Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 Part 4

But they had another and greater grievance. To understand it we must go back a little.

In 1675, Philip, who lived on a hill overlooking the peaceful waters of Narragansett Bay, begun war upon the English, which lasted nearly two years, during which the New Hamps.h.i.+re Indians murdered some of the settlers. The Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts sent Captain Sill and Captain Hathorn, with their two companies of soldiers, to seize all the Indians, although only a few had taken any part in the murders. Major Waldron invited the Indians to come to Dover; and they, regarding him as their friend, came from their wigwams along the lakes and rivers, to see what he wanted.

"Let us have a sham fight," he said.

The Indians agreed to it. They ranged themselves on one side, their guns loaded with powder only, and the white men on the other.

"You fire first," said Major Waldron.

The Indians fired their guns in the air, and the next moment found themselves surrounded by the white men, who made them prisoners, taking away their guns, putting them on board a vessel, sending them to Boston, and selling two hundred of them into slavery.

One Indian made his escape from the soldiers, ran into Elizabeth Heard's house, and the good woman secreted him in the cellar, and saved him from being sold into slavery.

The war between England and France began. The Jesuit fathers were making their influence felt among the tribes, winning them to the side of France.

Previous to this the Indians had made themselves at home in Dover, coming and going as they pleased. There were five strongly fortified houses in the town, in which the settlers slept at night.

It was the evening of the 27th of June, 1688, when two squaws called at Major Waldron's garrison, and asked if they might sleep there.

"Indians are coming to trade to-morrow," they said.

Major Waldron was pleased to hear it, for trade with the Indians always meant a good bargain to the white man.

"Supposing we should want to go out in the night, how shall we open the door?" asked the squaws.

They are shown how to undo the fastenings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAJOR WALDRON'S TERRIBLE FIGHT.]

Major Waldron is eighty years of age, white-haired, wrinkled, but there is force yet left in his arm, and he is as courageous as ever. He has no fear of any Indian that walks the earth, and the vague rumors and whisperings of an uprising are as idle as the wind to him. He lies down to sleep. The lights in all the houses are extinguished. No sentinel walks the street. In the darkness dusky forms glide noiselessly through the town. The doors of the houses open. The terrible war-whoop breaks the stillness of the summer night. A half-dozen Indians burst into the room where the brave old man is sleeping. He springs from the bed, seizes his sword, and single-handed drives them from his chamber into the large room. In the darkness one steals behind him, strikes a blow, and he falls. It is their hour of triumph. He has been a ruler and a judge. The Indians can be sarcastic. They seat him in his arm-chair, lift him upon the table. It is his throne.

"Get us supper," is their command to the family.

They eat, and then turn to their b.l.o.o.d.y work. One by one they slash their knives across his breast.

"So I cross out my account," they say. They are settling an account that has been standing thirteen long years.

An Indian cuts off one hand. "Where are the scales? Let us see if it weighs a pound."

One cuts off his nose, another his ears. The old man's strength is gone, and as he falls, one holds his sword, so that it pierces his body.

In one of the garrisons is a faithful dog, whose barking awakes the inmates. The Indians rush upon the door. Elder Wentworth throws himself upon the floor, holds his feet against it, and braces himself with all his might. The bullets whistle over him, but do him no harm, and he holds it fast, keeping the Indians at bay, and saving the lives of those within.

Elizabeth Heard and her children on this evening have come from Portsmouth in a boat. They are belated, and the Indians are at their b.l.o.o.d.y work when they arrive. Her children flee, while she sinks in terror upon the ground. An Indian with a pistol runs up and stands over her, but he does not fire.

"No harm shall come to you," he says. He permits no one to touch her. It is the Indian whom she befriended thirteen years ago.

When the morning dawns it is upon the smouldering ruins of burning dwellings, upon the mangled bodies of twenty-three men and women, and upon twenty-nine women and children going into captivity--a long weary march through the woods to Canada to be sold as slaves to the French, or kept as prisoners by the savages. Yet amid the ghastly scene, through the blood and flame and smoke and desolation, there is this brightness--the remembrance of the kindness of Elizabeth Heard, and its reward.

[Ill.u.s.tration: REVIEW OF THE CAVALRY BY THE INFANTRY.--DRAWN BY SOL.

EYTINGE, JUN.]

HOW THE LITTLE SMITHS GOT THEIR FOURTH-OF-JULY MONEY.

BY MARGARET SIDNEY.

"What did George Was.h.i.+ngton do, I wonder, on the Fourth of July?" said Harper Smith, rattling his tin money bank with an awful din.

"Mercy! I don't know," said Aunt Nancy, s.h.i.+elding her ears, and thinking twice as much about the noise as she did about the question. "Do pray be still! I'm sure I wish there wasn't any Fourth of July."

"Oh, Harp, you ninny!" cried his brother Joe. "There wasn't any Fourth at all till George Was.h.i.+ngton made it."

"_You_ better study up," said Aunt Nancy, coming to her senses, as Harper, very much confused, stopped the rattling. "You don't begin to realize what the guns and the fire-crackers and the torpedoes, and all the other dreadful things that blow up people and knock off boys'

fingers and toes, are for. It would be a great deal better if boys had more history in their heads and less money in their pockets. That's the way to celebrate, I think; and I mean to ask your father about it."

"Oh, don't, _don't_, Aunt Nancy--please _don't_!" cried both boys, in the greatest dismay, while Lucy ran in from the next room, with wide-open eyes, at the uproar. "Don't make father take away our money; we always have it, you know."

"You can have your money," said Aunt Nancy, putting up her spectacles to look at their distressed faces, and beginning to laugh at the sight; "but you ought to know what you're spending it for. _I_ would, I know, be able to tell something about my country, and who fought for it."

When Mr. Smith came home the boys were both out in the barn, looking at a very new colony of kittens in an old barrel. So Aunt Nancy had about five minutes of peace and quiet, which she speedily made the most of, I can a.s.sure you--talking away so fast that Mr. Smith had to follow her pretty closely, with eyes as well as ears on the alert.

When she had finished, "Capital," was all he said. And then the boys came tearing in, and they had tea.

After supper, "Now for a story," cried Joe, getting possession of the chair next to Mr. Smith, while Harper flew for another.

"When does Fourth of July come?" asked Mr. Smith, abruptly.

"It's three weeks from day after to-morrow," cried Joe, springing up, and running for the almanac.

"Weill, what are you going to do on the Fourth?" said their father.

"Oh, _everything_," cried Joe, while Harper came in on the chorus; and Lucy beat a soft little tune on her father's shoulder with her hand.

"You said you'd give us more money _this_ Fourth," cried Harper, seeing his chance. "Don't you remember? 'Cause we're bigger, you know."

"And so you'll try to blow off your heads harder than ever, I suppose,"

said Mr. Smith, with a twinkle in the eye next to Harper. "And then who's to pay the doctor's bills, I wonder?"

"If our heads were off, we wouldn't have to have the doctor," suggested Joe, dreadfully afraid the money wasn't coming.

"True enough," laughed his father. "Well, heads stand for everything else--all the hurts, I mean."