With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga. Foster Walter Bertram

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СКАЧАТЬ doings at farmer Breckenridge’s. You are late.”

      This was all she said regarding his tardiness at the moment. She was a very pleasant featured woman of thirty-five, with kind eyes and a cheery, if grave, smile; but Enoch knew she could be stern enough if occasion required. Indeed, she was a far stricter disciplinarian than his father had been. They crowded into the house and Mrs. Harding went to the fire and hung the pot over the glowing coals to heat again the stewed venison which she had saved for Enoch’s supper.

      “Tell us about it, Enoch, my son,” she said. “Did the Yorkers come as friend Bolderwood said they would–in such numbers?”

      “In greater numbers,” declared the boy, and he went on to recount the incidents of the morning when Sheriff Ten Eyck had demanded the surrender of the Breckenridge house and farm. The incident had appealed strongly to the boy and he drew a faithful picture of the scene when the army of Yorkers marched up to the farmhouse door and demanded admission.

      “And Mr. Allen was there and spoke to me–he did!” declared Enoch. “He’s a master big man–and so handsome. He asked me if I remembered his coming here once to see father, and he told me to be sure and go to Bennington when the train-band is mustered in. I can, can’t I, mother?”

      “And me, too!” cried Bryce. “I can carry Nuck’s musket now’t he shoots with father’s gun. I can shoot, too–from a rest.”

      “Huh!” exclaimed his elder brother, “you can’t carry the old musket even, and march.”

      “Yes I can!”

      “No you can’t!”

      But the mother’s voice recalled the boys to their better behavior. “I will talk with ’Siah Bolderwood about your joining the train-band, Enoch. And if you go to Bennington with Enoch, Bryce, who will defend our home? You must stay here and guard mother and the other children, my boy.”

      Bryce felt better at that suggestion and the argument between Enoch and himself was dropped. The widow soon sent all but Enoch to bed in the loft over the kitchen and living room of the cabin. There was a bedroom occupied by herself partitioned off from the living room, while Enoch slept on a “shakedown” near the door. This he had insisted upon doing ever since his father’s death.

      “You were very late in returning, my son,” said the widow when the others had climbed the ladder to the loft.

      “Yes, marm.”

      “You did not come right home?”

      “No, marm. I stayed to eat with Lot Breckenridge. And then I wanted to hear the men talk.”

      “You should have started earlier for home, Enoch,” she said, sternly.

      “Well, I’d got here pretty near sunset if it hadn’t been for somethin’ that happened just the other side of the crick,” Enoch declared, forgetting the fact that he had stopped to watch the beavers before ever he saw the campfire in the wood.

      “What was it?” she asked.

      “There’s somebody over there–a tall man, but I couldn’t see his face – ”

      “Where?”

      “Beyond the crick; ’twarn’t half a mile from where father was killed at the deer-lick. I saw a light in the bushes. It was a campfire an’ I couldn’t go by without seein’ what it was for. So I crept up on it an’ bymeby I saw the man.”

      “You don’t know who he was?” asked the widow, quickly.

      “No, marm.”

      “Did he have a dark face and was his nose hooked?”

      “I couldn’t see his face. He was sittin’ down all the time. His face was shaded with his cap. He sat with his back up against a tree. I was a long while gittin’ near enough to see him, an’ then – ”

      “Well, what happened, my son?”

      “Then that Crow Wing–you know him; the Injin boy that useter live down the crick with his folks–Crow Wing come out of the forest an’ grabbed me an’ told me not to holler or he’d kill me. I wasn’t ’zactly ’fraid of him,” added Enoch, thinking some explanation necessary, “but I saw if I fought him it would bring the man at the fire to help, and I couldn’t fight two of ’em, anyway. The pesky Injin made me walk to the crick with him an’ then he told me to go home and not come back. I wish ’Siah Bolderwood was here. We’d fix ’em!”

      “The Indian threatened you!” cried the widow. “Have you done anything to anger him, Enoch? I know your father was very bitter toward them all; but I hoped – ”

      “I never done a thing to him!” declared the boy. “I don’t play with him much, though Lot does; but I let him alone. I useter make fun of him b’fore–b’fore ’Siah told me more about his folks. Crow Wing’s father is a good friend to the whites. He fought with our folks ag’in the French Injins.”

      “But who could the man have been?” asked the widow, gravely. “The children saw a man lurking about the corn-field at the lower end to-day. And when I was milking, Mary came and told me that he was then across the river at the ox-bow, looking over at the house. If it should be Simon Halpen! He will not give up his hope of getting our rich pastures, I am afraid. We must watch carefully, Enoch.”

      “I’ll shoot him if he comes again!” declared the boy, belligerently. Then he closed and barred the door and rapidly prepared for bed. His mother retired to her own room, but long after Enoch was soundly sleeping on his couch, the good woman was upon her knees beside her bed. Although she was proud to see Enoch so sturdy and helpful, she feared this controversy with the Yorkers would do him much harm; and it was for him, as well as for the safety of them all in troublous times, that she prayed to the God in whom she so implicitly trusted.

      The next day ’Siah Bolderwood came striding up to the cabin with the carcass of the doe Enoch had shot across his shoulders, and found the widow at her loom, just within the door. She welcomed the lanky ranger warmly, for he had not only been her husband’s closest friend but had been of great assistance to her children and herself since Jonas’ death. “The children will be glad to see you, ’Siah,” she said. “I will call them up early and get supper for us all. I will have raised biscuit, too–it is not often you get anything but Johnny-cake, I warrant. The boys are working to clear the new lot to-day.”

      “Aye, I saw them as I came along,” said Bolderwood, laughing. “There was Mistress Kate on top of a tall stump, her black hair flying in the wind, and Nuck’s old musket in her hands. She said she was on guard, and she hailed me before I got out of the wood. Her eyes are sharp.”

      “She should have been a boy,” sighed the widow. “Indeed, this wilderness is no place for girls at all.”

      “Bless their dear little souls!” exclaimed Bolderwood, with feeling. “What’d we do without Kate an’ Mary? They keep the boys sweet, mistress! And Kate’s as good as a boy any day when it comes to looking out for herself; while as I came through the stumpage Mary was working with the best of ’em to pull roots and fire-weed.”

      “The boys want a stump-burning as soon as possible. Jonas got the new lot near cleared. There’s only the rubbish to burn.”

      “Good idea. Nuck and Bryce are doing well… But what was the sentinel for?”

      “It СКАЧАТЬ