A COUNCIL OF WAR.
Shocky, whose feet had flown as soon as he saw the final fall of Pete
Jones, told the whole story to the wondering and admiring ears of Miss
Hawkins, who unhappily could not remember anything at the East just like
it; to the frightened ears of the rheumatic old lady who felt sure her
ole man's talk and stubbornness would be the ruin of him, and to the
indignant ears of the old soldier who was hobbling up and down,
sentinel-wise, in front of his cabin, standing guard over himself.
"No, I won't leave," he said to Ralph and Bud. "You see I jest won't.
What would Gin'ral Winfield Scott say ef he knew that one of them as fit
at Lundy's Lane backed out, retreated, run fer fear of a passel of
thieves? No, sir; me and the old flintlock will live and die together.
I'll put a thunderin' charge of buckshot into the first one of them
scoundrels as comes up the holler. It'll be another Lundy's Lane. And
you, Mr. Hartsook, may send Scott word that ole Pearson, as fit at
Lundy's Lane under him, died a-fightin' thieves on Rocky Branch, in
Hoopole Kyounty, State of Injeanny."
And the old man hobbled faster and faster, taxing his wooden leg to the
very utmost, as if his victory depended on the vehemence with which he
walked his beat.
Mrs. Pearson sat wringing her hands and looking appealingly at Martha
Hawkins, who stood in the door, in despair, looking appealingly at Bud.
Bud was stupefied by the old man's stubbornness and his own pain, and in
his turn appealed mutely to the master, in whose resources he had
boundless confidence. Ralph, seeing that all depended on him, was taxing
his wits to think of some way to get round Pearson's stubbornness.
Shocky hung to the old man's coat and pulled away at him with many
entreating words, but the venerable, bare-headed sentinel strode up and
down furiously, with his flintlock on his shoulder and his basket-knife
in his belt.
Just at this point somebody could be seen indistinctly through the
bushes coming up the hollow.
"Halt!" cried the old hero. "Who goes there?"
"It's me, Mr. Pearson. Don't shoot me, please."
It was the voice of Hannah Thomson. Hearing that the whole neighborhood
was rising against the benefactor of Shocky and of her family, she had
slipped away from the eyes of her mistress, and run with breathless
haste to give warning in the cabin on Rocky Branch. Seeing Ralph, she
blushed, and went into the cabin.
"Well," said Ralph, "the enemy is not coming yet. Let us hold a council
of war."
This thought came to Ralph like an inspiration. It pleased the old man's
whim, and he sat down on the door-step.
"Now, I suppose," said Ralph, "that General Winfield Scott always looked
into things a little before he went into a fight. Didn't he?"
"_To_ be sure," assented the old man.
"Well," said Ralph. "What is the condition of the enemy? I suppose the
whole neighborhood's against us."
"_To_ be sure," said the old man. The rest were silent, but all felt the
statement to be about true.
"Next," said Ralph, "I suppose General Winfield Scott would always
inquire into the condition of his own troops. Now let us see. Captain
Pearson has Bud, who is the right wing, badly crippled by having his arm
broken in the first battle." (Miss Hawkins looked pale.)
"_To_ be sure," said the old man.
"And I am the left wing, pretty good at giving advice, but very slender
in a fight."
"_To_ be sure," said the old man.
"And Shocky and Miss Martha and Hannah good aids, but nothing in a
battle."
"_To_ be sure," said the basket-maker, a little doubtfully.
"Now let's look at the arms and accouterments, I think you call them.
Well, this old musket has been loaded--"
"This ten year," said the old lady.
"And the lock is so rusty that you could not cock it when you wanted to
take aim at Hannah."
The old man looked foolish, and muttered "_To_ be sure."
"And there isn't another round of ammunition in the house."
The old man was silent.
"Now let us look at the incumbrances. Here's the old lady and Shocky. If
you fight, the enemy will be pleased. It will give them a chance to kill
you. And then the old lady will die and they will do with Shocky as they
please."
"_To_ be sure," said the old man reflectively.
"Now," said Ralph, "General Winfield Scott, under such circumstances,
would retreat in good order. Then, when he could muster his forces
rightly, he would drive the enemy from his ground."
"To be sure," said the old man. "What ort I to do?"
"Have you any friends?"
"Well, yes; ther's my brother over in Jackson Kyounty. I mout go there."
"Well," said Bud, "do you just go down to Spring-in-rock and stay there.
Them folks won't be here tell midnight. I'll come fer you at nine with
my roan colt, and I'll set you down over on the big road on Buckeye Run.
Then you can git on the mail-wagon that passes there about five o'clock
in the mornin', and go over to Jackson County and keep shady till we
want you to face the enemy and to swear agin some folks. And then well
send fer you."
"To be sure," said the old man in a broken voice. "I reckon General
Winfield Scott wouldn't disapprove of such a maneuver as that thar."
Miss Martha beamed on Bud to his evident delight, for he carried his
painful arm part of the way home with her. Ralph noticed that Hannah
looked at _him_ with a look full of contending emotions. He read
admiration, gratitude, and doubt in the expression of her face, as she
turned toward home.
"Well, good-by, ole woman," said Pearson, as he took up his little
handkerchief full of things and started for his hiding-place; "good-by.
I didn't never think I'd desart you, and ef the old flintlock hadn't a
been rusty, I'd a staid and died right here by the ole cabin. But I
reckon 'ta'n't best to be brash[22]." And Shocky looked after him, as he
hobbled away over the stones, more than ever convinced that God had
forgotten all about things on Flat Creek. He gravely expressed his
opinion to the master the next day.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 22: The elaborate etymological treatment of this word in its
various forms in our best dictionary is a fine illustration of the fact
that something more than scholarship is needed for penetrating the
mysteries of current folk-speech. _Brash_--often _bresh_--in the sense
of refuse boughs of trees, is only another form of _brush_; the two are
used as one word by the people. _Brash_ in the sense of brittle has no
conscious connection with the noun in popular usage, but it is accounted
by the people the same word as _brash_ in the sense of rash or
impetuous. The suggestion in the Century Dictionary that the words
spelled _brash_ are of modern formation violates the soundest canon of
antiquarian research, which is that a word phrase or custom widely
diffused among plain or rustic people is of necessity of ancient origin.
Now _brash_, the adjective, exists in both senses in two or three of the
most widely separated dialects of the United States, and hence must have
come from England. Indeed, it appears in Wright's Dictionary of
Provincial English in precisely the sense it has in the text.]