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The Bear Fight.—[Page 238.]

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.

FOREST GLEN;

OR,

THE MOHAWK'S FRIENDSHIP.

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.

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.