USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Litchfield > More chronicles of a pioneer school, from 1792 to 1833, being added history on the Litchfield Female Academy kept by Miss Sarah Pierce and her nephew, John Pierce Brace > Part 28
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When school was dismissed, Grace with her matronly airs, had fixed on Jeduthun's hat, and, holding the empty dinner basket in one hand, and her little brother in the other, stood on the side of the road in the shadow of the large chestnut, waiting for her sister.
As Prudence came up to them, she called out: "Gracy, you and Duth can go home alone well enough. You know every step of the road and can't miss it. It is pleasant and cool and there is no need of my being tied to you."
Grace looked frightened and said, "Where are you going, Prudy?"
"Oh never mind - Joel says he can show me a nice place where I can find wintergreen berries, and I am going with him."
"But you will be lost."
"Pshaw, you silly child! The path across the woods and over the hill is perfectly plain and is as near as the road."
"Oh Prudy, don't go. I am afraid."
" Afraid of what, you foolish girl?"
" Afraid of Dave Hubbard. He will set the geese on me."
"How silly you are, Grace! Just as if the geese could hurt you!"
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"What do they siss so for, if they can't hurt? Oh, don't leave us, Prudy!"
But Prudy was deaf to all entreaties, and turned off into the forest and began to climb the hill with Joel. Grace and her brother stood and watched them until out of sight, and then turned to what seemed to them a long journey on the side of the dusty road.
'Duth was frightened and began to sob, when Grace, who had been weeping silently dried her tears and wiping her face with her hand- kerchief, said:
"Don't cry, little brother. You know Grandmother says that God sees us and will take care of us, at all times. We read in the school today, that God takes care of the sparrows, and the school-marm said that sparrows were chipping-birds. God is good, is n't he, to take care of the chipping-birds? See, Duthy, there's a chipping-bird hopping before us along the road, so that God is here. Don't cry."
They ascended a little eminence beyond which the substantial farm house of Mr. Hubbard stood, with Grace's objects of fear feeding on the grass before the door. The mischievous little David stood on the wood pile in front of the house, and called to Grace in an insulting tone.
"I'll pay you now for your stinginess this noon. I'll set every goose on you, you mean, stingy girl. They'll siss at you well."
So saying, he began to drive the flock towards the children, and the geese, disturbed in their feeding ground, flopped their wings, and screamed, and stretched out their long necks, and hissed. Grace and Jeduthun both ran back down the hill to the school-house, crying as they went. Grace had lost all her courage, notwithstanding her chip- ping-bird theory, and cried out:
"Prudy, Prudy! oh, I wish Aaron was here to take care of us."
The frightened children sought the forest path by which Prudence and her beau had climbed the hill, and commenced its arduous ascent, while David Hubbard stood in the road, rejoicing in the success of the little petty revenge he had taken.
CHAPTER XIV
"The children are late in coming from school to-day," said Martha, as she placed their little bowls on the table for their bread and milk, and arranged the cold meat and bread and mugs of cider and beer for the older ones. "There's father and Moses coming over the South East hill from work, and Aaron is collecting the cows by the brook for milking. What can have made the children so late?"
"I hope," said their mother, "that little Jeduthun has not been made sick by the heat and the length of the way and detained them. Ah,
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there comes Prudence on the forest path over the mountain. What could have induced her to take the children over that rough road?"
"Mother, the children are not with her. That is Joel Strong that she is talking with by the bars of the wood lot."
Prudence came home rather slowly, looking as she went along at the house, to ascertain who was watching her.
Martha went to the front door:
" Where's the children, Prudence?"
"Haven't they come home?" said Prudence, turning red, "I sent them home by the road, two hours ago."
The mother and grandmother were at the door before Prudence could reach the house.
"Why did you not come with them?"
"Why," said Prudence blushing and almost whimpering, "I wanted to come across the hill. Joel Strong," she continued, for she was too frightened to invent a lie, "wanted me to go for some wintergreen berries and so I sent Gracy and 'Duth by the road."
"Prudence," said her mother, severely, "go into my bed room and sit down there till your father returns."
"Oh mother, don't tell him. The children will be here soon. They have only played on the road, and they will come before father does."
"Prudence, you have failed in your duty. Say not a word, but do as I direct. Martha, run to the brow of the hill and call Aaron at once."
Aaron joined in the general anxiety, and without waiting for his supper, started for the school house. The sun was near setting and he hurried lest the night should prevent his search. Enquiries of the neighbors on the road threw no light upon the subject. He met Zebe- dee Ichabod in the road, a lad of nearly his own age - the same one who had protected Grace at noon - and from him obtained the first information from anyone that had seen the children. He said that he saw them come up the hill towards Mr. Hubbard's house, and then run back, while David was shouting after them. When he came up, David had gone into the house and Zebedee saw nothing of the children as he passed the school house, going home. Zebedee at once volunteered to accompany Aaron in his search.
They stopped at Mr. Hubbard's and called for David in the presence of his father. Mr. Hubbard was a severe man, and soon elicited the truth from his son, when Zebedee put him on the right track by relat- ing the adventure of the apple at noon.
All the information that David could give, who was now thoroughly frightened, was that he saw them run into the forest path by the school house, and commence climbing the hill.
Master David went supperless to bed that night, with his back ach-
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ing worse than he ever had it before, and he mentally promised himself he would never set the geese on the children again.
The lads ascended the hill and struggled on through the difficulties of the forest path, while the evening shades were gathering round them. They made the woods echo with the shout of "Grace," "Grace," but no voice answered. There were no signs of them on the top of the hill where some little foot paths branched off, and none as they de- scended on the Roaring Brook side.
As they reached the forest bars, Welles himself and Moses met them and heard their report.
There was no supper eaten that night in Thomas Welles's house. The table was set aside untouched, and the cows missed their nightly milking until deep darkness had settled over the hills and forests. Lanterns were brought out and Moses and his father took the moun- tain road back, but diverged on the top of the hill, shouting as they went; while Aaron went down the Brook to Hale's for his advice and assistance. But Uncle Sim declared it was too late to follow a trail or to discover the children.
"By this time," said he, "they'll have cried themselves asleep, and won't hear us holler. Go round, Aaron, to all the neighbors below and rouse them up to jine in a long search, to-morrow. I'll go up towards the Meetin' Hus and call at every house. Let 'em be ready to start, bright and 'arly, to-morrer."
A "lost child" is always a call that stirs up the feelings and exer- tions of the first settlers in a wild country. What is one neighbor's misfortune may be each one's in turn, and all are at once roused up to join in the search. Welles and Moses returned soon after Aaron and learned from him the readiness which the whole settlement felt to join in the hunt the next morning.
Thomas Welles's prayer, that night before his family retired to their beds was of a different character from that of his usual form. The heart not the head was concerned in it. He forgot his doctrinal ex- positions and the usual assertion of his cherished creed, in the deep wants that now burst from his very soul in his intercourse with his Maker. But it was not the prayer of resignation, so much as that of earnest supplication. The event was too recent and too uncertain in its results to have produced resignation. The doubt created agitation and broke up the solid ice which the frosts of a mere doctrinal religion had congealed over his heart. It needed some higher power to cause the waters of deep affection to God to well up from beneath. The event of the evening had taught him dependence upon God, but had not yet produced resignation to the Divine Will.
Similar effects were produced in the other members of the family. The deep gloom of Martha's heart received another shade. It was the
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first sorrow of the lads, but their elastic spirits looked out for the morrow when the fairy blessing of the house should be restored to them. The mother sank under the blow and seemed lost in the abyss of despair. Even grandmother Welles felt her confidence in the dealings of Provi- dence shaken, and was more earnest in her private supplications on that topic than on the loss of the children.
What the punishment of Prudence was for her negligence, we shall not say. It was a severe age in education, and Thomas Welles was a severe man in his religion and habits. Whatever the punishment was, we trust that it taught her a lesson in all after life never to neglect duty for pleasure or to seek to gratify her own selfish views, or to de- pend upon her own obstinate opinions.
The earliest dawn saw the men of the settlement on the meet- ing house green armed and prepared for the expedition. There was no work done in Eastbury that day. By common consent, the arrangements for the search were submitted to the old hunter Hale, who directed a cordon of men to be stretched across the hill from its West base on the road to Roaring Brook. They were to march northward, each within hearing of the voice of his next neighbor, and each cautioned to observe narrowly any unusual indication of the passage of any one. Many were supplied with horns to blow in case of any discovery and all carried some food with them.
As the men were hurrying off to their several stations to commence their search and were obliged to wait the signals of their neighbors, James Hinsdale came up with his rifle and joined old Hale. This ex- citement was just in coincidence with his habits. As danger or reality approached he always grew cooler and calmer, and with his fearlessness was a valuable auxiliary.
"My range," said Hale, "is from the school house, up, and then along the edge of the hill. The pups are with me and will foller 'till I send 'em for'ard. Come on Jim, I hear the signal from the old toot horn 'way to the East."
The hill path from the school house was soon climbed, and the two men set their faces northward, knowing that the mountain path over to Roaring Brook had been well explored the night before.
"Who is that lad," said James, "who leaps those rocks so readily on the edge of the hill below?"
"That is a first-rate lad," said Hale, "and comes from a good Eng- lish stock. He'll chalk his mark high up on the world yet, or I'll lose my say. His daddy came from the old country, where he was a Howard, or a Devereux, or a Stewart, or some of them big names. He flung off his country's religion and became an Independent. To get out of the grasp of your old Popish namesake, he made a v'y'ge here and settled
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among us. As ' the glory of his house had departed,' as the good book talks, he took the names of Ichabod (the glory has departed) and called himself Habakkuk Ichabod. One names 's as good as another, so here he lived and died. His son bore the same name. This lad is called Zebedee and is a good boy. But we must n't chatter here like them blue jays."
They advanced some ways through the thick forest in silence, the dogs following them lazily.
"What is your opinion about the children?" said James.
"Oh 'tis a common loss in new countries. They've strayed up the mountain, and we shall find 'em soon, kinder wondering along, and pickin' wintergreen berries. There's no danger from the pesky wolves at this season."
"I was at Hartford, yesterday," said James, "to try to find some expedition going on some where, in which I could engage and forget that capricious girl."
"You must n't call Thomas Welles's Patty, capricious. She has more judgment and prudence and sane thought than most of wimmen folks. But did you learn any thing?"
"The Eastern colonies are all engaged in their endeavors to put down the Indians who have been incited by that rascally French Jesuit, Father Rawle, way up in the Norridgewolk county. I came back to talk with you about it."
"I've hearn of that pesky scamp, and if I was a young man, would not hesitate a moment to have a shot at him."
"By the way," said James, interrupting, "it is strange I never thought of it before! The Hartford people were talkin' about several Indians having been seen this side of the River, returning, it was thought, from a visit to some of the scattered Pequots on the sea- coast."
"Injuns!" exclaimed Hale, stopping and looking alarmed, "I had n't thought of them animals. God help the poor children! That idea changes the whole sarch."
He brought his rifle around and examined the priming.
"Here Bell and Brindle; come pups; hie out; look sharp for them Injuns!"
The dogs began at once to beat the bushes while the two men hurried on through the tangled thicket. After progressing some distance, James called to his companion: "Uncle Sim : look there!"
About half way up a steep ledge to the East of them hung on a straggling bush the little dinner basket which Grace had so carefully carried. Hale called in the dogs.
"Let's now find the trail, before the dogs shall have trampled it out. That's their basket."
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They both eagerly scrambled up the cliff. The basket was empty and hung bottom upwards.
"That was flung off the cliff," said Uncle Hale. "They must have passed along the top."
It was but a moment before the two men and the dogs had ascended it.
"Come back, Brindle. Let me go afore, Jim, and sarch for the trail. Look a here, they broke the little twigs as they passed along. "T was last night too, for the spider's web has been thrown over the bush, this morning, and is sparklin' in the dew."
They went a little farther and found the traces of the passage of some one down a slope to the East into a little solitary ravine shaded by large trees where a spring was bubbling forth.
"They were running here," said Hale. At this moment, the dogs stopped at a little distance to the right and set up a long dismal howl. "What is it? pups, what is it," said Hale, as he hurried to them. "Injun foot tracks, as I live, going towards the spring, and many on 'em too, and they act careless of how much trail they leave. They had n't seen the children then."
The dogs now followed the track readily to the spring, when Hinsdale exclaimed pointing to a dense thicket, "Uncle Sim: Look there!"
There lay little Jeduthun, his apron and coat bathed in blood, the mark of the tomahawk across his face, and the scalp torn from his head. They pulled his body from the thicket and gazed at it in a stupor of mingled feelings.
Hale stood for a moment. His brow grew dark as night, and the fierceness of youthful vigor fixed his aged eye as he exclaimed: "May God do so to me and more also, if this deed is not avenged! Jim Hins- dale, never ask for Patty Welles's hand until this murder is expiated. You won't want now no other 'citement as you call it."
James replied not. There was an exalting fire in his eye, as if he had now found the way to Martha's heart.
Hale then sprang up on the highest rock and made the woods echo with the tones of the horn he carried. He heard them repeated in all directions, and the searchers all hurried to the spot, radiant with hope. As one after another came in they stood in terrible silence around the little corpse. No word was spoken. The finger directed to the scalp- less head told the whole tale. Welles and his sons were among the last that arrived, as they had been searching on the side nearest the Brook. An occasional blowing of the horn directed them to the spot. Their looks were eager and anxious as they came up the ravine, and the crowd parted in silence to admit them to the body.
The boys cast themselves on the ground by the side of their mur- dered brother and lamented their loss in loud cries. The father ap- proached. He turned pale and staggered as he saw the corpse, but
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immediately recovered and stooped down to wipe off the blood from the brow. His lip quivered and his eyesight grew dim with tears, but the stern Puritan overcame the father. His neighbors were all around him, and he restrained every external indication of feeling.
As he stooped, Deacon Strickland placed his hand affectionately on his shoulders and said in a low tone, but one of great feeling: "We will see to the corpse, brother Welles and bring it to your house properly taken care of. You and the boys had better return and prepare your family for the afflicting news. May God bless it to their spiritual benefit, and uphold sister Welles under the dispensation!
"But where's Grace?" said Welles, speaking in a husky tone.
Uncle Hale, who had hitherto stood silent behind the rest, stepped forward:
"Since we found the little boy, and while we were waiting for the sarchers to come up, Jim Hinsdale and I have examined the trail. There must have been some eight or ten of the p'sen scamps, and they must have loped on the North, and last night without camping here as pr'aps they meant to, at fust. They took off Grace with 'em as I s'pose, as there are no tracks of her round here. Zebedee Ichabod has gone on the trail with the pups, to see their general movements and direction. Jim Hinsdale has gone back to get what's right for a long tramp. He and I'll pursue the 'tarnal redskins. We did n't want any- one else, for we can track 'em better alone. My old dander is up, and I'm young agin and shall foller the bloody rascals to their death."
We pass over the sad return of Thomas Welles to his household and the grief of the whole family. Fully to realize the loss of a child and to know the vacant place it leaves requires the sad experience. There is but little true sympathy felt for the losses of others, until we our- selves have been sufferers. Then we learn to feel for our fellows.
The heart of Thomas Welles was an altered one after this. The event brought him nearer to God and showed him the difference between a religion of the heart and the head. There are many parents who have thus been chastised for straying from the true fold, and who have thus given "the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul."
There was a gloom thrown over the whole family which the bright sky of summer or the luxuriance of the growing crops or the balmy air that breathed down Roaring Brook could not dissipate. The aged grandmother seemed to wither under the stroke and daily to fade away in mind and in body. Martha preached hope to her of once more see- ing Grace, for was not James Hinsdale, the sun of her existence, engaged in the pursuit and could he fail? The very long absence of the hunters was to her a source of encouragement, for it showed that James still loved her and was willing to devote his time to a pursuit connected with her happiness.
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But the grandmother refused to cherish hope. "Grace may be re- stored," was her calm reply, "but I shall not live to see it."
The hunters returned when the next month was well nigh spent. They had followed the trail to the North East until they had entered Massachusetts, where they lost it. They then went to Boston and con- sulted with some public men, who were engaged in an effort to put down some North Eastern Indians who had leagued against the English under French influence. They had no doubt that the Norridgewolk Indians had been concerned in this inroad, for it seemed to be well understood that a party of these savages had crossed New Hampshire to the Connecticut River and had followed that stream down to the sea coast, to collect if possible the remains of the conquered tribes. The two men engaged to form a part of an expedition against these tribes, whenever necessary, and Hinsdale remained at the East, while Uncle Hale sought once more the valley of the Roaring Brook, with a discouraged heart.
CHAPTER XV
Our readers must now allow us to transport them to another Roaring Brook rushing into a large stream in the rough pine forests in Upper Maine. It is in the country of the Abenakis, and the brook finds its source in the snow-clad mountains of New Hampshire rising high in the Western Horizon, and rushes impetuously down the rough eminences and struggles laboriously through the tangled pine woods until it is lost in the large stream, which flows on majestically in a broad current swollen by the melting of the winter snows.
Dark are the gloomy woods which crowd to the very brink of the river that reflects their frowns in its mirror, and dark are the hemlocks that throng the banks and drink of the roaring rivulet that raves on the rock beneath them.
At the junction of the two streams, there was a partial clearing of the forest and an Indian village with its bark huts arose on the firm bank of the river, beyond its periodical inundations, and protected by its broad expanse in front.
Other lodges stood around on the edge of the forest and marked the limits of a wide circle of cleared ground. A few canoes were fastened along the bank of the river and in the mouth of the brook, and, at the time in which we call attention to the scene, a few savages were busy in unloading some fish from the boats, while the women were hoeing and weeding in the enclosed garden and cornfield, with their papooses hanging in slight cradles to the low boughs of the outer forest trees, lulled to sleep by the gentle wind, the low murmur of the summer insects, the thrilling melody of the pine tree tops as the breeze passed over them.
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It is early in the month of May; the first spring wild flowers are just beginning to perfume the air. There are many signs of superior comfort about the village and little of the Indian squalor and poverty. The fish are taken on shore, and the net, evidently an European one, hung up to dry. The arms of the fishermen are French carbines or rifles, and the hoes and other agricultural implements are made of iron. Many a piece of gay French cloth is seen on the shoulders of the men, and many a bright ribbon on the tresses of the women.
Through the grove of trees that stretched across on the western and northern boundaries of the enclosure, a distant stockade of long pointed palings could be discovered, still farther to protect the en- campment. The hand of some white man had evidently been busy in the construction of the huts, in the attempts at chimneys to them, and in the sailcloth that formed the lodges of the chiefs.
A distant bell tinkles - a bell in an Indian enclosure in this wilder- ness! Let us follow that group of men who are moving up that slightly rising ground. We have but to ascend, and a long, low stone building strikes our eyes, on the top of which is a small cupola containing the little bell we heard - the whole surmounted with a large white cross. Contiguous to it and communicating with it is a log hut large enough to be commodious and to contain several apartments.
Beyond, stretching towards the northern palisades, was a large garden well stocked with vegetables, medicinal herbs of all kinds, flowers, and some fruit. A hive or two of bees occupied one end, and a large fountain the other, consisting of a stone basin of respectable size, into which the water was falling from a rude aqueduct.
Let us go into the chapel, as the Indians are doing, for the vesper bell has ceased its sound. There are some rather rude pictures on the wall with no frames, and a small, exquisite painting of the Virgin Mary over the low, stone altar at the end of the building. A life-length portrait of the same worshipped object occupied the other end of the building with a large crucifix by its side.
A tall, thin white man stands on a platform, ready for the evening worship. He chants a hymn in the Indian tongue in which a band of choristers join, consisting of young savages. He prays first in the Latin, and then in the Abenaki language, repeats his devotions to the image of the virgin by bows and crossings, as do all his hearers; and then addresses them in their native language. He enquires about this day's success in fishing - gives many directions about the plant- ing of the various seeds he had given them - asks personally about sick members of their families - reproves some of them for their excesses - and exhorts them all to sobriety and industry. He then gives them his blessing for the night, and thanks them for the fine salmon sent for his present military guest.
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