Philadelphia of the British soldiers. Rumors came of how the Red Coats
had marched through the near-by towns and countryside. They had taken
possession of the homesteads, appropriated the supplies that had been
left for the women and children, and plundered the treasures of silver
that were almost all the wealth of the Colonists. News of this reached
the ears of those who remained behind, alone, in Philadelphia. But
Prudence paid little heed to the rumors. Her mother was better, but
still an invalid and confined to her room. There was only one maid
servant to do the work of the large house, and Prudence found herself a
real little housekeeper with her hands very full. All day long she
tripped up and down the wide oak staircase, with instructions from her
dear mother to the maid in the kitchen, and then helped to carry them
out. She had finished the flag. It was laid away in a drawer.
“It’s hardly safe to fly a flag from your piazza, Prudence,” sensible
William had warned. So Prudence opened the drawer only when she had a
little spare time. Then she would kneel down on the rag carpet in front
of the drawer and hold the beloved Stars and Stripes tenderly in her
arms.
“I love every star, and every color,” she would say to herself. “Oh, may
God win the battle for us and help to give me back my father, and
William his brother John!”
The next morning, when Prudence set the tray with her mother’s
breakfast, she laid it with unusual care. Upon the sun-bleached linen
cloth stood the thin china dishes, white with a pattern of raised
bunches of grapes in purple and green. The silver spoons and forks were
arranged neatly. Prudence’s mother, sitting in a big arm chair by the
window where the sweet odors of the garden roses were blown up to her,
looked lovingly at her small daughter.
“You are a good little housewife, my dear,” she said. “I don’t know what
I should have done without you. Father will find his little girl almost
a little woman when he returns.” She paused a moment, lifting one of the
silver spoons to break the end of her eggshell. “If he ever does
return,” she sighed. “Oh, I should have hidden the silver weeks ago.”
The sound of a muffled drum struck her ear. She looked at Prudence in
terror. “Pull the curtains close, child, and lock all the doors. The Red
Coats are coming.”
Like a line of fire taking its winding way in and out between the
houses, the regiment of British soldiers streamed through the streets of
Philadelphia. Here, it stopped as an officer and his men stripped the
fruit from some peaceful orchard or garden. There, at an officer’s
order, a group of soldiers entered a house, and returned with bits of
old family treasure that war gave them the privilege of taking.
Prudence’s heart beat fast, but she tried to be brave. She ran from room
to room, stowing away the silver candlesticks and tableware, closing
blinds, and locking doors. The old maid servant, her apron held over her
head, had fled to the cellar in her fright. Her mother, bravely
directing Prudence, was still unable to leave her room. Suddenly the
front door burst open and in came William.
“I couldn’t bear to leave you alone, Prudence,” he said. “See, I brought
my father’s old drum, thinking we could make a little noise on it and
scare the Red Coats.”
Prudence looked into the brave face of her little neighbor.
“You’ve given me an idea, William,” she exclaimed. She ran over to the
chest of drawers, opened one drawer, and pulled out the little homemade
flag.
“We’ll both scare the Red Coats,” she said. “We won’t fasten the doors,
for it wouldn’t be of any use. The soldiers could very easily break the
bolts and I can’t find any safe place to hide the silver. Come. We’ll go
right out on the piazza and meet the whole British army if it comes!”
She clutched William’s hand, and tugged him toward the door.
“Do we dare?” William’s round, merry face was very sober.
“Of course we dare. Come on. You drum and I’ll wave the Stars and
Stripes,” Prudence said.
The Williams’ white house, set a little back from the street in the
midst of sweet old flower beds and low hedges of box and yew, looked
like a prize to the ruthless Red Coats. It was well known in
Philadelphia at that time that Prudence’s father had used much of his
wealth to further the cause of the Colonies. This made the invading
enemy hate him. It was a common rumor, too, that although the Williams’
chests of gold were greatly depleted, there was still much treasure of
silver left in the home. News of it passed from mouth to mouth of the
soldiers.
“There’s the house. Left flank, wheel, Halt!” shouted the British
general in command. He turned in at the Williams’ gate and strode up the
path. At the steps he looked up and stopped. “Gad!” he said, “the
children of these stubborn Colonists would defy us, too,” but a smile
took away the stern lines from his mouth.
On the top step of the piazza stood Prudence and William, two brave
little Colonists. William was beating a loud, _rap tap_, on the cracked
head of an old drum. Prudence, her arm held high above her head, waved
the little home-made flag that showed the glorious stars and stripes of
their regiment.
“You mustn’t come a step farther, sir!” she commanded.
“No indeed!” echoed William. “We won’t let you come in.”
“So you’re holding the fort, are you?” the General asked.
“We have to, sir,” Prudence explained. “My father is with the army of
the Colonies and my mother is ill. This is my neighbor, William
Brewster. He came over to help me guard the house.” Then she turned
pleading eyes toward the great man as she held out her flag.
“It looks to me as if there were a thousand Red Coats, sir, more or
less, out there in the road. There are only two of us. Please, sir, for
the sake of our flag, march on!”
Was it dust or the mist of tears that made the British general wipe his
eyes? He reached out one ungloved hand and grasped Prudence’s little
one.
“Give my sympathy to your mother, my child,” he said kindly, “and tell
her that I hope she will soon be better. Little soldiers, remember that
never before have I surrendered, but now I do, in the name of the King.
March on!” he ordered to his men. Looking back he saw Prudence and
William standing in the gate and waving him good-bye until the trees and
the distance shut them from his view.
THE BOY WHO HAD NEVER SEEN AN INDIAN
“I saw Painted Feathers this morning,” the boy said as he threw himself
down on the rude log settle in front of the fire and stretched out his
hands to feel the blaze. “He seemed angry about something,” he went on,
“but he and the young braves were glad to see me. They like us, mother.
Painted Feathers remembers how you took care of his little daughter,
Laughing Eyes, when she strayed away from the camp up in the Blue Ridge,
and he still wears the beads you gave him around his neck. Heap big
chief, Painted Feathers, but I guess we’ve made him our friend.”
The woman in homespun, who bent over a savory stew brewing in a kettle
that hung from the crane, smiled as she looked down at the boy’s manly
face. He was the counterpart of his father, who had gone over the Blue
Ridge hunting, and had never returned—lost in the trackless wilderness
of the woods, they feared. He wore the same kind of rough suit of tanned
skins, hide boots, and fur cap. His eyes were just as deep and fearless
as his father’s had been. He was his mother’s mainstay now in the little
cabin set so far from any other habitation in the depth of the
wilderness. There were Indians near, but, so far, they had been friendly
to the two settlers.
“I tried to understand what Painted Feathers was angry about,” the lad
continued.
“What was it, Eli; nothing that we have done, I trust?” the boy’s mother
asked, her voice trembling a little as she peered out through the window
at the gathering dusk and the gloomy forest that surrounded them.
“Oh, no, mother,” Eli hastened to assure her. “As nearly as I could make
out, Painted Feathers and the tribe are afraid of losing their land.
They pointed toward the direction the Shenandoah takes, beyond the Blue
Ridge as it flows into the Potomac. They say that the land in that
valley is being measured off with strange instruments and by white men
who are going to bring their own tribes and build their own camps there.
You can’t blame Painted Feathers, mother, for his tribe settled here
first. I thought as I came home what a pity it would be to take the land
away from the Indians; such lofty trees, and the silver river, and the
buds of the wild flowers opening everywhere. I never saw the mountains
look so blue as they did in the sunshine this morning, and Painted
Feathers has lived here for years and years,” he said, his clear, boyish
voice full of sympathy.
“I know, too, how Painted Feathers feels about this valley,” Eli’s
mother said. “He knows every deer track and every spring and partridge
call for miles around. But I think this is all talk about surveyors
being near, son. No one has marked out the lands in all this time, and
they would scarcely begin now. How much longer the days are!” she added,
turning toward the door to open it and let in the earth-soaked wind of
the evening. It was early spring and the twilight was long and mellow.
To her surprise, she found a boy standing outside. His hand which he had
raised to knock with went like a flash to his cap. He pulled it off and
stood, bareheaded, as he bowed like a young cavalier and smiled up at
her. He was about Eli’s age, she thought, between fifteen and sixteen,
but a different sort of lad from her sturdy son. His long, pale face had
the lines of an aristocrat. Even his slender fingers showed his gentle
heritage.
“May I ask shelter of you for the night,” he begged courteously. As he
spoke, Eli’s mother noticed that he carried surveying instruments, and
his clothing was weather-stained and worn.
“I have come all the way up the Shenandoah and over the mountains,
measuring and marking the land, and making maps of its important
features,” he said. “I have not slept more than three or four nights in
a bed, but after tramping through your wild forests all day, have lain
down before a fire on a little straw or fodder or a bearskin like some
beast of the wood. And my cooking has been done on sticks over the same
fire with chips of wood for plates.” He smiled as he told of the
hardships. “I have strayed away from my companions,” he said, “and do
not know where to spend the night.”
[Illustration: “‘MY COOKING HAS BEEN DONE ON STICKS OVER THE FIRE’”]
Eli, crowding close to his mother in the doorway, had been listening to
the tale of the stranger lad with the greatest interest. He pushed open
the door now.
“Come in,” he said.
“Yes, you must come in and share our supper, and stop with us in the
cabin as long as you like,” Eli’s mother added. And in a few minutes the
three were gathered around the rough deal table before the fire, eating
bowlfuls of the steaming broth.
“My name is Eli. What is yours?” Eli asked, between mouthfuls.
“George,” said the other lad. “I live at Mount Vernon. Our neighbor,
Lord Fairfax, has an estate that is so large it extends way over the
Blue Ridge Mountains. Ever since I was a little lad I have ridden and
walked with Lord Fairfax, and when he decided to have his estate
surveyed, even as far as this distant boundary, I gladly undertook the
work. I like this wild life and the adventure of making new paths in the
wilderness.”
“Tell me about some of your adventures, George,” Eli begged, leaning
across the table, his eyes bright with excitement.
“The narrowest escape we had,” George replied, “was when we made our
straw beds on the ground a few nights since and were awakened by
smelling something scorched. The straw was on fire, and we were almost
burned ourselves.”
“Have you seen any Indians?” Eli asked.
“Not an Indian,” the young surveyor replied. “Indeed, I wish that I
might, for I never have seen an Indian in my life. They were long ago
driven out of Virginia, you know, by the Colonists. Once, though,” he
added, “and not so many days ago, if I remember rightly, we were setting
up our stakes about a tract of land near here and we heard a sudden
crackling in the bushes. There was a bit of bright color showing among
the branches as we looked, like the bright feathers of a chief’s
headdress, but it was gone in a moment. It may have been only a scarlet
tanager, or a red-headed woodpecker,” he said carelessly.
The words had scarcely escaped his lips, though, when a sudden light
flashed against the window of the cabin, lighting like day the scene
outside. As scarlet and yellow leaves are whirled in a moment by a
sudden gust of wind from a forest, so the thirty or more Indians who
surrounded the cabin seemed to have flashed out of the woods—as swiftly
and as silently. Painted Feathers led them, decked in fresh war paint,
as were all the other braves, and a scalp dangled menacingly from his
belt to show that he was bent on warfare. With fierce gestures toward
the cabin and the three white faces that peered in terror from the
window, the Indians made their preparations. One of the younger braves
drummed loudly on a deerskin that he had stretched over an iron pot;
another rattled a huge, dried gourd filled with shot and decorated with
a horse’s tail. The others built a great fire directly in front of the
cabin, pulled blazing brands from it, and danced in a circle with wild
yells and whoops.
Eli whispered his frightened explanation to the other lad. “It’s Painted
Feathers and his band of braves, and they’re dancing the death dance.
When they finish they’ll set fire to our cabin, I’m afraid. He used to
be our friend, but this morning he seemed in a great rage about his land
and hunting ground being taken away from the tribe by settlers.” Eli’s
voice was trembling as he finished. “It wasn’t a wild bird that you
heard and saw in the woods when you were surveying, George. It was
Painted Feathers watching you, and now he has followed you to our
cabin.”
The other lad’s heart beat with terror, but his voice did not falter, as
he spoke: “Then I am going out to give myself up to the Indians, Eli. I
won’t have your life and that of your mother endangered when you have
been so kind to take me, a stranger, into your house, and feed, and
shelter me.” He made a quick movement toward the door, but Eli
intercepted him.
“Wait, George! It would only satisfy their rage without doing any good.
Let me think a moment.”
But as the three waited and watched, the cabin lighted by the fire
outside, the seconds seemed hours. The shouting, excited Indians piled
more logs upon the fire and fed it with pine knots until the sparks
darted in a crimson cloud as high as the tops of the trees. As they
danced, they circled nearer and nearer the cabin, their shrieks growing
each moment more shrill and menacing. It was time to act if the cabin
and its occupants were to be saved. Before either his mother or the boy
surveyor could stop him, Eli stepped out in front of the cabin, alone,
and unprotected. He stood there, one hand held out in welcome to the
terrible Indian chief.
[Illustration: “ELI STEPPED OUT ... ALONE AND UNPROTECTED”]
The sudden apparition of the boy was a surprise to the Indians. They
were silent for a moment, spellbound by the boy’s bravery, and
interested, as well, in something that he drew from his coat and held
out in supplication toward Painted Feathers. He had grasped the object
from its place on the shelf over the fireplace before he left the cabin.
It was a tiny moccasin made of the softest of deerskin and embroidered
with bright beads. Painted Feathers drew nearer to look, and Eli spoke
to him.
“Laughing Eyes left her moccasin in the wigwam of her paleface friends.
We kept the moccasin because we love Laughing Eyes. We found her when
she strayed away from the tribe and we gave her back to her father,
Painted Feathers, the big chief.”
As the boy spoke, Painted Feathers nodded his great head slowly, and his
cruel face softened a little. Eli was quick to see the advantage that he
had gained and he acted upon it.
“A strange pale face has come to the cabin. He measures the land in the
valley, but he is the friend of the Indians. He will protect their
hunting grounds and keep away strange tribes from the west. Will Painted
Feathers say ‘how’ to the stranger?” Eli asked, his voice trembling a
little at what might be the outcome of his bold request.
Painted Feathers held the little moccasin in his hand now, the touch of
it warming and softening his stony heart. Then he slowly nodded his head
in assent, stalking nearer the cabin door.
“Come, George,” cried Eli breathlessly. “Come out and meet your friend,
Painted Feathers, the big chief.”
In the flaring light of the torches, the great Indian solemnly shook
hands with the boy surveyor. Then, as the two boys stood in the doorway,
the chief went back to the fire and gave a quick order to the braves. In
a second their fearful death dance was changed to the slow, stately
steps of a dance of welcome. At its end they put out the fire, and filed
silently back into the forest.
Snuggled under bearskins in front of the warm hearth, the two boys slept
but little that night, and talked a great deal about their wonderful
adventure.
“You needn’t be afraid to go in the morning, George,” Eli assured the
boy surveyor. “Painted Feathers’ tribe is the only band of Indians
anywhere around here, and now that he knows you are his friend, he won’t
harm you.”
“I shall never forget you, Eli,” said George. “You have taught me how to
be brave.”
His companions found the lad in the morning and, with many thanks and
assurances of his friendship, the young surveyor left the settler’s
cabin and started to finish his work and his trip.
More than a score of years passed. Where the trees had grown there was a
town now, and the cabin itself was replaced by a comfortable frame
dwelling. Eli’s mother was an old lady and he, a man grown. It was a
time of much stress for America, the period of the Revolution.
“Great news, mother!” Eli exclaimed as he came in one day. “They say
that General George Washington has taken Lord Cornwallis and all his
army as prisoners. Yorktown has surrendered, and the war is over.”
“General George Washington?” repeated his mother, her mind going back
through the years. Then a thought came to her. “Eli,” she said, “do you
remember the lad surveyor who stayed with us for a night when you were a
boy? He told me his full name as he was leaving and, all these years, I
have never thought to speak of it to you. George Washington, he said he
was.”
The man’s eyes flashed. “One and the same,” he said. “The great general,
and our guest, George, who had never seen an Indian.”
DICK, THE YOUNGEST SOLDIER
“Did you hear the news, Dick?” The children on their way to school along
the elm-lined street of Hartford caught up with the lad of ten and spoke
to him.
“They do say that General Burgoyne and all his Red Coats are marching
down from Canada and will fight their way to Albany. Our soldiers are
dropping out of the ranks from weariness with this long struggle, and
General Schuyler is calling for more recruits.”
“My father is going to enlist in the Continental Army.”
“So is my brother.”
“And my father too.”
The lads and lassies in their homespun and calico drew themselves up
proudly. They loved this fair, green land of America with its fields of
yellow corn and orchards of ruddy fruit. They loved its blazing
fireplaces, the games on the Common, and the brave, ragged army of
farmer soldiers who were trying to free the Colonies.
“Do you know what General Washington says about us?” Abigail, a quaint
little girl in a long frock and pinafore said, touching Dick’s sleeve.
“He says if all the states had done their duty as well as our little
State of Connecticut the war would have been ended long ago. But of
course that doesn’t mean us, Dick,” she added. “There’s nothing we
children can do for the Colonies.”
Dick drew himself up proudly. Although he was but ten years old he was
as straight and held his head as high as a soldier. He looked down the
street toward a big white house with the Stars and Stripes flying from
the pole on the green lawn. It was the recruiting station where
volunteers were enrolled to march against the Red Coats.
“I should like to help General Washington,” he said. “Perhaps they would
let me enlist.”
A shout of laughter went up from the children.
“A boy of ten a soldier in the Continental Army!”
“What would you do for your country?”
“All you know, Dick, is how to play tunes on your grandfather’s fife.”
The words hurt the little lad and his face flushed. He was about to
retort, but the boys and girls scattered, some running ahead swinging
their school bags, some stopping to look at the sweets in Dame
Brewster’s bake-shop window. Dick waited until he saw that he was alone.
Then he hurried on down the street and he did not stop until he had
reached the recruiting station and turned in at the gate.
The sun touched their ranks with gold and the summer wind carried the
Stars and Stripes before them the day in 1777 when the new volunteer
regiment left Hartford. It was on its long, weary way over rough roads
to Peekskill on the Hudson, the headquarters of General Putnam. All
Hartford was gathered on the wide piazzas and green streets to cheer the
regiment on its way. All the children were there, too, waving their caps
and bonnets.
All? No, one child was missing.
As the lines of blue swung along beneath the great old trees, the sound
of a fife playing an old marching tune came piping above the shouting
and the cheers of the crowd. Suddenly every one was quiet as the drummer
came into sight and beside him a little lad of ten years, dressed in the
uniform of the Colonies and playing a fife.
“Richard Jones!” the children whispered in excitement to each other. “It
is our Dick, going to war with the regiment.”
An old man leaning on his cane at the edge of the crowd took off his hat
and called to Dick.
“Good-bye, little lad. If you play your fife as well as Grandfather
taught you, it will put heart into the soldiers and strength in their
arms. It was your fine piping that won you a place in the regiment, the
youngest soldier of the Revolution. God save you and bring you back safe
to us.”
Hearing him, Dick stopped playing a moment and called out, “Good-bye,
Grandfather. I’ll try to do my duty. Good-bye!”
Then he was lost to sight,—a little figure in a blue coat and knee
breeches, Richard Lord Jones, enlisted at ten years in the army of the
American colonies.
Dick could play the fife better than any one else in the regiment. It
made the soldiers forget hunger and weariness and sleeplessness to have
the little lad march at their head, his gay tunes marking the time for
their ragged shoes. He fifed the regiment all the long way to White
Plains and then up the Hudson to Peekskill where General Putnam was
stationed and needed reinforcements. There he rested for a while, but
not long. The British commander, General Clinton, appeared and captured
two forts on the west side of the Hudson. General Putnam was obliged to
retreat up the river.
It was a wild, adventure-filled retreat all the way. Dick had little but
hard biscuit and raw, salt pork to eat. He marched through villages that
were in flames from the fire brands of the British. He saw and was able
to give information about a British spy who was condemned and shot. Then
the division to which Dick belonged reached Long Island where it was
commissioned to land at Huntington. The soldiers were in a common
transport, though, without guns, and it was captured by a British man of
war. Dick, the little fifer, was marched with his Colonel and officers
and the militia, all picked men, into the presence of a British
commander.
The little lad must have looked very strange to the Englishman. His
shoes were so worn that his feet were on the ground and one could
scarcely see the blue of his Continental uniform because of its dust and
rags. He was pale from going without food and sleep, but he held his
head very proudly and high. Not one of the prisoners was as brave as
Dick as he marched into the presence of the enemy beside his Colonel,
carrying his fife under his arm.
“Who is this boy?” the British officer demanded, frowning down on the
lad. His tent was bristling with swords and crowded with other officers
of the King in scarlet broadcloth and gold lace. It was indeed a fearful
place for a little boy to be, but Dick answered bravely,
“A soldier of the Colonies, sir.”
The British officer laughed.