Here, again, Uncle Juvinell paused in his story, and looked beamingly
around on his little auditors. They were all sitting with their eyes
bent earnestly on the burning logs, thinking deeply, no doubt, and
looking as sober as tombstones in the light of a spring morning.
All on a sudden, Willie leaped from his chair, and gave a shrill
Indian war-whoop, that threw the whole bevy into a terrible panic;
making some of the smaller fry scream outright, and even Uncle
Juvinell to blink a little. "There," said the youngster, "is something
to ring in your ears for weeks hereafter, and never to be forgotten
even to your dying day. I heard it the other night at the Indian
circus, and have been practising it myself ever since. I fancy it must
be a pretty fair sample of the genuine thing, or it wouldn't have
scared you all up as it did." Whereupon Uncle Juvinell, frowning over
his spectacles with his brows, and laughing behind them with his eyes,
bade the young blood to pack himself into his chair again, and be
civil; at the same time threatening to put him on a water-gruel diet,
to bring his surplus spirits within reasonable bounds. Then all the
little folks laughed, not so much at what their uncle had said, as to
make believe they had not been frightened in the least; in which
Willie, the cunning rogue, joined, that, under cover of the general
merriment, he might snicker a little to himself at his own smartness.
"And now, my dear children," continued the good man, "hand me the
notes you have written down, that I may see what it is you would have
me explain."
"In five minutes' time after you began," said rattle-brained Willie,
"I became so much interested in the story, that I quite forgot all
about the notes, till it was too late to begin; but I was thinking all
along, that I should like to understand more clearly the difference
between a province and a colony, and"--
"Indeed, uncle," broke in Dannie, "you made every thing so clear and
plain as you went along, that I, for one, didn't feel the need of
writing down a single note."
"Then, Dannie," said his uncle, "that being the case, you can perhaps
enlighten your cousin Willie as to the difference between a colony and
a province."
Had his uncle called upon him to give the difference between Gog and
Magog, Daniel would have made the venture. So he promptly answered,--
"A province is a country, and a colony is the people of it."
Uncle Juvinell would have laughed outright at this answer; but he knew
it would mortify the young historian: so he only smiled, and said,--
"That will do pretty well, Dannie, as far as it goes; but it does not
cover more than an acre of the ground. Now, a colony, you must know,
Willie, is a settlement made by a country--called, in such cases, the
mother-country--in some foreign region at a distance from it, but
belonging to it; as, for example, the English colonies in America,
which are separated from the mother-country, England, by the great
Atlantic Ocean. A province, on the other hand, is a similar extent of
foreign territory, belonging to a nation or a kingdom, either by
conquest or purchase or settlement; and it may also be a division or
district of the kingdom or nation itself. Thus, you see, a foreign
region, settled and owned by the mother-country, may, with nearly
equal propriety, be called either a colony or a province; while one
that belongs to a nation or a kingdom by conquest or purchase is a
province, and nothing else. Thus, for example, Canada is a province of
Great Britain, won from the French by conquest, as you will learn
to-morrow evening. From this you may see, that although a province
may, yet a colony can no more exist within the boundaries of a
mother-country, than can a man live at home and abroad at one and the
same time."
The other children were then called on to produce their notes. Laura
said, that, after she had written two or three, she found she was
losing more than she was gaining; for, when she stopped to take down
any item she wished to remember, she did not hear what came right
after. Ellen chimed in with the same; and Ned said he was not yet out
of his pot-hooks, and couldn't write; but that he was thinking all the
time of getting Willie or Dannie to tell him all about it after they
went to bed. So, what with this excuse, and that, and the other, not a
single note was forthcoming, except a few that Master Charlie, the
knowing young gentleman, had written on a very large slate, in letters
quite of his own inventing, which he now laid before his uncle. To set
off his penmanship to the best advantage, and couple the ornamental
with the useful, he had drawn just above it a picture of Gen.
Braddock, mounted on his dashing white charger, and waving aloft a
sword of monstrous length. One unacquainted with the subject, however,
would sooner have taken it for a big baboon, geared up in a cocked hat
and high military boots, with a mowing-scythe in his hand, and
astraddle of a rearing donkey heavily coated with feathers instead of
hair. The old gentleman's spectacles seemed to twinkle as he ran his
eye over the slate; and after making out two or three rather
savage-looking _s_'s, as many long-legged _p_'s, a squat _h_ or two, a
big bottle-bellied _b_, three or four gigantic _l_'s, a broken-backed
_k_ or two, a high-shouldered _w_, a heavy-bottomed _d_, and a long
slim-tailed _y_, it struck him, at length, that speech-belt, Long
Knife, knapsack, Silver Heels, wigwam, and powder-monkey, were the
items concerning which Master Charlie desired further enlightenment.
"For information touching these matters, my dear Charles," then said
Uncle Juvinell, "I will pass you over to Willie and Dannie, who, I
dare say, are quite as well posted up in matters of this kind, as your
old uncle; for, if I mistake not, they have just been reading Catlin's
book on the Indians, and Gulliver's Travels in Brobdignag."
"How is it," inquired Ellen, "that Washington, being the good man that
he was, could have taken part in that wicked war between the French
and English about a country that didn't belong to either of them, but
to the poor Indians?"
Now, although Uncle Juvinell was satisfied in his own mind that
Washington's conduct in this matter was just what it should have been,
yet, for all that, he was a little puzzled how to answer this question
in a way that the little folks would rightly understand.
"This very thing, my dear niece," replied he after a moment's pause,
"grieved and troubled his mind a great deal, as you may well believe:
but he knew, that, if the English did not get possession of this land,
the French would; and this, by increasing the strength of the enemy,
would by and by endanger the safety of his own native land, and even
the lives and liberties of his countrymen. And he also knew that it
would be far better for the spread of useful knowledge and the true
religion, that all this rich country should be in the hands of some
Christian people, who would make it a place fit to live in, and to be
peaceful and prosperous and happy in, than that it should be left
entirely to those barbarous savages, who only made of it a place to
hunt and to fish in, to fight and scalp, and to burn and torture each
other like devils in. Besides this, it is the duty of every true
patriot (and no one knew this better than he) to serve and defend the
country, under the protection of whose laws he has lived in peace and
plenty, against all her enemies, whether at home or abroad, even
should she now and then be a little in the wrong; for, by so doing, he
defends his own home and family, rights and liberty,--objects that
should be as dear to him as life itself."
"O uncle!" exclaimed Ned with a start, as if he had just caught a
passing recollection by the tail as it was about skedaddling round the
corner, "tell me, will you? what kind of a life a charmed life is."
"Really Ned," cried Uncle Juvinell, "I am very glad that you mentioned
it; for it puts me in mind of something I should have told you before,
and which I might else have forgotten. This, however, is as good a
time as any; and, when you hear what I am now going to tell you, you
will readily understand, without further explanation, what is meant
when it is said of a man that he bears a charmed life about him. To do
this, I must anticipate a little, or, to speak more clearly, take time
by the forelock, and, going forward a little in our story, tell you of
a circumstance which your Uncle Juvinell, when a boy, often heard
related by Dr. Craik, who was then an aged and venerable man.
"Fifteen years after poor Braddock had been laid in his unhonored
grave, Col. Washington, taking with him his friend Dr. Craik, went on
an exploring expedition to the Ohio, in behalf of the brave soldiers
who had served under him at the Great Meadows, and to whom, it must be
remembered, Gov. Dinwiddie had promised two hundred thousand acres of
the best land to be found on this great river or its branches. There
was peace then along the border, and little or no danger was to be
apprehended from the Indians. They travelled in a large canoe, rowed
by two or three hunters; and what with fishing in the streams (for
they took with them their fishing tackle), what with hunting in the
woods (for they took with them their hunting rifles), what with
camping on the green shore at night (for they took with them their
camp utensils), and what with the comfortable thought that there was
not an Indian warrior within a hundred miles whose fingers were
itching for their scalps (for they took with them this and many other
pleasant thoughts besides), they had, you may depend upon it, a
glorious time.
"One day, there came to their camp, at the mouth of the Great Kanawha,
a party of Indians, headed by an old chief of grave and venerable
aspect, who approached Washington with deep reverence, as if entering
the presence of some superior being. After several pipes of tobacco
had been smoked, and several haunches of venison had been eaten,--the
first to show that they had come friendly, the last to show that they
came hungry,--the old chief addressed Washington in a speech, which
your Uncle Juvinell cannot repeat to you word for word as he heard it
from the lips of the worthy old doctor; but he well remembers the
substance thereof, and will give it you as nearly as he can in the
Indian style of oratory.
"'They came and told me,' began the old chief, 'that the great
Long Knife was in our country; and I was very glad. I said to
them, though I be old and feeble, though the way be long, and
the hills many and high, and the rivers many and wide, yet must
I go and see him once more before I die; for it is the young
warrior, whom, years ago, I saw shielded from our bullets by
the hand of the Great Spirit. Let the pale-faces hear my words.
Fifteen summers ago, when the woods and thickets were dense and
green, the French and Indians went out to lay in ambuscade for
the big English general, among the Monongahela hills. I took my
warriors, and went along, and we lay in wait together. The
English were many and strong; we were few and weak: thus we had
no thought of victory in our minds, but only to give our
enemies a little trouble, and keep them back a while till the
big French army came down from the Great Lakes. We saw the
English army cross the river and come up the hill; yet they
suspected not. We saw them walk into our snare, up to the very
muzzles of our guns; nor did they dream of danger, till our
war-whoop went up, and our bullets began to fly as fast as
winter hail. I saw the red-coats fall, and strew the ground
like the red leaves of the woods nipped by an untimely frost,
and smitten by the unseen hands of a mighty wind. The snows of
eighty winters have fallen upon my head. I have been in many a
bloody battle; yet never saw I the red life-stream run as it
that day ran down Braddock's Hill from English hearts. Listen!
I saw that day, among the English, a young warrior who was not
an Englishman. I singled him out as a mark for my rifle; for he
was tall and strong, and rode grandly, and his presence there
was a danger to us. Seventeen times did I take slow and steady
aim, and fire; but my bullets went astray, and found him not.
Then I pointed him out to my young men, whose eyes were sharper
and whose hands were steadier than mine, and bade them bring
him down. It was all in vain: their bullets glanced from him as
if he had been a rock. I saw two horses fall under him, shot
dead; yet he rose unhurt. Then did I lay my hand on my mouth in
wonder, and bade my young men turn their rifles another way;
for the Great Spirit, I knew, held that young warrior in his
keeping, and that his anger would be kindled against us if we
desisted not. That young warrior, the favorite of Heaven, the
man who is destined never to fall in battle, now stands before
me. Once more mine eyes have seen him, and I shall now go away
content.'
"And now, Ned, my boy," said Uncle Juvinell, after he had ended this
oration, "can you tell me what a charmed life is?"
"One that is bullet-proof, I suppose," replied Ned.
"You don't mean to say that Washington was bullet-proof, do you, Uncle
Juve?" put in doubting Charlie.
"No, not exactly that, my little nephew," replied his Uncle Juvinell;
"and yet a great deal more: for, beyond all doubt, an all-wise
Providence raised up George Washington to do the good and great work
that he did, and to this end shielded him when encompassed by the
perils of battle, strengthened him when beset by the wiles of
temptation, and cheered him when visited by the trials of adversity.
Dr. Davis, a famous preacher of that day, seemed to have looked upon
him, as did the old Indian, as one favored of Heaven; for, in a sermon
preached by him a few weeks after Braddock's defeat, he spoke of Col.
Washington as 'that heroic youth, whom, he could not but hope,
Providence had preserved in so signal a manner for some important
service to his country.' And now, my little folks, the clock strikes
nine, and our Christmas logs burn low: so join your old uncle in an
evening hymn; then haste you to your happy beds to sleep and dream the
peaceful night away."