In the Days of Poor Richard Part 49

"Solomon came into camp that evening. He was so glad to see me that he could only wring my hand and utter exclamations.

"'How is the gal?' he asked presently.

"I told him of our meeting in Pa.s.sy and of my fear that we should not meet again.

"'It seems as if the Lord were not yet willing to let us marry,' I said.

"'Course not,' he answered. 'When yer boat is in the rapids it's no time fer to go ash.o.r.e an' pick apples. I cocalate the Lord is usin' ye fer to show the Ol' World what's inside o' us Americans.'

"Margaret, I wonder if the Lord really wished to show you and others the pa.s.sion which is in the heart of Washington and his army. On the way to my ship I was like one making b.l.o.o.d.y footprints in the snow.

How many of them I have seen! And now is the time to tell you that Doctor Franklin has written a letter informing me how deeply our part in the little pageant had impressed Mr. Hartley and the court people of France and that he had secured another loan.

"Solomon is a man of faith. He never falters.

"He said to me: 'Don't worry. That gal has got a backbone. She ain't no rye straw. She's a-goin' to think it over.'

"Neither spoke for a time. We sat by an open fire in front of his tent as the night fell. Solomon was filling his pipe. He swallowed and his right eye began to take aim. I knew that some highly important theme would presently open the door of his intellect and come out.

"'Jack, I been over to Albany,' he said. 'Had a long visit with Mirandy. They ain't no likelier womern in Ameriky. I'll bet a pint o'

powder an' a fish hook on that. Ye kin look fer 'em till yer eyes run but ye'll be obleeged to give up.'

"He lighted his pipe and smoked a few whiffs and added: 'Knit seventy pair o' socks fer my regiment this fall.'

"'Have you asked her to marry you?' I inquired.

"'No. 'Tain't likely she'd have me,' he answered. 'She's had troubles enough. I wouldn't ask no womern to marry me till the war is fit out.

I'm liable to git all shot up any day. I did think I'd ask her but I didn't. Got kind o' skeered an' skittish when we sot down together, an' come to think it all over, 'twouldn't 'a' been right.'

"'You're wrong, Solomon,' I answered. 'You ought to have a home of your own and a wife to make you fond of it. How is the Little Cricket?'

"'Cunnin'est little shaver that ever lived,' said he. 'I got him a teeny waggin an' drawed him down to the big medder an' back. He had a string hitched on to my waist an' he pulled an' hauled an' hollered whoa an' git ap till he were erbout as hoa.r.s.e as a bull frog. When we got back he wanted to go all over me with a curry comb an' braid my mane.'

"The old scout roared with laughter as he thought of the child's play in which he had had a part. He told me of my own people and next to their good health it pleased me to learn that my father had given all his horses--save two--to Washington. That is what all our good men are doing. So you will see how it is that we are able to go on with this war against the great British empire.

"That night the idea came to me that I would seek an opportunity to return to France in the hope of finding you in Paris. I applied for a short furlough to give me a chance to go home and see the family.

There I found a singular and disheartening situation. My father's modest fortune is now a part of the ruin of war. Soon after the beginning of hostilities he had loaned his money to men who had gone into the business of furnishing supplies to the army. He had loaned them dollars worth a hundred cents. They are paying their debts to him in dollars worth less than five cents. Many, and Washington among them, have suffered in a like manner. My father has little left but his land, two horses, a yoke of oxen and a pair of slaves. So I am too poor to give you a home in any degree worthy of you.

"Dear old Solomon has proposed to make me his heir, but now that he has met the likely womern I must not depend upon him. So I have tried to make you know the truth about me as well as I do. If your heart is equal to the discouragement I have heaped upon it I offer you this poor comfort. When the war is over I can borrow a thousand pounds to keep a roof over our heads and a fowl in the pot and pudding in the twifflers while I am clearing the way to success. The prospect is not inviting, I fear, but if, happily, it should appeal to you, I suggest that you join your father in New York at the first opportunity so that we may begin our life together as soon as the war ends. And now, whatever comes, I would wish you to keep these thoughts of me: I have loved you, but there are things which I have valued above my own happiness. If I can not have you I shall have always the memory of the hours we have spent together and of the great hope that was mine.

"While I was at home the people of our neighborhood set out at daylight one morning for a pigeon party. We had our breakfast on an island.

Then the ladies sat down to knit and sew, while the men went fishing.

In the afternoon we gathered berries and returned at dusk with filled pails and many fish. So our people go to the great storehouse of Nature and help themselves."

CHAPTER XXVII

WHICH CONTAINS THE ADVENTURES OF SOLOMON IN THE TIMBER SACK AND ON THE "HAND-MADE RIVER"

In the spring of 1779, there were scarcely sixteen thousand men in the American army, of which three thousand were under Gates at Providence; five thousand in the Highlands under McDougall, who was building new defenses at West Point, and on the east sh.o.r.e of the Hudson under Putnam; seven thousand were with Washington at Middlebrook where he had spent a quiet winter; a few were in the south. The British, discouraged in their efforts to conquer the northern and middle colonies, sent a force of seven thousand men to take Georgia and South Carolina. They hoped that Washington, who could not be induced to risk his army in decisive action against superior numbers, would thus be compelled to scatter and weaken it. But the Commander-in-Chief, knowing how seriously Nature, his great ally, was gnawing at the vitals of the British, bided his time and kept his tried regiments around him.

Now and then, a staggering blow filled his enemies with a wholesome fear of him. His sallies were as swift and unexpected as the rush of a panther with the way of retreat always open. Meanwhile a cry of affliction and alarm had arisen in England. Its manufacturers were on the verge of bankruptcy, its people out of patience.

As soon as the ice was out of the lakes and rivers, Jack and Solomon joined an expedition under Sullivan against the Six Nations, who had been wreaking b.l.o.o.d.y vengeance on the frontiers of Pennsylvania and New York. The Senecas had been the worst offenders, having spilled the blood of every white family in their reach. Sullivan's expedition ascended the Chemung branch of the Susquehanna and routed a great force of Indians under Brant and Johnson at Newtown and crossed to the Valley of the Genessee, destroying orchards, crops and villages. The red men were slain and scattered. The fertile valley was turned into a flaming, smoking h.e.l.l. Simultaneously a force went up the Alleghany and swept its sh.o.r.es with the besom of destruction.

Remembrance of the bold and growing iniquities of the savage was like a fire in the heart of the white man. His blood boiled with anger. He was without mercy. Like every reaping of the whirlwind this one had been far more plentiful than the seed from which it sprang. Those April days the power of the Indian was forever broken and his cup filled with bitterness. Solomon had spoken the truth when he left the Council Fire in the land of Kiodote:

"Hereafter the Injun will be a brother to the snake."

Jack and Solomon put their lives in danger by entering the last village ahead of the army and warning its people to flee. The killing had made them heart-sick, although they had ample reason for hating the red men.

In the absence of these able helpers Washington had moved to the Highlands. This led the British General, Sir Henry Clinton, to decide to block his return. So he sent a large force up the river and captured the fort at Stony Point and King's Ferry connecting the great road from the east with the middle states. The fort and ferry had to be retaken, and, early in July, Jack and Solomon were sent to look the ground over.

In the second day of their reconnoitering above Stony Point they came suddenly upon a British outpost. They were discovered and pursued but succeeded in eluding the enemy. Soon a large party began beating the bush with hounds. Jack escaped by hiding behind a waterfall. Solomon had a most remarkable adventure in making his way northward. Hearing the dogs behind him he ran to the sh.o.r.e of a bay, where a big drive of logs had been boomed in, and ran over them a good distance and dropped out of sight. He lay between two big sections of a great pine with his nose above water for an hour or so. A band of British came down to the sh.o.r.e and tried to run the logs but, being unaccustomed to that kind of work, were soon rolled under and floundering to their necks.

"I hadn't na skeer o' their findin' me," Solomon said to Jack. "'Cause they was a hundred acres o' floatin' timber in that 'ere bay. I heard 'em slippin' an' sloshin' eround nigh sh.o.r.e a few minutes an' then they give up an' went back in the bush. They were a strip o' open water 'twixt the logs an' the sh.o.r.e an' I clumb on to the timber twenty rod er more from whar I waded in so's to fool the dogs."

"What did you do with your rifle an' powder?" Jack inquired.

"Wal, ye see, they wuz some leetle logs beyond me that made a kind o' a holler an' I jest put ol' Marier 'crost 'em an' wound the string o' my powder-horn on her bar'l. I lay thar a while an' purty soon I heard a feller comin' on the timber. He were clus up to me when he hit a log wrong an' it rolled him under. I dim' up an' grabbed my rifle an' thar were 'nother cuss out on the logs not more'n ten rod erway. He took a shot at me, but the bullet didn't come nigh 'nough so's I could hear it whisper he were bobbin' eround so. I lifted my gun an' says I:

"'Boy, you come here to me.'

"But he thought he'd ruther go somewhar else an' he did--poor, ignorant devil! I went to t' other feller that was ra.s.slin' with a log tryin'

to git it under him. He'd flop the log an' then it would flop him.

He'd throwed his rifle 'crost the timber. I goes over an' picks it up an' says I:

"'Take it easy, my son. I'll help ye in a minute.'

"His answer wa'n't none too p'lite. He were a leetle runt of a sergeant. I jest laughed at him an' went to t' other feller an' took the papers out o' his pockets. I see then a number o' British boys was makin' fer me on the wobbly top o' the river. They'd see me goin' as easy as a hoss on a turnpike an' they was tryin' fer to git the knack o' it. In a minute they begun poppin' at me. But shootin' on logs is like tryin' to walk a line on a wet deck in a hurricane. Ye got to know how to offset the wobble. They didn't skeer me. I went an'

hauled that runt out o' the water an' with him under my right arm an'

the two rifles under the left un I started treadin' logs headin' fer the north sh.o.r.e. They quit shootin' but come on a'ter me pell-mell.

They got to comin' too fast an' I heard 'em goin' down through the roof o' the bay behind me an' ra.s.slin' with the logs. That put meat on my bones! I could 'a' gone back an' made a mess o' the hull party with the toe o' my boot but I ain't overly fond o' killin'. Never have been. I took my time an' slopped erlong toward sh.o.r.e with the runt under my arm cussin' like a wildcat. We got ash.o.r.e an' I made the leetle sergeant empty his pockets an' give me all the papers he had. I took the strip o' rawhide from round my belt an' put a noose above his knees an' 'nother on my wrist an' sot down to wait fer dark which the sun were then below the tree-tops. I looked with my spy-gla.s.s 'crost the bay an' could see the heads bobbin' up an' down an' a dozen men comin' out with poles to help the log ra.s.slers. Fer some time they had 'nough to do an' I wouldn't be supprised. If we had the hull British army on floatin' timber the logs would lick 'em in a few minutes."

Solomon came in with his prisoner and accurate information as to the force of British in the Highlands.

On the night of the fifteenth of July, a detachment of Washington's troops under Wayne, preceded by the two scouts, descended upon Stony Point and King's Ferry and routed the enemy, capturing five hundred and fifty men and killing sixty. Within a few days the British came up the river in great force and Washington, unwilling to risk a battle, quietly withdrew and let them have the fort and ferry and their labor for their pains. It was a bitter disappointment to Sir Henry Clinton.

The whole British empire clamored for decisive action and their great Commander was unable to bring it about and meanwhile the French were preparing to send a heavy force against them.

2

Solomon, being the ablest bush scout in the American army, was needed for every great enterprise in the wilderness. So when a small force was sent up the Pen.o.bscot River to dislodge a regiment of British from Nova Scotia, in the late summer of 1779, he went with it. The fleet which conveyed the Americans was in command of a rugged old sea captain from Connecticut of the name of Saltonstall who had little knowledge of the arts of war. He neglected the precautions which a careful commander would have taken.

A force larger than his own should have guarded the mouth of the river.

Of this Solomon gave him warning, but Captain Saltonstall did not share the apprehension of the great scout. In consequence they were pursued and overhauled far up the river by a British fleet. Saltonstall in a panic ran his boats ash.o.r.e and blew them up with powder. Again a force of Americans was compelled to suffer the bitter penalty of ignorance.

The soldiers and crews ran wild in the bush a hundred miles from any settlement. It was not possible to organize them. They fled in all directions. Solomon had taken with him a bark canoe. This he carried, heading eastward and followed by a large company, poorly provisioned.

A number of the ships' boats which had been lowered--and moved, before the destruction began, were carried on the advice of Solomon.