WHAT HAPPENED AT THE POOL
The sun was still above the hills when Pikot bade farewell to David
beyond the little pond that lay somewhat more than a mile from his
home. The Indian would have gone farther, but David protested against
it.
When David reached the house, he learned the news that had come
that day from Boston by travelers who had stopped on their way to
Dedham. Two days before Poggapanossoo, otherwise known as Tobias, and
Mattashinnamy had been hanged at Plymouth. These were two of the three
Indians who had been convicted of killing Sassamon the year before,
and Tobias was one of King Philip’s counselors. The third Indian under
sentence had, it seemed, been reprieved, though the Dedham men did not
know for what cause. David’s father took a gloomy view of the affair.
“’Twere better had they let them lie in jail for a while longer,” he
said, “for their execution is likely to prove the last straw to Philip,
who has long been seeking a nail upon which to hang a quarrel. I fear
the skies will soon be red again, David. I like it not.”
“But these Indians were fairly tried, father, and surely they merited
their punishment.”
“Aye, lad, but there could have been no harm in delay.”
“But if, as you have said, a strong hand should be shown? Will not King
Philip, mayhap, take warning by the fate of these murderers?”
“Wisely said,” piped Obid, busy at the hearth with the preparation of
the evening meal. “An those of the Plymouth Colony, as well as we, were
but to choose every other savage and hang him, ’twould put a quick end
to these troubles. And I would that this Preacher Eliot were here to
hearken.”
“Time alone will tell,” said Nathan Lindall soberly. “Yet the men from
Dedham were not so minded. They foresee war with King Philip and dread
that he will persuade the Narragansett Indians to join with him. ‘When
the leaves are on the trees,’ said Tanopet.”
“We here are far distant from Philip, though,” said David.
“Little profit there will be in that,” said Obid dourly, “with
fivescore savages but five miles distant and the country full of
wandering marauders! For my part, I tell you, ’twill be a relief to me
when my scalp be well dangling from an Indian belt and I have no longer
to worry about the matter.”
“Waban, at Natick, is a firm friend of the English,” replied David
stoutly. “There is naught to fear from there. Nor do I believe that any
Nipmuck will take arms against us. Indeed, an I am to see fighting, I
must, methinks, move up the river to Dedham or join the Plymouth men.”
“Do not jest, David,” counseled his father. “It may be that you will
find more fighting than will suit your stomach.”
“Meanwhile,” answered the boy gayly, “here is what suits my stomach
very well. ’Twould be a monstrous pity to scalp you, Obid, so long as
you can make such stew as this!”
A week went by, during which the corn sprouted finely, coaxed upward by
gentle rains that came at night and vanished with the sun. There was
plenty of work in field and garden and David had scant time for play.
Yet he found opportunity to fish in the river in the long evenings,
paddling up to the falls and dropping his line in the deep, black pools
there. He had brought some English hooks back with him from Boston
and liked them well. No more news came from the outer world save that
at Boston there was much uneasiness of an uprising of the Indians and
drilling of the militia each day. If Philip meant mischief he bided his
time.
The days grew very hot and the river dwindled in its bed. The brook
through the clearing was no more than a trickle, for the spring had
been unusually dry and the little showers no more than dampened the
soil. One night David awoke in the darkness with the sound of great
thunder in his ears and saw the window flash glaring white with the
lightning. But the storm passed them by, rumbling off at last into the
north, leaving the ground as parched as before. The kitchen garden must
be watered by hand, and, lest the well go dry, David carried water
in buckets from the small pool that lay in the swamp to the west,
stumbling so frequently on his way back that the pails were seldom more
than half-filled when he arrived. William Vernham came one day past the
middle of June and took dinner with them, being full of a project to
build a road between Nathan Lindall’s house and his own over which one
might travel by horseback. David’s father, however, was faint-hearted
in the matter, since the distance was all of three miles and much
swampy ground intervened. Besides which, as David, listening to the
talk, thought, but did not say, Master Lindall owned no horse. In the
end the visitor went away again somewhat disgruntled.
So passed the first of the summer very peacefully until July had come
in. Then one day messengers came up the river from Newtowne with the
news so long dreaded. King Philip had at last thrown down the gauntlet.
The day before an express had reached Boston from the Plymouth Colony
bearing a letter from Governor Winslow announcing that an attack had
occurred on the settlement at Swansea and that several of the English
had been killed. Philip, it was said, had already armed more than
a thousand of his people and from now on it was war to the knife.
Messengers were on their way to the Narragansetts to persuade them not
to join forces with Philip and Governor Leverett had offered Governor
Winslow aid of arms and ammunition. Meanwhile the train-bands were
preparing in case of need.
To David the tidings were not wholly amiss, for the prospect of bearing
arms and fighting against King Philip’s Indians was enough to make any
boy’s heart beat faster. Nathan Lindall seemed in better spirits for
the news and even Obid was more cheerful now that the die was cast.
That night they sat long about the fire and cleaned the guns with oil
and fine ashes and discussed the matter well. It was southward that the
first trouble would come, they agreed, and so Nathan Lindall laid plans
to remove his cattle to Natick so soon as necessity was shown and join
the men of Dedham. Sleep did not come readily to David that night, and
Obid’s snores long made an accompaniment to the visions of marches and
bloody battles that visited him in the darkness. And yet when the new
day came life was disappointingly much as before. There was corn to hoe
and weeds to be pulled and the sun was hotter than ever and martial
glory seemed as far away as ever.
But the frontier was stirring and men came and went by land and river,
and seldom a day passed that red man or white did not pause at the
plantation to exchange news and opinions. Of these was Joe Tanopet,
resplendent in a ruffled shirt of which he seemed very proud, and
which, David suspected, would come to pieces were the Indian to try
to remove it. In spite of the heat Tanopet wore his green waistcoat,
for association with the English had convinced him that discomfort
and respectability were inseparable. He had no news of importance, or
professed to have none, and said that he had spent the month fishing in
the Long Pond beyond Natick. As proof of the assertion he brought eight
fat bass, which Obid subsequently threw to the hogs, since, as he said,
they had been overlong from their native element.
Word came from Boston that Daniel Henchman, the schoolmaster, had been
chosen by the Council to be Captain of Infantry and that able soldiers
to the number of one hundred were shortly to march under him toward
the south; and also that a company of horse was forming under Captain
Prentice. Nathan Lindall went up to Dedham one morning and returned
late that night with the tidings that the troops had left Boston the
day before, and that with them had gone Samuel Mosely and more than a
hundred volunteers gathered together in Boston in, it was said, less
than three hours’ time.
“Had I been in Boston I would have joined, too,” said David regretfully.
“This Mosely is he who was wont to be a pirate at Jamaica, I take
it,” said Obid. “I doubt a fitter man could be found to deal with the
savages, master.”
“Nay, a privateer he was, Obid, with the King’s commission.”
“I see but little difference,” Obid grumbled. “Nor matters it so long
as he employs a pirate’s methods against the heathen.”
News came slowly, but about the first of the month they learned that
Swansea had been burned to the ground by the Indians and that the
English troops had made rendezvous there and had moved against the
hostiles who were in force near by. David pleaded with his father to
be allowed to go to Dedham and join a band then being recruited, but
was denied. Stories of unrest among the Nipmucks trickled in, and from
Boston came the report that the Indians of the several Praying Villages
were under suspicion and that a plan that had been advanced to recruit
them into the English forces was loudly declaimed against. William
Vernham came over with the first authentic account of the Swansea
attack, which, it seemed, had begun with the plundering of one or two
houses by a force of six or eight of Philip’s men from Mount Hope. Aid
was summoned from Plymouth and an attack by the Indians in force was
prevented by the assembling of some forty of the English at the Swansea
bridge. The Indians retreated again to Mount Hope, but subsequently
preyed on the settlement in small bands, killing eight persons and
cutting off their feet and hands as well as scalping them. They also
fired at least one house. The inhabitants were forced to abandon the
town, removing themselves and their household goods and live-stock
to Rehoboth and there fortifying themselves in three dwellings. The
Indians then burned Swansea to the ground.
“Both the Narragansetts and Nipmucks have joined with King Philip,”
added Master Vernham, “though both had promised to take no sides in
the matter. ’Twill not be long, I doubt, ere the war-cries ring in our
ears even here, for, an I mistake not, Philip has laid his plans well
and ere the summer be gone we shall see all the tribes hereabouts
arrayed against us. I would there were the means at hand to construct a
stockade fort, but ’tis a task too great for a few hands. We shall have
to retire either to Newtowne or Dedham, Master Lindall.”
“I shall remove what I may to Natick,” replied Nathan Lindall, “and
join the militia so soon as ’tis seen that the Indians mean to carry
the war into this country. There be three of us here, Master Vernham,
who can shoot fairly straight and, though men of peace, are ready to
avenge those so foully murdered at Swansea.”
“Were it not for Mistress Vernham I would bid you say four,” said the
other gloomily. “Nay, even so, an the varmints come hither, I will join
you.”
When the visitor had gone again, David set about the watering of the
garden, for the rain still held away and the crops were drooping sadly.
There were those who connected the unnatural drouth with the eclipse
of the moon that had happened a week or so before and who predicted
all kinds of dire things in consequence. The small pond in the marsh
still held a little muddy water, although it was fast drying up, and
to reach it David had built a sort of pier of stones over the mire.
To-day he had filled one bucket and carried it to the bank and was
filling the second when a slight sound in the alders to the left caused
him to glance swiftly. That something had moved there he was certain,
and it seemed that his eyes had glimpsed it, and yet it was gone before
he could be sure of the latter. He had an impression of something
brown or leather-hued between the trees which might well have been an
old fox. He listened intently and searched the thicket with his gaze,
but no other sound reached him, and presently he lifted the bucket
and picked his way across the stones to the firm ground. There the
sensation of being watched came to him strongly, so that the skin at
the back of his neck prickled, and he wheeled quickly and again scanned
the swamp. A bird fluttering amongst the alders caused his heart to
jump and he laughed at himself and took up his buckets.
“’Tis this talk of Indians,” he muttered as he made his way along the
path he had worn to the clearing. “I am as fluttery as a hen!”
He was a scant three paces from the edge of the thicket when the noise
of a snapping twig brought him up short. Ten yards away to the right
a half-naked Indian stepped toward him. As David turned, the savage’s
hand went up in friendly gesture.
“Noicantop?” he called, the Nipmuck equivalent for “How do you?”
“Dock tau he?” (“Who are you?”) returned David sternly.
“Netop.” (“A friend.”)
“Speak English, friend. What you want?”
“Me got um message speak you David man.” The Indian made his way toward
David unhurriedly. He was a tall, slim youth of twenty-two or -three,
naked to the waist, unarmed save for a hunting-knife at his belt. His
scalp-lock was confined in a metal tube some three inches in length
above which it was gathered in a black knot and adorned with several
long feathers of yellow and red. Three strings of black-and-white
wampum were about his neck and his girdle was elaborately worked with
colored porcupine quills. That he was not one of the Natick tribe was
evident, for they no longer painted their bodies whereas this youth
showed many smears of yellow, red, and brown on face and chest.
Doubtful, David raised a hand.
“Wait!” he said. “Who sends this message?”
The Indian paused and his gaze, leaving David, shot for an instant past
the boy’s head. In that instant David knew, and his heart leaped into
his throat. He loosed his hands and the buckets fell to the ground, but
ere he could turn, the foe was upon him. Strong arms twined about him
and he was borne backward in a welter of snapping branches and came to
earth with the breath jarred from his body.
[Illustration: IN THAT INSTANT DAVID KNEW, AND HIS HEART LEAPED INTO
HIS THROAT]