A gentle pioneer E-Book

Amy Ella Blanchard

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 394

Beschreibung

It was a grave little company which sat around the big fireplace of the Kennedy farm-house one night in March. Outside the wind howled and blustered, and even though a huge log fire shot its flames in fine fashion up the wide chimney, there was necessity for sand-bags at the door, and for heavy homespun curtains at the windows to keep out the insistent draughts which would make their way through every chink and cranny. The younger children cuddled close together on the hearth, their mother from time to time looking up from her work to watch them thoughtfully; their father, silent and moody, gazed into the snapping fire, while Agnes herself, old enough to understand better than her brothers and sisters the cause of the unusual seriousness, paused more than once in her task of knitting to steal a glance at her parents.

Leseprobe

A GENTLE PIONEER

BEING THE STORY OF THE EARLY DAYS IN THE NEW WEST

BY

AMY E. BLANCHARD

A GENTLE PIONEER

CHAPTER I

EMIGRANTS

It was a grave little company which sat around the big fireplace of the Kennedy farm-house one night in March. Outside the wind howled and blustered, and even though a huge log fire shot its flames in fine fashion up the wide chimney, there was necessity for sand-bags at the door, and for heavy homespun curtains at the windows to keep out the insistent draughts which would make their way through every chink and cranny. The younger children cuddled close together on the hearth, their mother from time to time looking up from her work to watch them thoughtfully; their father, silent and moody, gazed into the snapping fire, while Agnes herself, old enough to understand better than her brothers and sisters the cause of the unusual seriousness, paused more than once in her task of knitting to steal a glance at her parents.

At last Mrs. Kennedy aroused herself. “Come, bairns,” she said, “it is long past bedtime. Off with you. I’ll hear your prayers and see you safely tucked in.” Accustomed to prompt obedience, the children arose, Sandy and Margret, Jock and Jessie. Agnes alone stayed behind at a nod from her mother.

When the last little lagging foot had ceased to be heard upon the stair, the girl turned to her father and said, “I am going to sit up till you and mother go to bed, for this is the last night in a long time that we shall be together.”

“Yes, in a long time,” he sighed; and then Agnes, contradicting her own statement, returned: “Oh, no, not a long time; in a very little while we shall be able to send for them. Won’t it be good, father, to see them all coming, Sandy and Margret and Jock and Jessie? You will go for them, and I will get a hot supper ready, and they will all be so surprised to see how fine a place a log-cabin can be. Think of it, this time next year we shall all be together again.” She stole her arm around her father’s neck and laid her cheek against his. “Aren’t you glad I am going?” she asked with a little laugh.

“I am, my lass, though I misdoubt I am selfish in taking you from your mother.”

“Sh! There she comes; we must look very cheerful. We were talking about what fun it will be when you and the children come,” she said brightly, as her mother entered.

“Yes,” was the reply, “but there’s a weary time between.”

“Oh, no, it will go very quickly, for there will be so much to do. First our going and then your getting off to Cousin Sarah’s, and all that.”

“Youth likes change,” returned her mother, with a sigh, “but Agnes, child, it is not worth while your biding here all night talking of it. Go to bed, my lass. To-morrow will come soon enough, no matter how late we sit up, and you have a long journey before you.” She spoke so gravely that suddenly it came to Agnes that the exciting plan in which she was so deeply concerned meant more than change and adventure; it meant hardship and separations from those she loved; it meant long absence from her mother and the little ones; it meant the parting from old neighbors and the giving up of the old home where she was born. So she very soberly made her good nights and went to her chilly upper room with a serious countenance.

The wind whistling around the corners of the house, shrieking through the keyholes and sighing about the chimney, sounded particularly doleful to her that night as she lay snuggled down in the big feather-bed by the side of her little sister Margret, and she remained awake for a long time. Life had gone on evenly enough for all the fifteen years that this had been her home, and the boundaries of the big farm seemed likely to hedge her in for some years to come, but within a year her grandfather and grandmother had both died, and her father, who as the youngest child had always lived at home with the old folks, now must possess only a share of the farm, and the elder brothers, already prosperous men, would claim their heritage.

“It was right of father not to be willing to settle down here on a little bit of a tract and have them all free enough with their advice but with nothing else,” thought Agnes. “My uncles are a canny, thrifty set, but they save, and save, and never remember that but for his care of his parents my father, too, might own his own homestead, and grandfather forgot, too. Perhaps he thought the others would give the farm to father,—he ought to have it,—but they are too stingy to give it and he is too proud to ask it. I am glad my grandmother was not their mother, for father is far different. Dear father! Oh, yes, I am glad to go with him. He deserves to have all the comfort he can get after being treated so hardly by his family. We were always good comrades, my father and I; for I was the baby all those years before Sandy came,—three years.” But the reckoning of years soon became lost in the land of dreams, and the song of the wind in the chimney was Agnes’s last lullaby in the old home.

It was a bright sunny morning that Agnes and her father took for starting out upon their journey, the man on foot, and Agnes established in a sort of basket or creel made of willow and fastened to one side of the packhorse, balancing the burden of provisions and other necessities made in a bundle on the other. It was only when she was tired that Agnes would ride, but she was resolved to start out in this fashion for the benefit of her brothers and sisters, assembled on the doorstep to see the start and vastly interested in the whole proceeding. There was another reason, too, why the girl established herself in her creel, for the parting between herself and her mother had been too much for them both, and the tears were raining down the little emigrant’s cheeks as she quavered out, “Good-by, all.” But the horse had scarcely started before she begged to stop, and, leaping out, she ran back to where her mother stood vainly striving to check the sobs which convulsed her. “Oh, mother, mother!” Agnes flung her arms around her neck and kissed the dear face again and again. “Don’t forget me, mother. Good-by, once more.”

“God keep you safe, my lamb,” came the broken words, and Agnes ran back again to where her father, with bent head and lips compressed, waited for her. She climbed up into her creel again, and they started off with no more delay. As far as she could see Agnes watched first the group on the porch, then the white house, and last of all the familiar outline of field, hill, and dale. At last these, too, became but dim distance, and Agnes Kennedy had seen her old home for the last time.

The ride was made in silence for some distance, and then Agnes remembered that in the last talk early that morning her mother had said: “You must try and keep a good heart in father, my child, for he is given to being despondent at times and is easily discouraged. It is a great cross for him to be parted from his family and to leave the safe and pleasant ways he has been accustomed to all his life, so try to cheer him all you can.” Therefore Agnes from her creel called out: “I’m going to walk awhile, father; there’ll be plenty of times when I shall have to ride. I might as well walk while I can, and, besides, I shall be nearer you.”

Her father stopped, and then the two trudged together toward the town to which they were first going.

“I shall not be surprised,” Agnes remarked, “if we have company when we are fairly on our way, for I hear there are trains and trains of wagons besides the packhorse going westward. I’d like a merry company, wouldn’t you, daddy?”

Her father shook his head. “I misdoubt it, Nancy. I’m no one for new acquaintances, as ye weel know.”

“Ah, but I am,” returned Agnes, “and that’s for why you are better when I am along. You don’t draw so dour a face. It’s no worse that we are doing than your grandfather did, and no so bad, for did he not leave his country and come across the ocean to this land? But no, it wasn’t really his own country, Ireland, was it? for before that his father—or was it his grandfather?—fled from Scotland because he followed a Protestant king. Grandfather used to tell me about it all and the songs they sang. ‘Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled’” she trolled out as she ran along, keeping step with her father’s long strides. “And how far do we have to go before we come to the Ohio?” she asked after a while.

“Near two hundred miles,” he told her.

“Let me see; we go ten miles to-day, which is nothing of a walk, and we spend the night in Carlisle, where you get another horse, and we go how far the next day?”

“Twenty-five or thirty, I think we can count on.”

“And that much every day?”

“If the weather is good.”

“Then in four or five days we shall go a hundred miles, and in a little over a week, say ten days, we shall get there. I wonder what it looks like.”

“Not so very different from what you see now—a trifle wilder, mayhap. But I wouldn’t count on our making it in ten days; when we are crossing the mountains, it will be sore work, verra rough travelling.”

“Oh!” Agnes was a little disappointed. She thought it might be quite different and that the trip would be made in short order, delays not having entered into her calculations. However she resumed the conversation cheerfully. “Now let us talk about what we are going to do when we get there.”

“My first step will be to get my land.”

“And then stake it out,” said Agnes, glad to display her knowledge of the necessary proceedings.

“Yes.”

“And next?”

“Build a log-cabin.”

“You’ll have to cut down the trees first and then have—what do they call it?—a log-rolling.”

“Yes, that will come first.”

Agnes was silent a moment, then she began again. “Father, I never thought to ask before, but where are we going to sleep nights after we leave Carlisle?”

“We’ll make the towns along the way as far as we can, and when we pass beyond them, we may find a booth or so or maybe a cabin here and there, put up for the use of travellers like ourselves. When we reach the river, I may conclude to get a broad, as your grandfather Muirhead did.”

“What is a broad?”

“A broadhorn, they call it, is a flat-boat to be used in shallow water to carry a family’s belongings.”

Agnes smiled; this was such an adventurous way of going. The boat, particularly, gave her a feeling of novelty. “I hope you will get a boat; it would be a diversion to travel that way, and then no one would have to walk, not even you, Donald.” She patted the horse affectionately. “Go on, father. Where do we get the boat?”

“That I cannot say exactly. It may be at Fort Pitt or it may be at some other place. I am going to hunt up your cousin James at Uniontown, and we’ll see then.”

With this sort of talk and with long periods of silence the day wore on till, late in the afternoon, they approached Carlisle, and there the first stop was made. It was quite a familiar journey to this point, but from there on the way led through a part of the country unknown to Agnes, and the day’s travels became wilder and wilder as they approached the mountains. It was then that Agnes understood her father’s smile when she first insisted upon the twenty-five miles a day, saying that it could be easily covered, for many a night it was a very weary girl who crept into whatever shelter was afforded her, and slept so soundly that not even the cry of an owl or the distant scream of a wildcat could arouse her.

But at last the mountains were passed, and one day they stopped at a small village consisting of a few houses and a store. It was on the line of the emigrant’s road to western Virginia and Ohio, and here stores were laid in by the pioneer who did not want to transport too much stuff across the mountains. Here halted more than one emigrant train, and, as Agnes and her father drew up before the house that with small pretension was denoted an inn, they saw in the muddy street several canvas-covered wagons. “Ho, for the Ohio!” Agnes read upon one of these vehicles. She laughed, and at the same time her eyes met the merry ones of a girl peeping out from the wagon just ahead. With a little cry of pleasure Agnes ran forward. “Ah, Jeanie M’Clean, is it you? Who would have thought it? A year ago you went away and you are still going.”

“Indeed, I am then,” returned Jeanie. “Father has the fever as well as many another, and he says we shall have better luck if we be moving on than if we stayed where we were, so we’re bound for the Ohio this time, and it’s glad we’ll be to have you join us, if you go that way.”

“We do go that way, and I shall be glad when my father cries, ‘Stop!’ How long do you stay here, and where is your halting-place to be at last?”

“We stay till to-morrow, and we are going somewhere this side of Marietta. The oxen are not fast travellers, not half as fast as the pack-horses, but it is an easy way for us women folks. Aren’t you tired of your creel?”

“Indeed am I, but it seemed the best way for me to come when there are but two of us. Mother and the children will follow as soon as we are well settled. I think father will maybe get a broadhorn, though maybe not. I hope he will, for it seems to me it would be the most comfortable way of travelling.”

“So many think; and it is no loss, for they use the boats after in building their houses. We have our wagon and get along very well. See how comfortable it is. Climb up and look.”

Agnes did as she was bid, and indeed the monstrous wagon looked quite like a little room with its feather-beds and stools, its pots, pans, spinning-wheel, and even the cradle swung from its rounded top. “It is comfortable,” she acknowledged; “far more so than the creel. I’d like to travel so, I think, but I must follow my father’s will, of course. I see him there now, Jeanie, talking to your father.”

“I hope daddy will persuade him to join our train; the more the merrier and the—safer. Oh, Agnes, shall you fear the Indians?”

“I don’t think so. There is no war at this time and they should not be hostile, father says. I am more afraid of the wild beasts. Oh, how lonely it was some nights when we were coming over the mountains and could hear the wolves howling and the wildcats screaming so near us. Many a time I wished myself safe at home in my little bed with Margret. I would like to join your train, Jeanie, for my father is not a great talker, and there are days when we jog along and I tire more of keeping my tongue still than I do of keeping my legs going.”

Jeanie laughed. “Here come our fathers. Now we will hear what they have to say.”

“The inn is full, Agnes,” said Fergus Kennedy, “though I may be able to get a corner on the floor with some others. But what about you? We will have to see if some of the good people in the village will take you in.”

“Indeed, then,” spoke up Joseph M’Clean, “she’ll not have to go that far. We’ve room enough on our beds for one more, and she’ll be welcome to a place by Jeanie, I’ll warrant.”

“She’ll be that,” Jeanie spoke up, “so you’ll not look further, Agnes. Will we camp farther on, father?”

“Yes, just a pace beyond, where Archie has taken the cattle.” Agnes looked to where she could see a couple of pack-horses, two cows, a yellow dog, and two small pigs, these last being in a creel slung at the side of one of the horses. Underneath the wagon swung a coop full of chickens. Joseph M’Clean was well stocked up. When the baby was safely in its cradle slung overhead, and Mrs. M’Clean and the children were ensconced in a row on the feather-bed, Agnes found herself occupying the outside place, a fact for which she was thankful, and not even the strangeness of the position kept her awake long.

She was awakened bright and early by the general uprising of the family and by the sound of Archie’s voice calling, “Mother, mother, sun’s up.” And so the day began. Later on, when Agnes’s father sought her, it was to say that he had concluded to join Joseph M’Clean and his friends. “I’ll feel better to be by those I’ve known since childhood than in the neighborhood of strangers,” he declared, “and Joseph says there’s land enough for all. I did think of going further away to hunt up that property of your grandfather Muirhead’s,—it was what your mother wanted,—but I’ve concluded to settle this side. So we’ll go along with our friends, and I don’t doubt but you’ll be better satisfied, Agnes.”

Therefore the rest of the way Agnes, for the most part, kept her place by Jeanie in the big wagon, or, when tired of sitting still, the two would get out and keep pace with the slow-going oxen, while the pack-horses went on ahead. In this manner they covered the whole distance, camping at night, and starting off betimes in the morning, the line of white-covered wagons winding along the rough roads slowly but surely, and each day bringing the little band of emigrants nearer to their destination, though Agnes found the ten days had lengthened into weeks before they came to their final stop on the banks of the Ohio.

This long-looked-for moment arrived, there was much excitement and much running to and fro. The men stalked about gesticulating and pointing out the various features of the landscape; the women gathered together in groups, laughing and talking; the more adventurous children wanted to form exploring parties at once, while the timid ones clung close to their mothers, awed by the deep, impenetrable forest in which all sorts of dangers, real or fancied, lurked. Then one after another the little cabins were erected of rough, hewn logs, and in a short time all of them were snuggled down, each in its little hollow, where the newly chopped stumps indicated a clearing. There was, too, a stockade and fort not too far distant, for Indians were not to be trusted, even in times of peace, and the shelter of the stockade would be necessary when there came a warning.

It was quite summer by the time Agnes and her father took possession of their home in the wonderful, mysterious forest. A humble little house it was with its rude chimney plastered with clay, its unglazed windows with their heavy wooden shutters. Its great fireplace in the one room was where Agnes would cook the daily meals; the little loft overhead, reached by a rough ladder, was her bedroom. Skins of wild animals composed her bed and coverlet, and the daily food would be found close at hand,—game from the forest, milk from the cow they had bought, and porridge or mush from meal which they ground themselves.

Jeanie M’Clean, half a mile on one side, and the O’Neills, half a mile the other, were the nearest neighbors, so that, with her father busy all day in the woods hunting or clearing his land, it was rather a lonely life for the girl used to a family of brothers and sisters, and with a mother to consult with and direct her. Yet it was a very free life; and the little log-cabin an easy house to keep, consequently Agnes could almost daily find time to run through the woods for a chat with Jeanie M’Clean, though it was to good-natured, kind-hearted Polly O’Neill that she took her troubles. Polly, with just a taste of the brogue and her cheery face, was a good companion when one felt doncy. Nothing seemed to bother Polly; and if her four children, the eldest nothing more than a baby, all clung to her skirts at once, it did not seem to interfere with her movements. Jimmy O’Neill had set up his forge there in the wilderness, and as the blacksmith was a very important figure in the community where men must make many of their own farming implements, there was generally a company to be seen and news to be had at Polly’s, and Agnes congratulated herself that she lived so near.

CHAPTER II

THE HOUSEWARMING

It was to Polly that Agnes went one afternoon when her father had been absent all day and the gloom of the great encircling forest had oppressed her more than usual. Polly was bustling about, singing happily, when Agnes appeared at the door of the cabin. “Is it yersel’, Nancy, child? Come right in,” was the greeting. “Jerry, lad, get a stool for Nancy. The bairnies do be all in a pother agen I get their bit of supper, so I’ll go on with it, Nancy.”

“Isn’t it early for supper?” asked Agnes, sitting down and picking up the baby who was crawling about on the puncheon floor.

“Early it is; but if there was ten meals the day, they’d get hungry between ’em, and the porritch is all gone, so I’m makin’ more, for when they see the pot’s empty they begin to cry. As if,” she surveyed the group smiling, “their mother didn’t know where to get more. And how goes the world with ye, Nancy?”

“It goes a wee bit dour to-day,” said Agnes, sighing. “Father has been gone all day to the far clearing, and there’s no one for me to talk to but the squirrels and the birds.”

“And it’s lame yer tongue gets from the long rest. Sure you’ve a nimble tongue, I notice, Nancy, and it’s hard to keep it restin’.”

Agnes laughed. “So it is, but I didn’t suppose you had noticed that.”

“It ’ud be hard not. I mind the last time ye were here with Archie M’Clean that sorry a word could he get in.”

“Oh, Archie, he doesn’t talk even when one is still, and to sit hours at a time gazing at another is not to my liking.”

“Puir Archie; he uses his eyes if not his tongue, and what is one better than the other to use?”

“I’d rather a wagging tongue than a blinking eye; it’s more cheerful,” responded Agnes.

“I misdoubt it when the tongue wags to your discredit,” returned Polly. “But, my fathers! who’s a longer tongue than mesel’? An’ I’m not one to run down me own most spakin’ attrybutes.”

“Ah, but you never speak ill of any one, Polly. Here, let me stir the mush and you take the baby; he is fretting for you.”

“He’s frettin’ for his sleep,” said Polly. “Sure he’s wor’d out with creepin’ the floor. I’ll put him in his cradle and he’ll drop off.” She drew the cradle from the corner; a queer little affair it was, made of a barrel sawed across halfway, then lengthwise, and set upon clumsy rockers, but baby found his bearskin as soft as any mattress could be, and the lullaby of his little four-year-old sister as sweet as any music.

“Land! but I clane forgot to tell ye,” exclaimed Polly, when the baby was settled; “there’s to be a housewarming next week.”

“Oh, whose?” cried Agnes.

“Johnny McCormick’s.”

“Then he’s married.”

“Married he is. He fetched his bride home from Marietta yesterday. They’re at his brother’s. They’re to have the housewarming next week.”

“Oh, Polly, will you be going?”

“Will I? Was I ever absent from a scutching frolic, or a corn-shucking, or a housewarming, or the like? Tell me that, Nancy Kennedy.”

Agnes made no answer, but sat watching Polly ladling out her bubbling mass of mush. “What fine new bowls you have, Polly,” she said.

“Jimmy, my man, made ’em o’ nights. He’s a crackerjack at anything like that, is Jimmy. Come, children, set by.” And putting a piggin of milk on the table, Polly placed the bowls in their places while the children stood around, the younger ones in glee, beating on the table with their wooden spoons.

“I must run home now,” said Agnes, “for my father will be in, and I must get his supper, and the cows are to be brought up. I’ll get them on the way back if they have not strayed too far.”

“Ye’ll no stay and sup with the children? Jimmy and I will have our bite when he comes in.”

“No, thank you. I don’t want to be late getting home. The woods are dark enough by day, and when the evening comes, it’s worse. I’ll keep along by the river bank where it’s lighter. Father shot a wildcat yesterday. We are getting quite a pile of skins against the winter.”

“They’re very useful,” said Polly. “I’ll show ye how to make yersel’ a jacket; you’ll be wantin’ wan by the cold weather, and squirrel skin makes a fine one. They’re a pest, the gray squirrels, but they’re not so bad to eat, and the skins, though small, are warm and soft.”

“I’ve shot a number of them, though I hate to; they are so pretty and so frisky and friendly.”

“They’re far too friendly—they are so plentiful and eat up all our corn; and, after all, it is better that we should kill them mercifully than that they should be torn asunder by wild beasts.”

“That is what father says.”

“And father’s right; our corn crops will be small enough if we allow all the squirrels to help themselves. Well, good-by, Nancy; don’t forget the housewarming.”

“I’ll not.” And Agnes took her way along the narrow bridle-path toward the river, glad to find it was lighter outside than in the dim cabin, the windows of which, covered with linen smeared with bear’s grease, did not admit much light. Still it was later than she cared to be out alone, brave though she was, and accustomed to the dangers of the forest, and she was more than usually glad to meet Archie M’Clean coming through the woods with his cows.

“Have you seen anything of Sukey?” Agnes called.

Archie paused to think, then answered. “She’s over there a bit. I’ll go fetch her for you.”

“Oh, no, don’t do that. I can get her if you tell me where she is.”

But Archie was striding down the path and Agnes stood still waiting, keeping an eye the while on Archie’s cows. Presently the familiar tinkle of Sukey’s bell announced her approach, then the girl and the lad slowly followed the cows along the river’s bank, Agnes doing most of the talking, but Archie her willing listener.

The little settlement was slowly increasing. More than one young man, though he possessed little beyond his rifle, his horse, and his axe, was ready to marry the girl of his choice, who would take her wedding journey through the silent woods and would become mistress of the small farm whose acres could be increased indefinitely with little trouble. Therefore, when young John McCormick began to make ready for his bride, there were neighbors enough to join in and help to chop and roll the logs, and next to raise the house itself.

Jeanie and Agnes were quite excited over the frolic, for, so far, not many such had come to them. While the men were busy doing their part in establishing the young couple, the women of the community willingly turned their attention to the preparation of the feast, though John’s rifle brought in the bear and venison. Agnes had promised to go over to help the M’Cleans do their part, and had quite looked forward to the day. She was hurriedly putting an end to her morning’s work when she heard a sound outside. The door stood open, and the September sunshine flooded the little dim room. On a bench by the door was a bowl in which were two or three squirrels newly skinned and ready to be cooked. Agnes meant to have them for her father’s supper. She turned to get the bowl, when in at the door was thrust the muzzle of a gaunt wolf, which, scenting the fresh meat, had come to investigate. For a second Agnes was paralyzed with fear, and the next moment, considering discretion the better part of valor, she sprang to the ladder leading to the loft and climbed up, leaving the rifle, which she knew well how to use, below. The squirrels were young and tender and the wolf was hungry, so he made short work of them, yet they were only a mouthful and but whetted his appetite. Agnes, peering below, saw the great, ferocious creature sniffing the ladder and looking up at the loft. He meditated an attack. She tugged at the ladder and presently had it safely drawn up into the loft beside her. There were snarls and growls below, and the wolf began to make fierce springs for his prey. “If I only had my rifle,” murmured Agnes, “I would shoot him. How fine it would be to do that all by myself.” But the rifle was beyond her reach, and she began to feel herself lucky, as the wolf leaped higher and higher, if she could keep beyond the reach of the sharp fangs.

There was no trap-door to the little loft, but Agnes laid the ladder across it, hoping that, though the rungs would give the creature something to clutch, it would perhaps prevent him from doing more. After a while the leaping ceased, and the wolf, sitting on his haunches below there, snarled and showed his teeth; but now Agnes, being satisfied that he could not reach her, felt her fear subsiding, and the situation, instead of being exciting, became rather tiresome. She was missing the fun at the M’Cleans’. She wondered how much longer she was to be kept prisoner by this ugly creature. He did not seem disposed to go away. Perhaps he would keep her there all day. Wolves were not apt to come around in the daytime, especially at this season, though at night it was safer to shut windows and doors against them. This one must have been pursued by some hunter, and had come suddenly upon the cabin. Agnes peered down at him from between the rungs of the ladder, and thought he was a very unattractive brute as he sat there with his red tongue lolling out. “I’d like your hide, you ugly beast,” she said, “but I don’t want you to get mine. I think I’ll drag my bed across the ladder, and then if he can’t see me, perhaps he will go away.”

This proceeding, however, seemed only to increase the wolf’s ambition to get upstairs, for he flung himself madly into the air and once came so near that Agnes’s heart stood still. Yet he came no nearer, and the long day wore on—a doleful day indeed. Agnes could not expect any one to come to her assistance, for her father, knowing her intention of going to the M’Cleans’, had taken his lunch with him and had gone to the aid of Johnny McCormick, like the rest of the men in the settlement.

It was late in the afternoon that Agnes at last heard some one call “Agnes! Agnes! Nancy Kennedy, where are you?” Then there was the sudden crack of a rifle. The girl pulled aside the bearskin which made her bed and peeped below. On the floor lay the gray form of the wolf, and over it stood Archie M’Clean. “Agnes, oh, Agnes,” he cried, “are you hurt?”

From above came the answer: “No, I am quite safe. I’ll put the ladder back and come down. I am so glad you have killed that horrible wolf. He has kept me up here all day. How did you happen to come?” she asked, when she was safe by Archie’s side.

“We wondered why you didn’t come as you promised, and Jeanie said she was afraid something had happened, so when I came out for the cows, I stopped to see.”

“And found the wolf. Well, he has kept me a prisoner all day besides eating up my father’s supper.”

“Never mind, his skin will be very comfortable for you on the floor.”

“Oh, but it’s yours; you killed him.”

“I think you deserve it, for you kept him there all day so I could kill him when I came along.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” said Agnes, laughing.

“I’ll come back and skin him for you when I have taken the cows home. Perhaps I can shoot something for your father’s supper, too, on my way.”

“Oh, never mind that; he’s sure to bring home something, for he has gone to the McCormick’s new house, and that is some distance. But come back, do, and help me get my supper. I shall shut the door and window tight after this, for I want no more wolves for company, though I’d rather it were a wolf than an Indian.”

“Your father expected that you were at our house,” said Archie, “perhaps you had better come with me.”

“I must get the cow up first. Can you wait?”

“Well enough. I will get our own cows at the same time; then while you are milking, I will skin the wolf, and then we can go together.”

The tinkle of the cow-bells sounded not so far off and it was not long before Archie and Agnes were trudging along side by side, the carcass of the wolf having been thrown into the river and the hide stretched for drying.

“And why didn’t you go to the house-raising?” asked Agnes.

“Because I was needed at home.”

“What will they be doing to-day?”

“They’ll finish up the odds and ends; make some tables and stools and benches and get it ready for to-morrow.”

“Then will come the housewarming. Did your mother and Jeanie get through all they expected?”

“Yes, and they have a good feast for John. I am going to build a house when I am twenty-one.”

Agnes laughed. “Whom will you put in it?” she asked saucily.

“You.”

“Archie M’Clean! How do you know you will?”

“I say I will,” he replied doggedly. “I’ve as good a right as any one to choose my girl. I am eighteen, and many of the boys marry at my age; but if I wait three years, you will be eighteen then.”

“Oh, but—No, no, Archie, I’m too young yet to think of such a thing. My father needs me, and my mother will be coming. I’ll think of nobody, of no lad, till I see my mother again. In three years—why, who knows?—you may change your mind; there’ll be many another girl in the settlement by then.”

“And many another lad, maybe.”

“Well, then, so much the better.”

“I’ll not change my mind,” said Archie. “I’m not a great talker, Agnes, but I know what I want, and when I make up my mind I keep to it.”

“And when did you make up your mind to build your house?”

“That day when I saw you, when we were on the road here, and you were riding with Jeanie in the wagon. It was four months ago.”

“You’ll be telling another tale four years from now. I’m too young; fifteen isn’t old enough to make any promises.”

“It’s as old as my mother was.”

“Maybe, but what is one man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

“Am I poison?”

“No; but that isn’t what I mean. Oh, no more nonsense, Archie, or I shall have to stay away from the housewarming, and that I do not want to do.”

They were within sight of the M’Clean cabin, and Agnes ran on ahead, but, seeing Jeanie standing there, she ran back to Archie. “Don’t tell any one,” she said.

“Tell what? About the wolf?”

“No, about—about what you said.”

He nodded, and Agnes knew the secret was safe.

“Well, well, why didn’t you come before?” asked Jeanie, when Agnes was within hearing.

“I couldn’t; I had company.”

“Why didn’t you bring the company? They would have been very welcome.”

“No, he wouldn’t.” Agnes shook her head decidedly.

“Why, Nancy Kennedy, you know he would.”

“I know he wouldn’t.”

“What was his name?”

“Mr. Wolf.”

Jeanie looked puzzled. “I never heard of him. Is he an old friend? Did he come from Carlisle?”

“No, he did live near here.”

“Doesn’t he now?”

“No, he’s dead.” Agnes laughed.

“I never heard of such a thing. What are you talking about? Mother, you never heard such talk. Come here and make Nancy tell us what she means.”

Agnes laughed at Jeanie’s vehemence; then she sobered down. “It was no laughing matter, I can tell you, and but for Archie I might not be here now.” And she proceeded to tell the tale of her day’s imprisonment.

“Why, you must be half starved!” exclaimed Mrs. M’Clean.

“No; the wolf left me a piece of johnny-cake and I drank some new milk, then we found some late blackberries as we came along.”

“Well, you will be glad of a good bowl of hominy. Come in. Father’ll not be back yet. Here comes Archie with the milk-pails.”

After her long day of solitude it was good, Agnes thought, to get among her friends, and she chattered away like a magpie, yet she was conscious of Archie’s gaze fixed upon her, and she felt uncomfortable, wishing he had left their free comradeship as it stood. “I am a little girl still. I want to be a little girl,” she announced suddenly, “and I don’t believe I will go to the housewarming.”

“Nancy Kennedy! Why not?” exclaimed Jeanie. “There will be other girls there no older than you. There is Susan Duncan and Flora Magruder, and even little Meg Donaldson is going.”

“I know—but—”

“No buts about it. What a whimsey! Of course you’ll go. There will be good sport, and no end of feasting. I don’t see how you can think of staying at home.” She was so persistent that finally Agnes acknowledged that it was but a sudden whim, and that she really wanted to go.

It was a homely, but jolly, little company which gathered in the new log-cabin of John McCormick to celebrate the housewarming. The rough pioneers in their hunting-shirts, leather breeches, and moccasins were a manly set of fellows; while the girls in linsey-woolsey petticoats, with linen bedgowns, a handkerchief folded across the breast, their feet shod in coarse shoepacks, were fit companions for the sturdy brothers, husbands, and fathers, who outnumbered them. Agnes, being one of the few who had recently come from a more civilized neighborhood, could boast better shoes and a finer kerchief. She was shy, however, and kept close to Polly O’Neill, until that lively body joined some gossiping friends, and then Agnes slipped off to a corner where Jeanie joined her, and together they watched the scene.

“Ah, but Polly is a romp; I’d fain have her agility,” said Jeanie, admiringly.

Agnes laughed as Polly belabored a stout lad who captured her in a rollicking game, but she yawned the next minute and said: “I’m sleepy. Does one have to stay up all night?”

“Indeed, yes. You’ll have no chance to sleep. We shall have to hang on till morning or they will hunt us out and parade us up and down the floor. Here is something to waken you up. Supper is ready.”

Agnes rose with alacrity, and the company trooped to the table which was nothing more than a slab of wood supported by four round legs set in auger holes. It was set with bent and dented pewter ware, rude wooden bowls, and trenchers. A few pewter and horn spoons, but no knives were visible; the men used their hunting-knives which they drew from a sheath hanging from their hunting-belts.

But hardly had they begun to attack the venison and bearmeat, the roasted corn, and johnny-cakes, before the door was flung open and an express whispered hoarsely, “Indians!”

Agnes clutched Jeanie. “Where is my father?” she whispered. “Oh, what shall we do?”

“To the blockhouse!” The word was passed; then quickly lights were extinguished, and creeping slowly along in the darkness the whole company started forth, not knowing what moment the terrible yell of an Indian would startle them, or whether they could reach their refuge unhurt. Every one was silent as death. The dreaded word “Indians!” silenced even the smallest child who, clinging to its mother, understood something of the terror which inspired the older ones.

Close by Agnes’s side strode Archie. “They shall kill me before they take you,” he whispered.

But there was no need for his heroics, for once within the blockhouse they were safe, the Indians rarely attacking these little forts. It was found, however, that all were not gathered in the retreat, and that those who, for one reason or another, had not been at the housewarming were in danger.

“My father was off hunting,” said Agnes, pitifully. “He does not care for frolics, you know. Oh, if the Indians have found him, what shall I do?”

“Never fear, my lass,” Polly tried to reassure her. “I’ve no doubt he is hiding, and when the redskins go off, he’ll come in safe and sound.”

This was comforting, but still Agnes had her fears as one after another of the stragglers crept back to the fort, each with some new report. “Tell us your news, Sandy,” were the words which greeted the last comer.

“The Indians are burning and plundering the cabins,” he told them. “I sneaked around through the woods and got here safely. I don’t think there are many of them, just a small raiding party. They have made a dash, and will be off again presently. They’ll not attack the fort.”

“Did you see my father?” Agnes asked fearfully.

The man was silent a moment, then he answered: “I left him an hour since on his way here. Hasn’t he come?”

“No; oh, no.”

“Then he’s likely laying low. Don’t fret, my lass; he’ll be coming along after a while.”

With the rising of the sun the Indians disappeared. They were too few in number to attack the fort, and had counted on surprising the inhabitants of the little settlement in their homes. Fortunately most of them were at the housewarming, and those who were not present were warned in time to escape. The little hunting party, of which Fergus Kennedy was one, were the only persons in real danger, and of the number all had now returned but two. But many of the little cabins were burned to the ground and the cattle slain.

At the return of her husband who had gone out to reconnoitre, and who returned with the news that all was quiet, Polly looked around at the buckets of water which she had lugged in, and exclaimed: “Well, I needn’t a’ put my stren’th in thim buckets. I’d better saved it.”

“But suppose the Indians had come and had tried to fire the blockhouse,” said Jeanie.

“Ah, but there’s no supposin’; they didn’t.”

“But we have to be prepared, and we were all glad to have something to do in an hour of peril,” said Mrs. M’Clean, “though I, for one, have no pleasure in constant alarm. I am for going to a more settled-up place. I’m willing to move on if my man gives the word. I mistrusted we were too far from ceevilization.”

“Ay, ay! ye may feel that a ways,” returned Polly, “but I’ll no let the pesky critturs get the best o’ me, and I’ll not move on fur ’em. Here I bide. I am as good a shot as they are, an’ one can die but wanst.”

“Ay, but it’s not the dying; it’s the being carried off from home and kin, and having your babies murdered before your eyes, and your husband tortured in your presence.”

“Sh!” whispered Polly, for there was Agnes at her elbow, eyes wide open with fear and cheeks pale. “I’m not scared,” Polly went on valiantly, with a nod to Agnes. “We’ve the good strong blockhouse, and we can bide here till the cabin’s built again, if so be it is burnded, which I’m not so certain it is, an’ we’re as safe wan place as anither. Those that’s born to be drownded will niver get hung, sez I,” she went on with a true Presbyterian belief in the doctrine of predestination, “an’ if I’m kilt entirely by a tomahawk, sure I’ll not die of the pox, an’ the former’s the speedier. I may lose me hair but not me beauty.”

“I’d rather keep both if I can,” returned Mrs. M’Clean, laughing.

Polly grinned. “Sure, ye’ll have little trubble kapin’ what ye’ve not got,” she replied saucily. At which Mrs. M’Clean took her by the shoulders and shook her so hard that Polly’s mass of black hair tumbled down in a big coil to her knees. She gathered it up in both hands, and put it back under her cap, laughing at Mrs. M’Clean’s look. “Eh, Jean,” she said, “I’m thinkin’ ye’ll not be likely to lose yer scalp; there’s so little hair ye hev to take a holt on.”

“You’re a saucy creature, Polly,” Mrs. M’Clean replied. “I’ve not your crop on my head, I know, but neither have I so much on my lip.” Polly’s mouth was ornamented by quite a visible mustache, and the laugh was against her, so she gave in cheerfully and turned away.

Seeing Agnes standing aloof with mournful eyes, she went up to her and took her in her arms. “We’re a thriflin’ set, my dear,” she said, “but it’s the relief to the moind and the cessaytion of worriment that makes one so light. An’ yer in trubble, but don’t ye give up whilst there’s a loophole. Manny a one’s been carried off and has escaped, afther years sometimes, so I’d not mourn yet.”

“Ah! but, Polly, if he’s been killed or taken prisoner, what shall I do?”