A Hero of Ticonderoga

The low sun of a half-spent winter afternoon streaked and splashed the soft undulations of the forest floor with thin, infrequent lines, and scattered blotches of yellow light among the thickening shadows.

A solitary hunter, clad in buckskin and gray homespun, thridded his way among the gray trunks of the giant trees, now blended with them and their shadows, now briefly touched by a glint of sunlight, now casting up the powdery snow from the toes of his snowshoes in a pearly mist, now in a golden shower, yet moving as silently as the trees stood, or shadows brooded, or sunlight gleamed athwart them.

Presently he approached a narrow road that tunnelled, rather than seamed, the forest, for the giant trees which closely pillared its sides spread their branches across it, leaving the vast forest arch unbroken.

In the silence of the hour and season, which was but emphasized by the outcry of a suspicious jay and the gentler notes of a bevy of friendly chickadees, the alert ear of the hunter caught a less familiar sound. Faint and distant as it was, he at once recognized in it the slow tread of oxen and the creak of runners in the dry snow, and, standing a little aloof from the untrodden road, he awaited the coming of the possibly unwelcome invaders of the wilderness.

A yoke of oxen soon appeared, swaying along at a sober pace, the breath jetting from their nostrils in little clouds that arose and dissolved in the still air with that of their driver, who stood on the front of a sled laden with a full cargo of household stuff. Far behind the sled stretched the double furrow of the runners, deep-scored lines of darker blue than the universal shadow of the forest, a steadfast wake to mark the course of the voyager till the next snow-storm or the spring thaw cover it or blot it out. As the oxen came opposite the motionless hunter, his attendant jay uttered a sudden discordant cry.

"Whoa, hush! Whoa haw, there! What are you afeard of now? That's nothin' but a jay squallin'." The strong voice of the driver rang through the stillness of the woods, overbearing the monotonous tread of the oxen, the creak of the sled, and the responsive swish and creak of the snow beneath feet and runners.

Unmindful of his voice, the oxen still swerved from the unbeaten track of the forest road and threatened to bring the off runner against one of the great trees that bordered it. The driver sprang from his standing place, and, running forward alongside the cattle, quickly brought them to a halt with a few reassuring words, and a touch of his long, blue-beech gad across their faces.

Looking into the woods to see what had alarmed them, he became aware of the man standing a little way off, as motionless as the great tree trunks around him. Seeing the oxen were now under control, the latter advanced a little and spoke in a low, pleasant voice:

"I didn't go to skeer your oxen, stranger, and was standin' still to let 'em pass, but thet jay squalled at me, an', lookin' this way, I s'pose they ketched a glimpse of my fur cap an' took it for some varmint. Cattle is always lookin' for some sech, in the woods. Your load's all right, I hope," he said, coming into the road and looking at the sled, which, though tipped on some hidden obstruction, was yet in no danger of upsetting its freight.

"Why, you've got women an' childern," and his face lighted up with an expression of pleased interest. "You're comin' in to make a pitch. How far might you be goin', stranger?"

"A little beyond Fort Ti, on this side," the driver of the oxen answered. "I made a pitch there last year. My name's Seth Beeman, and I come from Salisbury, Connecticut, and them on the sled are my wife and children." Seth Beeman knew that, according to the custom of the country and the times, this information would presently be required of him, and the hunter, for such the stranger's dress, long gun and snowshoes proclaimed him to be, had such an honest face he did not hesitate to forestall the inevitable questions.

"I want to know! A Beeman from ol' Salisbury," cried the other. "An' now I wonder if you be akin to my ol' comrade in the Rangers, 'Zekiel Beeman?"

"My father's name was Ezekiel, and he served in Roger's Rangers."

"Give me your hand, friend," cried the hunter, drawing off his mitten with his teeth, and extending his hand as he came near to the other. "Well, I never thought to meet an ol' friend here in these lonesome woods, to-day. Yes, an ol' friend, for that's what a son of 'Zekiel Beeman's is to me, though I never sot eyes on him afore. You've maybe hearn him speak of Job Carpenter? That's my name."

"Carpenter? Yes, the name sounds familiar, but you know father wa'n't a man of many words and never told us much of his sojerin' days."

"You're right, he wa'n't. We all larnt to keep our heads shut when we was a-scoutin' an' a loud word might cost a man his'n an' many another life."

Seth wondered how long since the hunter had forgotten the lesson, yet he noticed the voice of the other was never high pitched and he never made a sudden, abrupt movement.

"An' so these is your wife an' childern, be they?" said Job, passing toward the sled, whose occupants were so muffled in bed-quilts and blankets that nothing of their forms, and but little of their features, were visible.

"How dedo, marm. How dedo, little uns. Tol'able comf'table, I hope?"

Ruth Beeman answered his kind salutation as audibly as she could out of her mufflings, and the children, a boy of twelve and a girl of three years younger, stared at him with round, wondering eyes.

"It's a hard life that lies afore women an' children in this wilderness," he said to himself, and then, in a louder tone: "Wal, I'm glad you're goin' to be nigh the Fort. There's always a doctor there, an' it's sort o' protection, if the garrison be reg'lars. Now, Seth, start up your team, an' I'll boost on the sled till it's square on the road again."

So saying, he set his shoulder to one of the sled stakes, while Seth carefully started the oxen forward. With a heaving lurch and prolonged creak, the sled settled upon evener ground without disturbance of its passengers or its burden of house gear and provisions, which, till now, had hidden from view of the hunter a gentle little cow in lead close behind it.

"How far be we from the Fort?" Seth asked.

"Nigh onto five mile," the hunter answered, after considering their whereabouts a moment. "After a spell you'll come to a better road on the ice of the crik, if you take the first blazed path beyend here, to your left. It'll fetch you to my cabin, where you'd better stop till morning, for you can't no ways git to your pitch till long arter nightfall. I know where it is, for I come across it, last fall, when I was trappin' mushrat up the crik. My shanty's the first thing in the shape of a dwelling that you'll come to, an' can't miss it if you foller the back track of my snowshoes. It hain't so great, but it's better'n no shelter, an' you're more'n welcome to it. Rake open the fire an' build you a rouster, an' make yourselves to home. I've got some traps to tend to, but I'll be back afore dark," and, almost before they could thank him, he disappeared among the trees.

Seth took his place upon the sled, and, as it moved forward, the forest again resumed its solemnity of silence, that was rather made more apparent than at all disturbed by the slight sounds of the party's progress. It was a silence that their lonely journey had long since accustomed them to, but had not made less depressing, for, in every waking moment, it reminded Seth and his wife how every foot of it withdrew them further from old friends and old associations, and how long and wearisome the days of its endurance stretched before them.

The remainder of the day was made pleasanter by the chance finding of a friend in a strange land, and with a prospect of spending a night under a roof, for, however it might be, it could but be better than the almost shelterless bivouac that had many times been their night lodging since they entered the great Northern Wilderness, that, within a few years, had become known as the New Hampshire Grants.

More than once, when they had fallen asleep with only the mesh of netted branches between them and the serene stars, they had been awakened by the long howl of the wolves answering one another, or by the appalling scream of a panther. Then, with frequent replenishment of the fire, they had watched out the weary hours till morning, alarmed by every falling brand or sough of the breeze, or resonant crack of frost-strained trees.

Seth looked eagerly for the promised trail and was glad to discover the blazed trees and the netted imprint of snowshoes, that, if but briefly, as certainly, identified the path. He turned his oxen into the diverging road, which, though narrow, gave ample room for the sled. After a little it led to the winding channel of a creek crawling through a marsh, whose looped and matted sedges were in turn bordered by the primeval forest and its bristling abatis of great trees, prostrate and bent in every degree of incline.

At last, as the long shadows began to thicken into the pallid gloom of winter twilight, a little cabin was discovered in a notch of clearing, as gray and silent as the gray woods around it. A thin wisp of smoke climbed from the low chimney against the wall of forest, and a waft of its pungent odor came to the travellers. Even as they drew near, its owner also arrived, and gave them hospitable welcome to his hearth, and presently the little room was aglow with light and warmth.

Here Ruth and little Martha thawed away their cramps and chilliness by the big fireplace, while Seth and his son Nathan, with the hunter's help, unhitched the oxen from the sled. From this they brought the rations of hay and corn, and made the oxen and their comrade, the cow, contented with their roofless lodging behind the cabin.

Then the pork and Indian meal were taken inside. Ruth mixed a johnny-cake with hot water and salt, and set it to bake on its board, tilted before the fire. The frying-pan was filled with pork, and slices of moose meat contributed from Job's larder.

The little party, ranged on rude seats about the fireplace, so great as to be out of all proportion to the room, chatted of things near and afar, while they grew hungry with every sniff of appetizing cookery.

Nathan was all agog at the peltry that hung from innumerable pegs on the rough log walls. There were skins of many animals that had long been rare, if not extinct, in the old colony where he was born.

There were the broad, round shields of beaver skins, the slenderer and lighter-hued skins of otters, besides the similarly shaped but smaller and darker-colored fisher, with a bundle of the lesser martins, that Job called "saple," and no end of muskrats and minks. There were, also, half a dozen wolf skins, and, conspicuous in size and glossy blackness, were three bear skins, and beside them hung a tawny panther hide, the huge hinder paws and long tail trailing on the puncheon floor, while the cat-like head seemed to prowl, as stealthily as in life, among the upper shadows and flickerings of the firelight.

Quickly noting the boy's interest in these trophies, Job made the round of them all, explaining the habits of each animal, the method of its capture, and giving brief narrations of encounters with the larger ones. He exhibited, with the most pride, a beautiful silver-gray foxskin, and an odd-looking spotted and coarse-haired skin, stuffed with moss into some semblance of its form in the flesh. This he brought to the fireside, and set on its fin-like hinder feet, for the inspection of his guests.

"What on airth is it?" Seth Beeman asked.

"'Tain't of the airth, but of the water," Job answered, with a chuckle. "I killed it on the ice of the lake airly in the winter. One of the sojers at the Fort see it, an' he says it's a seal fish belongin' to the sea, where he's seen no end on 'em. But them sojers to the Fort is an ign'ant set like all the reg'lars, that we rangers always despised as bad as they did us, an' it don't look no ways reasonable that sech a creatur' could come all the way up the St. Lawrence, an' the Iriquois River, an' most the len'th o' this lake. My idee is, it's a fresh-water maremaid, an' nat'ral to this lake."

If Seth had any doubt of this theory, he gave it no expression, and the hunter went on:

"An ol' Injin told me that there's always ben one o' these cretur's seen in this lake a spell afore every war that's ever ben. But I hope the sign'll fail this time. I've seen enough o' war an' I don't see no chance of another, all Canady bein' took an' the Injins in these parts bein' quilled."

The johnny-cake, having been baking for some time in its last turn on the board, was now pronounced done. The mixed contents of the frying-pan were turned out on a wooden trencher, and conversation was suspended for the more important matter of supper. Not long after this was disposed of, the host and his guests betook themselves to sleep in quilts and blankets on the puncheon floor, with their feet to the blazing backlog and glowing bed of coals.

The light of a cloudless March morning pervaded the circumscribed landscape when the inmates of the cabin were astir again. Not many moments later, a sudden booming report broke the stillness and rolled in sullen echoes back and forth from mountains and forested shores.

"The sunrise gun to Fort Ti," Job said, in reply to the questioning look of his guests. "They hain't no other use for their powder now."

A fainter report, and its fainter answering echoes, boomed through the breathless air.

"An' that's Crown P'int Fort, ten mile furder down the lake. They help to keep us from getting lonesome up here in the woods." And, indeed, there was a comfortable assurance of human neighborhood and helpful strength in these mighty voices that shook the primeval forest with their dull thunder.

"I don't sca'cely ever go nigh the forts," Job continued. "I don't like them reg'lars an' their toppin' ways."

After fortifying themselves with a breakfast, in no wise differing from their last meal, the travellers set forth on the last stage of their journey, Job volunteering to accompany them upon it, and see them established in their new home. They had not gone far on their way down the narrow channel of the creek when it brought them to the broad, snow-clad expanse of the lake, lying white and motionless between its rugged shores, bristling with the forest, save where, on their left, was a stretch of cleared ground, in the midst of which stood, like a grim sentinel, grown venerable with long years of steadfast watch, the gray battlements of Fort Ticonderoga.

Here and there could be seen red-coated soldiers, bright dots of color in the colorless winter landscape, and, above them, lazily flaunting in the light breeze, shone the red cross of England. The old ranger gave the flag the tribute of a military salute, while his heart swelled with pride at sight of the banner for which he had fought, and which he had followed almost to where it now waved, in the humiliation of Abercrombie's defeat, and here had seen it planted in Amherst's triumphant advance.

In Seth Beeman's breast it stirred no such thrill. It had no such associations with deeds in which he had borne a part, and to him, as to many another of his people, it was becoming a symbol of oppression rather than an object of pride. To Nathan's boyish eyes it was a most beautiful thing, without meaning, but of beauty. His heart beat quick as the rattling drums and the shrill notes of the fife summoned the garrison to parade.

The oxen went at a brisker pace on the unobstructed surface of the lake, and the travellers soon came to a little creek not far up which was the clearing that Seth Beeman had made during the previous summer. In the midst of it stood the little log house that was henceforth to be their home, the shed for the cattle, and a stack of wild hay, inconspicuous among log heaps almost as large as they, looking anything but homelike with the smokeless chimney and pathless approach. Nor, when entered, was the bare interior much more cheerful.

A fire, presently blazing on the hearth, soon enlivened it. The floor was neatly swept with a broom fashioned of hemlock twigs by Job's ready hands. The little stock of furniture was brought in. The pewter tableware was ranged on the rough corner shelves. Ruth added here and there such housewifely touches as only a woman can give. The change, wrought in so brief a space, seemed a magical transformation. What two hours ago was but a barren crib of rough, clay-chinked logs, was now a furnished living-room, cozy with rude, homelike comfort.

Then the place was hanselled with its first regularly prepared dinner, the first meal beneath its roof at which a woman had presided. Job, loath to leave the most humanized habitation that he had seen for months, set forth for his own lonely cabin. Except the unneighborly inmates of the Fort, these were his nearest neighbors, and to them, for his old comrade's sake, he felt a closer friendship than had warmed his heart for many a year.

Though it was March, winter lacked many days of being spent in this latitude, and, during their continuance, Seth was busy with his axe, widening the clearing with slow, persistent inroads upon the surrounding forest, and piling the huge log heaps for next spring's burning. Nathan gave a willing and helpful hand to the piling of the brush, and took practical lessons in that accomplishment so necessary to the pioneer-the woodsman's craft. Within doors his mother, with little Martha for her companion, plied cards and spinning-wheel, with the frugal store of wool and flax brought from the old home. So their busy hands kept loneliness at bay, even amid the dreariness of the wintry wilderness.

At last the south wind blew with a tempered breath. Hitherto unseen stumps appeared above the settling snow, the gray haze of woods purpled with a tinge of spring, and the caw of returning crows pleased their ears, tired of the winter's silence.

Seth tapped the huge old maples with a gouge, and the sap, dripping from spouts of sumac wood, was caught in rough-hewn troughs. From these it was carried in buckets on a neck-yoke to the boiling place, an open-fronted shanty. Before it the big potash kettle was hung on a tree trunk, so balanced on a stump that it could be swung over or off the fire at will. Sugaring brought pleasure as well as hard labor to Nathan. There were quiet hours spent in the shanty with his father, with little to do but mend the fire and watch the boiling sap walloping and frothing, half hidden beneath the clouds of steam that filled the woods with sweet odor.

Sometimes Job joined them and told of his lonely scouts in the Ranger service, and of bush fights with Indians and their French allies, and of encounters with wild beasts, tales made more impressive in their relation by the loneliness of the campfire, with the circle of wild lights and shadows leaping around it in the edge of the surrounding darkness, out of which came, perhaps from far away, the howl of a wolf or the nearer hoot of the great horned owl.

Sometimes Martha spent part of a day in camp with her brother, helping in womanly ways that girls so early acquired in the training of those times, when every one of the household must learn helpfulness and self-reliance. But the little sister enjoyed most the evenings when the syrup was taken to the house and sugared off. The children surfeited themselves with sugar "waxed" on snow, and their parents, and Job, if he chanced to be there, shared of this most delicious of the few backwoods luxuries, and the five made a jolly family party.

One morning, when the surface of the coarse-grained old snow was covered with one of the light later falls, known as "sugar snow," as Seth and his son were on their way to the sugar place, the latter called his father's attention to a large track bearing some resemblance to the imprint of a naked human foot, and tending with some meandering in the same direction that they were going.

"Why," said Seth, at the first glance, "it's a bear, an' if he's been to the camp, I'm afraid he's done mischief, for they're meddlesome creatur's. But there wa'n't much left there for him to hurt," he added, after taking a brief mental inventory of the camp's contents.

"I can't think of nothing but the hunk of pork we had to keep the big kittle from b'ilin' over," said Nathan, "and a little mite of syrup that we left in the little kittle 'cause there was more'n we could carry home in the pails."

"He's welcome to that if he's left the pork; we hain't no pork to feed bears."

Now, as they drew near the camp, they heard a strange commotion in its neighborhood; a medley of smothered angry growls, impatient whines, unwieldy floundering, and a dull thud and clank of iron, the excited squalling of a party of jays, and the chattering jeers of a red squirrel. Running forward in cautious haste, they presently discovered the cause of this odd confusion of noises to be a large black bear.

His head was concealed in the pot-bellied syrup kettle, held fast in that position by the bail, that, in his eagerness to lick out the last drop of stolen sweet, had slipped behind his ears. His frantic efforts to get rid of his self-imposed muzzle were so funny that, after their first moment of bewilderment, the two spectators could but shout with laughter.

Now upreared, the blindfolded bear would strike wildly at the kettle with his forepaws; then, falling on his back, claw it furiously with his hinder ones; then, regaining his feet, rush headlong till brought to a sudden stand by an unseen tree trunk. Recovering from the shock, he would remain motionless for a moment, as if devising some new means of relief, but would presently resume the same round of unavailing devices, with the constant accompaniment of smothered expressions of rage and terror.

But there was little time for laughter when a precious kettle and a fat bear might at any moment be lost by the fracture of one and the escape of the other. Seth had no weapon but his axe, but with this he essayed prompt attack, the happy opportunity for which was at once offered. In one of his blind, unguided rushes, the bear charged directly toward the camp, till his iron-clad head struck with a resounding clang against the great boiling kettle. As he reeled backward from the shock, half stunned by it, and bewildered by the unaccustomed sound that still rang in his ears, Seth was beside him with axe uplifted.

Only an instant he deliberated where and how to strike; at the skull he dared not with the axe-head, for fear of breaking the kettle, and he disliked to strike with the blade further back for fear of disfiguring the skin. But this was the preferable stroke, and in the next instant the axe-blade fell with a downright blow, so strong and well aimed that it severed the spinal column just forward of the shoulders. The great brute went down, paralyzed beyond all motion, to fall in a helpless heap and yield up his life with a few feeble gasps.

"Oh, father," cried Nathan, the first to break the sudden silence, with a voice tremulous in exultation, "to think we've got a bear. Won't mother and Marthy be proud? and won't Job think we're real hunters?"

Waiting but a moment to stroke the glossy fur and lift a huge inert paw, but such a little while ago so terrible, he sped home to bring his mother and sister to see the unexpected prize, while the jays renewed their querulous outcry, and the squirrel vociferously scoffed the fallen despoiler of his stolen nuts.

The flesh made a welcome addition to the settler's scanty store of meat, the fat furnished a medium for frying the hitherto impossible doughnut, and Job promised to bring them a handsome price for the skin, when he should sell it with his own peltry to the fur traders. But the praise he bestowed upon Seth's coolness in the strange encounter was sweeter to Nathan than all else.

As the days went on the advance of spring became more rapid and more apparent. Already the clearing was free from snow, and even in the shadow of the forest the tops of the cradle knolls showed the brown mats of last year's leaves above the surface, that was no longer a pure white, but littered with the winter downfall of twigs, moss, and bits of bark, and everywhere it was gray with innumerable swarming mites of snow fleas. Great flocks of wild geese harrowed the sky. Ducks went whistling in swift flight just above the tree tops, or settled in the puddles beginning to form along the border of the marsh. Here muskrats were getting first sight of the sun after months of twilight spent beneath the ice.

In the earliest April days of open water, when the blackbirds, on every bordering elm and water maple, were filling the air with a jangle of harsh and liquid notes, and the frogs, among the drift of floating weeds, were purring an unremitting croak, Job took Nathan out on the marshes, and instructed him in the art of shooting the great pickerel now come to spawn in the warm shallows.

"Never shoot at 'em," said he, when a shot from his smooth-bore had turned an enormous fellow's white belly to the sun, and he quickly lifted the fish into the canoe; "if you do, you won't hit 'em. Always shoot under, a mite or more, accordin' to the depth o' water."

Powder and lead were too precious to waste much of them on fish, so the old hunter made his pupil a hornbeam bow and arrows with spiked heads. With these weapons the boy soon became so skilled that he kept the table well supplied with this agreeable variation of its frugal fare.

Song-birds came in fewer numbers in those days of wide wildernesses than now, but there were bluebirds and song sparrows enough to enliven the clearing with sweet songs, and little Martha found squirrel cups blooming in the warmest corners of the field. As the days grew longer and warmer they grew busier, for Seth was diligently getting his crops in among the black stumps.

Job, having foreseen his friend's need of some sort of water craft when the lake should open, had fashioned for him a log canoe from the trunk of a great pine, and modelled it as gracefully as his own birch, though it was many times a heavier, as it was a steadier, craft.

One pleasant afternoon in early May, when the lake was quite clear of ice, Seth and his son, with Job as their instructor in the art of canoe navigation, made a trip in the new boat. They paddled down the creek, now a broad bit of water from the spring overflow. When they came to the lake, rippled with a brisk northern breeze, they found their visit well timed, for a rare and pretty sight was before them, so rare and pretty that Job paddled back with all speed for the mother and daughter that they, too, might see it.

A mile below the mouth of the creek a large vessel was coming, under all sail, with the British flag flying bravely above the white cloud of canvas. They could hear the inspiring strains of martial music, and, when the noble vessel swept past not half a mile away, they could see the gayly dressed officers and the blue-jacketed sailors swarming on her deck.

"It's the sloop from St. Johns," said Job. "She comes two or three times, whilst the lake's open, with stores for the garrison to the Fort. It's an easier trail than the road from Albany. Pretty soon you'll hear her speak."

Almost at his words a puff of smoke jetted out from her black side, and, as it drifted across her deck, it was followed by the loud, sullen roar of the cannon. In response a smoke cloud drifted away from the Fort, and a moment later a roar of welcome reinforced the failing echoes. Again and again the sloop and the Fort exchanged salutes, till the new settlers ceased to be startled by such thunder as they had never before heard under a cloudless sky.

"They hain't nothin' to do with their powder nowadays, but to fool it away in sech nonsense," said the Ranger, as the sloop came to anchor in front of the Fort. "Arter all it's a better use for it than killin' folks, erless," he deliberately excepted, "it might be Injins."

The summer brought more settlers to these inviting lands of level, fertile soil, and when the woods were again bright with autumnal hues, their broad expanse of variegated color was blotched with many a square of unsightly new clearing. Job Carpenter looked with disfavor upon such infringement of the hunter's domain, but it was welcomed by the Beemans.

Though Seth's active out-door employment and the constant companionship of nature made him less lonely than his wife, yet he was of a social nature and glad of human companionship; while Ruth, sometimes lonely in the isolation of her new home, rejoiced in the neighborhood of other women.

Only a mile away were the Newtons, a large and friendly family, and within three miles were four more friendly households, and another at the falls of the turbid Lemon Fair. At this point a saw mill was being built and a grist mill talked of. With that convenience established so close at hand, there would be no more need of the long journey to the mill at Skeenesborough, a voyage that, in the best of weather, required two days to accomplish.

The settlers at first pounded their corn into samp, or finer meal for johnny-cake, by the slow and laborious plumping mill, a huge wooden mortar with a spring pole pestle.

"Oh, mother," said Nathan, one summer afternoon, as for a while he stopped the regular thump, thump of the plumping mill to wipe his hot face and rest his arms that ached with the weary downpull of the great pestle, "when do you s'pose the folks to the Fair will get the gris' mill done?"

"Afore long, I hope, for your sake, my boy," she answered, cheerily, through the window. "Let me spell you awhile and you take a good rest."

Laying her wool cards aside, she came out and set her strong hands to the pestle, while Nathan ran out to the new road to see what ox-teamster of unfamiliar voice was bawling his vociferous way along its root-entangled and miry course. Presently the boy came back, breathless with the haste of bearing great news.

"Oh, mother, they're carryin' the stones and fixin's for the new mill, and the man says they'll be ready for grindin' before winter sets in. Then it'll be good-by to you, old 'Up-an'-down,' and good riddance to bad rubbage," and he brought the pestle down with energy on the half-pounded grist of samp.

"Don' revile the plumpin' mill, Nathan. It's been a good friend in time o' need. Mebby you'll miss the trips to Skeenesborough with your father. You've always lotted on them."

"Yes, but I'd rather go to the Fort and play with the boys, any day, and I'll have more time when samp poundin' is done and ended."

He had been with his father twice to the Fort to see its wonders, and, brief as the visits were, they sufficed to make him acquainted with the boys of the garrison, and, for the time, a partner in their games. Before the summer was out, the little Yankee became a great favorite with the few English and Irish boys whose fathers were soldiers of the little garrison. He taught them how to shoot with his hornbeam bow and spiked arrows, and many another bit of woodcraft learned of his fast friend Job, while they taught him unheard-of games, and told him tales of the marvellous world beyond the sea, a world that was as a dream to him.

His Yankee inquisitiveness made him acquainted with every nook and corner of the fortification, and he was even one day taken into the commandant's quarters, that the beautiful wife of that fine gentleman might see from what manner of embryo grew these Yankees, who were becoming so troublesome to His Majesty, King George. She was so pleased with his frank, simple manner and shrewd answers that she dismissed him with a bright, new English shilling, the largest sum that he had yet possessed.

"Really, William," she afterwards remarked to her husband, "if this be a specimen of your terrible Yankees, they be very like our own people, in speech and actions, only sharper witted, and they surely show close kinship with us in spite of such long separation."

"You little know them," said Captain Delaplace, laughing. "They are a turbulent, upstart breed. I fear only a sound drubbing, and, perhaps, the hanging of a score of their leaders, will teach them obedience to His Majesty."

"I would be sorry to have this little man drubbed or hanged," said she, with a sigh; "surely he is not of the stuff rebels are made of."

"The very stuff, my dear. Bold and self-reliant, and impatient of control, as you may see. If ever there comes an outbreak of these discontented people, I warrant you'll find this boy deserving the drubbing and getting it, too, for His Majesty's troops would make short work of such rabble."