,
for the bail was as limber as a rag. Slowly the heavy timber came down,
Uncle Seth meanwhile driving wedges under the yokes, and Sammy pouring
hot water on the portions designated by the former, till the end of the
stick struck the ground.
The end of the mould was instantly lifted, and large blocks that lay
ready put under it, which permitted the end of the stick to come down
far enough to bend that portion of the bail that formed the crown, the
most important part of the whole affair.
"Over with him," said Uncle Seth. The whole form that had previously
stood on its edge was instantly upset, lying flat on the ground, stakes
driven to hold it, and the remaining portion brought to the mould,
secured by wedges, and the long end of the stick sawed off.
The mould was now again set upon its edge, more water poured on, and a
final drive given to all the wedges, and the operation completed.
"Indeed, brother," said Uncle Seth, passing his hand carefully over the
hot wood, "there's not the sign of a 'spawl' on it: the wood is not
strained nor rucked in the least. A smart piece of timber that: I knew
'twas afore I cut it, just as well as I know now. I've had my eye on
that tree for more'n a year."
"How did you know it?" asked Sammy, who was not disposed to permit any
opportunity to obtain information to pass unimproved.
"I knew by the way it grew, and the ground it grew on. The limbs came
out straight from the tree, and turned down: a tree that grows that way
is always of tougher wood about bending than one when the limbs run up
like a fir. Then it grew on moist, loamy land; and trees that grow on
that kind of land have wood more pliant than where they grow on coarse,
gravelly land.
"How much more workmanlike that looks than any natural crook full
of bunches and hollows! Not that I would say any thing agin nat'ral
crooks: they are great things sometimes when a man's at his wits' ends,
specially in ship-building and often in mill-work."
"What are you going to do to it next?" asked Sammy.
"Nothing, my lad, right away: it must remain in the press two or three
days, that it may become set so that it won't straighten."
When Mr. Seth found that the bail was well seasoned and set, he took
it out of press, cut the holes in the ends to receive the pins that
were to hold it to the stone, and the large hole in the centre by which
it was to be hung to the head of the screw, worked it off smooth, and
oiled it.
He then made a washer or wooden circle to lie between the shoulder on
the head of the screw and the under side of the bail, in order that the
screw might turn more easily.
Screws of this size are always turned by putting a lever into holes,
generally four made in the head of them.
There were two objections to this method in the present case: one was,
that the bail interfered with turning the screw, another, that it would
be necessary to make the head of the screw much bigger, and require
a larger space between the bail and the stone than Mr. Seth cared to
have. Therefore he left the top of the screw square, and made a lever
to fit over it like a wrench over a bolt.
It was soon known among the boys that Mr. Seth had got the bail most
done, and would be likely to try it. Israel Blanchard and Mr. Holdness
were seen by the children going towards the mill; and they followed
suit.
The hopper, shoe, and covering boards were removed, the stone laid
bare, and the crane with the bail swung over it, the pins that confined
the latter to the stone thrust in; and Mr. Seth, standing on the stone,
turned the screw, and lifted both himself and the stone as easily, Sam
Sumerford said, as a squirrel would wash his face.
It was then swung over a trap-door in the floor, into which the lower
edge of the stone dropped; and they turned it over as easily as a
griddle in its bail. No more would have been required to place the
stone in a position to be picked, than to have put some blocks beneath
it, and turned back the screw. The hole in the floor saved the labor of
lifting the stone so high as would otherwise have been necessary, and
also required a less length of screw.
"This stone," said Uncle Seth, after examining it, "don't need picking,
and I didn't expect it did. I only wanted to see how the thing would
work. Wonder what Mr. Honeywood'll think about a wooden bail when he
comes back from the scout."
CHAPTER XVIII.
FRUITS OF PATIENCE AND PERSEVERANCE.
Sammy now returned with greater interest than ever to his work of
experimenting. Having kneaded a lump of clay, he flattened it out on
his bench with the mallet, and rolled it with the rolling-pin into a
broad sheet of the thickness which he thought desirable for the bottom
of his pot, and cut it out of the proper size and shape, and as much
larger than the original vessel, as the thickness he intended for the
sides. He then sprinkled sand on the bench to prevent the bottom from
sticking, rolled out another sheet of dough, and cut it all up into
strips a little longer than the circumference of his vessel, thus
leaving room to lap; these he rolled into pieces as nearly equal in
size as possible, and with them built up the sides of his pot from the
bottom, moistening the edges where they came together with clay slip,
and placing them one upon another like the coils of a rope.
By pressing with his hands on both sides and the surface, he
incorporated the different layers into one, so as to obliterate all
the marks where they came together. With his two circular pieces of
birch-bark he regulated the size, and with the profile the curve, of
the side, and made a vessel precisely like his own model. Then, with a
roll of clay, he made a projection on the inside to hold the cover, to
be put on afterwards when it was half dry.
The young potter was now quite well satisfied. He had made a pot far
superior to the other, of handsomer shape; and, the clay being properly
worked, there was no probability of its coming to pieces in the fire;
and, after smoothing the sides with a wet rag, he began to consider how
he should ornament his work.
Harry was possessed of a great genius for sketching and drawing figures
of all kinds on birch-bark, and often did it for the amusement of the
children.
Sam showed the pot to Harry, and wanted him to draw on it Indians
killing white folks, and scalping old people, women, and little
children.
"I wouldn't do that," said Harry: "that would be very well if you was
going to give the pot to Mr. Holdness, McClure, or Mr. Israel; but Mr.
Seth don't like any thing of that kind. If I was you, I'd have the
windmill: I'll cut that on it, and Uncle Seth right under it, and the
year it was built; and on the other side I'll make a man sowing grain."
Sammy assented to this, and put a wreath of oak-leaves round the design
and inscription by pressing them into the clay: then he put on the
handles. Mr. Seth had told him that wet leather would polish a pot:
he therefore obtained a piece from Mr. Holdness, who was the tanner
of the little community, and had managed, by shaving his bark with a
drawing-knife, to tan leather enough for pack-saddles.
The grateful boy now resolved to present the offering (that had cost
him so much labor), to his great benefactor, carried the pot to Mrs.
Israel Blanchard, and with a throbbing heart confided the secret to her.
The next day she invited Mrs. Sumerford, Sammy, the families of Mr.
Honeywood and Mr. Holdness, to supper. When they were all seated at the
table, she put on the pot of beans, setting it directly in front of
Uncle Seth, with the windmill staring him directly in the face.
Great was the surprise, many and fervent the encomiums; and Sammy was
never better satisfied with himself.
He had also made a pot for Mrs. Stewart. When she looked at it, and
read the name inscribed on it, the mother's eyes filled with tears.
"So you put Tony's name on it: you loved your little mate, Sammy."
"Yes, marm: I miss him all the whole time. I never shall think so much
of anybody as I did of him. I like all the boys, but I loved Tony.
If he was here, he'd help me: we should have made a pot for our two
mothers; and 'cause he ain't here, I made this for you."
"You are a bonnie bairn, an' I trust your mither'll nae ha' occasion to
greet for you as I maun for Tony."
Sammy could now make earthen vessels with much greater facility. He
had a good eye, and could make them without so much measuring as was
at first necessary, and without making a model. All he had to do was
to determine in his mind the size he would have the vessel, roll out
his clay, and cut the sheet long enough to form a circle as large as
the circumference of his vessel at its largest place, then cut it
into strips, lapping some more and some less, as the sides flared or
tapered; and, as he kept his measures of height, diameter, and the
profiles of the sides, he soon learned to make a vessel of any size he
wished.
When it was found that his ware would bear to be put on the fire to
boil in, the women wished to use them in this manner; but there was
nothing by which to hang them.
One day he was digging among the broken pottery under the shelving bank
on the site of the old Indian village, and unearthed the upper half of
a pot, the edge of the mouth rolled over, making a very broad flange.
He took it to Mr. Honeywood, who told him that it was done by the
Indian squaws to hold a withe to hang it over the fire by.
"I should think it would burn off."
"They put clay upon it, and watched it: if the clay fell off, put on
more."
"Mr. Honeywood, how did you know so much about Indians? and how did
you learn to talk Indian?"
"I learned to speak the language from two men in Baltimore, who had
been prisoners with them a long time: of their customs I learned a
great deal more from Wasaweela the Mohawk, with whom I hunted and
camped a whole winter."
Sammy now went to work, and made some very thick and strong pots, that
would hold two pailfuls, after the Indian form, and fastened withes
to them. They were very useful, for the women could hang them on the
crane, and boil meat or vegetables.
They kept a little clay at home to smear them with, which was seldom
necessary if the fire was made with judgment directly under the bottom
of the pot, and not suffered to blaze upon the sides.
Sammy now wished to try his hand at a milk-pan; but his mother
discouraged him, because she said the milk would soak into it more or
less, and it would not be possible to keep it sweet, and after a while
the milk put in it would sour. However, he made one, just to see if he
could; and it looked just like his mother's except the glazing. How
he wished he could glaze! He made pitchers and drinking-mugs, and put
handles on them by forming a roll of clay, and then sticking them on
when the ware was partly dry. He would stick the upper end of the roll
of clay on the vessel, then dip his hand in water, form the roll into
proper shape, and attach the lower end, then smooth with a moist rag.
After these unglazed dishes became foul, Sammy purified them by putting
them in the kiln, and baking them again. He made another improvement
that facilitated his labor. He got Scip to plane and shave a piece of
pine perfectly round, two feet long, and three inches in diameter, and
split in equal parts with a saw. Scip then hollowed out each part, and
put dowels in one half, and bored holes to correspond in the other,
which held the pieces evenly upon each other.
When he had made a roll of clay about the size, he dipped the mould in
water, put the roll in one half, and squat the other on it, and thus
made every roll the same size perfectly; and, by counting them up, he
knew very nearly when he had cut out enough for his pot.
There was one thing he could not prevent his mind from dwelling on: it
haunted him night and day; to wit, the statement made by Uncle Seth
in respect to the potter's wheel, and with what marvellous celerity
vessels could be made on it. That a thousand pots could be made in a
day, seemed to him little short of a miracle. He had not forgotten that
Uncle Seth had said, that, instead of a crank (of the nature of which
he had little conception), the spindle was sometimes moved by a band
going over a larger wheel, and passing round a smaller wheel (pulley)
on the spindle, and that this large wheel was turned by another person.
This was not to him difficult of conception; and he thought Uncle Seth
might, if he would, make one of that kind, and cherished a vague notion
that he might make such a one himself.
With his head full of such thoughts, he was occupied in preparing nests
for setting hens, and casting about in his mind which of the boys he
should endeavor to persuade to help him, should he adventure upon it.
He finally pitched upon Archie Crawford. Archie was quite ingenious,
could make a good wooden or horn spoon, a windmill, or a trencher, and
manifested more endurance in sticking to any thing he undertook than
most of the boys; was of a kindly nature, and willing to oblige.
While Sammy was thus engaged, Archie presented himself, accompanied by
several more armed with bows and arrows. The bows were capable, when
the arrow was drawn to the head, of killing a bear or wolf; and the
arrows were most of them steel pointed, the others flint heads, but
they were of Indian make and effective.
These bows belonged to the larger boys. The one carried by Johnnie
Armstrong belonged to his brother Ned; Harry Sumerford had killed an
Indian with it. As they had been restricted in the use of powder, they
had betaken themselves to the use of the bow; but these boys, by virtue
of incessant practice from childhood, would, when the object was near,
kill nearly every time. The bows they now had, however, were too stiff
for them, and they were not able to draw the arrow to the head.
"Come, Sammy," said Archie, "get Harry's bow and arrow, and go with us:
we're going to shoot pigeons and coons, and want to shoot fish."
The boys were in the habit of shooting fish when they came near the
surface in the shoal-water; but they sometimes lost both arrow and fish.
Sammy made no objections to going this time, as he had used up all his
clay, and knew he should need help from his mates, and that he must
gratify them if he desired their aid.
"It's no good for me to take Harry's bow. I'll take Knuck's: I'd ruther
have that. I can't begin to bend Harry's."
As the baby was asleep in the cradle, and could make no objection, they
took the bear with them. There were several dogs: Will Redmond had
brought Mr. Honeywood's Fan, the mother of the whole litter; Sammy had
one; and Tony's had come visiting of his own free will.
The boys would have taken them all; but Mrs. Sumerford objected,
because, though the dogs and the bear agreed well at home where they
had been taught to show due respect to his bearship, it was quite the
reverse when they were not under the inspection of their masters, the
dogs always being the aggressors. Therefore the dogs were shut up in
the house till the boys were gone, when Mrs. Sumerford let them out,
and gave them their breakfast.
Coons are wont to sleep in the daytime, and forage in the night. A
favorite resort of these creatures is the evergreen trees with close
foliage, among which it is not easy to see them. There, after a hearty
meal, they coil themselves around the tree, lying upon the limbs at
their junction with the trunks, and sleeping. The boys were no novices
in the art of finding them: one or two would climb the tree, and drive
them to the top, or upon the outer limbs, and the others shoot them.
They liked best to shoot pigeons when they could find them on the
ground, or on low bushes feeding on berries.
In shooting into the tops of trees, if they missed their aim, the
arrows were likely to stick in a limb or some part of the tree, in
which case it was not only some work to recover them, but the points
of the flint ones were liable to be broken, and those of the iron ones
bent, or if steel they were sometimes broken.
They had killed four coons, finding a whole family in one tree, and
a partridge, and were now in pursuit of pigeons, creeping on their
hands and knees among the bushes; and the bear, as fond of berries as
the pigeons, was improving the opportunity, lying down on the loaded
bushes, and eating while the juice ran in streams from either side of
his mouth.
The pigeons were accustomed to bears, had no fear of them, would feed
right under their noses. Archie Crawford knew this, and was crawling up
to some pigeons, and sheltering himself from their notice behind the
body of the bear, when from under a windfall out rushed a wild bear,
followed by two cubs, and growling savagely.
The civilized bear neither manifested fear nor a wish to quarrel. The
boys, on the other hand, strong in numbers, and many of them armed
with steel-pointed arrows, were delighted with the prospect of a duel
between two such antagonists, and shouted,--
"Go at her, baby! clinch her! you can lick her: we'll back you."
While baby's bear was mildly regarding his savage antagonist, the hairs
of whose coat stood upright with anger, the white foam flying from her
lips, and who was working herself into a great rage, one of the cubs
ventured up to baby's bear, who, putting down his nose, smelled of the
cub, and licked it with his tongue.
The wild bear then sprung upon the tame one, and seized him by the
under jaw; upon which the other, being much stronger and heavier,
instantly rose upon his hind-legs, and flung her off with so great
force, that she not only fell to the earth, but rolled entirely over
upon her back, almost crushing one of her cubs.
At this decided demonstration, the boys, wild with delight, shouted
encouragement; but the tame bear showed no disposition to follow up
his advantage, and continue the contest so well begun. Not so with the
other, who, springing up madder than ever, kept walking around her
opponent, growling savagely, while the latter began eating berries.
The boys now, provoked at his lack of mettle, addressed him in another
fashion, calling him a coward, lazy, and a fool, because he did not
spring upon the other when on her back, and finish her.
The wild bear now seized the tame one by his right fore-paw, which she
endeavored to grind between her teeth. The other, however, succeeded in
withdrawing it, and, now thoroughly mad, uttered in his turn terrific
growls; and a deadly grapple ensued between them, to the great delight
of the boys, who now had what they desired,--the prospect of a contest
of life or death.
It soon became evident, that though the tame bear was much the larger,
and for a "spurt" the stronger of the two, and by no means lacking in
courage, his fat, short wind, and want of exercise, rendered him a poor
match for his lean and wiry antagonist.
At this juncture of affairs, Ike Proctor, who had the strongest and a
remarkably clear, sharp-toned voice, mounting a great rock, called the
dogs with all his might. At the same time the others, drawing their
bows with every ounce of strength they possessed, sent a shower of
arrows at the wild bear, venturing near enough to make amends for lack
of muscle.
The bear instantly turned upon the boys, struck Sammy's bow from his
hand with a blow of her paw, tore his hunting-shirt from his shoulder,
slightly lacerating the flesh, broke his belt, and in another instant
would have killed him if Jim Grant had not at that moment sent a
flint-headed arrow into her right eye, and Archie Crawford fastened
a steel point in her left nostril; and Sammy, picking up his weapon
while the bear was trying to shake the barbed shaft from her nostril,
returned to the charge.
"Here they come! Here come the dogs!" shouted Rogers. On they came,
full stretch, uttering short barks; the mother, a powerful veteran
used to coping with bears and wolves, leading the van. Instinctively
avoiding the stroke of the bear's paw, she fastened to the right ear of
the brute, one of the pups instantly seizing the left.
The bear, enfeebled by her previous encounter and the loss of blood,
strove in vain to shake off these ferocious antagonists. Strong as
fierce they clung to her, while the remaining dog buried his fangs
in the bear's throat, and, rolling her on her back, thrust his sharp
muzzle in her vitals. The blood poured out in a stream; the hard-lived
animal quivered a moment, and gave up.
Excited by the combat, and the smell and taste of blood, the dogs
instantly turned upon baby's bear already half dead, and upon the cubs,
and killed them in a moment in spite of all their masters could do to
prevent it.
The boys would have killed the dogs if they had dared, so enraged and
grieved were they at the death of the tame bear, and also at the loss
of the cubs which they coveted.
"What pretty little things these would have been for us to keep!" said
Mugford, taking one of the cubs up in his arms. "Baby's bear would
have liked 'em; and how handsome the baby and the two little bears
would have looked, all three lying asleep together on the old bear!"
"They were big enough to eat any thing," said Proctor.
"You're crying, Sammy," said Will Redmond, noticing the tears on his
cheeks, which he did not try to conceal.
"If I be, I ain't crying for myself, but only 'cause baby'll miss his
bear, and 'cause my mother'll feel so bad: she loved the bear 'cause
he was so good to the baby. I've seen him lay on the hearth after he'd
been asleep, and just waked up, and stretch and gape, and stick out
every claw on his feet, just like the old cat will sometimes; the baby
would see 'em, and creep along to get hold of 'em; and the bear would
put 'em all in so they needn't scratch baby. I've seen that little
thing try to suck the bear's paw. Oh, he was a good bear!"
"I loved him too," said Archie; "and it makes me feel real bad, just
like crying. Let's all cry. There ain't anybody to see us: we'll cry
all we want to."
It needed but this to open the sluices, for the eyes of every boy were
brimfull of tears. They had a good solid cry, and, having given vent to
their pent-up emotions, felt relieved.
They all collected round the dead body of the bear. Sammy, kneeling
down, began to pat his head, and talk to him as though he was alive.
"Poor beary! we be all real sorry you're dead: mother and the baby'll
be sorry too. The dogs always did hate you, though you never did them a
bit of hurt, wouldn't hurt a fly."
"If you'd been brought up in the woods same as that wild bear, you'd
have licked two of her."
"The dogs know they've done wrong," said Rogers: "only see how meaching
they look, and keep their tails 'twixt their legs."
The wild bear was poor, and not fit to eat: so they skinned her. But
baby's bear was as fat as a well-fatted hog, but no one of them for a
moment indulged the thought of eating or even skinning him.
"If we leave the baby's bear in the woods, and cover him up with brush,
the wolves will get him," said Sammy.
Fred Stiefel and Archie volunteered to go home, and get shovels and
hoes; and they soon dug a grave in the soft ground to bury their pet
in.
"Let's put the cubs 'long with baby's bear. We know he liked 'em, cause
he smelt of 'em, and was licking one of 'em when the old bear jumped at
him," said Archie.
"The wolves sha'n't have baby's bear; they sha'n't pick his bones,"
said Sammy.
The boys brought stones as large as two, and sometimes as large as
four of them, could carry, and piled them on the grave to prevent the
wolves from digging into it. They put a large stone in the bear-skin;
and four carried it, and put on small ones till they made a large pile,
resolving whenever they came that way they would put on a stone. When
the boys returned home (for they all went home with Sam), bringing with
them the bear-skin, four coons, a partridge, and only three pigeons,
and with downcast looks made known what had taken place, Mrs. Sumerford
expressed much sorrow.
"You don't know, Sammy, how much I shall miss that creature. He was so
good! He wasn't a mite like any tame bear that ever I saw; and I've
seen scores of 'em, first and last. They are always great thieves; but
he wasn't; he had principle: he was a good deal honester than Scip.
They are mostly great plagues; people soon grow sick of 'em, and kill
'em: but he was not the least trouble. All the tame bears that ever
I saw before him were mighty unsartin': they'd take spells when they
would snap and strike with their paws."
"Tony's bear did: he killed a dog, broke his back at one lick of his
paw; and he clinched Mrs. Blanchard, and wanted to kill her," said
Grant.
"I know he did; but this bear was a great help to me about the child.
When I was all alone, and wanted to weave, I could put the baby on
the floor with the bear, and they would play ever so long; and when I
couldn't get the little one to sleep by rocking, to save me, he'd go to
sleep on the bear."
While his mother was thus recounting the virtues of the dead, it
brought the whole matter to the mind of Sammy in such a light that he
began to cry, and the boys with him; and finally the good woman herself
was moved by the tears of the children.
The baby was sitting on the floor with his playthings, and, not
knowing what to make of it, began staring with his great round eyes,
first at his mother, then at the others; and finally, not relishing the
silence, pounded on the floor with a spoon, and laughed.
"If you wasn't a baby, you wouldn't laugh; you'd cry like every thing,"
said Sammy.
"What creatures boys are!" said Mrs. Sumerford. "We've been thinking
all the danger was from Indians; but I'm afraid they'll contrive to be
killed by bears, or be drowned. They will if they can."
CHAPTER XIX.
TRIUMPH OF THOUGHT AND INGENUITY.
After the departure of the boys, Sammy took up, with greater enthusiasm
than ever, those trains of thought that had been so rudely interrupted
by the day's occurrences, and after supper sat down in one corner of
the room to reflect.
His mother, having spun her stint, began to reel up the yarn. As he sat
thinking, and occasionally looking at her as she reeled the yarn from
the spindle, he communed thus with himself:--
"If a potter's wheel is an upright spindle with a little wheel on it
turned by a band that goes over a big wheel, and my mother's wheel is a
level spindle with a little wheel on it turned by a band that goes over
a big wheel, then what's the reason, if my mother's wheel is turned
upside down, the spindle won't be upright, just as Uncle Seth said a
potter's wheel was? And then if there was a round piece put on top to
put the clay on, and you turned the big wheel, it would turn the clay."
"Sammy, don't you feel well?" setting her wheel back against the wall.
"Yes, ma'am, I'm well."
"What makes you sit there so still, then?"
"I don't know, ma'am."
"I don't believe you feel very well: you've been through a good deal
this day, and you needn't go to milking. I'll milk: the cows don't give
a great mess now."
Scarcely had his mother left the threshold than Sammy, jumping up,
turned the wheel over flat on the floor, with the pointed end of the
spindle uppermost. He put a log under the post of the wheel to keep the
end of the spindle from touching the floor, and prevent its turning.
There was a basket of turnips sitting in the corner: he sliced the
top from one of them, to flatten it, and stuck it on the end of the
spindle, and getting on his knees turned the wheel round; and round
went both spindle and turnip.
"There!" said he talking to himself, "if that turnip was a round piece
of wood, and if there was clay on it, 'twould be the same thing as the
potter's wheel that Uncle Seth told about, that didn't have any crank,
only two wheels."
The same principle, Sammy meant.
"I haven't got any tools, nor any thing to make a wheel of: so I
couldn't make one."
The tears sprung to the poor boy's eyes; and hearing his mother's step
on the door-stone, and not wanting to have her question him about his
tears, he opened the window-shutter, leaped out, made for the hovel,
and sat down there. He had left in haste; and, as Mrs. Sumerford set
down her milk-pail, she saw her wheel upside down, with a turnip on the
end of the spindle. "What's all this!" pulling off the turnip. "Samuel,
Samuel Sumerford! Did ever anybody see or hear tell of such a boy? It's
a mercy that he didn't break the wheel-head. What satisfaction could
there be in turning that wheel upside down, and sticking a turnip on
the spindle?"
The little fellow's reflections were of a sombre cast. "There ain't no
good times now as there used to be. I had a bear, and he was killed;
Tony had one, and he was killed; and now baby's bear, that was the best
most of the whole, is killed too. I had a tame coon, and they killed
him; a cosset lamb, and he died; and the Indians have come, and carried
off Tony who I loved better than the bear or coon or cosset lamb. The
Indians keep coming, and killin' our folks; and Alice Proctor thinks
they'll kill us all some time."
Sammy's thoughts now seemed to take a sudden turn; for at once he
jumped up, and ran at his utmost speed to the Cuthbert house. His
mother, looking after him in amazement, said,--
"I don't know about this pottery business: the child don't seem one
mite as he used to. I hope he won't lose his wits."
Rushing up garret, he brought down part of a flax-wheel; that is, the
bench, the wheel, and the posts on which the wheel was hung, the rest
having been carried off by Cuthbert. Sammy's spirits rose with a bound:
he thought, if he only had a wheel, he could manage the rest.
Where should he get boards to make a bench? for boards were precious
things in the settlement. He recollected that Mr. McDonald had in
his house a meal-chest, and partitions made of boards, and some
milk-shelves; and that some of them were used for making coffins to
bury the family in, as there was not time to manufacture boards with
the whip-saw. But he thought they might not all have been used; the
house stood empty, and was rotting down.
Away ran the excited lad for Archie, made a confidant of him, and
wanted him to go to the McDonald house to see if there were not some
boards there, and, if so, get them.
"You don't ketch me there this time of day: it's haunted. It's all but
sundown now. I'll go in the morning: 'twill be dark by the time we get
there."
"'Twon't be dark if we run. All I want is just to look in, and see what
there is; and, if there is any, we can get them some other time."
As usual, Sammy prevailed; and away they ran, reaching the place just
after the sun had set. Directly before the door stood the hominy-block
on which McDonald and his son were pounding corn when the savages came
upon them, and an Indian arrow still sticking in the block. On the
door-step was the blood-stain, where little Maggie was butchered. The
boys recollected it well, for she was their playmate. They didn't like
to venture in; for the bullet-proof shutters were closed just as they
had been left when the family were killed, and it was dark inside. They
had not forgotten that the floor (on that fearful morning) of the very
room in which they expected to find the boards was red with the blood
of Grace and Janet McDonald. They tried to look through the loop-holes,
but could not see any thing distinctly within.
"You go in, Sam."
"I don't want to: go yourself."
"It's more your place to go than 'tis for me, 'cause you want to be a
potter."
Urged by his desire to obtain boards, Sammy at length entered the door,
and, standing in the passage, looked in.
"I see some square pieces of timber, Archie, that would be nice to make
the frame of the bench; but I don't see any boards. The partition's all
taken down: only these timbers what it was fastened to are left."
A slight noise was heard in the room; and Sam tumbled over Archie in
his haste to escape, and both ran away. They ventured back, and found
that the noise that had alarmed them was made by the fluttering of a
piece of loose bark (moved by the wind) which hung by one end to a
log; and found there was one short board left in the room, about six
feet long. They thought there might be some in the chamber where the
children used to sleep, which was not so dark as the rest of the house,
because light came through many chinks in the roof.
Sam mounted the ladder to look; but, just as he got his head above the
level of the floor, he heard a great scrambling, and something went
swiftly past him. He either leaped or tumbled to the floor (he never
knew which); and they ran home, resolving never again to go to that
place in the twilight.
Early next morning they went there; and it seemed very different in
the daytime. They brought their guns with them; but of what use they
supposed fire-arms would be, in a contest with supernatural foes, is
not readily perceived: however, they felt stronger for having them.
Archie opened the shutters, that had been closed by the hands of Mrs.
McDonald a few moments before her death, and the sunlight streamed
in. In the chamber they found a wide board twenty feet long, that was
planed on one side, and placed between the beds for the children to
step on when they got out of bed, as the rest of the floor was laid
with poles that were rough with knots and bark. They took down the
joist in the room below: these had been sawed out with the whip-saw, by
Mr. Seth and his brother, when they put up the partition. They were a
great acquisition to the boys, almost as much as the boards; for they
could not have hewn out joist accurately enough to frame together.
"Mr. McDonald didn't think, when he got Uncle Seth to make this
partition, a meal-chest, and milk-shelves (what nobody else in the Run
has got, and Mr. Blanchard himself ain't got), that they would take the
boards to make coffins for himself and his folks; did he, Sammy?"
"Don't let's talk about that here."
They yoked the oxen, hauled their stuff to the Cuthbert house, and set
about making a bench.
"How high and wide and long shall we make it?" said Archie.
"Uncle Seth told me it ought to be about as big as this table."
Cutting their joist, they halved the pieces together, and made the
frame of the bench with a cross-sill at the bottom in the centre to
receive the end of the spindle. How they should make the spindle, and
what they should make it of, was the next thing to be considered.
They went to a piece of land that had been cleared, and the timber
burnt, but had not been planted, and had partially grown up again,
where were a great number of ash-sprouts, that grew luxuriantly and
very straight, as is the habit of that tree; and soon found one to
answer their purpose.
Two blocks, one much larger than the other, were sawed from the ends of
logs,--one for a pulley (wheel the boys called it), and the other for a
small wheel to receive the clay; and a hole bored in the cross-sill to
admit the lower end of the spindle.
Holes were bored, and a square mortise cut in the centre of the two
blocks, and the spindle squared near the lower end, and the pulley
fitted on to it. The top of the spindle was also squared for the other
block. This was done in order that neither the pulley nor the wheel
might turn on the spindle: then a score was cut in the edge of the
pulley to receive a band. The frame of the bench was now boarded on
top, the spindle put in its place, and the upper wheel put on. Their
tools were few, and the boys without practice in using them; yet,
though the work was rough, the bench was level, and the spindle plumb,
although made of an ash-sprout, the bark still adhering to portions of
it. The pulley and clay wheel were also true circles, as they struck
them out with Harry's large compasses, and cut to the scratch.
A serious consultation was now held in respect to the manner in which
they should avail themselves of the flax-wheel.
After a long consideration, arising from the fact that the flax-wheel
was not theirs, and that they could do nothing to unfit it for future
use in spinning, Sammy knocked the legs out carefully from the bench,
and placed the latter upon its edge, upon the floor, with the wheel and
posts attached, and at a proper distance from the spindle; then put
under the posts a flattened piece of wood just thick enough to bring it
up to a level, and drove into it two pins each side of the post to keep
them in place, and short enough for the wheel to play over them.
Flat stones were laid against the other end of the bench, to keep it
from moving; a band passed round both the flax-wheel and the spindle,
and the bearings greased. Some method must now be devised to turn the
large wheel; and this was not an easy matter. This wheel had on it a
short crank, to which (when the parts of the machine were all in place)
the treadle was attached; and on this crank a tang half an inch long,
with a button on the end, to keep the treadle from slipping off. This
affair, especially the button, was much in the way of putting any thing
on the wheel by which to turn it, and was not large enough to be made
useful of itself; for it could only be held betwixt the finger and
thumb, it was so very short.
The rim of this wheel was three inches in depth, and there were sixteen
spokes quite near together. Archie proposed boring a hole in this rim,
and putting a pin into it; but Sam said that would never do, because it
would injure the wheel, and he had promised Prudence Holdness he would
leave it as good as he found it.
He tried to fit a wooden handle to the tang of the crank, but the
button on the end prevented.
These boys, it is true, possessed little knowledge of things in
general: yet they had read the woods pretty thoroughly, and were aware
that the roots of the alder, hazel, and wild cherry, inclined to run
for some distance near the surface, and then throw up shoots at right
angles with the root from which they sprung.
They found a wild cherry nearly two inches in diameter, that sprang up
from a long naked root, cut the top off within eighteen inches of the
ground, and then dug it up. They now cut one arm of the root close to
the stem, leaving the other a foot in length, flattened the under side,
placed the end of the root towards the hub of the wheel, and lashed it
firmly to a spoke. This was a handle by which to turn the wheel, and
did not injure it in the least. They found, by getting on their knees
and turning the flax-wheel, the spindle revolved steadily but not very
fast.
"It don't go so fast as mother's flax-wheel," said Sam.
"Not a quarter so fast as my mother's big wheel: the spindle of that'll
whirl so you can't hardly see it, when she's a mind to make it," said
Archie.
The boys now sat down to rest, and contemplate their work with great
satisfaction.
"Ain't it nice, Archie?"
"Yes; and we made it our own selves, didn't we?"
There is an important principle developed in this declaration of
Archie. They had learned much, and derived a great deal more pleasure
from the contemplation of that rude machine that they had exerted all
their ingenuity to make, than they would have done had Uncle Seth made
a potter's wheel, and given it to them. If you want to bring out what
is in a boy, want him to develop original thought, and become possessed
of resources within himself, encourage and stimulate him to make his
own playthings. How many children there are who have almost every thing
given them that a toy-shop can furnish, and yet get sick of their
novelties when they have looked them over, acquire but few ideas in the
process, and remain children during life! if that deserves the name of
life which is useless and barren, both in respect to themselves and to
others.
They soon tested their instrument by experiment. Taking some sand,
Sammy strewed it over the wheel, and put a lump of clay on it while
Archie turned. He did this in order that he might be able to get the
vessel off, as he knew the clay would stick to the wood; but when he
put his hands on the clay the wheel turned round under it, and the clay
tumbled to the floor. Finding that would never do, he swept off all the
sand, and flung the lump down hard on the wood, where it stuck fast
(as Uncle Seth had told him he saw the potters do), put his hands on
each side of the clay, and brought it up to a sugar-loaf form, and then
pressed it down to break the air-bubbles, then put his thumbs into the
middle of the lump, and his fingers outside. The clay instantly assumed
a circular form, and became hollow.
"Oh, oh! It's doing it!" shouted Sam.
"Doing what?" cried Archie, who on his knees could not see what was
going on.
"It's growing hollow. It's making a pot. Oh, it's growing thinner and
thinner!"
Indeed it was; for Sammy not only stuck his thumbs into the lump, but
kept separating his hands, till, the walls of the pot growing thinner
and thinner, both thumbs broke through, and there were only two long,
wide ribbons of clay, and no bottom; for he had pressed his hands down
so hard as to scrape through to the wood. He uttered a yell of dismay,
and Archie ran to look.
"Only see there," said Sam, taking up part of the side: "see how smooth
it is! I couldn't have made it so smooth the way I did before. Oh, if
it hadn't bursted!"
"What made it do so?"
"Don't know: guess I can do better next time."
Next time he succeeded in making something hollow, but it was almost
as big at the top as at the bottom; the sides were thick in one place,
and thin in another: but the boys thought it was nice till they tried
to take it from the wheel, when they found Sammy had poked his fingers
through the bottom to the wood.
Archie was now to try his hand: the wheel had made but a few
revolutions when he shouted,--
"Stop!"
He had pressed his hands so close together, that at the top there was
a cone of clay, and a round lump on the wheel, without the sign of a
hollow. The next time he made something hollow; but the sides were so
thin they would not stand, but tumbled down in a heap as soon as he
took his hands off.
Now it was Sammy's turn again. While turning the wheel for Archie, he
had been reflecting upon the causes of his poor success; and this time
made a pot that was all right at the bottom, and of a proper thickness,
only rather bulging in the middle. They were greatly delighted, but, in
trying to take it from the wheel, tore it in pieces. Sammy made another
attempt, and met with still better success. They dared not take this
pot from the wheel, yet were unwilling to ask Uncle Seth, or let him
know any thing about their proceedings till they had made more progress.
As it was near dinner-time, they concluded to leave it on the wheel,
and inquire of others, supposing that Mrs. Honeywood, Mrs. Blanchard,
or Holt's wife, who had lived in the old settlements, might tell them
something; but they could not.
"I don't believe but Scip would know: he has lived in Baltimore," said
Mrs. Blanchard.
They applied to Scip.
"De potters hab leetle piece of wire wid two sticks on it, to take hold
on. Dey pull dat through 'twixt de clay and de wheel; den dey take it
off wid dere han's, if leetle ting: if big ting, hab two sticks ob wood
put each side, fay to de pot, so not jam it. Me show you, me make you
one."
The boys looked at each other; for there was no such thing as a piece
of wire within a hundred miles, and they had never seen any save the
priming-wires that were with some of the smooth-bores. Scip advised
them to try a hard-twisted string, which they found to answer the
purpose.
Sammy kept on improving; but Archie did not, and began to grow tired
of pottery. It was hard work to turn the wheel: he perceived that, as
he could make no further progress in turning, in the natural order of
things, Sammy must be the potter, while he would remain wheel-boy.
Sammy, on the other hand, was full of enthusiasm, ever improving. He
could now tell the thickness of his pots by the feeling, and made them
uniform in this respect; was all the time correcting little defects;
and learned by practice how thick the sides should be to stand. He
offered Archie a powder-horn if he would turn all the afternoon; but he
wouldn't hear a word of it, and said his hands were blistered, and the
skin was worn off his knees, kneeling on the hard floor. Sammy offered
him a bullet if he would turn long enough for him to make three more
pots. Archie said he would the next morning; and here the work ended
for the day.
CHAPTER XX.
UNCLE SETH'S SURPRISE.
When this new and exciting employment came thus suddenly to a full stop
by the refusal of Archie to turn the wheel any longer, the latter went
home with two large holes in the knees of his trousers, albeit they
were buckskin: Sammy went over to Israel Blanchard's.
He found Scip and his master pulling flax, and instantly took hold with
them. Since Sam had become so industrious, he had grown into great
favor with Mr. Blanchard, who believed in hard work and also in hard
fighting.
It appeared in the sequel, that Sammy's motives were not altogether
disinterested in thus volunteering to help his neighbor; for, after
working lustily till night, he asked Mr. Blanchard if he might have
Scip to help him the next afternoon.
"Yes, my little potter: I suppose you want him to work clay for you;
but it seems to me you use up clay fast."
Sammy didn't tell him what he wanted of Scip. The next morning Archie
came, true to his word; and they began to work.
Mr. Seth found, when he had finished his work upon the bail, that
he had about worn up his mallet with so much mortising in the tough
wood; and recollecting that, some months before, he had seen a stick
of hornbeam about the right size on the woodpile at the old Cuthbert
house, took a saw in his hand, and went over to get a piece. Hearing
the boys at work inside, he crept up, and peeped through a crevice in
the logs.
Archie was on his knees on the floor, tugging with his right hand
at the wheel, while his left was leaning on a stone placed for that
purpose; and Sammy was making a pot. Equally surprised and delighted,
he looked on a while in silence; and, as he could not obtain a good
view of Sam where he stood, he went to the window that was open.
Archie's back was towards him, and Sam was too intent upon his work to
notice him.
The kindly nature of the old mechanic was stirred to the quick when he
saw Sam actually turn a pot of good shape with such machinery as that;
and he vowed internally that he would make him a potter's wheel before
the lad was a week older, but, upon reflection, concluded it would be
better to help him a little, and not too much at once.
"So you've made a wheel for yourselves, have you?" said Uncle Seth,
showing himself at the window.
The wheel stopped. Archie jumped up: Sam colored, his face as red as
red paint.
"Don't be bashful," said Uncle Seth, getting in at the window. "I think
you've done first rate, most remarkable: that pot's as good as a pot
need be."
"We was afraid you'd laugh at us, Uncle Seth, and so we didn't like to
tell you."
"Laugh at you! I praise you: you've done wonderful. Now let me see you
make a pot."
Sammy had turned one pot, and, drawing a string under it, took it from
the wheel with his hands; in so doing, he put it a little out of form,
but repaired it by pressing it into shape again with his fingers.
Sammy turned two more pots, each one being an improvement on the
former one; being put on his mettle by the praises of Uncle Seth.
He then told him that Archie's contract was completed, but that Scip
was going to help him in the afternoon.
"What made you put your large wheel flat on the floor? why didn't you
set it on the legs?"
"'Cause it wouldn't go so: the band would slip right off the little
wheel."
"Cross the band, then it won't."
"Cross the band!"
This was a step farther than Sammy's knowledge of machinery extended.
Uncle Seth took the wheel from the floor, put the legs in again,
crossed the band, and put it on the wheel.
"Now you can stand up, and turn: put some clay on the wheel, and I'll
turn for you."
Uncle Seth turned, and Sam made another pot.
The boys could hardly contain themselves, they were so delighted.
"How much you do know, Uncle Seth!" said Archie: "we don't know any
thing."
"You haven't been learning so long as I have. I want you to pay
attention, and I'll explain something to you. You see this spindle
don't turn very fast,--not near as fast as the spindle on your mothers'
flax-wheels; and yet this large wheel is exactly the same kind of a
wheel. What do you suppose is the reason?"
"We don't know," said Archie.
"If that pulley, Sammy, that is on the spindle (little wheel you call
it), was just as large as the flax-wheel, and you should turn that, the
other would turn just as fast,--just as many times,--wouldn't it?"
"Yes, sir: of course it would if they were both of just the same
bigness."
"Well, then, if you should make the flax-wheel as big again as the
pulley, the pulley would turn twice when the flax-wheel turned once:
wouldn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Thus you see the reason that spindle doesn't turn any faster is
because the two wheels are so near of a bigness. That pulley is so near
the size of the other wheel, that it don't turn but three or four times
while the large one is turning once. The large wheel is not more than
thirty inches, and the pulley is large seven. Don't you know how fast
your mother's spindle on her large wheel whirls?"
"Yes, sir. It goes so sometimes you can hardly see it."
"Good reason for it. The wheel is forty-eight inches in diameter, and
the pulley on the spindle is only about an inch. What do you think of
that, my boy?--forty-eight inches to one inch; the spindle turning
forty-eight times while the large wheel turns once."
"We didn't know. All we knowed was, you said they had a big wheel and a
little one on the spindle."
Mr. Seth took the pulley from the spindle, cut it down more than
one-half, and put it higher up on the spindle.
"There, my lads, I have made that pulley smaller; and your spindle will
turn so much faster that you can make three pots where you made one
afore: besides, now that the large wheel is upright, you can turn it
as fast again, and much easier than you could when 'twas lying on the
floor."
Mr. Seth now put a stone on the bench near the wheel on which the
vessels were turned, and put a junk of clay on it: through the top of
this clay he ran a stick, passing it back and forth in the hole till it
would move easily, and be held firm in place when the clay became dry.
He then said to Sammy,--
"There's a gauge for you. Run that stick over the wheel, and draw it
back just in proportion to the size of the pot you want to make. If
you bring the edge of the pot to the end of that, it will regulate the
size."
It was a rude affair, made in a moment; and yet it answered the purpose
perfectly. Mr. Seth also made some half-circles of wood, with handles,
and a dowel in one of the halves to fit into a corresponding hole in
the other half. These were placed on each side of the vessel, bearing
equally all round, and cut to the shape of the side. With them he could
easily take his ware from the wheel without marring it. Sammy had
already found that he could smooth the sides of his pots by applying
the edge of the profile to them.
Still, after these improvements, the wheel was a poor affair. There was
not sufficient power to turn a pot of any size, and the band was apt to
slip; and the spindle, running wood to wood, increased the friction.
Mr. Seth, convinced that the pottery business was not a mere boy's
affair with Sammy, resolved that at the first opportunity he would make
him a far better machine than that. Without saying any thing to Sammy,
he took the measure of the bench, that answered the purpose well, and
left him to knead clay, and make preparation for the arrival of Scip in
the afternoon.
Perhaps our readers will wonder where the other boys were all this
time, that they took no interest in the proceedings.
Well, their parents had work for them to do at home; and every leisure
moment was taken up in building a turkey-pen, or trap to catch wild
turkeys in, as the time was approaching when it would be wanted.
Thus occupied, they were ignorant of the doings of Sammy and Archie;
but it was soon noised abroad, and the old house filled with curious
boys, who all wanted to try their hands at turning a pot. After
experimenting a while, and meeting with about as much success as
Archie, they preferred play, or even work. Archie also, after the
excitement of making the wheel was over, lost his interest; and Sammy,
much to his satisfaction, was left to work in peace, aided by Scip. He
also had aid from another source; for, after the improvement made by
Mr. Seth in setting the wheel upright, the girls would turn for him,
and sometimes also his mother; and, as he could not make large pots on
the wheel, he made pitchers and mugs for the girls, bowls and platters;
and by practice he became expert in putting handles to his mugs and
pitchers. When desirous of making a large pot to hang on the fire, or
for any other purpose, he resorted to his old method of rolling the
clay, and also when he could get no one to turn for him.
CHAPTER XXI.
NED RANGELY.
It was now time to gather the corn. Sammy was obliged to suspend his
operations, and the entire community were busily employed in harvesting
and husking. The ears were picked off and husked in the field, and the
sound corn put in log cribs inside the fort.
A strong scout was sent out, boys placed back to back on stumps to
watch while the rest were at work. Every nerve was strained to place
their bread-corn out of the reach of the savages; for, this being
accomplished, their anxieties in respect to food would cease.
The corn-crop and all their crops were late sown and planted, by reason
of Indian alarms, and because in the spring they were occupied in
building the mill.
The last basketful had been placed on the sled; and Honeywood took up
his goad to start the oxen, when Mrs. Sumerford exclaimed, "Who's that?
I saw a man, I know I did, come from behind the big rock, cross the
ford and the little clear spot between there and the woods; and I think
he had a rifle on his shoulder."
All now stood on their guard, rifle in hand.
"It ain't an Indian, that's sartain," said Holdness: "an Indian
wouldn't be walking about in plain sight, with a rifle on his shoulder."
"Who else can it be? We haven't seen a white face for months. I think
we'd better run for the garrison," said Mrs. Blanchard.
"I see him," said McClure. "It's a white man, but none of our folks:
he's got a pack and a rifle. It's some ranger who has lost his way."
Every eye was now eagerly fastened on the stranger, who travelled
slowly as though fatigued.
"It's Ned Rangely, Brad," shouted McClure, "as sure as the sun is in
the heavens: it's Ned, who hunted and trapped with us so many winters
at Red Stone, and has been in more Indian fights than any man on the
frontier. Don't you see how he carries that left arm: that was broke by
an Indian bullet?"
"I believe you're right, neighbor."
"Right? I know I am: I could tell him among a thousand."
They both started towards the stranger, who stopped, and stood leaning
on his rifle, evidently fatigued.
"God bless you, Ned Rangely! Is that yourself?" cried Holdness, seizing
one hand, while McClure laid his hand upon his shoulder.
"How are you, old stand-by?" cried McClure. "It does a man good, these
ticklish times, to look on your old face. Haven't you come in a good
time? We've plenty to eat, nothing to do; and you've got to stay here
with us all the rest of your life."
"Wish I could; but the fact is, we came on business, and must do it and
be off."
"Not a word of business till morning," said McClure, clapping his hand
on Rangely's mouth: "come, go home with me."
"Let him go with me to-night," said Holdness, "because he's tired and
foot-sore, and you can come with him: and he can go to your house
to-morrow."
To this McClure assented. One taking Rangely's rifle, and the other
his pack, they marched off, leaving the rest to get in the corn.
Holdness did not lack for company that evening; all the young people
coming in to listen to the talk of these old comrades, Rangely's
in particular, whose whole life had been a scene of perils and
hair-breadth escapes.
The next day was a leisure one, the harvest being secured. Holdness and
Rangely strolled over to McClure's: soon Honeywood dropped in, Maccoy,
Stewart, Ned Armstrong, Harry Sumerford, Andrew McClure, and others of
the young men.
"Now, Ned," said Holdness, "there's a number of us here: we'll listen
to your business, whatever 'tis. We've no separate interests, but are
like so many peas in one pod, that all touch, and there's no parting
'twixt 'em."
Rangely looked round upon this noble group of stalwart men and youth
with evident delight as he said,--
"Well, neighbors, I was sent here by those who pretend to know more'n
I do, to raise men for a skirmage with these Delawares, Monseys,
Shawanees, and what not red trash, that are whooping round, and
scalping women and children. They want to raise three or four hundred
men, and just wipe 'em out. They want men that can shoot and march, and
know how to fight Indians in the woods; and they don't want nothing
else. So you see, 'cause they knowed I was acquainted, they sent me up
here."
"We're much obliged to 'em," said Holdness. "Didn't think the rest of
the world knew we was in it, or cared whether we lived or died. Don't
s'pose they did, till they happened to want to make use on us. It
strikes me, Ned, they sent you on a fool's errand."
"I'm pretty much of the same opinion with Brad," said McClure,--"that
we've got about enough to do to take care of ourselves and them what
look to us. Here we've stood in death's door, as you may say, ever
since the war began. There isn't a man, scarcely a boy, not to say
children, what hasn't a scar on him; and some of us are pretty much
cut to pieces. There's about as many of us under the sod, killed
by Indians, as there are above it. And now you ask us to leave our
families, forts, and guns, and go to fight for people who wouldn't lift
a finger to help us, and wouldn't have let us have cannon nor powder
if they could have helped it."
"As for me," said Armstrong, "I'm not going into them woods to throw
away my life, and be ambushed by Indians, at the tail of these
turkey-cocks like Braddock, who don't know the first thing of the duty
they are sent to perform, and are fit only to lead men to death and
destruction."
"Don't think we cast any reflection upon you, Ned," said Holdness, "for
doing the errand; but you see how the neighbors feel about it."
"I've no doubt what you say is all true," replied Rangely,--"true as
the Bible, and they say that's just so. But, you see, these Indians
get together in their towns, three or four hundred of them: there
they keep their women, children, and ammunition the French give 'em,
lay out their plans, and divide their scalping-parties to go to those
places they think most exposed. When they have struck their blow, they
go back with their scalps and prisoners to have a great dance and
jollification, and get ready for another raid, and the whites that are
left flee into the older settlements, and leave the country to them.
They don't kere any thing 'bout the forts: they're a good ways apart,
and they can pass 'em night or day."
"That's so," said Maccoy.
"What they want is to have the Province raise a force of men what know
the woods, and have had experience in fighting Indians,--not a blasted
red-coat among 'em,--and carry the war into the Indian country up to
their towns, clean 'em out, kill their women and children, burn up
their possessions and forts now just as winter comes on: that'll quail
'em to some purpose. I reckon," said Ned, looking round him, "I've come
to the right place for that sort of men: think I've seen some of 'em
afore to-day, and when the bullets were flying lively."
"But," said Stewart, "an' we tak' the gait you propose, what will
hinder the scalping-parties you speak of from falling upon our families
while we're awa'?"
"You have a very strong fort here, have taught the Indians some hard
lessons, and, after this last mauling, they won't be in a hurry to
meddle with you. You can leave enough to defend the fort, and then
spare quite a number. It's for you, not for me, to judge whether by
going on this expedition you won't be taking the best method to break
the power of the Indians, and protect yourselves for the time to come."
Thus far the debate had been carried on chiefly by McClure, Holdness,
and Armstrong. Israel Blanchard was not present; and the young men,
though eager for any thing that promised a fight with Indians, were
too modest to obtrude their views; while Honeywood had not opened his
mouth. Noticing this, McClure said,--
"I should like to have Mr. Honeywood's mind on this matter."
"I," said Honeywood, "would inquire, in the first place, who is to
command this force it is proposed to raise?"
"Sure enough! We've been beating all about the bush; and Ned, as he
allers does, has hit the nail right on the head," said Holdness.
"Who is to command it? Kernel Armstrong," replied Rangely.
"I wat weel that makes an unco difference, sae much that it becomes us
to gie the matter special consideration," said Stewart.
"Indeed it makes a difference," said Holdness.
"I know Kernel Armstrong right well. I've fought with him, and fought
under him: so has Hugh Crawford who's dead and gone, and Harry's
father."
"I think," said Honeywood, "there's much truth in what Mr. Rangely
has said,--that by joining this expedition we take the best method to
defend ourselves, and break the Indian power. If instead of building
all these forts, and manning them with soldiers half of whom will run
at the sight of an Indian, the same money had been spent in getting
together a force of frontier-men led by a suitable person to do what is
now on foot, a great portion of this terrible slaughter and destruction
of property would have been saved. One-half the money would have done
it."
"I'd 'a' taken the job for that," said McClure, "and found the men."
"One great reason why the Indians so much dread the Black Rifle is, he
pursues the same course in respect to them that they do towards the
whites; and they can never be sure that he is not lurking round their
wigwams. A whole British army wouldn't make the impression upon them
that he has. One thing's very certain: if the Province is going to wait
for the king and council to send an army over here, the chiefs of the
Six Nations won't be able to hold their young men; but they will join
the French, and drive us to the coast. The garrison is now in excellent
condition: the harvest is secured; there is ammunition and provision;
and I think we might spare some men, and leave enough to defend the
fort."
"We'll defend the fort," cried Sam Sumerford, unable to contain
himself: "the Screeching Catamounts'll defend the fort; we've done it
one time."
"Well crowed, my young cock of the walk," said Rangely, patting him on
the head: "you'll be wanted."
"I," continued Honeywood, "am ready to volunteer on condition that the
force is made up of men that are used to the woods, and that they are
commanded by Col. Armstrong and such other officers as he selects: if
I get there, and find it otherwise, I shall shoulder my rifle and come
home again."
"I'll go," said Harry Sumerford.
"I'll go," said Ned Armstrong.
"And I," said Nat Cuthbert.
"We'll all go," said Andrew McClure; "we'll follow Harry: where he
goes we'll go,--that is, if the old folks think best."
"I'll go," said Hugh Crawford, "if it's thought best."
By this time the news had spread. Israel Blanchard, Wood, and Holt came
in, and, after hearing what had been said and done, approved heartily
of the proceedings.
"Ain't you and McClure goin', Brad?" asked Rangely.
"We ain't often behind, Ned, when bullets are flying; and sha'n't be
now, I reckon."
Holdness, perceiving by the looks of Harry Sumerford that he had
something he would like to say, remarked,--
"Harry, I see you've somewhat on your mind: what is it?"
"I think, Mr. Holdness, there are people here whose judgment is worth a
great deal more than mine."
"The more minds, the better: I want to hear it," said Blanchard.
"I've been thinking whether the Black Rifle wouldn't go. There are
always fifteen or twenty men that'll follow him anywhere; and they are
just the men we want. He offered to go with Braddock, but the old goat
wouldn't have him."
"Don't think 'twould work," said Holdness. "Kernel Armstrong's a man
who knows his business, and would kalkerlate ter be obeyed. The Black
Rifle's better kalkerlated ter lead than ter foller anybody; and his
men likewise had ruther go with him, and nobody else. He kills Indians
for the sake of killin' 'em: peace or war, it's all the same ter him.
They go for the sake of the scalps; and they know very well that they
can take more scalps going with him in one week, than with a regular
force in a month; and make ten dollars where they wouldn't make one."
"That's so," said McClure: "Brad's got the right of it."
"There's one thing though," said Holdness: "I believe he thinks more of
me than any other being, and loves me as well as he can love anybody
since his great sorrow crushed his heart, and tore him all ter pieces;
and I've not much doubt but if I go and see him, tell him what's on
foot, and that we want ter do all we kin for the country, and have got
to leave this fort with a small garrison, that he would agree to camp
here in the Run; and look out for us; and, if he agrees ter do it, he's
just as true as steel. And though I don't think there's much danger,
yet, if he would agree to camp round here, I for one should go away
easy; and 'twould be a great comfort to the women-folks. Perhaps he'd
let us have some powder and lead: he allers has a stock."
"Well, Ned," said McClure, "I s'pose you want to have an answer; and
you may tell Armstrong that we'll furnish twelve or fifteen men, and be
at the place appointed at the time set; and you kin tell him they'll
be _men_ too,--men that kin shoot ter a hair's breadth, brought up ter
fightin' Indians, and won't tremble in their shoes at the sound of the
war-whoop."
"I'll just tell him," said Rangely, "that Brad Holdness and Sandie
McClure are among them, and they are a sample of the rest."
"Tell him they know their worth; won't foller any turkey-cock of a
red-coat they may send across the water; and after they get there, if
they find they've been deceived, they'll shoulder their rifles and go
back."
"Ye'll please to remember that last observation, Maister Rangely," said
Stewart, "seeing it's o' muckle weight; for I opine that Black Douglas
himsel', with his two hundred claymore, and lance like a weaver's beam,
would hae been of sma' account in the woods wi' savages."
The next question to be decided was, who should go and who remain. The
young men all wanted to go, of course, and were burning to distinguish
themselves before the Province, for which as yet they had had no
opportunity; but, on the other hand, the older people were equally
anxious, and even more so. Both Stewart and Israel Blanchard, who had
heretofore remained at home,--not, indeed, for the same reason as the
young men, seeing they had established their reputation for conduct
and courage, and outgrown the enthusiasm of youth,--desired now to go,
as they saw in this movement (the choice of the commander, and quality
of men sought for) an opportunity to strike an effectual blow at their
implacable foes, and to procure safety for themselves in the future;
and with most of them the desire of revenge entered largely into the
account.
This explains the indifference and even contempt with which the
proposition of Rangely was at first met by men still smarting under
the recollections connected with Braddock's defeat; and likewise
the sudden change in their opinions, when, in reply to Honeywood's
question, Rangely gave the name of a leader well known and trusted,--a
man who had grown up among the perils of the frontier.
"It seems to me, neighbors," said Israel Blanchard, "that Mr. Holdness
had better go and see what he can do with the Black Rifle before we
attempt to pick out the men; because it will make a vast difference in
respect to who and how many we are to leave in garrison, whether the
Black Rifle will agree to help us or not."
The next morning Holdness and Rangely, whose paths for some distance
were the same, started; one to return to his commanding officer, the
other to meet the Black Rifle.
Holdness found that restless being busily engaged making a canoe (from
bark he had peeled in the spring) for a fall hunt. He welcomed Holdness
with great cordiality; who, laying aside his pack and rifle, instantly
set at work helping him (much to the gratification of the captain,
as it is quite inconvenient for one person to build a birch alone),
mentioning never a word about the business on which he came, and
accepting the invitation of his old comrade to spend the night. While
they were eating supper the Black Rifle said,--
"Brad, I'm right glad to see you, but I don't believe you came here
just to help me build this birch: so, whatever your business is, out
with it, and we'll talk it over to-night afore the campfire."
Holdness laid the whole matter before this veteran leader, and asked
what he thought of the plan.
"I think well of the thing: it's what should have been done at the
first. I see what you're after: you want to put all the strength
you've got into this thing, 'cause you think it's a move in the right
direction, and the first one, too, after so long a time; and you Wolf
Run folks are just the chaps who can do it. But you're consarned about
your families while you're gone; and that ties your hands."
"Just so, and that's all the difficulty."
"Well now, Brad, you're come in a good time. You see, it's kind of a
slack time with me: we've been on a rampage arter Indian scalps, and
we've got 'em too. Some of my men have been wounded, though not very
bad, and some have gone home to get in their harvest; and when it gets
a little later, the wounded get well, and the rest ready, we're goin'
to start out on a fall and winter hunt and scalping-scrape both; that
is, we're goin' on to the hunting-grounds of the Delawares, and of
course they'll object. So, you see, I'm building this birch, and am
going to fill snow-shoes, make moccasons, and get ready; and have got
to dress some skins to make the moccasons of, and a good deal to do.
But I kin just as well do these things at your place as here, and I
will; and, just as fast as any of 'em get through their work, they'll
come. I s'pose you've got room and provision enough in the fort for
'em: you know I allers live outside. I've got some iron; and your Mr.
Honeywood can mend my traps afore he goes, and mend some gunlocks for
me."
"Sartainly, and bring all the wounded: our women-folks'll take kere of
'em. Mrs. Sumerford can't be beat for dressing a gun-shot wound."
"Reckon I will. Most of 'em are wounded in the legs or body: they kin
shoot if they can't march. Then I shall be outside; and, if the Indians
come, I kin soon muster the rest."
The next morning Holdness took leave of his friend, and returned to
tell the settlers that the Black Rifle would be at the fort within two
days, and wanted four mules or horses to bring some wounded men, and a
spare mule and pack-saddle to bring his traps and ammunition.
Will Grant and Hugh Crawford started with the beasts, and in due time
returned, bringing with them the wounded men.
These men were of the same stamp as Holdness and Ned Rangely; rude in
speech, but honest, honorable, simple-hearted as children, and kindly
disposed to all men except Indians.
Two of them, John Lovell and Dennis Morton, were wounded in the breast;
Ridgway in the left arm; Thomas Bracket and Robert Tysdale, the former
in the thigh, and the latter in the right leg below the knee, and could
walk with a cane: either of them could shoot through a loop-hole, and
both were recovering rapidly.
In the afternoon of the second day, the Black Rifle came, and built his
camp between the fort and the river.
It is perhaps needless to observe, that at the arrival of the Black
Rifle and his men, the martial spirit of the "Screeching Catamounts"
arose to fever-heat.
Capt. Sam Sumerford forgot his pots and pitchers; and the potter's
wheel stood still. The tomahawks and scalping-knives that had been
devoted to the peaceful purpose of cutting clay were ground, rifles
cleaned, and he went tearing through the house, wanting his mother to
spin him a bowstring, sew the eagle's feathers into his cap, wash his
hunting-shirt, and do twenty things all at once.
"I declare, Sammy Sumerford's come back again. I did hope I was done
with knives, tomahawks, and Indian fightin'."
"I'm sure, mother, I don't know to please you. You wanted the Indian
war to be over, 'cause it worried you to see me so full of fighting;
and then when the Indians held off a little, you was worried about the
water and the raft and the wild beasts. Then I went to making pots,
and it was first-rate for a little while; but you soon began to worry
again, 'cause I was so still, and didn't seem nat'ral, and tear round
and yell. And now I'm nat'ral again, you don't like that nuther."
The ground of all this excitement was, that in expectation of being
called to defend the fort, and on account of the arrival of the Black
Rifle, Capt. Sumerford was preparing to muster his men for drill and
ball-practice, that had been neglected of late.
Having set up a target, he was drilling his company before the fort,
Scip beating the drum, and Cal Holdness playing the fife.
A great part of the male portion of the settlers were looking on, the
women being too much occupied in preparations for the departure of
the former to be present. The wounded men also were seated among the
rest, when the Black Rifle himself came along, with his hands full of
beaver-traps for Honeywood to mend, and on his way to the blacksmith's
shop.
You may be assured the "Screeching Catamounts" did their best in such
august presence; and their hearts beat high.
The Black Rifle and his men were loud in their expressions of surprise
and approbation. The captain then drew up his men to fire at the target
two hundred yards distant.
"I wouldn't have believed," said Capt. Jack, "that these children, as
you must needs call 'em, could shoot so. Why, the red-coats in the
army, and half the soldiers in the forts along the frontier, can't
begin with 'em."
"We've burnt a good deal of powder, used a good deal of lead, teaching
them, and sometimes when we didn't know how to spare it," said McClure.
"Not a kernel of powder nor an ounce of lead has been wasted: you may
be sure of that."
He was, if possible, more surprised when they were exercised in
throwing the tomahawk, shooting with bow and arrow, and imitating the
voices of beasts and birds. There was scarcely any thing they could not
imitate, from the chirrup of the cricket to the scream of an eagle,
except the grum notes of the bull-frog: their voices were too shrill
for that.
"This," said the Black Rifle, "is the best of all,--even beats the
shooting with rifles: 'cause it requires judgment that you wouldn't
expect in so young persons, to throw the tomahawk, or shoot with a bow."
"I never was in this clearing afore," said William Blythe, one of the
three men who came with the captain; "but, if these are the children,
what must the men be like?"
CHAPTER XXII.
CARRYING THE WAR INTO AFRICA.
The settlers now removed their families into the fort preparatory to
the departure of the volunteers. The Black Rifle had sent them, by
Grant and Crawford, a large quantity of powder and lead; and, on the
night that the last family moved into the fort, four more of the Black
Rifle's men came, having finished up their work.
These men brought word that eight or ten more would be along in a few
days, and said that their purpose was to get ready for their fall hunt,
and ambush the Indians who were going back and forth between the Ohio
and the older settlements; making the fort their headquarters, and
always leaving men enough to defend it.
Hearing this, the settlers resolved to march in a body the next
morning, young and old.
Rogers, who had cut himself so badly with an axe that he could not
engage in the last conflict with the Indians, was now able to go. Mr.
Seth, however, objected to this. "Neighbors," said he, "you all know
I'm no fighting man, don't pretend to be; and yet you're kind enough to
say that I'm of some benefit."
"Benefit!" exclaimed Holdness, "there's no man among us who's so great
a benefit."
"Well, then, I hope you'll be patient with me when I say that I can't
feel reconciled to have Israel go. We've never been separated, and I've
always kind of leaned on him. I don't know what I should do without
him: I should neither eat, sleep, nor take one moment's peace."
"Then I won't go, brother, though I do want to more'n ever I wanted to
go anywhere in my life."
"I think," said McClure, "that there ought to be more'n one stay: there
are the cattle and hogs to see to, and many things that the rangers
don't know any thing about to be done, though I don't suppose any of us
cares to be the one to stay behind."
Every preparation being completed, the volunteers set out the next
morning for the rendezvous.
After their departure the children were somewhat restrained in their
rambles, and Sammy experienced a severe relapse of the pottery-fever.
He also found less difficulty in obtaining the help of the others to
work his clay: besides, the usefulness of his work had been recognized
by every one in the Run; and, when the boys were unwilling to assist,
Israel Blanchard would let him have Scip, who was worth more than all
the others put together.
Ike Proctor was the laziest, and least inclined to help, of any of the
boys. Sammy hired him to turn the wheel half a day for some maple-sugar
and two bullets. Ike ate the sugar, pocketed the bullets, worked about
an hour, and then went off. Sammy said nothing, and manifested no
feeling in regard to the affair; but, as soon as Ike left, went to the
river, obtained a little of the clay that was strongly impregnated with
iron, worked and kneaded it, working in some red ochre to raise the
color still more, and made some clay doughnuts precisely the shape of
those his mother was accustomed to make of dough, and baked them.
After several days had passed, he told Ike if he would help him half a
day, and stick to it, when the work was done he would give him a dozen
doughnuts and four gun-flints, boughten ones; and to this Proctor
agreed.
When the time was up, Sam gave him the flints, and went to the fort
for the doughnuts, that he had given his mother a charge to keep hot
in the Dutch oven, and put a little lard on them. Sammy took the clay
doughnuts in a cloth, and when warm and greasy they looked precisely
like the real ones: he took one flour doughnut in his pocket. He spread
them out on the table before Ike, and clapped the one from his pocket
into his mouth, saying, "Eat 'em, Ike, while they're hot: only see how
hot they be."
[Illustration: THE "DOUGHNUT" SQUABBLE.--Page 297.]
"So they be," said Ike, taking one in his hand: he attempted to bite
it, burnt his tongue, and the tears came into his eyes. He threw the
hot brick down in a great rage, and began throwing the others at
Sammy's head. The latter retreated to the trough that was two-thirds
full of soft clay trodden only the day before, and returned the attack
with right good-will in a most generous manner. He plastered Ike from
head to foot, filled his eyes, nose, and mouth full; and he was glad
to make his escape. The boys all said Sam served him right, and they
nicknamed him "_Doughnut_."
It was very seldom that there was ever any falling-out among these
frontier-boys, who were, in general, a band of brothers, for the reason
that they had fighting enough outside, and the pressure kept them
together.
Uncle Seth was now in the best of spirits, having the society of his
brother, in whose courage and sagacity he placed implicit confidence,
with the Black Rifle and his men to protect them; and he resolved to
make Sammy a foot-wheel, and thus render him independent of his mates
and all others as far as turning the wheel was concerned.
Guarded by two of the rangers, he went into the woods to find a tree
that grew of the right shape to make a crank. You may think it would
be impossible to find a tree trunk or limb that would answer, as it
must be a double crank with a short turn, the sides not more than
three inches apart. He could have sawed it out of a plank, or made it
in pieces; but in the one case it would have been cut directly across
the grain, and in the other would have been without much strength
and very clumsy. He wanted to find a tree the grain of which grew in
the right direction. No wonder Mr. Seth declared,--when he thought
Sammy's pottery-fever would not last long, and wanted to get rid of
his teasing,--that it was impossible to make a crank without iron. But
he was now disposed to make the attempt; and you know, if Uncle Seth
undertakes to do any thing, it will be done.
The rangers who were with him expected to see him looking up into the
tops of the trees, among the limbs; but instead of that they were
astonished to see him running about with his eyes fastened on the butts
of the trees, and never bestowing a glance at the limbs.
"You hunting after a bear's den, or a coon-hole?" said Will Blythe.
Mr. Seth made no reply, but stopped before a sugar-tree about fifteen
inches through, and straight as a candle. From one side of this
tree, about two feet from the ground, protruded a great whorl, not
flattened on the top as they often are, like a wart on the hand, but
thimble-shaped.
"That's the time of day," said he. Stripping to the waist, he soon cut
the tree down, and junked it off,--twenty feet of it. This was hauled
to the fort, where the saw-pit was; and the brothers cut the whole tree
into three-inch plank, as they wanted part of it for another purpose.
They arranged their saw-kerfs in such a manner as to bring the centre
of the whorl in the plank of which the spindle and crank were to be
made. This plank they cut to the length desired, and then split it the
other way, leaving a strip four inches in width, and the whorl being on
the outside edge of it.
In this whorl Mr. Seth cut the turn of his crank; and it was strong
because the principal part of the grain grew in that direction, being
looped around the whorl; and in other portions it crossed every way,
twisted in and out, was clung, and looked much like the grain of a
nutmeg. After roughing it out, he laid it up to season, in order that
he might smooth it up. Tysdale, who chanced to pass just as he finished
working on it, said,--
"If that ain't one way to make a crank!"
"Isn't it a good way?"
"Good way, sartain; but a man must be born in the woods to think of
that."
"I was born in the woods, and have worked in the woods most of the time
since I was born."
He now made a wheel three feet in diameter, with rim and hub and but
four spokes, finished up his crank, put the wheel on the bottom of it,
and attached a treadle to the crank, so that it could be turned with
the foot, and placed in the bench. On the upper end of the crank, he
cut a screw-thread; and got out, from the same plank that furnished
the crank, three circles of different sizes, on which large or small
pots might be made, and cut a screw-thread in the centre of each one,
so that they could be put on or taken from the crank easily. This was
not all. He was no mean blacksmith. He found, among the guns last taken
from the Indians, one of which the barrel was good for nothing; and,
going into the blacksmith-shop, he made a gudgeon for the lower end of
the crank, and an iron socket for it to run in. He also bushed the hole
in the bench, where the crank-spindle passed through, with horn, which
made it run much more easily.
Thus Sammy had a potter's wheel at last, which he could use alone, and
on which he could turn pots of the largest size.
Was he not a happy boy! and didn't he hug, praise, and thank Uncle Seth!
He had, in his practice, accumulated a large number of little pots at
the Cuthbert house. They were too small to be of much use; and he was
by no means satisfied with the workmanship, as he found he could do
much better work with his wheel: so he flung them all into the trough,
put water on them, and made them into dough again; this being one
advantage a potter has over other mechanics,--if he makes a blunder, he
has not destroyed his material, but can work it over.
Sammy now, instead of making a great number of vessels, endeavored to
improve the quality of his wares, and turned milk-pans on this wheel
with the greatest ease. It also required much time to bake them; for,
though he had enlarged his kiln, it was still quite small; and he began
to think about trying to make brick, and building such a one as he had
heard Mr. Seth say the potters had. Thus one invention, like one sin,
necessitates another. Finding, however, that he had already supplied
the settlement with pots and pans sufficient to last them a long time,
he concluded to defer that enterprise for the present.
Children have little idea of the anxieties of their parents; and while
they had not the least doubt but Col. Armstrong and his men would lick
all the Indians on the Ohio (for three hundred men seemed an immense
force to them, enough to overcome any number of Indians), their parents
knew the object would not be attained without loss; and none knew but
they might be called to mourn the loss of friends.
Two of the rangers went to McDowell's mill, and learned that the force
had left the beaver-dams, which place was well on their way, and that
the matter must be decided one way or the other very soon.
A few days after, they went again, and brought word that there was no
doubt but Col. Armstrong had surprised the Indian town, killed a good
many of them, and burnt up their log houses. There was a flying report
that Col. Armstrong was killed, Lieut. Hogg and several men killed, and
some wounded, but that the loss had not been severe.
After a week of agonizing suspense, the settlers were roused at
midnight by the report of a rifle, and, turning out in expectation of
an attack, found the whole party, with the exception of Honeywood, at
the gate; not a man among them hurt, though several had bullets shot
through their clothes, and McClure's rifle had been struck and chipped
by a ball. Never had the Wolf Run settlers come out of an Indian fight
before, without more serious consequences. They informed those at home
that they found the Indians in log houses that were loop-holed and well
prepared for defence. In these houses they had stored a great quantity
of powder, enough, as the Indians boasted, to last them ten years, that
had been given them by the French; and they were then preparing to
attack Fort Shirley, aided by French officers and soldiers.
Capt. Jacobs, the great war-chief of the Indians, was killed; and many
of them, refusing quarter, were burned and blown up in their houses.
"When did you see my husband last? and how came you to be separated
from him?" said Mrs. Honeywood.
"When we came within a few miles of the Indian town," said Holdness,
"he and Rangely were sent out to scout, and discovered three Indians
round a fire. Col. Armstrong didn't want to molest these Indians, for
fear of alarming the town: so he ordered Lieut. Hogg with twelve men,
among whom was your husband and Rangely, to keep watch of 'em while
he went forward to the town with the main body, with orders to fall
upon these Indians at daybreak, at which time he would attack the
Indian village. The lieutenant obeyed orders, killed three of them at
the first fire, when it turned out that instead of three there were
twenty-four, the rest lying in the woods."
"What were those Indians about there?" said Blanchard.
"They were an advance party, on their way to Fort Shirley. They killed
Rangely and three more, mortally wounded the lieutenant, and forced the
rest to retreat."
"How did you know this?"
"We got it from a party who separated from the rest after the action,
and found the lieutenant lying wounded on the ground alone, and the
bodies of those who had been killed lying around him. Your husband
was not among the killed; no one knew any thing about him; and we
reckoned he had retreated with the others, and we should find him at
the beaver-dams, or on the road; and, not finding him at either place,
made up our minds, that, having found out the Indians were licked, he
had taken the shortest cut through the woods for the Run; and 'spected
ter find him here afore us."
This force having been raised for the sole purpose of capturing the
Indian village, their obligations ended with the accomplishment of that
object. At first they had no serious anxiety in respect to Honeywood.
Holdness and McClure knew that his body had not been found, though the
woods had been thoroughly searched. They did not believe that when the
Indians must have known by the firing, that their village was attacked
by a strong force, they would encumber themselves with a prisoner, but,
if they had taken him, would have killed and scalped him. But when
day after day passed away, and they heard that other stragglers had
returned, and Honeywood came not, the alarm was universal; and they
knew that he was a captive to the Indians.
It was then manifest how much Honeywood was beloved and respected.
Every man was willing to encounter any danger to rescue him; and even
the children could find no heart to play, and burst into tears when
they found he was a captive.
The Black Rifle and three of his men went in one direction; Harry
Sumerford, Ned Armstrong, and Cal Holdness, in another; and Israel
Blanchard, McClure, and Holdness, in still another,--in order to lurk
around the Indian villages and camping-places, to find where he was
held captive, that they might attempt either rescue or ransom.
But all their efforts were fruitless: because, as was afterwards known,
the party who had captured Honey wood, finding their town attacked by
so large a force, fled with their prisoner across the Alleghany and
into the territories of the Six Nations, where only, after the first
alarm created by Armstrong's attack, they could feel secure.
It was a gloomy period at the Run, when one party after another would
come in without tidings.
"If," said Mrs. Sumerford, "the Almighty ever did hear prayer for any
thing or any body, and I know he has and does, he will for this good
man: he'll never let those savages torture their best friend."
"He permitted the Jews to torture the Saviour, their best friend,"
replied Mrs. Honeywood. "We have no right to say what God in his wisdom
will or will not permit; but, if the Indians tie him to the stake, I
believe he will enable him to bear it, and will support me likewise."
"The church," said Mrs. Sumerford, "prayed for Peter, and the Lord sent
his angel: perhaps he will hear our prayers for him."
These good women then resolved they would meet every afternoon in the
schoolhouse, and pray.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE QUAKER'S APPEAL TO THE DELAWARES.
Honeywood and Rangely, maintaining their ground while their comrades
retreated, were thus left alone; and, being surrounded by savages,
Rangely was killed, and Honeywood, wounded severely in the breast, was
taken prisoner.
The Delawares knew Honeywood well: among them were some of those who
were present when he shot the savage who held Sam Sumerford in his
arms, without hurting the boy. They immediately painted his face black,
thus signifying that he was to be reserved for torture. Greatly elated
with their prize, they treated him with the utmost kindness, and
carried him the greater part of the way to a Delaware camping-ground
on a litter. Upon arriving at their place of destination, they exerted
all their skill to heal his wounds, and restore his strength, in order
that he might be able longer to endure the tortures they intended to
inflict upon so brave a man and dreaded enemy.
The victim was too well acquainted with Indian customs and character
to be ignorant of the designs of his captors; but hope lingers long in
the human breast, and he was not without some slight expectation that
his friend Wasaweela might be able to help him. He was not aware that
the generous Mohawk had fallen (soon after he gave the warning to the
settlers at the Run) in a battle with the southern Indians who had
trespassed upon the hunting-grounds of the Six Nations.
Among the savages who captured Honeywood, was one who had often been
to the shop of Clavell in Baltimore, of whom the captive had learned
his trade; and he had several times repaired the rifle and traps of
this savage free of charge, and invited him to spread his blanket on
the hearth. On the march this savage showed much kindness to his former
benefactor, often gave him food from his own store that was scanty,
and would probably have aided him to escape if he could; but the day
before they reached their place of destination, a Delaware encampment
in the territory of the Six Nations, he told Honeywood, evidently with
sorrow, that his people would burn him, because he had struck them very
hard, and killed many of their young men, and was a great brave. He
then exhorted him to be strong, and to let it be known, by the courage
with which he endured the torture, that he was a great warrior.
Thrown upon the world in childhood, the mind of Honeywood was of the
firmest texture, and he had often been called to face death. But he was
in the prime of early manhood, a loving, kind-hearted man; and it was
bitter to die under such horrible tortures as savage ingenuity alone
could devise. He thought of his home, the acres he had toiled so hard
to win and defend; his wife and little ones; his neighbors, young men
and children, respecting whose improvement, both mental and moral, he
had cherished so many hopes, and devised so many plans to be carried
into effect when the Indian war should end, of which there was now a
probability.
Honeywood was not only a man of iron nerve and unflinching courage,
but he was a good man: he lived in constant intercourse with God. In
his boyhood, while one of the household of Henry Clavell, he had been
deeply interested in religious truths.
The instructions of Mrs. Raymond, a Quakeress, and the housekeeper
of his master, had fallen upon willing ears and a tender conscience;
and the great sorrow of his youth, the death of his benefactor, had
completed the work; and from his Father in heaven he sought for
strength to die, not with the sullen stoicism of the red man, but with
the faith and resignation of a Christian.
His wounds were now healed, and his strength restored; his captors,
having treated his injuries with great skill, fed him upon the best of
provisions, game being plenty, and treated him with all the kindness
consistent with safe-keeping. The war-parties sent out in different
directions had come in, as also the fugitives who had escaped from
Armstrong at Kittanning.
One of those parties brought with them two white captives,--one a
Scotchman by the name of McAlpine, and the other a German, Luke
Bogardus,--and a great number of scalps.
These scalping-parties were received by the Indians with great
rejoicings. They instantly made a feast, had an Indian scalp-dance, and
resolved to put Honeywood and the other captives to the torture, as an
offering to appease the spirits of their warriors who had been slain at
Kittanning, and more especially of the great number that had fallen by
the hands of the settlers at Wolf Run. Upon Honeywood, therefore, these
demons in human form resolved to inflict the most horrible torments,
made familiar by long practice and taught by the traditions of their
savage ancestors. Could they but make him cry like a woman, their
hearts would thrill with joy. With this end in view they had healed
his wounds, and done all in their power to restore him to health and
strength; and now the hour of vengeance had come. The prisoners were
now brought out, and fastened to small trees by hide ropes of such a
length as to permit them to run round the trees when the flames began
to scorch them, and by their convulsive motions afford amusement to
their tormentors. The squaws and children were building fires at a
little distance, at which to heat gun-barrels and ramrods to be thrust
into the bodies of the prisoners after they had been partially roasted
by the fire built around them. Others were splitting up little slivers
of pitch-wood to be run into their flesh, and set on fire; some were
filling the quills of turkeys with powder, to be used in a similar way,
and then touched with fire.
While these fearful preparations were going on, Isetaune, the friendly
savage referred to, unwilling to witness the suffering of one who had
bestowed favors upon him, retired to the forest, where he was suddenly
confronted by Ephraim Cuthbert, accompanied by Mrs. Raymond, who were
instantly recognized by the Indian. Cuthbert, to whom the Delaware
language was as familiar as his mother tongue, communicated to the
astonished Isetaune his errand, who, whatever he might have felt,
betrayed no emotion, but turned back with these unexpected guests.
An old squaw was approaching McAlpine with a birch dish full of
splinters of pitch-wood; and boys were following her with fire-brands
to light them. An Indian had just drawn a red-hot gun-barrel from the
fire, with which to torment Bogardus.
When Ephraim and his companions appeared, their Quaker dress, and mild,
passionless features, in strange contrast with the grim forms of those
naked and infuriated demons, the astonished savages dropped their
instruments of torture; and, recognizing the well-known garb, ever
associated in their minds with justice and brotherly love, appreciated
at its full value the confidence which had impelled these wayfarers,
unarmed and unannounced, to trust themselves to the red man in his
haunts; and they hastened to show that it was not misplaced.
A number of the more elderly Indians and principal warriors were
seated in a position where they could command the best view both of
the captives and their tormentors; and, riding up directly in front of
them, Ephraim and his companion halted.
Honeywood in a moment recognized the persons of Cuthbert and Mrs.
Raymond, though they passed along without even glancing at him. The
color came to his cheek, his eyes moistened, and he looked up in
gratitude to heaven, though he might well doubt the success of the
mission upon which he knew his friends had come.
Amid a silence so profound that the crackling of the fires kindled
to heat the instruments of torture were distinctly heard, an aged
Delaware came forward, and, extending his hand to Cuthbert, greeted
him thus:--
"My brother and the woman are welcome. Is he hungry? we will feed
him. Is he tired? we will take him to our fire, and spread for him a
blanket. Has he lost his way? we will put him in the right path. Is he
not our brother? Conadose has said."
A low murmur of assent succeeded; and, after it had subsided, Cuthbert
said,--
"Brother, thy people have taken a young man from the Juniata. He is
a just and brave man. In time of peace, he has been very kind to the
Delawares, as Isetaune will tell you; and in war has only defended his
lodge, and has never taken a scalp. He is very dear to the woman who is
with me; and she has asked me to bring her on this long journey, that
she might look in the eyes of her brothers, and ask them to give her
this man, who is as a son."
"Brother, we believe as you have told us, that this is a just and
brave man; but he has struck our people very hard, and will, if we let
him live, strike many more of them. The bones of our young men are
scattered in the woods; the wolves are gnawing them; and their spirits
will complain if he should live: they cry to us from the ground for his
blood. Brother, forget that you have asked us for that we could not
grant. This man must die."
"It is well. Will my brothers allow the woman to speak to them?"
After a brief consultation, the request was granted.
Praying to God for aid in this apparently hopeless effort to pluck the
prey from the very jaws of the wolf, Mrs. Raymond ventured to speak,
Cuthbert interpreting. Not a word she uttered was lost by Honeywood,
whose life depended upon her success.
"Brothers, I have lived many years: you see my hair is white; and I
have had many sorrows. My grandfather was one of the men of peace, who
came over the sea with William Penn, and stood beside him when he met
your fathers at Shackamaxon.
"When a little child, I have sat upon his knees, and heard him tell
what William Penn said to the Delawares,--that he considered them one
flesh and blood with his people, and as though one man's body was
divided in two parts; and the Delawares said that they would live in
love and friendship with William Penn and his children as long as the
sun and moon endured."
During her address, every trace of ferocity vanished from the features
of the Indians, and was replaced by an expression of curious interest
and respect.
She paused a moment to collect her thoughts, when the chief said,--
"Brother, let the woman speak on. The ears of the Delawares are open;
and they desire to wipe the tears from her eyes."
Thus encouraged, she said, while her voice trembled with emotion,--
"Brothers, I am told that it is a custom of the Delawares, handed down
from their fathers, that when a captive is taken, any who have lost
relatives may take him for their own in the place of those they have
lost. We are one flesh and blood: William Penn and your fathers made us
one; my father and your fathers joined hands in covenant before this
sun; and before this sun I claim this right of my brothers.
"I have had children; but it has pleased the Great Spirit to take
them. I do not complain: whatever he doeth is just. I wish to take this
man to fill the place in my heart left empty by those I have lost. I
ask it of my brothers, because we are one, like two parts of the same
body; and I claim the ancient privilege that has always been granted by
your old men. Should not a Delaware be just?
"My brother has said the spirits of the slain will be angry if the
captive is let go; but will not the spirits of the just and brave
who have gone to the happy hunting-grounds grieve and be angry if
their children do not remember the covenant their fathers made at
Shackamaxon? It is truly a great thing I have asked of the Delawares;
but is any thing too good for a friend? Does the red man give to his
friend that which he values not, and set before him that he would not
eat himself?"
Mrs. Raymond did not conclude, but stopped, utterly exhausted by her
efforts, and the emotions excited by the fearful scene before her.
The Indian councillors were evidently much perplexed. No such question
had ever come before them. On one side was the desire of revenge, so
dear to a savage; on the other, the veneration amounting to idolatry,
that all red men, and especially the Delawares, cherished for the
character of William Penn (for it was with the Delawares that he made
the covenant), and also that sense of justice so strong in the Indian
mind.
The affectionate and almost childish confidence with which Cuthbert
and his companion had come to them was peculiarly adapted to touch the
hearts of these untutored children of the forest.
The older Indians went a little apart from the rest; and hope revived
in the heart of Honeywood when he perceived them call Isetaune to their
councils.
After a short time spent in deliberation, an Indian, much more advanced
in years than the first speaker, arose, and said to Cuthbert,--
"Brother, open your ears. We have listened to the words of the woman:
they are good words; such words as were never spoken to the Delawares
before, or our old men would have heard and told us of them. We have
considered them well, and we think the Great Spirit has sent the woman
to speak these good words in our ears.
"For no reason that the pale-faces could have offered us, would we
let this man go. If all the governors of the thirteen fires had come
to demand this captive, we would have burnt him before their eyes. But
the woman and yourself belong to William Penn; you are one with us; and
the woman asks that we do by her as we do by our own: therefore we give
her this man, because we love to give large gifts to our friends, and
because it is just.
"Brother, listen! I have lived many moons; many snows have fallen on my
head; and I remember the good days when the children of William Penn
were many, when they bore rule at the council-fire, and those bad men
who now have most to say were of small account, and when the red man,
treated justly, was happy; and, because you are few, our lands are
taken without paying for them, and our blood is shed. We do not love
you the less because the power has gone from you: therefore we give the
life of this man (whom the pale-faces could not buy) to you, and the
spirit of the great and good Penn.
"Brother, you have come to us when our hearts are sore and our minds
disturbed, for which we are sorry. We shall burn these two bad men.
You would not wish to hear their cries, therefore we cannot ask you to
spread your blanket at our fire; but some of our young men will build
you a wigwam in the woods, and, when you are rested, will guide you to
the white man's fort by a shorter path than the one by which you came.
I have said."
Cuthbert now presented his thanks, and also those of Mrs. Raymond, to
his brothers the Delawares; and Isetaune, loosing Honeywood from the
stake, brought him to Mrs. Raymond.
Savage ferocity, so long repressed, now broke forth: fires were
rekindled, and yells of vengeance rent the air. Cuthbert would gladly
have interceded for the two other miserable victims, but he knew it
would be of no avail; and but a moment was given him to think of it,
for with Honeywood and Mrs. Raymond he was hurried off to the woods
by Isetaune and several others, who hastily constructed a shelter of
boughs, provided them with food, and then hurried back to take part in
the terrible tortures about to be inflicted upon McAlpine and Bogardus.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE RETURN OF THE CAPTIVE.
When the Indians had departed, Honeywood said to Mrs. Raymond,--
"Mother, when a boy under your care, you were the means of saving my
soul; and this day you and Friend Cuthbert have saved my life."
He then begged to know in what way Cuthbert was informed of his
capture, and more especially of the place to which the Indians had
carried him, as it was in the limits of the Six Nations, who had taken
no part in the war.
Ephraim replied that the governor of Pennsylvania, through Sir William
Johnson, governor of New York, who had great influence with the Six
Nations, had endeavored to prevail upon them to command the Delawares
to stop their inroads, and to make peace with the English; and for that
purpose had sent a delegation to them, among whom were several Quakers
of his acquaintance.
He then went on to say that the friendship between the Indians and the
Quakers had not been interrupted in the least by the war, with which
(as the Indians well knew) they had no concern except to endeavor to
prevent it.
After visiting the Six Nations, those Quakers, knowing the deep
impression made upon the minds of the Delawares by the attack of
Armstrong and the capture of Kittanning, resolved to visit the Delaware
king Teedyuscung; and thus learned of the capture of Honeywood, and
where he was, and that the Delawares were determined to burn him, and
would take no ransom, for he was one of the Wolf Run settlers, who were
the worst enemies they had.
"I then," said Ephraim, "resolved with the help of God to rescue thee,
seeing it was my duty, and not forgetful of thy great kindness to me
when I was thy neighbor at the Run."
"You took a most singular way: if you had sent word to the Run, the
people there would have rescued me by force of arms."
"They might, and they might not: they would have killed many Indians
in doing it, of which thou knowest we do not approve. I took the way
of peace and righteousness, and thou seest it has succeeded. I know
the Indians loved my people, and the memory of William Penn, though
he has been so long in his grave. Friend Honeywood, 'love is stronger
than death: many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown
it.' Thou knowest we believe there is an inward light in every person
born into the world; and there is in these poor savages (who are now
torturing their prisoners, and would have tortured thee), but it has
been obscured by ages of ignorance and superstition: yet they would
take the food from their mouths to put into mine, or any true follower
of William Penn.
"Thou knowest how long a journey thy mother and myself have come to
find thee; and nearly every day we met larger or smaller bands of
Delawares, Shawanees, Monseys, and Wyandottes in their war-paint, going
after the scalps of white men, to kill the mother and the babe on her
bosom; but they called me brother, offered me food, directed me in the
best paths, and to places where I could find grass and water; and often
went many miles out of their way to do this."
Honeywood made no reply. He could not accept the Quaker doctrine
of non-resistance, though in other respects sympathizing with and
entertaining the greatest affection and respect for them and their
principles. While the light of the torture-fires could be discerned in
the distance, and the Indian yells faintly heard, they knelt in prayer,
and then retired to rest.
Cuthbert and his companions would gladly have started at the first
glimpse of day; but this would not have been agreeable to Indian
customs, that required a more formal leave-taking and an escort as a
mark of respect.
Those singularly discordant traits that go to make up Indian character
appeared in a striking light the next morning when they were taken back
to the encampment. Here they were received with the greatest kindness.
A lodge was placed at their disposal; and they found a bountiful
breakfast already prepared. The grim colors of the war-paint had
disappeared from the persons of the warriors, who had resumed the grave
dignity and cold demeanor of an Indian when in repose. The squaws, who
the day before were foaming at the mouth with malignant spite, and
longing to engage in the work of torture, were quietly pursuing their
household duties; and the children at play.
Some terrible reminders of what had taken place remained,--the
half-burned trees to which the captives had been fastened, and the
still smoking embers. Indian dogs were gnawing and dragging about the
half-burned bones of the dead, snarling at each other, and fighting for
favorite morsels.
Honeywood turned sick at heart as he looked upon the stake to which
he had been fastened, the wood collected to burn him, and the mangled
remains of his fellow-captives, whose fate he had so narrowly escaped.
Cuthbert now expressed his desire to depart, and they proceeded to take
leave of him.
"Brother," said the Indian who had welcomed him, "listen. You came to
us when our minds were chafed, and the spirits of our dead were calling
upon us to revenge their blood. We have now given them satisfaction:
they will no longer complain, but will rest in their graves. We have
wiped the tears from your eyes, picked the thorns from your legs; you
have eaten of our food, spread your blankets with us; and, as you are
about to leave us, we wish you a good journey, and are glad that you
have come and brightened the chain of friendship. Our young men will
go with you, that you may not lose your way and come to harm. Brother,
farewell."
Indians never do any thing at the halves. Honeywood's rifle, pack, and
every article, even to the bullets in his pouch, and the powder in
his horn, were restored; and he was presented with new moccasons and
leggings.
Isetaune and six Delawares conducted them to within four miles of
Fort Shirley, where the Indians took leave of them, Cuthbert and Mrs.
Raymond going to the fort, and Honeywood towards the Run at a speed
that corresponded to the emotions swelling in the breast of the husband
and father.
Expecting to find the settlers in garrison, he went directly to the
fort. Passing through the Cuthbert pasture, he encountered Fan with
three of her pups following the trail of a pack of wolves for their
own amusement. With the wildest expression of joy, she leaped upon
her master, the pups doing the same, all striving to be the first to
lick his face: they fairly bore him to the ground, each one, as he
accomplished his purpose, running in a circle around him.
"That's a warm welcome, old friend," patting the head of Fan, as,
having finished her gambol, she stood looking in his face, and wagging
her tail, as though she wanted to speak.
As he approached, he found the gates of the stockade and the fort open;
and there was no sentry to be seen on the platform.
"The Black Rifle must be here still," he said to himself; "or they
would never leave the gates open, and let down their watch."
The door of the mill was open; and he looked in, but saw no one, for
Mr. Seth was in the top of the building, greasing the bearings of the
machinery.
He was hurrying to the block-house, when he heard the voice of his
wife in the schoolhouse; and entering found her, Mrs. Sumerford, Mrs.
Holdness, Lucy Mugford, and several of the older girls, at prayer.
Prayer was now turned to praise; and the girls ran to the block-house
to spread the glad tidings.
"The Lord has sent his angel, and delivered Peter; praised be his
name!" shouted Mrs. Sumerford. "Oh the dear good man!" and she fairly
embraced him.
"The Lord sent two angels, Mrs. Sumerford; and they were Ephraim
Cuthbert and Mrs. Raymond.--Where are the children, wife?"
"Here they are, coming with their grandmother and all the rest."
The next moment all the female portion of the community, and Mr. Seth,
were assembled in the schoolhouse; and, after Honeywood had embraced
and kissed his children, Mr. Seth said,--
"Neighbors, we have been in this place more or less for weeks, praying
in behalf of Mr. Honeywood; and those who were on the scout knelt
down in the wood to put up the same petition, and the sentry knelt at
midnight on the platform; and it does not become us now in the hour of
our deliverance to forget the Author of all our mercies. I want Mr.
Honeywood to read the hundred and sixteenth Psalm, and pray; and we'll
all praise together."
The dogs were put out, and all seated themselves for worship; but
scarcely had Honeywood taken the book in his hand, than the old mother
dog leaped in at the window, followed by the rest.
"Let them stay. I cannot bear to shut out Fan. She was the first to
welcome me. The Lord made them as well as us."
At his command they all lay down around him, and remained perfectly
quiet during the worship; Fan only lifting her head once in a while to
look her master in the face, and make sure of his presence.
The happy company retired to the block-house, when Honeywood inquired
what had become of the men-folks and children.
"The young men," said Uncle Seth, "have gone with the Black Rifle and
four of his band, to Loyal Hannah, where they have heard there is a
Delaware camp, to lurk round to see if you are there. Some are on the
scout. The rest are gone to Mr. Holdness's lot to junk and pile logs on
a burn, and all the boys are with 'em; and Joan Holdness's gone to let
'em know you've come."
Before Honeywood had finished eating, the boys rushed in, having run
all the way; and, not long after, Holdness, McClure, Grant, Stewart,
and Israel Blanchard came in.
Honeywood then gave his friends a minute account of all that had
happened to him. When he finished, McClure said,--
"It was not the memory of William Penn, nor what Mrs. Raymond said,
that turned the Indian from his purpose when the captive was tied to
the stake, and the fire lighted: 'twas Him who stopped the mouth of the
lions. They couldn't work their will, couldn't do the thing they wanted
to."
"Sinner that I am," said Holdness, "I have never yet had the grace to
seek pardon of my Maker for my many transgressions, much more of man;
but, if I ever meet Ephraim Cuthbert agin, I'll ask his forgiveness for
insulting him, and knocking his hat from his head, and giving him hard
words, because he would neither fight himself, nor pay others for doing
it; and you all know Ned Honeywood had ter step between us, or I might
have done worse. Quaker or no Quaker, he's a brave, noble-hearted,
Christian man."
"No wonder we couldn't find him," said Israel Blanchard: "nobody ever
dreamed that they would carry him into the hunting-grounds of the Six
Nations."
"It would seem," said Honeywood, "that, though the Six Nations take no
open part in the war, they have no objection to see it go on. Many of
the Delawares have left their old men, women, and children, among the
Six Nations, while the warriors went to war; and it was to one of these
places, that, after Kittanning was taken, they carried me."
"To be sure, they are willing it should go on, in order that they may
be called in to make the Delawares and all the rest behave, and have
rich presents for their trouble; and that is what the governor is
trying to bring about now. Better give 'em a few more bullets, and a
little more of Armstrong," said McClure.
"There is no doubt," said Holdness, "that the Six Nations rule the
Delawares and all the rest with a rod of iron; and, if they order the
Delawares to bury the hatchet, they'll have to do it. But it seems to
me that a government cuts a very mean figure when it goes a-begging
to one portion of these savages, gits down on its knees to them, and
hires them to make peace with another portion. Rather than do that, I
would be willing to set out to-morrow on another expedition into their
country. A few more such raids would bring them to beg for peace,
instead of their being hired and coaxed to agree to it."
"There's a great deal of wholesome truth in what the Quakers said,"
replied Honeywood. "They told the government that the Indian troubles
were generally settled in this way. The Indians were abused and
exasperated till they dug up the hatchet; and when the affair had gone
on till great numbers of the inhabitants were killed, and a few of the
savages, the frontiers depopulated, and the whole country filled with
terror, then presents were made to the Indians, a council held, and
peace confirmed. The Quakers, therefore, thought it would be better
to make the presents first, and dispense with all the butchery and
devastation."
The concluding volume of this series--entitled, BURYING THE HATCHET;
OR, THE YOUNG BRAVE OF THE DELAWARES--will clear up the mystery
connected with the disappearance of that reckless and mischievous
urchin, Tony Stewart, and manifest the effect of peaceful relations and
pursuits upon the rude and reckless spirits who composed the majority
of the settlers of Wolf Run. Hitherto they have been presented to
us struggling for bare existence, in circumstances of mortal peril,
calculated to develop the sterner passions of human nature. We trust
they will manifest qualities of mind and heart equally striking
and admirable when laying aside the weapons of war, to engage in
enterprises of culture and progress.
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