"Upon this rock, May 2d, 1676, was made the agreement for the
ransom of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson of Lancaster, between the
Indians and John Hoar of Concord.
"King Philip was with the Indians, but refused his consent."
It was on Pine Hill, a mile or two south of this rock, and at the
eastern base of the mountain, that Robert Keyes cut down the forest, and
made a home for his little family. The spot is picturesque and sightly.
To the north, and seen through the clearing, nestles Lake Wachusett
among its woody banks; while far in the horizon are seen the New
Hampshire hills, and beyond, the blue summits of the White Mountains; to
the east the landscape stretches away, diversified with lake and valley
and woody slope, till it is lost to sight in the dimly distant line of
the misty ocean; to the south is the dome-like knoll of Pine Hill
covered with evergreen trees; and on the west rises the steep acclivity
of Mount Wachusett, while between these two may be seen the hills,
twenty miles away, that divide the waters of the Connecticut from the
streams that supply the Nashua and the Merrimac.
On a sunny afternoon in summer Mr. Keyes and his boys were in the field
some distance from the house, picking up logs and burning them with the
stumps and brush, to enlarge the farm. Around the house were fields of
corn and flax and waving grain. The cows and sheep were browsing in the
edge of the woods. Mrs. Keyes was spinning flax in front of the cabin
door, seated on a low, home-made stool upon the hard and smoothly swept
ground. Within, the neatly kept log cabin had a rough floor strewn with
white sand. On one side of the single large room there was a settee
stuffed with shavings of birch-bark; and a cat lay curled up and dozing
in the sun, which streamed in through the open lattice that took the
place of a window. Around the room were the rough tables and the benches
which used to serve as furniture in such primitive dwellings. Shelves
and cupboards were fastened upon the wall. Dried apples and pumpkins,
pieces of venison and smoked ham, hung upon poles at the top of the
room. The wide fireplace and large, open chimney stood at one side. The
embers smouldered between the great andirons, ready to be kindled for
preparing the evening meal. Aloft, and reached by a ladder that rested
against an opening, was the chamber where the family used to sleep. This
was the happy home of Robert Keyes, where comfort and busy contentment
reigned.
On the afternoon in question two older daughters were at play with
little Lucy under the trellis of hop-vines that shaded their mother from
the sun. Those were not the days of carpets or of painted floors. Neat
housewives would sprinkle the boards with clean white sand; and this,
under the tread of feet, would scour the wood and then be swept away.
The brooms were made by stripping the sapling birch and tying these
strips in a bundle over the end of the stick, or by tying cedar or
hemlock boughs at the end of a pointed handle. Housekeepers
were unacquainted with boughten brushes and corn-brooms and
sweeping-machines.
At their mother's call the two older girls started with a bucket to go
to the shore of the lake to fetch some sand for the floor. Little Lucy,
thus left alone, soon tired of her play, and wandered away among the
vines and the corn around the door, till she came to the path that led
to the lake. She followed her sisters a long way behind them, and was
never again seen by her friends.
Soon the sun had disappeared behind the summit of the mountain, and the
deepening shadows were beginning to creep towards the cabin. The mother
had put away her spinning-wheel, and the smoke was curling up from out
the wide-mouthed chimney, in preparation of her supper. The farmer and
his sons had left the field and gone to a little blacksmith shop a few
rods down the hill, where he had mended a broken buck-scythe. The two
girls had joined them there; and now they all came trooping together to
the house. The boys and their father were washing their hands and faces
from the sweat of the forge and the burnt logs. The mother was busy with
her cooking. The girls had put away the bucket of sand and gone out to
play, when they missed Lucy, and began to search for her among the hills
of corn. Not finding her, they came back to the log cabin and told their
mother. She thought the little girl must be near, and sent the sisters
to look again, while she arranged the wooden plates and the pewter
dippers and the iron knives and wooden spoons upon the table. The girls
soon came back without finding Lucy, but the mother even then supposed
that she had fallen asleep, overcome by her play and the heat of the
sun. She stepped to the door and called loudly for Lucy; and the family
sat down to supper, expecting her every minute to walk in. She did not
come; and hastily finishing their meal, they all went to search the
farm. Not finding Lucy, they became thoroughly alarmed.
Adjoining Mr. Keyes' farm, and between it and the foot of the mountain,
was the clearing of a Mr. Littlejohn. He had no family. His farm was but
little cultivated, and his cabin had not the air of home and comfort
which Mrs. Keyes had put into hers. He was a hunter also, and he had a
brace or two of dogs. Bearskins were tacked to the walls of his hut, to
dry; and deer-horns, and fox-skins still further showed the hunter. This
man was of a morose and hermit-like nature. There was a mystery about
his early history; he had come from the old world, where he had mingled
in affairs of state, and whence he had fled. Little children were afraid
of him. He was quarrelsome, too; and before this time he had claimed a
part of Mr. Keyes' land. As the two farmers could not agree upon the
boundary line, they had called in two of their neighbors, and a surveyor
from Lancaster, to fix the boundary. These had decided in favor of Mr.
Keyes. The two neighbors had very little to do with each other after
that; and the hermit became still more unsocial and morose. But in his
distress Mr. Keyes called upon this man for help, and Mr. Littlejohn
appeared to enter heartily into the search. The frequency of captures by
the Indians, at once led to the suspicion that they had stolen Lucy. Mr.
Littlejohn, as a hunter, assumed direction of the searching party. He
sent the father and boys to follow the path towards the lake, the mother
and daughters to go down the hill towards the east, while he went to the
south and up the mountain. All hunted fast and far till late in the
evening, when the gathering darkness had settled on the woods and hills;
and then they turned their weary steps homeward. About this time all
the members of the Keyes family saw the light of a huge bonfire,
northwesterly from their house, and turned their steps towards the spot;
for this was a signal that the lost was found. On reaching the place,
however, they found Mr. Littlejohn, but no Lucy. He said that the
darkness prevented further search that night, and he had lighted the
fire, in order if possible, to attract the attention of the child, and
also to bring together all the inhabitants around, to institute a more
thorough search in the morning.
Afterwards others came in; and when they heard the story, one of them
proposed to give a shoe or an apron of Lucy's to one of the dogs and let
him follow the scent. But Mr. Littlejohn said this would not do, for the
dogs were fierce and used to hunting for prey only. They would tear the
little girl in pieces if they were to find her. And Mrs. Keyes would not
consent to have the dogs set on the track. Another proposed to hunt with
torches. With this plan all fell in; and the party, now swelled to ten
or fifteen, were divided into squads and sent to hunt, each in a
different direction. All night they kept up the search. They called
aloud for Lucy again and again, and in all directions; they scoured the
woods for miles around; they hunted on the shore of the lake for the
tracks of little feet. Behind rocks and trees, under logs and clumps of
bushes, they peered; but no trace was to be seen--nothing but darkness
and gloomy night. Now and then the hoot of an owl would be mistaken for
a child's cry, and hope would momentarily rise in the breast of a hunter
only to fall as the sound became more distinct. And thus the night
dragged on. When morning came, the various squads of hunters came back
to the houses all with the same story of failure. They were weary with
wakefulness and the heavy tramp. After a hasty meal they carefully
searched the ground within two or three miles of the house. The whole
day was spent in this; and at nightfall the party came back to the
desolate house without hope. The mother, almost frantic, called for
Lucy, and nothing but the echoes gave answer. One by one the neighbors
went to their own homes and cares. The conviction forced itself upon the
minds of all, that Lucy had been captured by the Indians. Mr. Keyes and
his boys hunted in the woods for days afterwards, till the only hope
that Lucy was alive lay in her being captured. Otherwise she must have
died from exposure or starvation.
Sorrow and desolation now surrounded the cabin of Mr. Keyes. The sanded
floor remained unswept; the trellis was broken by the wind; the vines
hung straggling; the smooth, spacious front of the door was cluttered;
the mewing cat gave voice to the general gloom. Mrs. Keyes could not
forget her grief. All day she worked listlessly; and as the shadows from
the mountain crept towards the cottage, she would stand in the doorway,
and call, "Lucy, Lucy." For years the echoes daily sent back that sunset
cry.
A few months after the loss of little Lucy, a hunter returned from the
region of Lake George. On hearing the story, he reported that a white
child had been seen in that neighborhood with a tribe of Indians; and
the rumor reached the ears of Mr. Keyes. The autumn leaves had put on
their dying robes of yellow and crimson and gold when, leaving the rest
of his harvest to be gathered by his sons, he went to Lake George. After
great risks, and many a hair-breadth escape, he found a captive maiden;
but she was many years older than Lucy, and she knew only the life of
the Indians. He reached his home late in the winter. In the spring a
friendly Indian reported that a white girl was held captive by a tribe
on the St. Lawrence; and again Mr. Keyes started in pursuit. Six months
or more he spent in the search; but when he found the tribe and their
captive, it was a black-eyed little girl that he saw; but Lucy's eyes
were blue, and he travelled home. With each new rumor of a captive child
among the Indian tribes in Maine or Connecticut, in New York or Canada,
Mr. Keyes would start again on one of those sad pilgrimages; and he
always came back disappointed and alone. Mr. Littlejohn had now left his
farm, and it was occupied by strangers.
Meantime, the boys had grown to be men. They no longer had any sympathy
with the fruitless search. They made homes for themselves in the now
farther remote frontier. And the girls had grown to womanhood and
married. Old, and poor, and alone,--for his wife had died, and long ago
ceased her plaintive evening call for her long-lost little Lucy,--Mr.
Keyes petitioned the "Great and General Court" for the grant of a tract
of public land which lay near his home. In this petition, now to be
found in the archives of the State, he sets forth that he is poor in
consequence of the prolonged search for his daughter, and too feeble to
maintain himself.
(_Concluded in next number._)