True to the Old Flag (Historical Novels - American Cycle). G. A. Henty

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      Chapter I.

       A Frontier Farm.

       Table of Contents

      "Concord, March 1, 1774.

      "MY DEAR COUSIN: I am leaving next week with my husband for England, where we intend to pass some time visiting his friends. John and I have determined to accept the invitation you gave us last summer for Harold to come and spend a few months with you. His father thinks that a great future will, ere many years, open in the West, and that it is therefore well the boy should learn something of frontier life. For myself, I would rather that he stayed quietly at home, for he is at present over-fond of adventure; but as my husband is meditating selling his estate here and moving West, it is perhaps better for him.

      "Massachusetts is in a ferment, as indeed are all the Eastern States, and the people talk openly of armed resistance against the Government. My husband, being of English birth and having served in the king's army, cannot brook what he calls the rebellious talk which is common among his neighbors, and is already on bad terms with many around us. I myself am, as it were, a neutral. As an American woman, it seems to me that the colonists have been dealt with somewhat hardly by the English Parliament, and that the measures of the latter have been high-handed and arbitrary. Upon the other hand, I naturally incline toward my husband's views. He maintains that, as the king's army has driven out the French, and gives protection to the colony, it is only fair that the colonists should contribute to its expenses. The English ask for no contributions toward the expense of their own country, but demand that, at least, the expenses of the protection of the colony shall not be charged upon the heavily taxed people at home. As to the law that the colony shall trade only with the mother country, my husband says that this is the rule in the colonies of Spain, France, Portugal, and the Netherlands, and that the people here, who can obtain what land they choose and till it without rent, should not grumble at paying this small tax to the mother country. However it be, I fear that troubles will come, and, this place being the head and focus of the party hostile to England, my husband, feeling himself out of accord with all his neighbors, saving a few loyal gentlemen like himself, is thinking much and seriously of selling our estate here and of moving away into the new countries of the West, where he will be free from all the disputation and contentious talk which occupies men's time here.

      "Indeed, cousin, times have sadly changed since you were staying here with us five years ago. Then our life was a peaceful and quiet one; now there is nothing but wrangling and strife. The dissenting clergy are, as my husband says was the case in England before the great civil war, the fomenters of this discontent. There are many busybodies who pass their time in stirring up the people by violent harangues and seditious writings; therefore everyone takes one side or the other, and there is neither peace nor comfort in life.

      "Accustomed as I have always been to living in ease and affluence, I dread, somewhat, the thought of a life on the Indian frontier. One has heard so many dreadful stories of Indian fights and massacres that I tremble a little at the prospect; but I do not mention this to John, for as other women are, like yourself, brave enough to support these dangers, I would not appear a coward in his eyes. You will see, cousin, that, as this prospect is before us, it is well that Harold should learn the ways of a frontier life. Moreover, John does not like the thought of leaving him here while we are in England; for, as he says, the boy might learn to become a rebel in his absence; therefore, my dear cousin, we have resolved to send him to you. An opportunity offers, in the fact that a gentleman of our acquaintance is, with his family, going this week West, with the intention of settling there, and he will, he tells us, go first to Detroit, whence he will be able to send Harold forward to your farm. The boy himself is delighted at the thought, and promises to return an accomplished backwoodsman. John joins me in kind love to yourself and your husband, and believe me to remain,

      "Your Affectionate Cousin,

       "MARY WILSON."

      Four months after the date of the above letter a lad some fifteen years old was walking with a man of middle age on the shores of Lake Huron. Behind them was a large clearing of about a hundred acres in extent; a comfortable house, with buildings for cattle, stood at a distance of some three hundred yards from the lake; broad fields of yellow corn waved brightly in the sun; and from the edge of the clearing came the sound of a woodsman's ax, showing that the proprietor was still enlarging the limits of his farm. Surrounding the house, at a distance of twenty yards, was a strong stockade some seven feet in height, formed of young trees, pointed at the upper end, squared, and fixed firmly in the ground. The house itself, although far more spacious and comfortable than the majority of backwood farmhouses, was built in the usual fashion, of solid logs, and was evidently designed to resist attack.

      William Welch had settled ten years before on this spot, which was then far removed from the nearest habitation. It would have been a very imprudent act, under ordinary circumstances, to have established himself in so lonely a position, so far removed from the possibility of assistance in case of attack. He settled there, however, just after Pontiac, who was at the head of an alliance of all the Indian tribes of those parts, had, after the long and desperate siege of Fort Pitt, made peace with us upon finding that his friends, the French, had given up all thought of further resistance to the English, and had entirely abandoned the country. Mr. Welch thought, therefore, that a permanent peace was likely to reign on the frontier, and that he might safely establish himself in the charming location he had pitched upon, far removed from the confines of civilization.

      The spot was a natural clearing of some forty acres in extent, sloping down to the water's edge, and a more charming site could hardly have been chosen. Mr. Welch had brought with him three farm laborers from the East, and, as time went on, he extended the clearing by cutting down the forest giants which bordered it.

      But in spite of the beauty of the position, the fertility of the soil, the abundance of his crops, and the advantages afforded by the lake, both from its plentiful supply of fish and as a highway by which he could convey his produce to market, he had more than once regretted his choice of location. It was true that there had been no Indian wars on a large scale, but the Indians had several times broken out in sudden incursions. Three times he had been attacked, but, fortunately, only by small parties, which he had been enabled to beat off. Once, when a more serious danger threatened him, he had been obliged to embark, with his wife and child and his more valuable chattels, in the great scow in which he carried his produce to market, and had to take refuge in the settlements, to find, on his return, his buildings destroyed and his farm wasted. At that time he had serious thoughts of abandoning his location altogether, but the settlements were extending rapidly toward him, and, with the prospect of having neighbors before long and the natural reluctance to give up a place upon which he had expended so much toil, he decided to hold on; hoping that more quiet times would prevail, until other settlers would take up land around him.

      The house had been rebuilt more strongly than before. He now employed four men, and had been unmolested since his return to his farm, three years before the date of this story. Already two or three locations had been taken up on the shores of the lake beyond him, a village had grown up thirty-five miles away, and several settlers had established themselves between that place and his home.

      "So you are going out fishing this morning, Harold?" Mr. Welch said. "I hope you will bring back a good supply, for the larder is low. I was looking at you yesterday, and I see that you are becoming a first-rate hand at the management of a canoe."

      "So I ought to be," the boy said, "considering that for nearly three months I have done nothing but shoot and fish."

      "You have a sharp eye, Harold, and will make a good backwoodsman one of these days. You can shoot nearly as well as I can now. It is lucky that I had a good stock of powder and lead on СКАЧАТЬ