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EVERYCHILD'S SERIES 
 
 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
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 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
EVERYCHILD'S SERIES 
 
 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 MABEL ELIZABETH FLETCHER 
 
 n 
 
 Neto gork 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1917 
 
 jill rights reser-ved 
 
^ 'r-A> 
 
 Copyright, 1977, 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1917. 
 
 m-\ 1917 
 
 ©CLA4G7223 
 
 V, 
 
 'Jio ! 
 
PHILIP, HENRY, AND JOHN 
 FREDERICK, AND EUGENE 
 
For some of the material used in these tales 
 and for the verification of doubtful points, the 
 writer is greatly indebted to various histories 
 of Macon and McLean counties, and to the 
 
 Decatur Review. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 The Big Snow .... 
 
 Matthew's First Buck . 
 
 Jumping Jeptha 
 
 The Pattern .... 
 
 An Adventure on the Road . 
 
 The Barring Out on Panther Creek . 
 
 The Perilous Capture of Sukey Matilda 
 
 Little Kate and Bouncing Ben 
 
 A Village Franklin 
 
 A Christmas of Long Ago 
 
 The Piasa Bird 
 
 Young John Goes to Market 
 
 The Sudden Freeze 
 
 Comfort's Wedding 
 
 Lincoln in Macon County 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 31 
 
 45 
 55 
 63 
 
 72 
 
 87 
 100 
 
 no 
 
 129 
 
 136 
 
 145 
 
 152 
 167 
 
 IS 
 
OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 THE BIG SNOW 
 
 It was the morning of a gray day In Novem- 
 ber. From a little log cabin on the edge of 
 
 The Big Snow. 
 
 the timber skirting Lake Fork, the smoke 
 rose slowly. It was a cabin of the roughest 
 type, made of small logs notched and put 
 together. The cracks were filled with "chink- 
 ing" and daubed with clay. The stick-and- 
 clay chimney was stained by the smoke and 
 
 B I 
 
2 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 weather to a color as dark as the house Itself. 
 Over the cabin towered two mighty oaks, the 
 two tallest trees on the extreme edge of the 
 wolf-haunted timber. 
 
 In the one room of the house, on this par- 
 ticular day, was an anxious group. Miles 
 Smith stood by the rough table, pulling his 
 fur cap down over his ears, and buttoning 
 his fur coat closely about him. In front of 
 the fireplace, gently rocking her sick baby, 
 Polly, sat his wife, her eyes going sadly from 
 her baby to her husband. Arden, the twelve- 
 year-old son, was staring out the window at 
 the lowering sky. 
 
 *'Well, Jane," said Mr. Smith, putting his 
 shotgun to his shoulder, ''I must go. Take 
 good care of Polly, and I'll bring back the 
 doctor for her to-morrow. And I'll tr}^ to 
 get some wheat flour for you," 
 
 The tears rained down Mrs. Smith's face 
 as she answered, ^'Oh, A/[iles, if you only 
 didn't have to go ! I'm so afraid for you !" 
 
 "There is Polly," answered her husband 
 
THE BIG SNOW 3 
 
 gently. ^'She needs help. We've done all 
 we can. And Bronson's sick. When he 
 helped me put in my crops, I promised him 
 that if he ever needed help I'd come to him. 
 There's no one in the family to hunt, now that 
 he's broken his leg, and I must take him some 
 provisions." 
 
 "I know," said his wife bravely, as she 
 wiped away her tears with her apron. ''You 
 must keep your word. But, Miles, do watch 
 out for the Indians." 
 
 Her husband's face grew even graver, 
 though he tried hard to smile and comfort his 
 wife. He kissed them all good-by, and then 
 turned sharply to the door. There he mo- 
 tioned for his son to follow him. Outside 
 the cabin he said with an anxious glance at 
 the sky, "I'm afraid it's going to snow. 
 You'd better get out to the shocks and bring 
 in all the corn you can, for a big snow would 
 make things hard for us." 
 
 "Don't go. Father," begged Arden sud- 
 denly. 
 
4 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 "It's Polly," returned Mr. Smith In a low 
 voice. ^' I could wait a few days to take these 
 things to Bronson, but I don't think Polly's 
 going to get well without help. You mustn't 
 let your mother know that, though. Take 
 good care of her — and in case — in case — 
 Indians come, get into the dugout." 
 
 The dugout was a secret cave room reached 
 by a narrow tunnel leading from the cabin. 
 A great settle concealed the opening ; the 
 sawn logs, too, were carefully fitted back 
 into it, so that if the settle was completely 
 removed, none but the keenest eyes could 
 discover the opening. 
 
 Arden nodded, and his father took up the 
 rawhide rope by which he was to draw the 
 rough sled on which lay two wild hogs, com- 
 pletely dressed. He reached out and laid 
 his hand a moment on his son's shoulder, 
 then strode off with his load into the timber. 
 
 Arden looked again at the sky. It was even 
 grayer and snowier-looking. The ground was 
 already covered with white, thus enabling his 
 
THE BIG SNOW 
 
 father to draw the sled easily to where the 
 Bronsons lived, fifteen miles away. 
 
 The settlement was five miles beyond 
 Bronsons' ; when he reached there, Mr. 
 Smith would remain all night, but the doctor 
 would probably come 
 at once on horseback 
 to the sick child. 
 
 Mindful of his fa- 
 ther's words, Arden at 
 once began carrying 
 corn from the shocks 
 to the rough stable, and 
 even into the house 
 It began to snow, and 
 he worked all the 
 faster. Although there 
 was quite a pile of 
 wood already cut, he took the ax and 
 chopped up several young trees which he 
 and his father had earlier cut down and 
 dragged to the cabin. Alarmed by the dark 
 sky and the swift falling of the snow, his 
 
 Arden at Once Began Car- 
 rying Corn from the Shocks. 
 
6 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 mother, who had put the baby to sleep, 
 came out and helped him carry In the sticks 
 for the fireplace. They filled one corner of 
 the cabin, heedless of the dust and chips that 
 fell, laying in enough to last a week, in case 
 the snow should become very deep. By 
 nightfall the flakes had ceased to whirl, but 
 they lay fully a foot deep everywhere, and 
 they were two feet deep in places where the 
 wind had made drifts. 
 
 The next day the snow melted a little. 
 Then the weather suddenly grew colder, and 
 a skim of ice covered the soft blanket. This 
 ice came just to Arden's knees, as he waded 
 about, feeding the horse and cow, the heavy 
 oxen, and the few chickens pent in one corner 
 of the log barn. It was continually break- 
 ing through with him unexpectedly, and 
 making him spill the milk or chicken-feed 
 which he carried. The boy was extremely 
 troubled. Little Polly seemed worse, and 
 his mother was about distracted. With 
 the child on her lap, she sat looking out 
 
THE BIG SNOW 7 
 
 the window in the direction her husband had 
 disappeared. 
 
 **The doctor will be here pretty soon," she 
 kept saying. 
 
 Then the snow began again. After that 
 Arden remembered very little of the passage 
 of time. He seemed to work for days shov- 
 eling paths to the barn, and to the smoke- 
 house and the woodpile. He feverishly gath- 
 ered more corn from the shocks and stored it 
 in the barn. He had to cook all the meals 
 and wash the few dishes, for after the second 
 day his mother sank into a sort of stupor, 
 her mind intent only on the sick child. 
 
 Why did not his father come ^ Or the 
 doctor ^ On the snow there was now a 
 stronger skim of ice, about waist-deep ; a 
 horse could not travel on it, but a man could. 
 Twenty miles was not thought a long dis- 
 tance for a doctor to come in those days. 
 This same physician had gone thirty or forty. 
 
 By the fifth day, the snow was almost up 
 to the boy's shoulders. It melted a little, 
 
8 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 and the usual ice skim formed again. Then 
 it snowed no more. 
 
 The cold bright sun came out and trans- 
 figured the whole landscape, but to Arden 
 and his mother it brought little comfort. 
 The boy realized dimly that little Polly was 
 going to die. His mother seemed to have 
 forgotten the child, to a certain extent. 
 When she gave her a drink, or rocked her, 
 it was in a certain wooden fashion that made 
 her son afraid, though he did not know why. 
 All the rest of the time Mrs. Smith watched 
 for her husband. Arden knew that she 
 feared that his father had been captured by 
 the Indians. Keokuk, the old chief, had just 
 ceded to the United States all lands held by 
 his tribes east of the Mississippi River — and 
 this without the knowledge of his rival chief. 
 The treat}^ provided that Black Hawk and 
 his followers were to give up their village 
 and hunting grounds the next year. The 
 angry old chief had declared the treaty a 
 fraud, and was said to be trying to unite all 
 
THE BIG SNOW 9 
 
 the Indians against the whites. No war had 
 been declared, but there wxre rumors of ugly 
 happenings, and pioneers were banding to- 
 gether wherever they could, prepared to de- 
 fend the women and children. 
 
 On the tenth day after his father had left, 
 Arden went to the barn through the tunnel 
 he had shoveled. There he hunted until he 
 found a short log which had been sawed in 
 two, lengthwise. With his lips set, he began 
 to hollow out the halves, using his father's 
 adze. Bab}' Polly w^as going to die, and she 
 must have a cofhn. Under the circum- 
 stances, they could not dig her a little grave^ 
 but, he figured out, they could put her away 
 in the deep snow near the house, and when 
 the snow melted and help came, the}^ could 
 bury her properly. Her tiny, prett}^ body 
 would lie in the slowly growing hollow of one 
 log, and he would place the other over it, 
 binding the two together with hickory bark. 
 
 He was so shaken by the time that he had 
 finished hollowing out one piece that he 
 
lo OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 thrust his hands into his pockets, and went 
 out into the deep tunnel that led to the house. 
 As he stood on tiptoe and glanced over the 
 wide frozen prairie to the east, he suddenly 
 froze to attention. Outlined on a knoll far 
 away to his left, he saw plainly the form of 
 an Indian warrior. No other was as yet in 
 sight. 
 
 Panic-stricken, the boy ducked and dashed 
 madly into the barn, where he snatched up 
 the rude coffin and a few ears of corn. Then 
 he fled into the house. Polly slept peacefully 
 on the shuck bed at one end of the room, and 
 the fire w^as low on the hearth. His mother 
 had been frying doughnuts, and at the sight 
 of them, his eyes filled with tears, and he 
 winked hard to keep them back. It was his 
 mother's first real thought for him in all the 
 sad days which had passed since his father 
 left. Mrs. Smith read the evil news in his 
 face, and dropped the noggin of small fried 
 cakes. 
 
 "Indians.?" 
 
THE BIG SNOW ii 
 
 He nodded, speechless. 
 
 Then he found his voice. "We must get 
 into the cave," he cried, swiftly dropping to 
 his knees and pulling out the logs which 
 filled the entrance. "You make Polly a bed 
 in there, Mother, and I'll get some food and 
 water. Hurry ! There was only one Indian, 
 and he was about two miles away, I think — " 
 
 A/[rs. Smith, after she had rapidly made a 
 bed for little Polly and placed her on it in the 
 cave, gave a glance at the fire. It was very 
 low. She hastily poured cold ashes over it, 
 making it look blank and dead. Next, with 
 Arden's help, she wildly but silently put the 
 room in disorder, as if it had been the scene 
 of a violent struggle. She was not able, after 
 her long w^orry over her husband's delay, to 
 think clearly. But she figured out that, if 
 the Indians came, they w^ould find the place 
 so torn up that they w^ould think the owners 
 had been carried off by some enemy. 
 
 In a very short time the mother and child 
 were settled in the warm passage. Arden, 
 
12 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 after securing a flint and some dry tow chips, 
 crept in after them. Kneeling in the small 
 opening, he with difliculty pulled the settle 
 back in place. Then he arranged some sticks 
 of firewood under it, so that it might look to 
 one outside as if they had been carefully piled 
 there for future use. Next, building from 
 behind, he put in place the logs which con- 
 cealed the opening. This was the hardest 
 of all. 
 
 Thev w^aited in breathless terror. It was 
 not long before some one smote upon the door. 
 Then he felt, rather than heard, the room fill 
 with savages. At first the visitors seemed to 
 explore every corner of the cabin. The terri- 
 fied settlers could hear their guttural grunts, 
 and occasionally a few words in the native 
 tongue. There was next the sound of falling 
 pewter dishes, and then the savages seemed 
 to go outside. Arden fancied that they were 
 busy searching in the smoke-house and stable. 
 
 Little Polly gave a moan, and her mother 
 rocked her frantically in her arms. Suddenly 
 
THE BIG SNOW 13 
 
 Arden's heart gave a sickening leap, for he 
 heard some one taking away the wood in front 
 of the settle. 
 
 *^It has come," he thought. 
 
 He gripped tightly the sharp butcher knife 
 in his hand. The first Indian who peered in 
 under that settle would never speak again. 
 Of that he was sure. Should he, Arden, kill 
 his own mother, rather than let her be taken, 
 if capture was certain ? Men had been 
 known to kill their wives rather than to let 
 them become prisoners to be tortured. No, 
 he decided. There was a chance that they 
 would not be treated very harshly, and the 
 settlement (if all the men were not already 
 killed) might band together and rescue them. 
 It was a big decision for a boy to come to, 
 with a savage steadily working his way to 
 them. 
 
 Suddenly the sound of the removing of the 
 sticks ceased. After a short time there was 
 not a single sound in the cabin. Could the 
 Indians actually have gone awa}', questioned 
 
14 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 the boy, his heart thumping loudly. His 
 grasp on the butcher knife loosened a little. 
 Yes, they had. 
 
 At once he was possessed with a desire to 
 leave their hiding place. In spite of his 
 mother's alarm, he noiselessly pushed out 
 somewhat one of the logs in the opening. 
 He looked out. There was not a person in 
 the room, which was now in wilder disorder 
 than before. Then, through the outside door, 
 which had been left open, he saw a strange 
 sight. Going away from the cabin, on top of 
 the hard crust of the snow^, were the Indians. 
 Several of them — there were about ten in all 
 — were loaded down with the wild hogs 
 which Mr. Smith had stored in the smoke- 
 house for winter use. The other savages each 
 had food of some sort or other. The thing 
 which made Arden's eyes open wide was this : 
 every Indian, except those carrying the frozen 
 hogs, bore on his arrow some of the dough- 
 nuts which had been overturned before the 
 family w^ent into hiding ! One great fellow 
 
THE BIG SNOW 15 
 
 had a necklace of them around his neck. 
 And the last one in the little band, a slender 
 bov, carried off with him little Polly's coffin, 
 filled with the brown rings ! 
 
 "Mother! Mother! " 
 
 "What?" whispered Mrs. Smith. 
 
 "Come here quick and see something 
 funny ! They're going away. They were 
 just hungry, and we needn't have hidden. 
 Look there!" 
 
 When A/[rs. Smith saw her doughnuts 
 waved around on the points of the arrows 
 as the happy Indians went off to the east, in 
 spite of all her fright and trouble, she laughed. 
 
 After that day they saw no more redskins, 
 but a new anxiety arose. The visitors had 
 taken almost all of their provisions. The most 
 serious loss was the loss of the wild hogs, which 
 were to have lasted all winter. Luckily one 
 whole hog had been put down in salt, and 
 this the Indians had somehow missed. Arden 
 pounded corn in a mortar to make corn meal 
 and hominy. It grew harder and harder to 
 
i6 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 get the corn out of the shocks and into the 
 house. Twice Arden shot a deer, for the 
 starved creatures came without fear up to 
 the very door. They were so poor, however, 
 that they were worthless. 
 
 The only bright spot in their trouble lay in 
 the fact that little Polly was getting better. 
 The fever had almost left her, and although 
 she was still very weak, both the mother and 
 Arden felt that she would live. Mrs. Smith 
 had ceased to watch for her husband's return. 
 From her strained face and from the way 
 she spoke about the spring planting, the boy 
 knew that she hardly expected to see her hus- 
 band again. He had surely been captured by 
 Black Hawk and his tribe as they went west 
 on their annual hunting trip. 
 
 One morning, four months after Mr. Smith 
 had left, the two were sitting by the fire, 
 watching Polly patty-cake in her old happy 
 way. Suddenly they heard the loud barking 
 of a dog outside. It was a strange sound, 
 after so man}' weeks of blank, white silence, 
 
THE BIG SNOW 17 
 
 and It startled them so that they both 
 screamed. Little Polly began to cry. Then 
 the door opened and In walked Mr. Benson, 
 his face red with cold. 
 
 *'0h, did he get to you ? Have you seen 
 hlm.^" gasped Mrs. Smith. 
 
 "Indeed he did," answered Mr. Benson 
 heartily, "and just about saved our lives with 
 those hogs. I couldn't move, because of my 
 broken leg, and the children were too little 
 to hunt. But you'll be wanting to see him t 
 I'll bring him right In. You see, he had a 
 fight with wolves, and he was pretty well 
 chewed up when he fell against my door, 
 and—" 
 
 Mrs. Smith waited to hear no more, but 
 tossed her baby on to the bed. She rushed to 
 the door, and out Into the tunnel. There 
 she saw, on top of the snow, the old sled, and 
 on It lay her husband, pale, thin, and terribly 
 scarred. He was carefullv cushioned on bear 
 skins. But he was alive, and he was smiling ! 
 
 Arden and Mr. Benson carried him In and 
 
1 8 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 put him to bed, while little Polly crowed and 
 laughed at their joy. She was not afraid of 
 this new father with the red stripes on his 
 cheeks and hands. Too weak to stand, Mrs. 
 Smith knelt by the bed, her hand clasping 
 her husband's, while Mr. Benson told all of 
 the story he would ever tell. 
 
 Within a mile of the Benson home, Mr. 
 Smith had been attacked by a small pack of 
 wolves. He did not realize how serious was 
 his situation at first, for wolves were often 
 cowardly and easily killed. These were fierce 
 and very large, however, and he had a long 
 and hard fight. At last he killed every one, 
 losing only one hog in the fray. He himself 
 was badly wounded and suffered terribly 
 during the fight. He was delirious for two 
 wxeks, and too ill to travel until now. Mrs. 
 Benson could not leave the two sick men and 
 her three babies to send Mrs. Smith news of 
 her husband's safety, and thus the weeks 
 dragged on. Another neighbor brought pro- 
 visions to Mr. Benson just before the last of 
 
THE BIG SNOW 19 
 
 the wild hog meat was eaten, and he prom- 
 ised to carry the news to Mrs. Smith, and get 
 the doctor for the sick child, if the child still 
 lived. He had set off into the forest, and they 
 supposed he had arrived. They had no way 
 of knowing, for he was to return by a differ- 
 ent route. As soon as he was able to limp 
 along, Mr. Benson dragged his friend home. 
 
 The kindly neighbor was never heard of 
 again, and the people of the country searched 
 a long time for his body, after the great snow 
 finally melted. They never found it, and no 
 one ever knew what became of him. 
 
 Little Polly lived to be a rosy-cheeked, 
 blue-eved voung lady. She was known as 
 the belle of Lake Fork, the town which years 
 later sprang up at the edge of the timber. 
 At the country parties, when the young 
 people flocked about her, she used to tell, as 
 she folded her hands demurely over her ^'bit 
 calico" dress, how once upon a time the 
 Indians carried off her coffin full of dough- 
 nuts. 
 
MATTHEW'S FIRST BUCK 
 
 Matthew Coverdale was the youngest of 
 seven husky brothers who lived in the wooded 
 bend of Crow Creek. In those days a boy 
 who had not killed, or at least helped to kill, 
 a wolf or a bear, w^as unusual. And a boy 
 who had never killed a deer w^as practically 
 unknown. 
 
 Yet Matthew, who was fifteen, had never 
 dragged home his buck. The reason was 
 this : every time he started one and trium- 
 phantly chased him down, just as he raised 
 his gun to fire, he was overcome by the ''buck 
 ague." When the animal came bounding 
 rapidly toward him, his knees suddenly be- 
 came weak, his teeth chattered, and he shook 
 so that his shot always went wild. Even 
 older hunters occasionally were afflicted w^ith 
 this buck fever, but this did not console 
 
 20 
 
MATTHEW'S FIRST BUCK 21 
 
 Matthew. His family must have meat, and 
 have it often. It was necessary that he do 
 his part of the killing, and since venison was 
 plentiful, he suffered under his affliction more 
 and more. 
 
 One night just at supper time, his oldest 
 brother, Aaron, came home with a big buck 
 tied to his horse's tail. Old Dobbin had 
 dragged the carcass all the way, for it was too 
 heavy for one man to budge. Matthew left 
 his supply of mush and milk and went out 
 to see the animal. It was an immense 
 creature with wide-spreading horns. 
 
 "It's a ten point buck," cried Aaron 
 proudly, showing where his bullet had gone 
 through its heart. 
 
 As he stood there looking at the prize, 
 Matthew's heart suddenly flamed with am- 
 bition. He went back into the cabin, where 
 he ate his mush slowly. Then he pushed 
 back his stool. 
 
 "I'm going out to shoot a buck," he said, 
 "and I'm not coming back until I get one." 
 
22 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 With that he took down his gun from over 
 the door, and fastened in his belt a butcher 
 knife. Had his mother been alive, he prob- 
 ably would not have been allowed to start 
 off into the forest, at night, alone. His 
 father and brothers, however, thought him 
 well able to take care of himself. So, in the 
 moonlight, he started off in the direction of 
 Old Town Timber, which lay some miles 
 from Crow Creek. 
 
 He was unable to find anything, though 
 every now and then he heard cracklings in the 
 bushes, and the soft scamper of some wild- 
 wood thing. The hoot owls called down by 
 the river, and the screech owls near him 
 made him long, now and then, for his rude 
 bed at home. A screech owl in the thick 
 timber at night is not a pleasant companion. 
 
 Finally the boy crept into a hollow log and 
 slept the rest of the night. 
 
 In the morning, as he was rounding a thick 
 clump of timber, he came unawares upon a 
 Kickapoo great . dance. The Kickapoos at 
 
MATTHEW'S FIRST BUCK 
 
 23 
 
 that time were supposed to be friendly to the 
 whites, but Matthew felt nothing but terror 
 at finding himself in their midst. 
 
 "I won't dare slip off right away," he 
 thought as he stood on the edge of the crowd, 
 watching the dancers. 
 
 Indians in Groups of Two Were Dancing. 
 
 It was a strange sight. On the grassy 
 sward eight Indians, in groups of two, were 
 dancing around flat-footed, with tinkling 
 bells on their ankles. The chief, Old Ma- 
 china, to keep time to the dancers, was shak- 
 
24 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 ing gourds with little pebbles in them. There 
 was one other musical instrument. This was 
 a ten-gallon keg, with a deerskin drawn 
 tightly over one end. It was carried on the 
 back of a half-grown papoose and a painted 
 brave beat upon it with a stick. 
 
 Matthew continued to lurk in the circle of 
 admiring squaws gathered about the dancers, 
 and though he still thirsted to kill his buck, 
 he could not help being interested in the 
 queer proceedings. 
 
 The dancers' bodies were all painted black, 
 but over their breasts, in w^hite paint, a pair 
 of hands and arms crossed. Outside the im- 
 mediate circle of dancers stood a lithe young 
 Indian who held up a stick in the shape of a 
 gun. This, the boy afterward learned, was 
 supposed to be the symbol of peace. An- 
 other Indian, even taller and more lithe, held 
 up a tomahawk, his hand close to the blade. 
 No one was able to explain that to Matthew 
 afterward; in fact, they said he must have 
 imagined it. 
 
AlATTHEW'S FIRST BUCK 25 
 
 When the lad saw Old Machina drop the 
 head of a slaughtered deer into a pot, he 
 became a hunter again, and, choosing a mo- 
 ment when the Kickapoos were not looking, 
 he ran fleetly awav into the forest, and in the 
 direction of home. 
 
 There was not the trace of a deer. Try 
 as he would, he could discover no game 
 larger than a rabbit. Must he, with shamed 
 face, go home without any meat 1 
 
 Later in the afternoon, however, he started 
 a splendid buck. He was following the river, 
 and came upon the animal in a windy covert. 
 Now was his chance ! Could he, oh, could 
 he, master those trembling fingers 1 
 
 Gritting his teeth, he managed to ward off 
 the troublesome "buck ague" and shoot — 
 but he shot a little too far back to kill the 
 animal. He followed it down Crow Creek 
 and across the little hills. Just as the buck 
 rounded the last one, he saw it toss its head 
 up and down as if in dire pain and distress. 
 Taking heart by this, he crept closer, and 
 
26 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 finally, by slipping around so that the animal 
 stood sidewise to him, he shot it in the head. 
 Down it came, and the boy bounded up to it. 
 
 The big creature was not dead, how^ever, 
 and Matthew had a long, hard struggle with 
 it before it finally expired at his feet. 
 
 Then he could scarcely believe his eyes. 
 He had done his part ! He ^had killed his 
 buck ! And what a big one it w^as, with its 
 great, spreading horns ! Why, it must weigh 
 a ton ! 
 
 "But how'll I get it home .^" said Matthew 
 to a chattering fox squirrel who w^as scolding 
 him vigorously from a burr-oak. 
 
 The longer he thought, the more impos- 
 sible seemed this feat. He could not lift the 
 animal, even if he used all his strength. He 
 had no Old Dobbin to help him drag the 
 prize home. If he left it, the wild animals 
 would probably devour it, especially as it 
 was so near night. Although he had not 
 glimpsed anything savage, there were a few 
 wild bears in the timber, and numerous tim- 
 
MATTHEW'S FIRST BUCK 27 
 
 ber wolves. Possibly the KIckapoos would 
 come upon the creature, and Old Alachina 
 would make soup of its head ! llie thought 
 was too much for the boy, and again he tried 
 to lift his prize. It was of no use. 
 
 Now^ it began to grow dark. If Matthew 
 ever wished to cry, it was at that moment. 
 He longed to drag his buck up to the very 
 door of the cabin. Then he would walk into 
 the house where his father and brothers were 
 at supper. 
 
 "I've got a little something out here," he 
 would say. How they would pour out the 
 cabin door, and how they would exclaim at 
 the size of the creature ! 
 
 "It's the biggest one any of us has killed," 
 said poor Matthew, "and I can't tote it 
 home." 
 
 He gulped a little. 
 
 At this point a slight sound startled him. 
 Looking up, he saw an Indian. For a mo- 
 ment his heart quailed. Then he recognized 
 "Turkey," a Kickapoo so named by the 
 
28 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 settlers because of his habit of painting his face 
 a bright red. Turkey had often stopped at 
 the Coverdale house for food, when hunting 
 was poor. The Coverdales had always fed him. 
 
 "Ugh!" said Turkey, looking down at the 
 buck. 
 
 Perhaps the Indian would help him. 
 
 "Me kill buck. Can't tote him," cried 
 A/[atthew eagerly. He pointed to the buck, 
 then toward home ; next he looked eagerly 
 at the Indian. 
 
 "Ugh !" said Turkey impassively. 
 
 The boy tugged at the animal again, while 
 Turkey watched him without a flicker of 
 expression on his dark features. 
 
 Suddenly the Indian gave a queer call. 
 Was he summoning help to steal the prize ? 
 Matthew felt for his knife. 
 
 In answer to the cry, there rode out of the 
 woods an Indian on a stout pony. 
 
 "Ugh!" said Turkey. 
 
 "Ugh! Ugh!" said the second Kickapoo, 
 eyeing the buck. 
 
MATTHEW'S FIRST BUCK 
 
 29 
 
 There Rode out of the Woods an Indian on a Stout Pony. 
 
30 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 Then the two talked rapidly in the Indian 
 tongue. At last the newcomer began to 
 fasten the buck to the pony's tail. Turkey 
 motioned for the boy to follow him, and he 
 started off in the direction of the Coverdale 
 cabin. 
 
 And when the moon came up a little later, 
 it saw two stolid Indians and a pony, dragging 
 a buck, while beside them the happiest boy 
 in the world was turning handsprings all the 
 wav home. 
 
JUMPING JEPTHA 
 
 Long ago there lived in a patch in the 
 timber a family named Humphrey. They 
 had come from Virginia in the early 40's in a 
 "Virginia wagon," and were doing their 
 best to level the timber and cultivate the 
 ground. The wolves had gone from that 
 part of the country at the time this story 
 opens except for an occasional prowler in the 
 deepest river timber, and the only large wild 
 animals thereabouts were the beautiful big- 
 eyed deer and the sly red foxes. There were 
 four of the Humphreys : the father and 
 mother, James, aged fourteen, and Abigail 
 Rose, aged ten. All of them were used to 
 seeing a deer lift startled head and crash 
 away through the timber at their approach, 
 or a red flash in the woods denote a fleeing 
 
 31 
 
32 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 Reynard. It was not these animals that 
 troubled the Humphreys ; it was the rac- 
 coons. 
 
 There was one 'coon in particular who de- 
 fied James's stoutest efforts to capture him. 
 He was as large as a small fox, with five very 
 small black rings on his tail. He climbed 
 with swiftness, and he wore a face w^ser than 
 any owl or judge. It was for this last reason, 
 added to the fact that he could jump as wxU 
 as he could climb, that led Mr. Humphrey to 
 name the thief Jumping Jeptha. 
 
 Jeptha's chief passion was chicken. He 
 stole chickens daily, almost hourly, it seemed 
 to the good housewife. He carried off eggs 
 as fast as the indignant hens could lay them. 
 In the spring the corn was never safe. 
 
 Traps were set for the animal, but he 
 either passed them by or cleverly extracted 
 their bait. James had shot at him, only to 
 miss him time after time, as Jeptha jumped. 
 'Coon hunts had been organized, and other 
 'coons were slain, but Jeptha had been treed 
 
Jumping jeptha 33 
 
 but once — and the neighbors' dogs scarcely 
 lived to tell the tale. 
 
 In the fall of '45, Abby announced one 
 morning at breakfast her intention of killing 
 Jumping Jeptha. She looked up at the ceil- 
 ing of the cabin as she spoke. This ceiling 
 was lined thickly with the skins of raccoons 
 for warmth. 
 
 At the little girl's words her brother hooted 
 and her father smiled. 
 
 "Never mind," said Abby Rose valiantly. 
 " I am going to get him — you just see. He's 
 caught twenty-two of my chickens. I s'pect 
 he's got lots of my eggs, too, only I can't 
 prove that. Now I'm going to catch him, 
 and before I'm 'leven years old, too." 
 
 "I'll get you a pink dress from the store If 
 you do," said her mother. "I'll use the next 
 butter monev for a start." 
 
 "And I'll have a real pair of shoes made for 
 you," smiled her father. 
 
 "And I'll get you some candy," teased 
 James. 
 
34 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 You cannot Imagine how wonderful these 
 promises were to Abb}', for in those days lux- 
 uries practically did not exist, and many a 
 child never tasted candy until he was grown. 
 
 The family had planned to do all this for 
 Abigail already, for a dearer, sweeter little 
 frontier maid never existed, but the child 
 did not know this. Her dearest wish was 
 to own a pink calico dress sprigged w^ith black, 
 and to have a pair of copper-toed shoes like 
 her brother's. At that time children wxnt 
 barefoot into the frosty fall. Abby, in her 
 few short w^inters, had had but one pair of 
 shoes ; the rest of the time she wore heavy 
 home-made moccasins. Butter was the prin- 
 cipal thing the Humphreys sold at the store 
 in the far-off town, and it brought only 
 eight cents a pound in trade. Hence ''store 
 clothes" for the family were few. 
 
 The little girl's blue eyes widened now, 
 and a bright light shone in them. She 
 tossed her square little chin, and strode with 
 long steps to the door. 
 
JUMPING JEPTHA 35 
 
 ''I'm not going to catch him in any old 
 way," she explained as she turned conde- 
 scendindv, " 'cause you've all tried that and 
 failed. I'm going to find a new way." 
 
 Then she disappeared, while her father 
 laughed again. 
 
 Abby's birthday, the tenth of September, 
 drew nearer and nearer, but she had made 
 no move, seemingly, to capture her enemy. 
 In the meantime he had carried off two more 
 chickens, Draggle-tail and Buff. She lis- 
 tened thoughtfully to all the accounts of coon- 
 hunting told by her father and brother and 
 their few .neighbors, and she paid particular 
 attention to Jeptha's peculiarities. He had 
 a notch out of one ear, where a rash dog had 
 tackled him. The rings on his tail were 
 blacker than jet, and unusually broad. Un- 
 like most raccoons, he occasionally came out 
 of his hollow tree in the davtime, and went 
 on a foray. James had seen him once, at 
 ten o'clock in the morning, at the base of the 
 old bee-tree in the hollow on Sugar Creek. 
 
36 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 He had some food grasped In both his fore 
 paws, and was shaking it violently back and 
 forth in the water. When he saw James, 
 he immediately shot up into the bee-tree, 
 where he leered in triumph. More than 
 once, when hunted, had he sought a tree too 
 big to be cut, and particularly this bee-tree. 
 Because there was so much wild honey in 
 the neighborhood, no one had taken the 
 trouble to cut down this immense oak and 
 Jeptha gloriously came and went. 
 
 The familv now often found Abby seated 
 in deep thought on the settle, or wandering 
 absently in the woods. To all their good- 
 natured jeers she returned a quiet smile and 
 answered, 'Tm thinking out a new way." 
 
 In the meantime she had discovered the 
 den of her enemy — something the others 
 had failed to do. When she reported this 
 fact, it was the day before her birthday. Mr. 
 Humphrey, thinking she had given up her 
 notion of capture, himself decided to catch 
 the wily Jeptha. 
 
JUMPING JEPTHA 37 
 
 Immediately Abby spoke up. 
 
 *' He'll go to his den," she said. 
 
 ^'Pll head him off." 
 
 ^' He'll go up a big tree." 
 
 ^'I'll wait till he comes down." 
 
 'Tm going with you," said the little girl 
 calmly, '^and I'll catch him after you're 
 through, with Carlo." 
 
 Carlo was a lean, mournful-looking hound 
 whom a neighbor had recently given the 
 child. She had trained the dog to perfect 
 obedience. 
 
 Mr. Humphrey laughed, and Mrs. Hum- 
 phrey protested, but finally Abby had her 
 w^ay. When it grew^ dark her father lighted 
 a great, rude torch, and called his dogs, three 
 in number. James went along to scoff, and 
 even her mother threw a shawl around her 
 shoulders and followed her little family into 
 the night. 
 
 ''Father," said Abby, before they came to 
 the bee-tree, "I want to whisper something 
 to you." 
 
38 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 Mr. Humphrey stooped, and Abby cupped 
 her two small red hands and whispered in his 
 ear. All the while James jeered softly at her. 
 When the little girl skipped away and danced 
 a few steps in the moonlight, her father 
 looked at her admiringly. 
 
 "See here, son," he said, "right now I link 
 my fortune with.Abby's. I've hunted Jeptha 
 with you for two years, and we've neither 
 been able to catch him. Now Fm ready to 
 change partners." 
 
 "All right," grinned James, "only, if you 
 say that, Fm bound to get him now. I 
 hadn't meant to to-night, but now you watch 
 me get him all by myself. Then, Miss Abby, 
 you just watch me wearing that new calico 
 dress of yours !" 
 
 "How are you going to get Jeptha?" 
 asked the child, without a smile. 
 
 "Well, I'm not going to let him get up a 
 big tree this time, and when I chop a little 
 one down, the dogs will make short work of 
 Mr. 'Coon." 
 
JUMPING JEPTHA 39 
 
 They walked on through the dark, fra- 
 grant forest, their ears alert for every sound. 
 Suddenly, while the four dogs were scouring 
 eagerly through the woods, Abby, who was 
 a little in advance of the others, gave an ex- 
 clamation. In an open space along the 
 creek, she had seen, in the moonlight, Jeptha 
 washing his food in the water. She saw 
 plainly his wise old face with its notched ear. 
 Instantly he made a dash and went up the 
 bee-tree which rose, mysterious and black, a 
 short distance away. At the same moment 
 the hounds began baying, for they had come 
 upon his scent in the timber. Soon they 
 were at the foot of the bee-tree, leaping and 
 barking madl}-^. 
 
 James lifted high the rough torch, and the 
 little group could easily see Jeptha sitting on 
 a large limb, and looking at them warily. 
 
 ''It's no use waiting here," said James 
 gloomily, after he had calmed the dogs some- 
 what. "He'll stay up there all night. And 
 it would take a giant to cut this tree down." 
 
40 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 n 
 
 Jeptha Sitting on a Large Limb, and Looking at Them ' 
 
 Warily. 
 
JUMPING JEPTHA 41 
 
 "I can get him," said Abby, shaking with 
 excitement. 
 
 ''You!" scoffed James. ''What will you 
 do ? Climb up and push him off .f^" 
 
 "No," cried Abby, dancing about. "You 
 tell him, Father, what I want him to do." 
 
 "Abby says," explained Mr. Humphrey, 
 "that Jeptha would stay there two weeks if 
 we would stay here as long as that, and that 
 waiting will do no good, as you say. She 
 also says that she's noticed that when hunters 
 leave Jeptha (and how she discovered it, 
 don't ask me) he comes down at once, and 
 goes in the opposite direction from that they 
 have taken. Now she Vv^ill take Carlo and 
 make a detour, coming up behind that 
 bowlder over there. We'll wait here till 
 we're sure she's hidden, then we'll make a 
 a lot of noise and with the other dogs pass 
 the bee-tree on a direct line awav from here, 
 and go out of sight and hearing. Abby 
 promises to get Jeptha then, by a trick." 
 
 Still scoffing, after he had waited five or 
 
42 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 ten minutes more for Jeptha to show signs of 
 coming down from the tree, James consented 
 to go with his father. Mrs. Humphrey gave 
 one anxious glance at the big bowlder, and 
 then they all went away. 
 
 Abby crouched behind this big bowlder, 
 her hand on Carlo's head, to keep him quiet. 
 She was shaking a little with the terror of 
 being alone in the forest at night. She was 
 sure that every rustle was a poisonous snake, 
 and the bushes took on the outlines of bears, 
 although she knew that there were no bears 
 in that part of the country. Once she 
 almost ran frantically after her family — ■ 
 then she remembered the pink calico dress, 
 and crouched low again. 
 
 It seemed to the small girl like an hour, 
 but it was only about fifteen minutes after 
 the others were out of hearing, before she 
 heard Jeptha sliding down the tree. From 
 the shadows of her position she peered cau- 
 tiously over the edge of the bowlder. Yes, 
 there he was, the sinner, looking craftily 
 
JUMPING JEPTHA 43 
 
 around to see if his enemies were really gone. 
 Carlo moved Impatiently, and Abby quieted 
 him. A false move now would spoil the 
 game. 
 
 Old Jeptha continued slipping and watch- 
 ing until he dropped to the ground. Then, 
 glancing slyly in the direction that his hunters 
 had gone, he scurried straight toward Abby 
 and her dog. In a second he was at their 
 side. Carlo leaped. 
 
 Abby never forgot that struggle In the for- 
 est. Although Jeptha had been taken at a 
 disadvantage as he scurried along, chuckling 
 to himself, he fought valiantly. It was all 
 Carlo could do to hold his own, but after a 
 long struggle, he got the animal by the back 
 of the neck and shook him until he shook him 
 to death. It was at this moment that Abby's 
 father came running up. His shout brought 
 the others. There, dead at last, never to 
 rob again, lay Jumping Jeptha ! 
 
 Abby was at once given her pink dress and 
 the wonderful copper-toed shoes, and her 
 
44 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 mother took two eggs and much butter to 
 bake her a birthday cake, just like those of 
 the little girls in old England. Added to that, 
 the story of Abby's capture of Jeptha spread 
 over the countryside, and after that many 
 were the hunters who captured wily 'coons 
 by her Ingenious little plan. 
 
THE PATTERN 
 
 It was the middle of the afternoon, and 
 the May sun shone brightly down on the 
 Wiggin farm. It w^as a very small farm, for 
 as yet Mr. Wiggin and his tall son Jim had 
 been able to clear only seven acres. These 
 acres lay in the very heart of the timber, but 
 somehow their owner seemed to prosper more 
 than the average pioneer of his time. The 
 Indians no longer crept with painted bodies 
 through the long, dark forest stretches, and 
 the wolves and bears were seen less and less. 
 The 'coons, the weasels, the snakes, and the 
 crows (who were continually carrying off 
 young chickens) were practically the only 
 wild things to be caught or put to death. 
 
 On this warm day, the two doors of the 
 big log cabin wxre flung open. Little Martha, 
 the red-headed baby, played in the east door- 
 
 45 
 
46 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 way. She was talking happily to the white 
 chickens who kept craning their long, half- 
 feathered necks to peer in at her. Bending 
 over the table in the middle of the cabin was 
 Bessie, the oldest daughter of the house. 
 She was laying several yards of bright green 
 calico in pleats, then standing off to admire 
 the effect. This calico, which had a tiny 
 black polka dot figure, had been bought with 
 the butter money, plus twenty-five cents 
 which Bessie had received for a dozen quails. 
 Butter brought five cents a pound. Bessie 
 had proudly ridden to town with the butter 
 and the quails, and the storekeeper in the 
 rough log store had cut oif for her with his 
 shining scissors seven yards of the precious 
 calico. The girl's butter alone could not 
 have bought the gown, but her brother had 
 generously donated the quails, and her father 
 had added a cord of wood. When he hauled 
 this to tow^n with the oxen, the storekeeper 
 had given him a dollar for it. Bessie and 
 her father saw no money as they sold their 
 
THE PATTERN 47 
 
 wares, for there was hardly any In the timber 
 country. All bargains were made by trading. 
 
 ^'Mother," she said suddenly, 'Tm not 
 going to cut out this dress without a pattern. 
 I'm going over to Nettie Ray's and get that 
 one she got from her cousin Ruth, down on 
 Big Muddy River." 
 
 At that time a pattern for making a dress 
 was as precious as a handful of dollars. One 
 rude paper draught for a dress was passed 
 around among twenty or thirty or even fifty 
 families over the countryside. If the pat- 
 tern was made in the beginning for a very 
 round and large w^oman, slender little maids 
 of sixteen had some difficulty in fitting the 
 gowns cut from it. They always managed 
 it, however, and no one cared because prac- 
 tically every w^oman for miles and miles had 
 a frock like hers. 
 
 *'I don't care what you do," groaned a 
 voice from the bed. Bessie's mother lay 
 there; she was having her attack of "Illinois 
 Shakes." On a second bed lay the girl's 
 
48 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 grandmother. She, also, was 111. The two 
 women were pale and yellow, as if frost- 
 bitten, and now and then they groaned In 
 their misery. Near the west door sat Bessie's 
 grandfather, w^ho had just recovered from the 
 burning fever which followed the chills of 
 this disease to which all pioneers in Illinois 
 fell victim. Grandfather was w^eak and pale. 
 He turned slow eyes on his pretty grand- 
 daughter. 
 
 *^ Isn't this your day for the shakes.^" he 
 asked feeblv. 
 
 *^Yes, but they don't come on till four 
 o'clock. I can easily get back by that time," 
 returned Bessie cheerfully. 
 
 '^ Bessie, you bring me the boneset tea," 
 said her mother weaklv. 
 
 '^And bring me Brady' s Bitters^^^ quavered 
 her grandmother. 
 
 The girl obeyed, and the two sick w^omen 
 drank deep of the medicine. In the fall 
 every one on the swampy prairie took the 
 chills and fever, more commonly known as 
 
THE PATTERN 49 
 
 the Illinois shakes. This disease was not 
 contagious, but it sometimes affected a whole 
 family at once, and even a whole neighbor- 
 hood. The chills came on at the same hour 
 every day, or every alternate day, with deadly 
 regularity. They wxre followed by a burning 
 fever which left the patient so weak that he 
 could not work at all. Bessie's family had 
 been having the shakes for about a year now. 
 
 ^'If I wasn't just gettin' over my shakes, 
 I'd go for you," quavered Grandfather. 
 
 ^^It's a passel o' nonsense, anyway," said 
 Grandmother, sitting up in bed and trying 
 to control her shaking. ^'All a passel o' non- 
 sense ! Why can't you cut out that dress 
 just like your last 1 Joe'U like you just as 
 well. Anyway, Ruth is as big as a moose- 
 cow, and you'll have to whittle that pattern 
 down turrlble." 
 
 The girl flushed but did not answer. To 
 tell the truth, the desire to look pretty In the 
 eyes of her honest backwoods lover, Joe 
 Brown, was gone. 
 
 E 
 
so OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 The young schoolmaster, Mr. Hicks, who 
 was to teach the Big Muddy school next year, 
 was reported to be very handsome. Bessie 
 was to meet him the next Thursday night at 
 a party. A party was always a great event 
 in the timber countr}^ and the girl wished to 
 look as lovely as possible in her new calico. 
 
 She daubed a bit of sorghum molasses on 
 the baby's left hand, and hastily stuck on it 
 a chicken feather. Pulling this sticky feather, 
 first from one hand, then from the other, 
 would keep the baby so contented that he 
 would not cry. Then, bareheaded, swing- 
 ing her sunbonnet by one string, she ran 
 merrily through the tiny strip of cornfield 
 and plunged into the forest. 
 
 It was dark and cool there. The weather 
 had been unusually warm for May, and to 
 walk here was a relief. Along the forest path 
 she saw delicate pink lady-slippers growing, 
 and here and there were low clumps of spider- 
 wort. She chased a clumsy whippoorwill 
 for several yards, and then, looking carefully 
 
THE PATTERN 51 
 
 about her for rattlesnakes, she wandered off 
 the path to explore a new portion of the 
 forest. The sun w^as much lower in the sky 
 when she came out in the clearing belonging 
 to the Rays'. 
 
 The Ray cabin was built exactly like that 
 of the Wiggins', except that it was smaller. 
 It was full of bouncing children of all ages 
 and sizes, and they overflowed into the yard 
 when they heard Bessie's clear call. They 
 clung about her like bees to a flower, and 
 they pushed her into the house where a big 
 pan of molasses taffy was cooling on the 
 table. 
 
 "You can help us pull it," cried little Ben 
 Ray. He strutted about proudly in his bufl" 
 dress, which flared quaintly at the bottom. 
 
 Bessie did stay to help pull it, although 
 she knew that she should not do so. After 
 the candy had been eaten, she climbed into 
 the cabin loft with Anne, who was just her 
 own age, to see the coral earrings brought 
 from "Old Virginia" recently by one of Mrs. 
 
52 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 Ray's cousins. These were an heirloom, and 
 Anne was to wear them the night of the 
 wonderful party. Bessie's heart sank. Who 
 would look at her, even in the beautiful new 
 calico, if Anne wore in her pretty ears those 
 lovely earrings ^ There were none like them 
 anywhere in the timber. 
 
 Bessie soberly said good-by, and slipped 
 away home, after a sticky kiss from Ben. 
 Wrapped in a precious year-old newspaper 
 from St. Louis, she carried the treasured pat- 
 tern. As she got farther into the forest, the 
 memory of the jewels dimmed a little, and 
 she danced along, thinking of her finery to 
 be. Then suddenly, almost without warn- 
 ing, the ague seized her. In a second she 
 realized what had happened ; she had lin- 
 gered too long at the Rays'. She was now 
 a mile from home. Her teeth chattering 
 violently, she sat down upon a log to wait 
 until the ague should cease. In about half 
 an hour the attack was over, but the fierce 
 fever came on and burned her through and 
 
THE PATTERN 53 
 
 through. She rose unsteadily, and tried 
 to walk homeward, but the way seemed 
 strangely unfamiliar. She realized that she 
 was flighty, and tried to call back her every- 
 day senses, but they seemed to escape her, 
 squeaking and gibbering at her from behind 
 every dead stump and little bush. She pur- 
 sued one of these strange little creatures for 
 miles, and at last she triumphantly brought 
 it to bay near a hollow log. She reached out 
 to catch it, even though she hated it because 
 it had such beady little eyes and wicked little 
 tongue. Suddenly she heard a loud cry ; 
 then Joe came leaping through the forest 
 with a forked stick in his hands. She knew 
 no more. 
 
 They told her later that Joe carried her 
 home. He had been going through the tim- 
 ber hunting for some lost hogs, when he 
 caught sight of a blue dress. Going closer 
 to discover the owner, he found Bessie sitting 
 down near a log. Against this log was coiled 
 an angry rattlesnake, ready to strike. Bessie, 
 
54 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 who was delirious with fever, was just reach- 
 ing out her hand to grasp it, when Joe sprang 
 forward with his forked stick. He pressed 
 the snake's ugly head to the ground and 
 swiftly killed the reptile. 
 
 ''She was callin' the varmint her common 
 sense," said Joe, "and beggin' it to come back 
 to her." 
 
 Bessie was none the worse for her adven- 
 ture. She soon cut out her green calico by 
 the much-prized pattern, made it, and wore 
 it to the party. At Christmas time she and 
 Joe were married, and they went to live in a 
 little new cabin of their own, with great deer 
 antlers over the fireplace, and two pretty 
 pink shells on a shelf. And the wedding 
 gift that Bessie treasured most came from 
 Joe's mother. She had had it a long time 
 in the bottom of her blue chest. It was a 
 pair of coral earrings, every whit as beautiful 
 as those of Anne Ray. 
 
AN ADVENTURE ON THE ROAD 
 
 The Fleming family, who had come to 
 Illinois from Indiana in the days of long ago, 
 lived in a bend of the Sangamon River, not 
 far from where the city of Springfield now 
 stands. By hard work Mr. Fleming and his 
 half-grown sons had made the usual clear- 
 ing in the timber and constructed their rude 
 cabin with the ceiling lined with skins for 
 protection from the severe cold. In this 
 cabin the family lived as happily as any 
 family can in a wilderness. By this time 
 the Indians had ridden away to the south 
 and west, all who had not gone to their own 
 mysterious happy hunting-grounds. 
 
 No dangerous wild beast had been seen 
 near the Fleming home for over a year, and 
 so, when Mary Ellen said she would go to 
 the mill, her father did not object. It was 
 
 55 
 
56 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 in the early fall, and he and the big brothers 
 were busy burning stumps and clearing brush 
 from the little farm. They begrudged the 
 time it would take to ride six miles to the 
 mill. This mill stood in a little valley through 
 which the creek came rushing ; it was a very 
 rough affair of logs run by the cheeriest round 
 little miller that ever grew dusty grinding 
 corn. He was really the newspaper for the 
 countryside. For twenty miles people came 
 to have their grain ground, and to hear the 
 miller laugh with his fat cheeks, round and 
 red, blown out until the mirth exploded 
 through his lips. 
 
 It was not the miller, however, who was 
 the attraction for Mary Ellen. It was his 
 daughter Ruth. Ruth was a slender little 
 girl, twelve years old. She had eyes the color 
 of the dark blue spiderwort, and her hair was 
 as silky and as golden as the silk on the 
 Indian maize. Ruth, in spite of her frail 
 looks, could climb trees like a monkey, jump- 
 ins: from them as nimbly as a goat — in 
 
AN ADVENTURE ON THE ROAD 57 
 
 short, she was a perfect comrade for wilder- 
 ness play. A/Iary Ellen worshiped her, and 
 now, when there was sudden need of corn to 
 be milled, she begged to go. 
 
 ^'Vm 'leven years old," she said, "and 
 nothing will hurt me. Fve been with Father 
 lots and lots of times." 
 
 "The timber is so thick, and vou mieht 
 meet some animal," objected her mother. 
 
 "None's been seen so long I reckon they're 
 all killed off," returned her father comfort- 
 ably. "It's all right for her to go, I suppose. 
 That bear they got down on Crow Creek last 
 year must have been the last of his tribe." 
 
 So it was decided that Mary Ellen should 
 go. She mounted their one shaggy horse, 
 and with a leather bag of grain nicely balanced 
 in front of her, she started off on her journey. 
 
 "Daughter, tie your sunbonnet on," cried 
 her mother after her, "or you will lose it." 
 
 But the girl, to whom a black sunbonnet 
 was an ever present trial, simply pulled the 
 covering over her head a little tighter, and 
 
S8 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 struck old Bess with the flat of her hand to 
 make her go faster. 
 
 It was a lovely ride through the timber, 
 and Mary Ellen enjoyed every minute of it. 
 The cool afternoon shadows lay across the 
 open places in queer black patterns, and 
 everywhere grew the lovely autumn flowers 
 and berries. There was yellow resin-weed 
 where the trees were thinnest, as high as the 
 horse's back, and the Black-eyed Susans 
 lifted cheerful faces from the ground. In the 
 deeper timber the delicate wild touch-me- 
 nots grew thick, and in mellow shafts of sun- 
 light, were thin, fairy-like stalks of golden- 
 rod. Once a Kentucky cardinal flashed across 
 her path. The little girl let the horse jog 
 slowly along while she sang a refrain which 
 had been running through her head. 
 
 a 
 
 O sister Phoebe, 
 
 How happy were we 
 The night w^e sat under 
 
 The juniper tree." 
 
i 
 
 AN ADVENTURE ON THE ROAD 59 
 
 She was singing this for the twentieth time 
 in her clear voice, when suddenly Old Bess 
 stood stock-still. She snorted, and refused 
 to go another step. Mary Ellen looked 
 around in amazement to see what had 
 startled her faithful old friend. To her 
 terror, she saw on a branch of a near-by oak, 
 a great panther, ready to spring at her. She 
 beat the horse frantically with her heels and 
 hands then, and tried to make Old Bess run, 
 but the animal only stood still, eyeing the 
 panther. 
 
 The lithe creature in the tree could wait 
 no longer for his prey, and sprang. He 
 leaped right at the child's head, and his claws 
 caught in the black bonnet. As Alary Ellen 
 had not obeyed her mother and tied the 
 strings under her chin, the bonnet and the 
 panther went to the ground. The girl 
 screamed, and the frightened horse plunged 
 madly forward ; soon they were fleeing like 
 the wind down the trail which led to the jolly 
 miller. 
 
6o 
 
 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 On the Branch of an Oak was a Great Panther Ready to 
 
 Spring at Her. 
 
AN ADVENTURE ON THE ROAD 6i 
 
 With cheeks of chalk and long hair flying, 
 she at last galloped up to the humming mill. 
 There she fell in a heap from the horse's back, 
 as the dusty miller and his daughter ran out 
 to find the cause of the flying hoofs. At first, 
 when she told her tale, her friends were in- 
 clined to disbelieve her, as no panther had 
 been seen in that -portion of the country for 
 years. As Mary Ellen repeated her story, 
 now with loud sobs, the miller grew serious. 
 He left the mill in charge of his women folk, 
 and, calling his three brawny sons, they set 
 out on the trail over which Mary Ellen had 
 come. There they found the torn sunbonnet, 
 but of the panther there was not a sign, 
 though they hunted long. 
 
 Alary Ellen did not go home that night, for 
 she was too upset by her unexpected adven- 
 ture. The next day the miller's oldest son 
 rode back with her, carrying the corn meal. 
 In spite of all her terror and her flying ride, 
 the child had somehow clung to the bag of 
 corn and brought it safely to the mill. 
 
62 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 Several weeks later, some men who were 
 hunting bee-trees along the creek, came upon 
 the panther and killed him. He was an im- 
 mense fellow with a tawny skin, and the 
 Flemings shuddered as they realized how 
 near their daughter came to death in her 
 encounter with the savage beast. 
 
 ''For once I am glad you did not obey me, 
 my child," said Mrs. Fleming. "If your 
 sunbonnet strings had been tied, you'd never 
 have escaped." 
 
 ''So'm I, Mother," returned Mary Ellen, 
 clinging to her mother's hand. 
 
 "But I don't think it's a safe rule to follow 
 except when panthers are after you, do you, 
 Mary Ellen .^" asked her father. 
 
 And Mary Ellen said no. 
 
THE BARRING OUT ON PANTHER 
 
 CREEK 
 
 One cold December morning in the year 
 1850, little Tommy Dean twisted about on his 
 uncomfortable seat in the old log schoolhouse 
 on Panther Creek. Try as he would, in spite 
 of warning glances from the older boys, he 
 could not sit still. When would it happen ^ 
 How could they manage it ^ What would 
 Mr. Dow do .? 
 
 Tommy looked fearfully up to the front of 
 the room, where the schoolmaster, Jonathan 
 Dow by name, sat on a platform. This long- 
 legged master was an unusual character in 
 the settlement. Unlike the few teachers who 
 had come before him, he refused to ''board 
 round" at the different cabins in the district, 
 but insisted on boarding himself at the school. 
 He lived on a vegetable diet ; he kept apples 
 
 63 
 
64 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 and potatoes stored beneath the floor of the 
 schoolhouse, and occasionally corncakes given 
 to him by a pitying housewife. 
 
 To his seventeen pupils, the ''barring out" 
 of such a provoking kind of teacher was no 
 small problem. A sensible teacher went home 
 at night and did not come back until eight 
 o'clock the next day. You got there at 
 seven, and, aided by your lusty schoolmates, 
 you barricaded the door stoutly. When the 
 master arrived, you demanded fiercely that 
 he promise to treat you to apples and cider. 
 If he refused, you held the fort until the 
 enemy gave way ; then you let him in. 
 
 At last Tommy's mates thought of a plan, 
 and this December morning was to see it 
 carried out. No wonder Tommy, who was 
 just six, squirmed on his bench. 
 
 Promptly at eleven o'clock, John O'Dell, 
 after asking permission, went noisily to the 
 little room off the front end of the building. 
 This served as both woodshed and cloakroom. 
 The outside door to this was not visible from 
 
THE BARRING OUT ON PANTHER CREEK 65 
 
 the master's platform. In this room, when 
 the weather was warm enough, stood the 
 water paiL To this pail went John, and 
 drank noisily. Presently the waiting pupils 
 heard him open the outer door. He came 
 back with an important face and went straight 
 to Mr. Dow's desk. 
 
 "Phoebe Jones is out there in the sleigh," 
 he whispered in a stage whisper, "and she 
 wants to talk with you a minute." 
 
 Now Jonathan Dow had been sitting where 
 he commanded a view of the road from each 
 side of the house, and while the greased 
 papers in the windows were dirty, he was 
 sure that he would have seen Phoebe, who 
 was like the freshness of the morning. He 
 had heard or seen no sled on the crisp, spar- 
 kling snow. 
 
 Very well, John," smiled the master, "tell 
 her to come in and get w^arm." 
 
 She — she said she wanted you to come 
 out," hesitated the boy. 
 
 That is impossible," returned the school- 
 
 F 
 
 u 
 
66 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 master calmly. ^'Spelling class, come for- 
 ward." 
 
 *'Aw, let's put him out, fellows!" called 
 John angrily, seeing that his clumsy ruse had 
 failed. "Come on; he's afraid of us, any- 
 way." 
 
 In fact, the rumor had gone around the 
 settlement that the master was surely afraid 
 of the boys, else why did he not whip them ? 
 To be sure, he had a way with him ; every- 
 body admitted that — and the pupils obeyed. 
 But a good teacher never spared the rod, 
 people thought, in those days. That Jona- 
 than Dow was not secretlv afraid of them 
 never entered the heads of his seven husky 
 boys. 
 
 At John's ringing words, bedlam broke 
 loose. Benches were overturned, as well as 
 the master's rude puncheon desk. Aaron 
 Thwill's head went through the greased paper 
 of the window on the south, and Aquilla 
 Long, before the fray was over, found his 
 head being soused up and down in the water 
 
THE BARRING OUT ON PANTHER CREEK 67 
 
 bucket by Mr. Dow. Seven husky, half- 
 grown farmer lads are a problem for any 
 teacher to handle, however, and after ten 
 minutes of hard fighting, the vegetable-loving 
 teacher was thrust out the door. Immedi- 
 ately it was slammed behind him, and the 
 pupils began a vigorous barricading. They 
 suddenly stopped in their work, for the ten 
 girls of assorted sizes were most of them 
 crying. 
 
 '* Let's send the cry-babies home," said big 
 John at last, and forthwith the girls were 
 hurried into their cloaks and hoods and out 
 into the snow. 
 
 The barricading began anew, but as the 
 master had gone away, and showed no inten- 
 tion of coming back, the boys at length un- 
 barred the door, and came out into the school- 
 yard. There they built a snow man, and 
 pelted him with snowballs. Finally they 
 made a snow^ fort, and had a pitched battle, 
 lasting for over a half hour. Their disap- 
 pointment because the teacher did not come 
 
68 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 back was lost in the joy of an unaccustomed 
 holiday, and they forgot to keep a sharp look- 
 out for the return of Air. Dow. He did not 
 appear, however. 
 
 At noon they ate their lunches, with much 
 scuffling and laughter, on the master's plat- 
 form. When they had chased down every 
 stray crumb on their clothes and devoured 
 it, they went back into the yard again, and 
 made a larger and even grander fort. It was 
 barely completed, when Jimmie Schneiders 
 saw old Pansy Alitchell coming down the 
 road on her lean calico pony. Pansy Mitchell 
 was a wrinkled, thin woman who gathered 
 herbs all summer long, and went about nurs- 
 ing people. 
 
 "I reckon Sam Tolliver's sick again," said 
 Jimmie. '^ Here comes Old Pansy." 
 
 The boys by this time were all on the south 
 side of the wall of snow, and they raised their 
 heads to peer over the bank. Sure enough, 
 it was Pansy, dressed in the same old green 
 coat with its many capes, each one just a 
 
THE BARRING OUT ON PANTHER CREEK 69 
 
 little smaller than the other, and the same 
 weatherbeaten black sunbonnet which she 
 always wore, summer or winter. To their 
 surprise, instead of going on down the snowy 
 road, she dismounted leisurely, tied the pony, 
 and went toward the schoolhouse. Out of 
 curiosity the boys kept still. 
 
 *^ Won't she be s'prised," giggled Jimmie, 
 "when she finds us all gone.^" 
 
 His companions chuckled, and rolled in 
 the snow for joy, as they waited for Pansy's 
 amazed face to appear in the doorway. But 
 it did not. There was not a sound within 
 the schoolhouse. 
 
 The bo}'^s grew curious. Finally Jimmy 
 was delegated to creep up to the outer door, 
 slip into the cloakroom, and peep into the 
 main room to see if Pansy, like Lot's wife, 
 had been turned into a pillar of salt. 
 
 Jimmie crept. He peeped. Then he ut- 
 tered a strange cry, a cry which brought his 
 schoolmates to his side in a hurry. They 
 could scarcely believe their eyes, for there 
 
70 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 on the platform, leisurely reading a book, sat 
 the master. Across his knees lay a hickory 
 rod, and he absently rolled It a bit now and 
 then as he turned a page. On the rude pun- 
 cheon desk hung Old Pansy's cloak and sun- 
 bonnet. 
 
 ''He fooled us!" yelled JImmle. His de- 
 light In the master's trick overcame his fear 
 of "Old Tickler" lying on the master's knees. 
 
 At that the teacher looked up. The smile 
 that then went over his face made every boy 
 his sworn friend for life. He rose, put the rod 
 in the corner, straightened his frayed cuffs, 
 and turned to his flock. 
 
 ''I wonder," he drawled, "if a little treat 
 of apples and cider would be In season .^" 
 
 Would It ? As If in answer to the joyous 
 whoop of the boys, the girls poured Into the 
 building. Mr. Dow loosened a puncheon In 
 the floor and took from his secret cupboard a 
 peck of rosy apples and a brown jug full of 
 cider. In addition to this he brought forth 
 a rude basket filled with doughnuts. In a 
 
THE BARRING OUT ON PANTHER CREEK 71 
 
 few seconds there were no happier children 
 in the whole west than the boys and girls of 
 the Panther Creek school. 
 
 Long was the tale of that barring-out told 
 through the timber, and devoted were all the 
 boys to the master from that day. The only 
 one who had suffered at all was Old Pansy, 
 on w^hose cascade of capes Jimmie had spilled 
 a cup of cider. 
 
 *'But then," said Old Pansy, as she brewed 
 her herbs, *'I reckon it was worth it." 
 
THE PERILOUS CAPTURE OF SUKEY 
 
 MATILDA 
 
 Once upon a time, a great, great many years 
 ago, two little girls stood on opposite banks 
 of a muddy winding river in the western 
 wilderness. The river w^as the Sangamon, 
 and the little girls were Harriet Stevens 
 and little Lucy Ward. It was a lovely 
 morning In June, but the beauty of the day 
 seemed In no wise to have stirred the hearts 
 of the small maidens. I grieve to say that 
 they were making faces at each other In the 
 most unlovely fashion. 
 
 ''Yank! Yank! Yank!" taunted Lucy 
 from the south side of the river. 
 
 The handful of people making up the Ward 
 settlement were from Tennessee and the 
 Carolinas. Those of the Stevens settlement 
 were from Virginia, Ohio, and New^ York. 
 
 72 
 
THE CAPTURE OF SUKEY MATILDA 73 
 
 They lived on the north side of the river. 
 A mild form of feud existed between the 
 two groups. 
 
 *'Go into the house before the Injuns get 
 you," retorted Harriet, shaking passionately 
 the alder branches w^here she stood, so that 
 a shower of white flakes fell dow^n into the 
 water. "You know you stepped on my 
 farm a-purpose, and I'm never going to 
 play with you again." 
 
 "No one wants you-all to," said little 
 Lucy, dancing lightly on the yellow sand. 
 "And Fm going in the house, and Fvi going 
 to have some gooseberry pie." 
 
 She danced away. Small Harriet watched 
 her. Then she sat glumly down at the 
 foot of the alder bush. Her heart was very 
 angry, for Lucy was her best friend, in 
 spite of the fact that the two families were 
 mild enemies. The two children crossed the 
 river, which was unusually low that year, 
 by means of a huge oak w^hich had fallen 
 across the bed. They had made a play- 
 
74 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 house in a little wild plum thicket, and crept 
 there day by day. These visits were not 
 frowned upon by their parents and relatives, 
 probably because each little maid came back 
 with so much gossip. At that time there 
 were practically no newspapers or letters, 
 and the coming of a stranger was a great 
 event. 
 
 ^'She smashed my farm a-purpose," said 
 Harriet bitterly. They had made beautiful 
 farms in the yellow river sand, building their 
 rail fences of twigs, and sticking in blades 
 of grass for the Indian corn. Little Lucy, 
 suddenly seeing that Harriet's farm was 
 much the bigger and grander, in her pre- 
 tended search for little white pebbles for 
 baby pigs, promptly set her foot on it, ruin- 
 ing the entire corn crop. Immediately Har- 
 riet ran home. 
 
 She rose now and went into the cabin. 
 Both doors were open, and the greased 
 paper taken from the windows. The little 
 girl went up to her mother, who was 
 
THE CAPTURE OF SUKEY MATILDA 75 
 
 spinning In the corner. Her oldest sister 
 sat by the table stemming wild gooseber- 
 ries. 
 
 "I want a piece of corn pone," announced 
 
 the child. 
 
 "Are you hungry already? Well, get 
 yourself a piece from the big noggen. There's 
 some fresh honey In the jar." 
 
 A noggen was a wooden vessel, dug out 
 and occasionally coppered, used for a bowl 
 in those days. 
 
 "I don't b'lleve I want honey. Mother." 
 
 Harriet took the cold corn pone and crept 
 back the quarter of a mile to the river. 
 She hid behind the alder bush when she got 
 there. From her hiding place she saw the 
 seven men of the Ward family leave with 
 their guns for a squirrel hunt. In a few^ 
 minutes the rest of the Ward settlement, 
 three women and six girls of assorted sizes, 
 came forth w4th noggens and homemade 
 baskets. They were going out to hunt wild 
 raspberries. Harriet saw little Lucy flaunt 
 
7^ OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 her scanty skirt as she gazed across the river 
 toward the Stevens settlement. 
 
 ''Go on," said Harriet grimly. 'Tm just 
 wanting you to go away. When you come 
 back, Miss Lucv, vou'll wish vou hadn't 
 smashed r^Y farm." 
 
 She waited until the sound of the voices 
 died away. Then she skipped fearlessly 
 across the log and up to the Ward house, 
 which was built within a stone's throw^ of 
 the river. Her plan was this : she would 
 catch Sukey Matilda, little Lucy's pet hen, 
 carry her down the river for some distance, 
 and tie her to a tree. Then she would hurrv 
 home before any wild animal had time to 
 eat the hen, and return with one of her 
 family's rough chicken coops. Into this she 
 would thrust Sukey and keep her until 
 Lucy should weep scalding tears for a week. 
 Finally, when she was sufficiently humbled, 
 Harriet would give back the fat, fussy hen. 
 
 Sammy was sitting in the doorway of the 
 Ward house, eating maple sugar. She knew 
 
THE CAPTURE OF SUKEY MATILDA ^^ 
 
 he would be somewhere about. Sammy was 
 *'not quite bright"; he could not talk al- 
 though he was eleven years old, and he w^as 
 of no use to work. He was usually left at 
 home when his people went nutting or berry- 
 ing, as he often got lost or found some- 
 thing to cry about for miles. On the other 
 hand, he never injured himself or got into 
 trouble when he was left alone, although 
 the family were careful not to be away from 
 him very long. He welcomed Harriet now 
 with a smiling grunt, and offered her some 
 maple sugar. Harriet took it greedily and 
 sat down beside Sammv on the doorsill. 
 She ate slowly and with great delight, for 
 their own maple sugar had disappeared long 
 ago. Her eyes roved about the neat little 
 clearing as she rolled the last bit of sweet- 
 ness on her tongue. Suddenly her scalp 
 lifted and her blood seemed to freeze, for 
 in a gap In the timber a half mile away she 
 saw an Indian ! Presently he was joined by 
 seven or eight more. 
 
78 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 The few remaining Kickapoos at that time 
 were not dangerous. They were at peace 
 with the whites, but they usually stole 
 everything they could lay hands on. Surely 
 they were headed now for the Ward settle- 
 ment. Harriet realized instantly that they 
 must have seen the owners depart, and 
 were now ready to raid as they pleased. 
 She must warn her own people, lest the 
 savages ford the river farther down and carry 
 off the stock unobserved. The men in her 
 family, four in number, had gone to the 
 mill fifteen miles to the west, and would not 
 be back until dark. 
 
 What should she do ^ She must think 
 quickly. She would not give up her cher- 
 ished plan of revenge. She could see Sukey 
 Matilda sunning herself in the dust by the 
 log smokehouse. For a moment the child 
 looked wildly about. Then her eyes came 
 back to the smiling Sammy, still munching 
 sugar. 
 
 "Sammy!" she whispered. "The Indians 
 
THE CAPTURE OF SUKEY MATILDA 79 
 
 are coming ! Go tell my people, while I 
 shut up your cows!" 
 
 Sammy smiled. 
 
 *'The Indians'll burn you alive if you 
 don't! They'll scalp you!" 
 
 Sammy gurgled joyfully. 
 
 "Oh!" cried the little girl in despair. 
 Suddenly a thought came to her. She re- 
 membered Sammy's bellow when things went 
 wrong with him. She snatched the maple 
 sugar from the boy's hand and ran with it 
 to the log. He gave a surprised roar, and 
 followed. She tolled him across the river 
 and up the other bank, then halfway to her 
 own house. When she reached the big hick- 
 ory, she threw the sugar, as hard and far as 
 she could, toward her own cabin. 
 
 "They'll hear him yelling," she reasoned 
 sw^iftly, " and come out to see what's the 
 matter. He's not been across there for 
 months. And he won't find that sugar very 
 soon. Then thev'll see the Indians, mavbe." 
 
 She had not planned in vain. Her sturdy 
 
8o OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 little arm had indeed sent the maple cake 
 far, and with an outraged bellow Sammy 
 raced after it. Harriet listened long enough 
 to hear the sound of excited voices coming 
 toward him. Then she dropped on her hands 
 and knees, and so crawled back across the 
 river and toward the house of the enemies. 
 She had never before in all her life been so 
 frightened, but she meant to have Sukey 
 Matilda. The savages had not yet appeared. 
 In a few swift leaps she reached the little 
 stockade. In it there were two horses and 
 cows, besides the ever useful yoke of oxen 
 and a dozen squealing pigs. She pulled the 
 heavy door to, and swung the heavy bar 
 in place on the inside. Next she ran to the 
 log barn w^hich stood on one side of the 
 stockade, and with difficulty lifted a trap- 
 door in the floor. The Wards were proud 
 of their excellent barn, and little Lucy had 
 often boasted to lier playmate of this door 
 and the winding underground passage to 
 the house. This was not made so much for 
 
THE CAPTURE OF SUKEY MATILDA 8i 
 
 a retreat from the Indians as it was for a 
 safe passage to the barn in the time of heavy 
 snows. 
 
 Harriet crept along this dark underground 
 corridor, her heart thumping madly. Luck- 
 ily the way was short. Finall}'" she felt 
 the door which opened in a side of the big 
 cabin. She could not push it open ! Yet 
 Lucy had said that they did not keep it 
 locked ! 
 
 Finally the door gave an inch, and she 
 realized that some article of heavy home- 
 made furniture had been placed against it. 
 She gritted her teeth and pushed again, 
 harder — harder — harder. At last the door 
 grudgingly opened, and she crept out into the 
 single large room. She crawled across the 
 floor and fearfully peered out the window. 
 The vard was full of redskins. Thev were 
 motioning angrily over the locked stock- 
 ade and evidently planning some means 
 of breaking into it. As she looked, one of 
 them triumphantly caught Sukey Matilda 
 
82 
 
 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 by one leg and dangled the hen in the air. 
 Following his example, several other Indians 
 began chasing chickens around the yard, 
 
 until the squawk- 
 ings, mixed with 
 redskin gutturals, 
 made Harriet 
 shake in her shoes. 
 She began to fear 
 indeed for her own 
 safety, and to long 
 for her mother's 
 arms. In a moment the savages might come 
 to the house. What would they do to her 
 when they found her } They would know^ she 
 had barred the stockade. She dared not close 
 the cabin door now, for that would attract 
 their attention. 
 
 Suddenly she saw the big clock in the 
 corner. This great carved clock had come 
 from England, and was the pride of the Ward 
 family. Out of a little house every hour, 
 came one of the twelve disciples and struck 
 
THE CAPTURE OF SUKEY AIATILDA 83 
 
 the time on a silver bell. The timepiece 
 locked with a huge key. Little Lucy had 
 said that the key always hung on a raw- 
 hide string in one corner of the room. 
 Over it was a sunbonnet. 
 
 Harriet crept on her stomach across the 
 floor, and then rose cautiously to her feet. 
 She felt about with shaking fingers. The 
 key was there ! 
 
 She crawled back across the room and 
 unlocked the clock door, Inserting the key on 
 the inside of the lock. Just as she was 
 stepping into her hiding place, she heard a 
 wild commotion outside, and into the house 
 came running Sukey Matilda, squawking 
 madly, her wings outspread. She ran 
 straight Into Harriet, who promptly cov- 
 ered her with her calico skirt, and then 
 shrank back Into the clock. She had no more 
 than locked the door, when she heard one of 
 the KIckapoos grunt in the cabin. Then, 
 there were other grunts, and she guessed 
 that the room had filled with savages, seek- 
 
84 , OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 Ing food and plunder. In spite of herself, 
 Harriet giggled a tiny scared giggle as she 
 tried to imagine how the pursuer of the hen 
 looked when he entered the room and found 
 that the hen had vanished into thin air. 
 The little girl had almost to strangle the 
 chicken to keep her quiet, for Sukey was 
 determined to tell her woes to the whole 
 world. Then, just as the child thought she 
 would smother in the warm darkness, she 
 heard the excited shout of white men's 
 voices, and knew that she was safe. She 
 opened the clock door and stepped weakly 
 out, while the long-suffering Sukey shot 
 out into, the yard, where she flew up into a 
 tree and cackled wildly for a full half hour. 
 Her rescuer was questioned again and again. 
 
 ''Oh, Hattie!" cried Lucy. ''You saved 
 Sukey Matilda for me ! And the Indians 
 took every other chicken on the place ! 
 I'll never, never spoil anything of yours 
 agam ! 
 
 Then Lucy's father, big John Ward, in 
 
THE CAPTURE OF SUKEY MATILDA 85 
 
 his joy swung Harriet to the ceiling. When 
 he put her down, Mrs. Ward filled a little 
 noggen for her with maple sugar, and took 
 her home. 
 
 The Indians had secured nothing but the 
 chickens and a crippled pig which had 
 somehow escaped the fold. The men of 
 the settlement had come just in the nick 
 of time ; they had fired a few scattered 
 shots at the fleeing savages, but seeing that 
 the redskins had no large amount of plunder, 
 to avoid serious trouble, they let them go 
 in peace. 
 
 They saw^ ELarriet's mother, armed with 
 a shotgun, coming down to the river, 
 as they crossed on the log. She cried out 
 in relief when she saw that the child was 
 safe. Guessing from Sammy's unusual ap- 
 pearance on the scene that something was 
 wrong across the river, she had locked Sammy 
 and the members of her family in a cave 
 off the cabin, and had bravelv started out to 
 find her daughter, and to help her neighbors. 
 
86 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 After that the two little settlements, each 
 with its groups of families all closely related, 
 lived peaceably side by side, and Harriet and 
 little Lucy began farming again in the yel- 
 low sand of the river. 
 
LITTLE KATE AND BOUNCING BEN 
 
 The rain poured down the sitting room 
 windows as though it would never stop. 
 The asphalt pavement in front of the house 
 was a shining, hurrying river, and the boy 
 who came dismally along to light the old- 
 fashioned street lamps looked, as the cook 
 said, like a drowned rat. 
 
 Two small noses were pressed against 
 the big window in the sitting room, and 
 two little voices wailed aloud at a lost Sat- 
 urday. Any Saturday was "lost" to the 
 Densmore twins, if it rained, for then they 
 could not play outdoors. 
 
 ''Oh, my !" sighed little Katharine. "Five 
 o'clock, and pouring still ! It's 'most as bad 
 as going to school, a day like this is." 
 
 Katharine and Benjamin went to the 
 training school in the School of Education 
 
 87 
 
88 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 of the big university in which their father was 
 a professor. They rode to school in a pretty 
 Hmousine with lavender cushions, and Nora, 
 their nurse, always went with them. They 
 did not really dislike school, but they in- 
 finitely preferred their summers on the old 
 farm in Ohio to any wonders which winter 
 in the city brought to them. 
 
 *' Don't say school," said Ben crossly. 
 " I hate school. I wish the old school would 
 burn down." 
 
 Grandmother looked up from her work. 
 She was knitting little jackets for the Bel- 
 gian babies who had lost their fathers in 
 the war. 
 
 '^ Bring your chairs up to the fire," said 
 Grandmother comfortably, ^'and I'll tell 
 you a story about two children I once knew. 
 Their names were — yes, truly — Little Kate 
 and Bouncing Ben." 
 
 ^'Oh, Grandma!" 
 
 In a moment there were two small heads 
 at her knee, and Grandmother, dropping 
 
LITTLE KATE AND BOUNCING BEN 89 
 
 her ivory knitting needles, folded her hands 
 in her lap and began : 
 
 "Now what do }"ou think? Once upon a 
 time this state was covered with heavy tim- 
 ber. In this timber there were wolves and 
 foxes and deer, and, for a time, even Indians. 
 After the early settlers had made their log 
 cabins, they drove off the Indians and killed 
 most of the wolves ; then they began to 
 build schoolhouses for their little children. 
 
 " I'm going to tell you about the one to 
 which Little Kate and Bouncing Ben wxnt, 
 oh, years and years ago." 
 
 "Did thev ride to school.^" asked Kate. 
 "I s'pose they went in a farm wagon." 
 
 "No, they had to walk. And they walked 
 two and one half miles twice a day, every 
 day, through thick swampy timber, and 
 across a creek. There weren't anv wolves 
 or bears in the timber, but there were poi- 
 sonous snakes, even rattlesnakes, and Little 
 Ben always carried a club almost as big as 
 himself. 
 
90 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 "One evening as the children were going 
 home, they saw a huge snake lying in the 
 path. It was brown with yellow spots on 
 it, and at least four feet long. Benj}^, it 
 was as big around as my two arms put to- 
 gether, and its head was as large as a man's 
 fist." 
 
 "Oh, Grandma ! What did Little Ben do .? " 
 
 "In those days children were not so afraid 
 of snakes as they are to-day, and these chil- 
 dren began to tease the reptile. They threw 
 stones and clods at it, and Ben ran toward 
 it with his club. The snake was coiled, 
 but when he ran at it, it struck at him. 
 Then it coiled again. No matter from which 
 direction the children tried to approach it, 
 the snake turned its head that way and 
 fought. Finally it darted its tongue at them 
 so fiercely and sprang so angrily that even 
 Little Ben was frightened. He snatched 
 Kate's hand and they flew home like the 
 wind." 
 
 "I would have killed it," said Benjy seri- 
 
LITTLE KATE AND BOUNCING BEN 91 
 
 ously, after a long pause. ''But do go on, 
 Grandmother ! " 
 
 "The schoolhousc stood in a Ihtle valley. 
 It was made of unhewn logs and covered 
 with boards which were held in place by 
 poles, called w^eight poles. Some of the 
 better buildings of the time had floors of 
 rough-hewm puncheon, but there was no 
 floor to this schoolhouse — think of that, 
 Kittykins ! And for windows, they left out 
 a log and pasted greased paper over the 
 opening to let in the light. This paper w^as 
 greased with wild turkey oil. There was no 
 glass in that little settlement. The chim- 
 ney was made of mud and sticks, and every 
 crack in the building was filled with clay to 
 keep out the wind." 
 
 "What kind of desks did thev have?" 
 asked Benjamin. 
 
 "The desks w^ere just rough, low shelves 
 placed on pins driven slantingly into the 
 wall," and Grandma illustrated with her 
 hands. "The seats were made of split logs 
 
92 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 with wooden pins driven into them for 
 legs. They had no backs at alL" 
 
 ''How did the children keep warm, 
 Grandma?" 
 
 ''In one end of the room there was a big 
 fireplace which burned short logs. The big 
 boys of the school brought these logs in 
 every day. The pupils always gathered 
 around the fire to eat their lunches." 
 
 "I think that was a dreadful school," 
 said little Katharine. 
 
 "No, it wasn't, dear. Your great-grand- 
 mother didn't think so. Nor did your great- 
 grandfather." 
 
 "Are you telling about them?^'' cried the 
 boy. "Do go on, Grandmother!" 
 
 "What did Great-grandmother have to 
 eat at noon .^" asked Katharine with interest. 
 
 "Ah, I don't like to think of that. You 
 see, when Kate was a baby, her father leased a 
 farm and started to Missouri to make his 
 fortune. He didn't make it, and came back 
 in a few years. The man to whom he had 
 
LITTLE KATE AND BOUNCING BEN 93 
 
 leased the farm for three years refused to 
 give it up, and for a long time Kate's family 
 were very poor. I am afraid that all Kate 
 had to eat for a long time was cornbread, 
 made without eggs, crab apple preserves, 
 made with molasses instead of sugar, and 
 now and then wild plum butter. She sat off 
 by herself when she could, so that the rest 
 of the pupils couldn't see how little she had." 
 
 ^^Oh-h!" 
 
 ''What did Ben have to eat.^" asked 
 the little bov. 
 
 "Ben's family were prosperous. Little 
 Ben was so round that his mother called 
 him Bouncing Ben. He brought meat and 
 pie and even cake. Many times he shared 
 his lunch with Little Kate." 
 
 "Did Kate have to sew in that school. 
 Grandma.^" asked Katharine. "How could 
 a man teach 3^ou to sew.^" 
 
 "He didn't. They didn't teach cooking 
 and sewing and manual training in those 
 days. These children I am telling you about 
 
94 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 studied writing, arithmetic, and reading. 
 Run upstairs to my room, Benjy, and ask 
 Martha to give you the book lying on my 
 desk. I came across It In an old trunk In the 
 attic this morning." 
 
 Benjy flew upstairs. He was soon back 
 with the book, which he held out carefully 
 before him. 
 
 ''In the year 1830 books were very, very 
 scarce and expensive. This arithmetic cost 
 five dollars, and it's all made by hand. It 
 was Ben's, but later he gave It to Kate. 
 You see It's just the size to carry In the side 
 pocket of a coat. There are ninety-one 
 pages In It, and every problem Is written In 
 a beautiful flowing hand. 
 
 " First, as we open the book, we find the 
 definition of arithmetic. 'Arithmetic Is the 
 art of computing by numbers.' Then the 
 maker takes up addition, subtraction, mul- 
 tiplication, division. Later you find tables of 
 weights and measures, single and double rule 
 of three, and vulgar and decimal fractions. 
 
LITTLE KATE AND BOUNCING BEN 95 
 
 "It's bound In leather, and was used in the 
 old Field school, in Campbell county, Vir- 
 ginia, before it came to the wilderness. On 
 each large Southern plantation there was 
 usually one man trained to make shoes for 
 everybody there, and I suppose some such 
 man bound this book. Can't you imagine 
 some schoolmaster carefully writing it, page 
 upon page, by the light of a tallow candle ? 
 And can't you imagine the delight of some 
 little boy when the book was given to him ?" 
 
 "Katharine, here's a problem in verse," 
 cried Benjamin, who had been turning through 
 the book. "Read it, please, Grandma." 
 
 *' An ingot of silver that weighed three pounds 
 Was sent by a smith to be made into spoons. 
 The number returned was seven times three, 
 Each an ounce and ten grains as near as could be. 
 Now, answer my question, forget not the rhyme. 
 And tell me what silver and dross were behind." 
 
 "I don't believe that Miss Dudley, my 
 teacher, could work that," said Benjamin 
 seriously. 
 
96 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 ^'Now let me tell you some more about 
 Great-grandmother's school. Mr. Peyton, 
 the schoolmaster, believed in what was called 
 the 'loud school.' He had all the chil- 
 dren recite their lessons at once, and at the 
 top of their voices. Sometimes, while the 
 whole school was shouting, he took down 
 his fiddle and played Old Zip Coon as fast 
 as he could." 
 
 ''Vd like to go to that kind of school," 
 cried Benjamin, with shining eyes. 
 
 ''But sometimes he took down something 
 other than a fiddle. On two wooden pins 
 behind his desk there were several hickorv 
 rods. If you didn't work, you got two 
 blows from one of these. If you fought, 
 vou 2:ot ten." 
 
 "And if you didn't know your lessons t " 
 
 "Then you might get one or you might 
 get a dozen. You mustn't blame the school- 
 master too much, though. Often his pupils 
 were large and headstrong, and he had to 
 make them obey. 
 
LITTLE KATE AND BOUNCING BEN 97 
 
 '' Mr. Peyton chopped timber at night and 
 on Saturdays to help make a living. He 
 was not paid in money for his teaching, but in 
 dried pumpkin, buckwheat, corn, dried apples, 
 hams — any farm produce, in fact. At the 
 end of a term Ben saw him load all his col- 
 lection into a farm wagon and drive to 
 Chicago, fifty miles away. There he traded 
 it for the things he needed." 
 
 There was a little silence while Grand- 
 mother's small listeners leaned harder on 
 her knee as they considered gravely the 
 shopping trip of a schoolmaster of long ago. 
 
 "What did Great-grandmother and Great- 
 grandfather do at noon, and at recess.^" 
 asked Benjamin finally. 
 
 "The children had onlv an hour at 
 noon, for in summer school began at seven 
 o'clock, and in winter at half past seven. 
 This was so that the children who lived 
 several miles away could get home before 
 dark. Sometimes at noon the girls sought 
 out a beautiful spot in the woods and made 
 II 
 
98 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 playhouses. Thev made beds out of sassa- 
 fras and hickory leaves, and used a stump 
 for a table, if one was near. Acorns fur- 
 nished them cups and saucers. Sometimes 
 the bigger girls carried moss and carefully 
 packed it down firmly for carpets. 
 
 '^ The boys usually played what they called 
 'Town Ball.' It was a great deal like 
 the baseball of to-dav. They never tired 
 of it. In the winter they threw snowballs 
 and coasted downhill on homemade sleds. 
 In the spring they hunted green hickory 
 buds to eat, and the sassafras shoots where 
 they came up fresh and tender. In the 
 fall they hunted paw-paws, and persimmons, 
 as well as walnuts, hazel nuts, and hickory 
 nuts." 
 
 *'Oh-h," breathed Benjamin again, "how 
 I wish I had lived then ! Tell us some 
 more. Grandmother." 
 
 "No, not to-night," smiled the dear old 
 lady, putting away her knitting, "for I hear 
 your father's step. But the next rainy 
 
LITTLE KATE AND BOUNCING BEN 99 
 
 day that comes I'll show you Little Kate's 
 button string (charm string they called it 
 then) and tell you all about it. Now kiss 
 your father and ask him if he can work 
 the problem in Bouncing Ben's arithmetic." 
 And with a shout the children obeyed. 
 
A VILLAGE FRANKLIN 
 
 This is the true story of a boy who was 
 always trying to invent something. This 
 boy, WiUiam Bramble, lived in the Middle 
 West in those earlv davs when the black 
 bear and the prairie wolf prowled over the 
 country. The driving back of these and 
 other animals and the wresting of a living 
 from the soil were thoughts which hardly 
 ever entered William's mind. Day and night 
 this boy dreamed in terms of mechanics, 
 and week after week he became more and 
 more of a problem to his mother and father. 
 They needed his help in the new country to 
 which they had emigrated from Maryland. 
 
 William's father finally gave up farming 
 and kept an inn. He moved several times, 
 every time starting to run a new tavern in 
 a new town. Now he wished for his spn's 
 
 lOQ 
 
A VILLAGE FRANKLIN loi 
 
 help more than ever. A twelve-year-old boy 
 would be very useful in watering and feeding 
 the horses of travelers, in waiting on the 
 table, and in running errands. At the busi- 
 est times, however, the innkeeper usually 
 found his son — if he found him at all — 
 tinkering over some rough bit of machinery. 
 Sometimes he was drawing with a bit of 
 charcoal on a fairly smooth board. In those 
 days a smooth board was hard to find. 
 
 At last William's father bought a farm, 
 and went to live on it with his wife and four 
 children. Here William was of a little more 
 use, but his father felt disappointed in him 
 still. Even the mother grew tired of the 
 boy's various mechanical contrivances, which 
 always fell short of w^orking. 
 
 When William was seventeen, his father 
 died, and he had to give up his dreaming 
 and face the future serioush^. For two years 
 he turned his attention to farming, and all 
 the good folk of the neighborhood nodded 
 their heads in approval. When he was nine- 
 
102 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 teen he married a pretty young wife with a 
 face like a violet. He decided to keep on 
 farming, for, in spite of the hard work, he 
 began to take great pride in the fields which 
 he and his young bride plowed with the 
 slow oxen. But his mind was too full of 
 machines and machinery, however, and the 
 rail fences which the stock knocked down 
 were never put back. His pigs got out of 
 their pen and nosed in contentment all over 
 the farm, while some of them even ran 
 away into the woods and became wild pigs. 
 Finally one of his oxen died, and the young 
 couple then felt very sad and hopeless. 
 
 About 1 841, however, the neighbors saw 
 the fruit of William's lonely nights spent 
 in a corner of the barn, for he worked there 
 continually, by the light of a rude lantern. 
 He had made a cultivator, a machine for 
 plowing corn, which was really successful. 
 In pride and joy he patented it. His young 
 wife lifted her head high once more, and she 
 blossomed out in a new calico dress and a 
 
A VILLAGE FRANKLIN 103 
 
 straw bonnet with blue flowers on it. It 
 tied with blue ribbons under her chin. 
 Then William was an honored man in the 
 community. He began to repair his rail 
 fences, and he talked of buying another ox. 
 The cultivator was a great success, and 
 money began to pour in upon the inventor. 
 He determined to sell the little farm and 
 move to Lafayette, a town in Indiana, where 
 he would keep a grand inn, as his father had 
 done before him. The farm was sold to a 
 young man who had pushed northward from 
 the mountains of Kentucky. William and 
 his wife moved to town and William built his 
 tavern. He named it Fountain Rise, and 
 for a few years he ran it with a fair degree 
 of success. The stagecoach dropped at its 
 hospitable door many a weary traveler who 
 was glad to step into the warm kitchen, 
 sniff the fragrance of the meat on the spit, 
 and think of high, warm, clean featherbeds 
 awaiting tired bodies in the rooms above. 
 Bramble now hired people to do most of 
 
I04 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 the work, while he toiled over another in- 
 vention. This was a grain scale by which 
 grain could be measured and weighed. He 
 grew more and more wrapped up in this, and 
 the light burned in his little back room 
 hours in the night. 
 
 "Bramble is crazy," the townsfolk began 
 to say. His wife no longer had pretty 
 calico dresses and bonnets with bright rib- 
 bons. She worked harder than ever to make 
 the inn a success, and to cover up her hus- 
 band's failures in management. The money 
 received for the sale of the farm was all gone. 
 
 For eleven long, long years William worked 
 at his grain scale, adding to it, taking away, 
 until there was quite a scrapheap of machinery 
 in one corner of the stable. He had again 
 moved his workshop to the barn. 
 
 Then, one glad fall day, he placed on 
 exhibition a grain scale which not only 
 measured grain, but gave the number of 
 bushels and calculated the amount the grain 
 came to at the current price ! You can 
 
A VILLAGE FRANKLIN 105 
 
 imagine how the people crowded around the 
 successful inventor. They shook hands with 
 him ; they shouted his name ; they carried 
 him on their shoulders from one end of the 
 village to the other. His wife went down 
 on her knees in her bedroom and thanked 
 God that William's tinkering had come to 
 something at last. 
 
 In six weeks William had sold ^47,000 
 worth of ''rights to territory." With the 
 gains he built a big hotel called the Bramble 
 House. This w^as the biggest inn there- 
 abouts. But alas ! His joy was short-lived. 
 His scale worked all right for small quanti- 
 ties of grain, but not for large ones. Be- 
 cause of this failure, the Bramble House 
 was swept away. As William was a true and 
 honest man, he gave their money back to 
 the buyers. He was left without a dollar, 
 and he and his wife had to face once more 
 the problem of making a living. Luckily 
 for the man, a friend of his, a banker, came 
 to him at this time. 
 
io6 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 "William," said he, "if you had time, 
 all the time you wished, could you remedy 
 the faults in your scale?" 
 
 "Indeed I could," replied the inventor 
 eagerly. 
 
 Mr. Reynolds gave him a check for two 
 thousand dollars, and told him to go on 
 with the good work. In five weeks the in- 
 ventor had made a machine which worked 
 without a flaw. This new scale weighed 
 all grain poured into the hopper, discharged 
 itself while the wheat was still running, 
 and kept its own accounts. The machinery 
 was very simple. William at once took 
 out several patents to cover the invention 
 and its improvements. He also opened an 
 office, and in a short time he sold many 
 thousand dollars' worth of rights. He was 
 cheated out of the most of this monev bv 
 his partner, a man who had scarcely a dollar 
 when he was taken into partnership. 
 
 Still undaunted, the inventor exhibited 
 his scale in every state in the Union. It 
 
A VILLAGE FRANKLIN 107 
 
 won a medal at the New York American 
 Institute. At the World's Fair in Crystal 
 Palace, New York, he was given the best 
 location, and his exhibit drew immense 
 crowds. 
 
 Later William sent a man to Europe to 
 take out patents in his name, but the man 
 was never heard of again. It seemed as if 
 disaster must follow every move William 
 made. 
 
 Finally he determined to go farther west. 
 This was in 1857. He located in Ohio, 
 then a wilderness partly covered with water. 
 Finding this hardly endurable, he forged on 
 to Decatur, Illinois. Decatur was then a 
 tiny thriving village in the unsettled coun- 
 try. Something in the town attracted the 
 hapless young man. He decided to locate 
 there, although he did not know a single 
 person in the place. He had no money, 
 either, but the sale of some beautiful furni- 
 ture he had saved, brought him a small 
 sum. With this he bought a tiny patch 
 
io8 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 of ground and built a rough shed without 
 a floor. Into this shed he moved a costly 
 piano and other pieces of beautiful and 
 graceful furniture. Many a curious Deca- 
 tur housewife looked in to see his mahogany 
 highboy and polished table. 
 
 From then on, some measure of success 
 followed his efforts. He put aside, as nearly 
 as he could, all thoughts of inventing, and 
 with his two sons began making bricks ! 
 It was his first experience, but he did it 
 well, and he and his sons built with their 
 own hands a fine brick house. 
 
 He could not long keep his mind off ma- 
 chinery, however. He patented an improved 
 bedstead. Bramble's Spring Rockaway Bed. 
 Some of your great-grandmothers have slept 
 on these beds. 
 
 Next he invented a post office lock box, 
 and had it patented. He showed it to a 
 postmaster in Boston, who agreed to use it. 
 A lock manufacturer in Connecticut adopted 
 his ideas, even though Bramble had a patent. 
 
A VILLAGE FRANKLIN 109 
 
 and began manufacturing boxes. Out of 
 this grew a contest, and afterwards Mr. 
 Bramble brought suit in the United States 
 courts. A compromise was made, and after 
 that William received a royalty on every 
 post office box sold in the United States. 
 He invented a complete line of door locks 
 and padlocks ; these were said to be the best 
 ever sold in our country. 
 
 Decatur is now a roaring, thriving city, 
 and William's Rockaway Bed and Yale lock 
 are now either forgotten or else accepted as 
 a matter of course. The story of his grit 
 and perseverance in those early days can 
 never be wholly forgotten, however, and the 
 town still points proudly to her village 
 Franklin. 
 
A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 
 
 In the fall of 1822, a ''Virginia wagon" 
 stopped in the neighborhood of a beautiful 
 grove near the central part of Illinois. 
 From this wagon descended a pioneer and his 
 family, bravely gazing about at the unsettled 
 country which was to be their new home. 
 Besides Mr. and Mrs. Hollingsworth there 
 were two children, a boy aged four, and little 
 Susan, a dumpling only a year old. Mr. 
 Hollingsworth's brother, Jason, accompanied 
 him also. The children were fretful after 
 their long journey through the wilderness, 
 but the mother and father, as tired as they 
 were, stood gazing at the glorious coloring 
 spread before them. The oaks were a 
 mighty blaze of red and orange, and the 
 maples were each a flaming sunset. Up 
 the trunks of the trees ran the scarlet wood- 
 
 no 
 
A CHRISTAIAS OF LONG AGO in 
 
 bine, and in a tangled thicket of wild crab 
 apples they saw the lovely berries of the 
 bittersweet. 
 
 "Let us build here," said Mrs. Holllngs- 
 worth, gently hushing the child in her arms. 
 
 *'No place could be prettier," answered 
 her husband. "I hear a spring trickling, 
 too. We will have water near at hand." 
 
 Immediately the two men set to work to 
 build a "linn bark camp" in which they 
 would live until the cabin could be built. 
 This was a rough structure with three closed 
 sides ; the floor and roof were made of linn 
 bark. It furnished a fair protection In case 
 of bad weather, and kept off the heavy dews. 
 
 In a short time a tiny cabin was ready 
 for the family, and Mrs. Holllngs worth hap- 
 pily spread her great ticks of goose feathers 
 on the rude beds and covered them with her 
 bright patchwork quilts. Mr. Holllngsw^orth 
 killed wild turkeys for oil for a homemade 
 lamp, which was made by placing a twisted 
 flannel strip in a saucer of oil. 
 
112 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 It was while the men were building a rail 
 fence that the first hint of trouble came. 
 Out of the timber, without warning, rode 
 a group of Indian braves. They were not 
 in war paint, but they were plainly hostile. 
 The leader was Machina, the chief of the 
 Kickapoos. Dressed in his scarlet blanket, 
 he strode up to the white men, muttering. 
 At the same time he threw a handful of 
 maple leaves into the air. 
 
 "What does he mean.?" cried Mrs. Hol- 
 llngsworth In terror. 
 
 Her husband's face was grave as he an- 
 swered. ''He is jealous because we have 
 come here. He says that we must go to 
 the other side of the river before the leaves 
 fall, or the Kickapoos will kill all the "boota- 
 nas (white men)." 
 
 Still muttering, Machina and his stal- 
 wart braves went back into the forest. 
 
 Then what anxious days for the pioneers ! 
 There was not a house between them and 
 Chicago, one hundred and fifty miles away. 
 
A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 113 
 
 He Threw a Handful of Maple Leaves into the Air. 
 
114 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 They must depend upon themselves in case 
 of attack. The men seldom went far from 
 the cabin, and they taught Mrs. Holllngs- 
 worth how to handle a shotgun. The matter 
 was reported to the Indian agent thirty miles 
 to the south, and he said that, although the 
 chief had signed a treaty giving up the 
 lands to the whites, he had refused to abide 
 by it. He had been too ill to treat with 
 the men himself, and had sent his son, who 
 had signed the articles giving up the land. 
 When the Indian agent told Machina this, 
 the chief said, ''My heart did not go 
 with it." 
 
 ''We cannot leave," said Mr. Hollings- 
 worth. "We can't start back at this time 
 of the year. And if we crossed the Sanga- 
 mon, we wouldn't be any safer, probably." 
 
 So the days wore on. In the late fall, 
 fifteen Indians, carrying a deer which they 
 had killed, camped in front of the little 
 house. Mrs. Hollingsworth was at first 
 crazed with fright. She rushed out of the 
 
A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 115 
 
 cabin and pointed at the oak leaves, which 
 were still hanging on the trees. 
 
 "No, no!" she cried. "Leaves no fall 
 yet! Go away!" 
 
 The Indians grunted, and began to get 
 ready their supper. Old Machina sullenly 
 borrowed a kettle from the white woman. 
 Into this he dropped the head of the deer 
 and boiled it for a short time. Then he 
 made broth by mixing in meal, and the 
 stolid Indians ate their supper. Evidently 
 thev were not bent on mischief. 
 
 All the fore part of the winter the Kick- 
 apoos camped in front of the cabin, and the 
 little family now no longer feared them. 
 Two of the squaws, "Aunt Peggy" and 
 "Aunt Nancy," soon grew fond of the 
 baby, and they made her tiny buckskin 
 clothes. 
 
 The twelfth of December, Jason rode fifty 
 miles to the south and came back with a 
 bride, apple-cheeked Keturah Pancake, who 
 had come with her family from Tennessee. 
 
ii6 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 The young husband and wife were to live 
 with the HoUingsworths during the w^inter. 
 
 That night as they sat before the great 
 fireplace, Keturah confessed that she had 
 never in any way celebrated Christmas, 
 and that she had never given or received 
 a Christmas present. 
 
 ''Dear heart alive!" cried Mrs. Hollings- 
 worth. "Can that be true?" 
 
 ''It's true," said Keturah smiling. 
 "There were always so many of us, and father 
 was so poor, that we never even dreamed 
 of presents. We always tried to have a 
 little better dinner than usual on Christ- 
 mas Day, and that was all. Sometimes we 
 didn't even have that." 
 
 Mrs. HoUingsworth said no more, but 
 she lay awake long that night, planning 
 a wilderness Christmas for her small family. 
 She did not have many days in which to 
 w^ork, but she thought that she could in 
 some way make a small gift for every one. 
 Finally she fell asleep. 
 
A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 117 
 
 The next day, while her husband and the 
 young people were in the woods, she took 
 from her big chest in the corner her most 
 prized possession. She looked at it with 
 her head on one side and smiled at it a bit 
 sadly. Yes, it must go to Keturah, for of 
 course she could not get to town before 
 the holiday to sell any more butter. But- 
 ter brought seven cents in trade at that 
 time of the vear. 
 
 When she had closed the chest, she took 
 down from a peg on the outside of the house, 
 a big buckskin. This she began to tan by 
 soaking it in wxak Xyt water in a rough trough 
 dug out of a log. After this was finished, 
 she scraped the skin with a sharp knife to 
 take off the hair and the grain. Next she 
 soaked it a long time in the brains of a deer 
 which old Machina obligingly gave her. 
 Last of all, she washed it in soapsuds and 
 laboriously colored it by smoking it. 
 
 ''Aunt Peggy" now^ took the skin, and, 
 by rubbing it and pulling it, she made it 
 
ii8 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 soft and smooth. Then, sitting down in 
 front of the great fireplace, she cut out and 
 made for little Jared a suit of buckskin clothes 
 such as little Indian boys wore. When it 
 was fringed and beaded with a few precious 
 blue beads, it was put away until Christ- 
 mas morning. Little Jared had by this 
 tijne become so used to the Indians that 
 he did not pay any attention to Aunt Peggy 
 as she worked by the fire. 
 
 Next, with Keturah's help, Mrs. Hol- 
 lingsworth made a buckskin shirt for her 
 husband and his brother. These they dyed 
 with walnut hulls and hickory smoke, and 
 when they were finished they were placed 
 in the big chest with Jared's gift and the 
 precious package for Keturah. 
 
 It was now the day before Christmas. 
 
 ''I will get some prairie chickens," said 
 Mr. HoUingsworth, taking down his shotgun. 
 
 He was hastening along on the crust of 
 the snow, when he saw in the distance a 
 number of the birds he wished. To reach 
 
A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 119 
 
 them he had to cross a small slough. Just 
 as he reached the middle of this, the crust 
 broke, and he went down. He threw his 
 gun on the top of the crust, and tried to 
 work loose. The more he worked, the deeper 
 down he went, until finally the snow closed 
 over his head. He was desperate for a mo- 
 ment. Then he struggled until he had 
 packed enough snow beneath him to gain a 
 firm foothold. He continued to pack the 
 snow until he rose high enough to crawl out 
 upon the crust. The thin sunlight lay every- 
 where ; it was a beautiful day ; and only the 
 hole in the snow bore witness to his dis- 
 aster. 
 
 Mr. HoUingsworth went on his w^ay, and 
 before evening came, he had a great string 
 of prairie chickens. He went home by a 
 different route, to avoid the slough, and 
 handed the game to his wife. Some of them 
 she would hang up to dry, but most of them 
 would be used for the long-expected Christ- 
 mas dinner. Of his accident he said noth- 
 
120 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 Ing ; he simply gave the children an extra 
 dance on his knee. 
 
 The great event of that evening was the 
 bringing in of the Christmas log. The cabin, 
 which was about twenty-five feet square, 
 had been built with doors opposite each 
 other on the west and east, and an immense 
 fireplace on the south. This fireplace would 
 actually hold logs twenty feet long and two 
 or three feet thick. 
 
 Mr. Hollingsworth brought from the stable 
 his four yokes of oxen. With these he 
 dragged a great log toward the cabin. One 
 end of this log was dragged as near the east 
 door as it could be got by pulling it at right 
 angles. Then the men went with the oxen 
 to the other side of the house and passed a 
 log chain from the animals through the door, 
 across the house, and out to the end of the 
 log, where it was attached. Then the oxen 
 pulled the log into the house, end foremost. 
 After that the two men, with the help of the 
 Indians, rolled it into place. 
 
A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 121 
 
 *'It will burn from five to seven days," 
 said Mrs. Hollingsworth contentedly. 
 
 They went to bed early on Christmas eve, 
 for the next mornin? thev were to ride 
 twenty miles through the woods to a small 
 settlement south of them. Here for the 
 first time Christmas exercises were to be 
 held in a tiny log church. They must start 
 very early in order to be there on time, 
 and to get back in time to have the big Christ- 
 mas dinner in the early part of the after- 
 noon. 
 
 After all, Keturah was the first one up 
 the next morning. She silently crept from 
 her bed in the loft and dressed with shaking 
 fingers. It was not yet daylight as she 
 drew from under her bed a basketful of 
 bittersweet berries and the great scarlet 
 hips of the wild rose, which in that part of 
 the country grew higher than Jason's head. 
 With her treasures she crept down the lad- 
 der from the loft and crouched on her knees 
 before the smoldering log. With a little 
 
122 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 punching and a little blowing she soon had 
 a merry blaze at one end of the fireplace, 
 and in the warmth of this she basked for 
 some time. In the other end of the room 
 slept the Hollingsworths, all unaware that 
 a Christmas angel was on their hearth. 
 
 As soon as the first hint of dawn crept 
 into the room, Keturah poked the fire harder, 
 and by its light she plied busy fingers. By 
 means of homespun thread she made four 
 lovely wreaths of bittersweet berries, and 
 two of rosehips. One such bittersweet 
 wreath as hers exhibited in a florist's win- 
 dow to-day, at least in the Middle West, 
 would attract endless attention and bring 
 a fabulous sum, for the scarlet and orange 
 berries are seldom found now. 
 
 Just as Keturah had hung the last lovely 
 wreath over a corner of the settle, small 
 Jared opened his round eyes and bounced 
 out of bed. Immediately the whole family 
 awoke. Then what a crying of "Christ- 
 mas Gift" from loft and first floor! What a 
 
A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 123 
 
 hurrying Into clothes ; what a breathing 
 upon frosty fingers ! Air. HoUingsworth 
 poked at the great log until the sparks flew 
 madly up the chimney, and the great chain 
 across the fireplace swayed slowly to and 
 fro. On this chain would be hung the pots 
 in which the dinner should cook. 
 
 When he had given one glance at the sky, 
 Mr. HoUingsworth shook his head. It was 
 a dark gray, and already thick snow was 
 falling. The Indian tepees were white. 
 
 ''We can't go to the services," he said 
 regretfully, "for it's going to snow hard, 
 and we might get lost coming back." 
 
 There was great disappointment in the 
 cabin then, but the pioneers of those days 
 accepted things without whining. These of 
 Blooming Grove ate their mush and milk 
 cheerfully, admired the WTcaths, and sat 
 about the hearth cracking walnuts and eat- 
 ing apples. 
 
 Soon it was time to get dinner. The two 
 women fried the prairie chickens, stewing 
 
124 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 a few of the older ones. They stewed, too, 
 the ^^pumpkln leather" and the "peach 
 leather" which they had taken down from 
 the loft the day before. In those days 
 there were no glass cans in which to pre- 
 serve fruit for the winter. The man of 
 the house made several smooth boards. The 
 pumpkin or peach was ''stewed down," and 
 then spread thinly on the boards to dry. 
 When dry, it was called ''leather." 
 
 From the loft, too, came the wild potatoes 
 which had grown in the creek bottoms and 
 the sloughs. These were little black things 
 about the size of an egg, and they were 
 especially good when roasted. They had a 
 different flavor from Irish potatoes. Little 
 Jared was very fond of them. "Taters," 
 he called them. 
 
 Keturah flew busily about, just as if she 
 had alwavs worked in this cabin near the 
 river. She made one laughable mistake, 
 although it did not seem funny to the fam- 
 ily for several days afterward. A peddler — 
 
A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 125 
 
 and peddlers were about as rare at that 
 time as wandering knights — had sold to 
 Mrs. Holllngsworth several weeks before a 
 pound of roasted coffee. The family had 
 not tasted coffee since they left Virginia ; 
 like the other pioneers, tea made from roots 
 and herbs had furnished their only hot 
 drink. As a great surprise and treat for her 
 husband, Mrs. Holllngsworth had planned a 
 great potful of coffee for dinner. While she 
 was out In the yard, however, Keturah, who 
 had never seen coffee, boiled It along w^Ith 
 some venison ! 
 
 At last the great dinner was ready. The 
 Indians, all but Aunt Nancy, filed In from 
 the yard, shaking themselves with many 
 an "Ugh! Ugh!" and stamping off the 
 snow. At the head of the long table sat 
 the white people ; at the foot sat the stolid 
 Kickapoos. Their food was served to them 
 in big kettles, and they ate In native fashion. 
 All the while the snow fell faster and faster, 
 until the forest was a wonderland of white. 
 
126 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 After the last morsel had been eaten — 
 and by this time it was three o'clock — the 
 table was cleared and pushed to the north 
 end of the room. Mr. Hollingsworth, who 
 had put on, in honor of the occasion, his 
 best homespun clothes, rose to his feet and 
 lifted his hand for silence. 
 
 ''My friends," he said, ''let us now hear 
 the word of God." 
 
 All were immediately silent except old 
 Machina. He sat in one corner jogging the 
 little white papoose upon his knee, all the 
 while singing in a monotone, "He-o, he-o, 
 me-yok-o-ne, me-yok-o-ne." 
 
 When the old chief ceased, Mr. Hollings- 
 worth recited from memory the words he 
 had heard at his mother's knee : 
 
 "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem 
 of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, 
 behold, there came wise men from the east to 
 Jerusalem, saying, where is he that is born 
 King of the Jews ^ for we have seen his star 
 in the east, and are come to worship him," 
 
A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 127 
 
 Then there was a brief prayer. Mr. Hol- 
 llngsworth thanked God for a safe journey 
 through the wilderness, and for the friends 
 who awaited them, 
 
 "Bless Thou, O Lord," he called in his 
 deep voice, "these savage hearts that wor- 
 ship with us to-day. Bless Thou the little 
 Christmas child who lies outside. And lead 
 us safely through another year. Amen." 
 
 Aunt Nancy had a little Christmas Indian 
 baby ! Jared was wild to see it, but his 
 mother said a Christmas baby was too 
 young to receive callers, and that he must 
 wait until New Year's Dav. 
 
 Then the Christmas presents were given. 
 Jason and Mr. Hollingsworth were delighted 
 with their new shirts, and Jared was so proud 
 of his clothes that he refused to let them 
 be taken away. Keturah had made for 
 every one a small "split" basket (made of 
 thinly split wood) full of walnut taffy. And 
 last of all, Mrs. Hollingsworth gave to her 
 sister-in-law the precious package from the 
 
128 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 chest. It was a blue and white calico dress. 
 Keturah's eyes filled with tears as she took 
 it, and she could hardly believe that it was 
 hers. 
 
 So the afternoon wore on, until the day 
 was done. The Indians filed back to their 
 tents, and the Hollingsworths gathered 
 around their fire, singing hymns and talk- 
 ing of the days in old Virginia. 
 
 Then the Christmas stars came out one 
 by one and shone softly down on the log 
 cabin in the wilderness, and on the tent 
 which sheltered the little Christmas baby. 
 
THE PIASA BIRD 
 
 It was a misty day In the year 1673. Down 
 the Mississippi River came two canoes. In 
 each canoe were a white man and several sav- 
 ages. The white men were Jacques Mar- 
 quette and Louis JoHet, the explorers. Both 
 men glanced eagerly about as the canoes shot 
 forward in the light mist of the June day. It 
 seemed as if the rain would be over any min- 
 ute, and the sun break through the clouds. 
 Suddenly the river turned, and the boats 
 crept like tiny insects on the water past great 
 high rocks which in their length and grandeur 
 filled the explorers w4th awe. Suddenly one 
 of the Indians pointed at the smooth face of 
 the bluff. The white men stared and then 
 shuddered a little, for the sight that met their 
 eyes was certainly an uncanny one to come 
 across in a wild countrv. On this bluff were 
 
 K I2Q 
 
I30 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 two painted monsters about the size of a calf. 
 These horrible creatures, on which the bold- 
 est savage would gaze but a moment or so, 
 were painted in red, green, and black, and 
 were so carefully drawn that Joliet and Mar- 
 quette felt sure that no Indian could have 
 pal-nted them. Besides, what human being 
 could reach a place so high as that rock to 
 paint them ? 
 
 These beings each had a face somewhat 
 like a man's, only it was covered with scales. 
 The horns on their heads were like those of a 
 deer, and each had a beard like a tiger's. 
 The wings were those of a monstrous bird, 
 and the slimy tail was so long that it passed 
 around the body, went up over the head and 
 then back between the legs, ending in the 
 tail of a fish. 
 
 Marquette made a drawing of one of these 
 strange birds, but later, unfortunately, this 
 was lost. He and Joliet went on down the 
 river, and it remained for another man. Dr. 
 John Russell, to tell the meaning of the paint- 
 
THE PIASA BIRD 
 
 131 
 
 The Piasa Bird. 
 
132 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 ing on the rock. He interpreted the name, 
 *^Piasa" as being "the bird that devours 
 men." Then he discovered the following 
 Indian tradition. 
 
 Many, many moons before the palefaces 
 came to the green prairie, there lived a bird 
 so big that he could easily carry off in his 
 talons a large deer. One day when hunting 
 was bad, he flew dow^n upon an Indian, and 
 carried him off. From that day on, this ter- 
 rible bird scorned deer flesh, and ahvays 
 hunted men. No Indian w^as wily enough 
 to escape his keen red eyes ; he would dart 
 suddenly down upon the strongest brave and 
 carry him off to a lonely cave to eat him. 
 Hundreds and hundreds of mighty warriors 
 tried to destroy this bird, but all their shoot- 
 ing, all their snaring, failed. Sometimes every 
 soul in a village was eaten. Then all the 
 tribes of the Illini began crying, "What shall 
 we do.?" 
 
 Up then rose Ouatogo, their great chief. 
 His fame extended clear beyond the great lakes. 
 
THE PIASA BIRD 133 
 
 '^I will go apart from my tribe," he said. 
 ^'I will fast in solitude. I will ask the Great 
 Spirit to protect my children from the Piasa." 
 
 So Ouatogo went apart. He covered his 
 head with his blanket and fasted. On the 
 last night of the fast, the Great Spirit came to 
 him. 
 
 '^ Select twenty of your bravest w^arriors," 
 said the Great Spirit. '*Arm each with a 
 bow and poisoned arrows. Conceal them 
 near the big bluff; near this place let stand 
 another warrior in the open, a victim for the 
 Piasa. When the Piasa comes, let all the 
 warriors shoot at once as he swoops upon his 
 prey." 
 
 When the chief awoke from this dream of 
 the Great Spirit, he thanked him. Then he 
 returned to his tribe and told them his vision. 
 
 ''I," said Ouatogo, "will be the victim." 
 
 You see this great chief was willing to die 
 for his people. 
 
 He placed himself in open view on the 
 bluffs. Soon he saw the Piasa bird hovering 
 
134 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 In the air. He perched on the cliff and eyed 
 his prey. The chief drew up his manly 
 form to the utmost height, and planting his 
 feet firmly on the earth, he began to chant 
 the death-song of an Indian warrior. The 
 moment after, the Piasa rose into the air, and, 
 swift as the thunderbolt, darted down on his 
 victim. Scarcely had the horrid creature 
 reached his prey before every bow was sprung 
 and every arrow was sent quivering to the 
 feather into his body. The Piasa uttered a 
 fearful scream that sounded far over the 
 opposite side of the river, and expired. Oua- 
 togo was unharmed. Not an arrow, not even 
 the talons of the bird, had touched him. The 
 Master of Life, in admiration of Ouatogo's 
 deed, had held over him an invisible shield. 
 There was the wildest rejoicing among the 
 mini, and the brave chief was carried in tri- 
 umph to the council house, where it was sol- 
 emnly agreed that, in memory of the great 
 event in their nation's history, the image of 
 the Piasa should be engraved on the bluff. 
 
 II 
 
THE PIASA BIRD 135 
 
 Even as late as 1836 an Indian never passed 
 the rock without firing his gun at the image 
 of the Piasa. The marks of the balls on the 
 rock were so many that you could not possibly 
 count them. 
 
 It is said that Dr. Russell examined a cave 
 w4iich tradition said was one of those to which 
 the terrible bird carried his victims. From 
 the entrance to this cavern you could see the 
 smooth, calm waters of the Mississippi, be- 
 neath the rock. In the cavern, however, was 
 a gruesome sight. The floor of the cave was 
 one mass of human bones. Dr. Russell and 
 his guide dug down for a depth of four feet 
 in every part of the cave — it was about 
 twenty by thirty feet — and still found only 
 bones. The skeletons of thousands of people 
 were there. 
 
 What is the true story of the Piasa bird ^ 
 That you and I will probably never know. 
 The secret perished with the red men long, 
 long ago, and all we have is the doubtful 
 tradition of the Illinl. 
 
YOUNG JOHN GOES TO MARKET 
 
 There lived on the prairies long, long ago 
 when the prairie grass grew high, a family 
 named Burchance. In the family there was 
 one son, John, who was a dreamer. His 
 dreams never by any chance took a practical 
 turn. He used to like to w^atch the dawn 
 come up the sky, and he seldom missed seeing 
 the glorious prairie sunsets fade into the 
 night. He knew all the calls of the birds in 
 the woods from the peer^ peer, of the Ken- 
 tucky cardinal to the cry of the Carolina par- 
 oquet. In those days the tropical birds came 
 as far north as Illinois, and many and many 
 a time had Young John seen their flaming 
 feathers in the trees. He knew all the habits 
 of the badgers and raccoons, and he could 
 whistle through a quill until the wild turkeys 
 flocked all about him. 
 
 136 
 
YOUNG JOHN GOES TO MARKET i^-f 
 
 But of what real use was this kind of 
 knowledge, questioned his father, Old John. 
 There were trees to cut down (for, like most 
 
 He Could Whistle Through a Quill Until the Wild Turkeys 
 
 Flocked All About Him. 
 
 pioneers, the Burchance family had built on 
 the edge of a forest) and there were rails to 
 be split. Young John was very good at tak- 
 ing the grain to mill fifteen miles away — 
 that gave him ample opportunity to gaze 
 
138 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 about him and learn more woodland ways. 
 He was very poor at dropping corn and wheat, 
 and a miserable hand at plowing. 
 
 "Young John isn't much good," said the 
 hard-working farmers, shaking their heads. 
 
 Suddenly Young John woke up. The 
 reason was this. A subscription school had 
 been started among the pioneers in the thinly 
 settled neighborhood, and to this school he 
 wished to go. The building was only a log 
 hut on the hill, with no floor and a fireplace 
 that drew all the heat up the chimney in 
 winter, but the schoolmaster who had been 
 chosen loved wild things, too. He had tamed 
 a bear cub once, and he had found and petted 
 a motherless fawn which would have followed 
 him everywhere if he had permitted it. 
 
 "I'd like to go to school," said Young 
 John one morning. He pushed back his 
 cap and looked at his father out of pleasant 
 blue eyes. 
 
 "School!" scoffed his father. "What 
 would you do at school? You'd be moonin' 
 
YOUNG JOHN GOES TO MARKET 139 
 
 all day over a Grand-daddy-long-legs. Good 
 hard work's the school you need." 
 
 Young John pleasantly persisted, however, 
 and the more he persisted, the more wrath- 
 ful his father grew. 
 
 Finally Old John pointed to two ancient 
 geese waddling around the house. 
 
 'TU give you a chance," he said, biting 
 his words short. '^If you've got the brains 
 to take those two old pieces of walkin' shoe 
 leather to town and sell 'em for a good price, 
 I'll let you go to school. Now let's hear no 
 more from you." 
 
 Then the boy was glad. He sang while he 
 caught the two old comrades (they had come 
 from the south in the covered wagon along 
 with the usual two dogs and a tar-bucket) 
 and swiftly wrung their necks. When he 
 picked off the feathers, he whistled to see how 
 aged the two bodies looked. 
 
 "Never mind," said Young John cheer- 
 fully, '* where there's a will there's a way, I've 
 heard said. Now for market." 
 
140 
 
 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 It was a beautiful morning In October. A 
 few birds sang gloriously, and on the way to 
 town he counted fifty empty birds' nests. 
 
 A Covered Wa,2;on with the Usual Two Dogs and a 
 
 1 ar-bucket. 
 
 When he came to the tiny settlement, he 
 found most of the countryside already there. 
 There were even a few Indians who had come 
 to exchange furs for firewater. One squaw 
 had had too much firewater. As she sat 
 stupidly on the ground. Young John ro- 
 guishly placed a barrel over her. 
 
 ''Good chemokoman" (good white man), 
 she said, "goodnatos" (good whisky). 
 
 Young John went on, and presently he 
 began to cry his wares. 
 
YOUNG JOHN GOES TO MARKET 141 
 
 "Goose ! Goose ! Who wants to buy a fine 
 fat goose ? Who'll buy, who'll buy, a fine fat 
 goose ?" 
 
 Many times he was stopped by women In 
 llnsey-w^oolsey garments, and occasionally by 
 a farmer In homespun blue jeans. Each 
 would-be buyer turned away when he saw 
 how old and tough were the wares Young 
 John wished to sell. 
 
 Nothing daunted, he cried again, "Geese, 
 geese, who'll buy my geese .^" 
 
 At last there came along a dear old lady. 
 Her linsey-woolsey gown was as neat as a 
 pin, and her black bonnet as stiff as a board. 
 She prodded a goose with her forefinger. 
 
 "I'll give you ten cents for this one," she 
 said. 
 
 "Can't you buy both of them.?" asked 
 Young John. 
 
 "No," said the little old lady very decid- 
 edly. 
 
 Now Young John had a smile like sun- 
 shine and a pretty way with words. Both 
 
142 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 of these he used now. He lifted his cap 
 and bowed. 
 
 ''My dear madam," he said, '*I can't sell 
 one without the other. These poor old geese 
 have been united in life in the most amicable 
 relations for twenty years, and it would be 
 sad to part them now." 
 
 The dear old lady was so affected by this 
 speech that she immediately bought both 
 fowls, and Young John went home whistling 
 with twenty cents, which was quite a fortune 
 in those days. 
 
 ''Well," said his father in amazement, 
 "you've more brains at a bargain than I 
 thought. You may go to school." 
 
 And Young John did. One day he took 
 the good old lady a half dozen quails to pay 
 for the ancient geese, and promised her many 
 more. He killed rabbits for her, and squir- 
 rels, and now and then he caught a wild 
 turkey. In pioneer days it was necessary for 
 every child to do his part, and Young John, 
 who had hitherto been too soft-hearted to 
 
YOUNG JOHN GOES TO MARKET 143 
 
 kill wild game, suddenly began to con- 
 tribute his share of the family meat, as 
 well as providing some for the surprised 
 old lady. 
 
 Young John attended the subscription 
 school diligently. Every night he studied 
 arithmetic with the schoolmaster, so that he 
 might learn more than the other pupils. 
 When he was a little older he gave a man a 
 young colt as payment for the man's staying 
 on the farm and doing Young John's work 
 for him, while Young John went to school at 
 a larger school ten miles away. From this 
 he went to a seminary still farther away, and 
 here he studied land surveying and naviga- 
 tion. When his father gave him a surveyor's 
 compass, there was no happier boy in the 
 whole world. 
 
 The little lady who had bought his ancient 
 geese lived to see the bright-eyed lad one of 
 the foremost surveyors in the wilderness, and 
 she never regretted her purchase of the 
 leathery fowls, since it was the means of 
 
144 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 helping a boy get an education. But what 
 she did with her bargain she never told. No 
 one knew but her old gray cat, and he only 
 washed his face and looked wise when the 
 subject was mentioned. 
 
THE SUDDEN FREEZE 
 
 Did you ever make a wish and have It 
 granted so suddenly that you were almost 
 swept off your feet ? Then you will enjoy 
 this story. It is the tale of little Benjamin 
 Cox, who, on the afternoon of a winter day In 
 the year 1836, wished that the creek would 
 freeze over so that he might go skating. 
 
 Benjamin lived an eighth of a mile from 
 Money Creek, and two miles from the school. 
 All of Benjy's brothers and sisters went to 
 school, leaving the little boy to amuse him- 
 self in the log house w^hlle his mother cooked 
 pumpkin leather or spun with her wheel In 
 the corner. 
 
 '^Oh, how I wish that the creek would 
 
 freeze!" cried Benjy again, for when the 
 
 creek froze, his mother let him skate every 
 
 afternoon, and then the winter day did not 
 
 L 145 
 
146 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 • 
 
 seem so long without the presence of his 
 merry brothers and sisters. 
 
 ^'It won't to-day," said his mother, ''for 
 it's too warm. Why don't you put on your 
 fur coat and cap and go meet the children 
 as they come from school.^" 
 
 "Oh, I will, I will!" cried Benjy, and he 
 took down his coat from the peg on the wall. 
 
 It was about three o'clock when Benjy 
 started. His fur coat was much too warm, 
 so he took it off. He tied the sleeves around 
 his neck so that he would not loose the gar- 
 ment, and plodded happily on. The ground 
 was covered with wet mud, thin from recent 
 rain and thawing, but Benjy did not mind 
 that. The more mud through which he 
 splashed, the happier was he. He pursed 
 up his red lips in a whistle, and he felt very 
 grown-up and important. 
 
 He must have loitered on the way, for they 
 said that the roaring wind came up exactly 
 at four o'clock, and at that time the little 
 boy was still some distance from the school. 
 
THE SUDDEN FREEZE 147 
 
 He noticed suddenly in the northwest very 
 threatening clouds. Those higher in the sky 
 were very dark, while those below were of a 
 strange, white frosty appearance. 
 
 "How queer ! " said Benjy aloud to a winter 
 rabbit, who immediately went into his hole. 
 
 Suddenly the air seemed to fill w^th count- 
 less tiny particles of mist. At the same mo- 
 ment the child thought he would freeze. The 
 water began to turn to sleet, and the air grew 
 colder and colder. 
 
 Benjy passed, on the run, a little pond 
 called Duck Pond. Long needles of ice were 
 shooting across its surface in every direction. 
 How queer it looked ! 
 
 On and on Benjy raced. A little farther 
 he saw ducks and geese imprisoned in the ice 
 in a brook ; they had been caught while 
 paddling. Near the door of the schoolhouse 
 a wandering cow was held fast in the frozen 
 slush in the same way. 
 
 Benjy's little heart was by this time beat- 
 ing fast with terror and with the swiftness of 
 
148 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 his flight. He sank exhausted to the ground 
 just as the doors of the schoolhouse opened 
 and the pupils came tumbHng out. 
 
 Then what shouts of astonishment there 
 were at the sight of small Benjy on the ground, 
 and poor Bossy, her four feet held fast In the 
 ice, bawling woefully. 
 
 Benjy's big brother Oscar grasped the seri- 
 ousness of the situation. Flinging Benjy 
 on to his back, he snatched the hand of his 
 youngest sister, and bade the children run 
 home as fast as possible, never stopping a 
 second. The schoolmaster, who had just 
 come out, urged the same thing. 
 
 The seven Cox children ran as they had 
 never run before. Soon the mud froze to their 
 shoes so that they could hardly stagger along. 
 Now and then a child fell, but the others 
 helped him up Immediately and half dragged, 
 half carried him on. 
 
 When the little famllv finally reached 
 home, more dead than alive, Benjy was un- 
 conscious with the cold. In the warm air of 
 
THE SUDDEN FREEZE 149 
 
 the cabin he quickly revived, and with a big 
 molasses cookie in each red hand, he proudly 
 described the beginning of the unusual change 
 in the weather. 
 
 "I said I wished that the creek would 
 freeze, didn't I, Mother?" he said. "Only 
 I 'most froze, too!" 
 
 The Sudden Freeze was talked of for vears 
 and years after that eventful day ; even now 
 you will find people who tell how their grand- 
 fathers lived through It. Small animals were 
 frozen in the mud, to die later, unless some 
 pitying hand released them. Everywhere 
 cows, like the poor Jersey by the school, were 
 frozen fast, and had to be cut out before the 
 evening milking. 
 
 Chickens curled up and fell off the roost, 
 and the hogs, to get warm, piled up on top 
 of one another as high as they could climb. 
 Manv of them smothered to death. 
 
 In many places the water froze in ridges as 
 it was blown that way by the wind, present- 
 ing a strange sight to the early settlers. 
 
150 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 Mr. Cox had gone on an errand a mile 
 away when the freeze began. When he came 
 home he could scarcely get his overcoat off, 
 so stiff was it frozen. When he did get it 
 off, it stood alone on the floor. Mr. Cox 
 had been driving white Sally when the 
 change in the weather occurred. When he 
 got back he found the harness was frozen 
 fast to her, and he could not get it off for 
 two days. 
 
 The worst calamity of the freeze occurred 
 in Central Illinois. A man and child were 
 riding across the prairie, when, with a roar, 
 the wind came up. Seeing that escape was 
 impossible on horseback, the man dismounted, 
 and with his knife disemboweled the animal. 
 Then, with the child, he crawled into the 
 warm cavity. The man was frozen to 
 death, but the child lived and was later 
 found by some farmers hurrying home to 
 their families. 
 
 Little Benjy never forgot his wish and the 
 sudden answer to it, and when he was an old 
 
THE SUDDEN FREEZE 151 
 
 man In the chimney corner he used to take 
 an apple-cheeked grandchild on either knee 
 and tell them of the ducks and geese who 
 froze fast In the pond one strange winter day, 
 so long ago. 
 
COMFORT'S WEDDING 
 
 Once upon a time, a great many years ago, 
 there lived in the western wilderness two 
 young people so good and handsome and true 
 that they were loved by their neighbors for 
 a distance of one hundred miles. The young 
 man's name was Severe Stringfield, and the 
 young woman's name was Comfort Rhodes. 
 Now Severe's disposition did not suit his 
 name, as you may already have guessed, for 
 he was a bright, smiling youth, always ready 
 to do any one a favor. Comfort's name did 
 suit her, for a better maid of eighteen never 
 washed the faces of her little brothers and 
 sisters, combed their hair, and taught them 
 to ''make their manners." 
 
 When Comfort's mother heard that Com- 
 fort and Severe were to be married, she im- 
 mediately put her homespun apron to her 
 
 T52 
 
COAIFORT'S WEDDING 153 
 
 eyes and wept. Then she withdrew it and 
 began to plan the wedding feast and the 
 wedding gown. 
 
 "You must be married in blue," she said, 
 ''for that's your color; and you must wear 
 your grandmother's lace shawl." 
 
 ''And we will have a wedding supper," 
 boomed Comfort's father. Mr. Rhodes was 
 a giant of a man with grizzled hair and black 
 eves under white brows. 
 
 Comfort smiled and agreed to everything, 
 for she was very happy. The greater part of 
 every day now she sat in the corner and 
 merrily turned her spinning wheel, for down 
 in Pone Hollow Severe was building a small 
 new cabin. No linen could be too carefully 
 spun for that cabin. 
 
 The wedding was set for the first of May. 
 All spring Severe had been plowing his 
 little patch of ground in Pone Hollow by 
 moonlight, because of the green-headed flies. 
 These insects were a great trouble to the early 
 settlers, for thev were evervwhere, and if the 
 
154 OLl^ SETTLER STORIES 
 
 young horses and cows were exposed to them, 
 they were often stung to death. Hence men 
 plowed and planted and even traveled by the 
 light of the moon. 
 
 A neighbor woman, Drusilla Harvey, rode 
 fifty miles across the prairie to help make the 
 wedding dress. She was a thin woman with 
 a sharp tongue and a twitching thumb, but 
 she could sew better than any one, Comfort 
 thought. 
 
 At last the wedding day came, seemingly 
 a perfect day in May. The wild crab apple 
 blooms lay like a pink, fragrant blanket on all 
 the little hills, and in the redbud trees the 
 bees hummed and hummed. The redbirds 
 whistled down in the valley, and all the father 
 thrushes in the country warbled while their 
 mates sat on nests cunningly hid in the wild 
 rosebushes, waiting for their babies to come. 
 
 Then, about nine o'clock, there came over 
 a cloud from the northeast. It was followed 
 by another, then another. In a half hour 
 the rain was falling fast, and pretty Comfort 
 
COMFORTS Wedding 155 
 
 stood in the open door of the cabin, gazing 
 sadly out at the streaming landscape. 
 
 "There, don't you mind," said her mother. 
 "A little rain won't keep anybody away. 
 The men'll be glad to stop their planting. I 
 reckon everybod)"'ll be here." 
 
 There were three seasons for the pioneers 
 of that time : winter, spring, and fall. In 
 the winter they hunted wolves and deer ; in 
 the spring they plowed the rich black soil 
 and planted oats, corn, and a little wheat ; in 
 the fall they drove to Chicago (200 miles) to 
 sell their oats at twelve and one half cents a 
 bushel. 
 
 "I'm not crying for that," said Comfort. 
 "It's the river I'm afraid of. You know 
 Omey Only said yesterday that it's been rain- 
 ing hard up north for a week. All the creeks 
 up there are out of their banks. Severe said 
 vesterdav that the river had risen a foot. 
 And then wx hadn't had a drop of rain. 
 What will It be by night t I'm afraid we 
 can't go h-home to-nis^ht." 
 
156 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 Severe's cabin lay a half mile from the 
 Rhodes cabin, on the other side of the 
 river. There was not a bridge within fifty 
 miles ; you forded the muddy w^aters on 
 horseback, or else, if you were on foot, 
 you crossed gingerly on the trunk of a great 
 fallen oak. 
 
 "The water was up to the log yesterday," 
 said poor Comfort. 
 
 "Never mind; I reckon Severe can ford 
 the river on old Jinny, if the worst comes to 
 the worst. Now you'd better help me with 
 those pies." 
 
 The hour of the wedding had been set for 
 three o'clock in the afternoon, so that the 
 guests (there were to be twenty in all) might 
 arrive in plenty of time. Some of them lived 
 thirty miles away. Then would come the 
 marriage feast. The guests who lived only 
 a short distance away, ten or fifteen miles, 
 would return that night ; the rest would be 
 disposed of somehow in the Rhodes cabin. 
 Luckily it had a loft. 
 
COMFORT'S WEDDING 157 
 
 By one o'clock the guests had arrived. 
 First came the Pancake familv, with five 
 little Pancakes of varying degrees of round- 
 ness and thickness. The children were all 
 so jolly and healthy looking as they crawled 
 out of the covered wagon and scampered into 
 the house, that both Comfort and her mother 
 kissed everv rain-wet cheek. The Pancake 
 baby was so joyful over being allowed to come 
 to a wedding at such a tender age that he 
 crowed until he doubled up and hung motion- 
 less over Comfort's arm. 
 
 Next came the two Stringfields, Severe's 
 father and mother. They were simple, kindly 
 people in rough homespun. They greeted 
 Comfort happily, for they felt that their son 
 was getting a good wife. 
 
 After that there was a thin trickle of guests 
 for over an hour. Old Granny Sharks, who 
 was rheumatic and very ill-tempered, had in- 
 sisted on coming, in spite of the rain. She 
 was in a pet by the time she was put down 
 on the hearth, still glued to her rush-bottomed 
 
158 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 chair, from which she had refused to be 
 separated. 
 
 ^'Them a-tryin' to mek me stay to hum!" 
 she sniffed to Comfort. "I told 'em I was 
 comin' to see you married if I had to swim ! 
 And I be comin', I be!" 
 
 She glared at Comfort and repeated vio- 
 lently, ^'I be!" 
 
 Finally Granny took out from her pocket 
 her corncob pipe and began to smoke. Grad- 
 ually her anger melted, and by the time Com- 
 fort was dressed in her bridal finery. Granny 
 was fast asleep, her chin dropped on her 
 bosom. 
 
 When it was three o'clock, Comfort began 
 to dress. Her gown was of blue and white 
 calico. There were four widths to the skirt, 
 the two front ones being gored. The waist 
 was very short, and fastened behind with a 
 draw string. The sleeves were immense, ta- 
 pering from the shoulder to the wrist. 
 "Sheep-shanks' sleeves," they called them. 
 You will smile when I tell you that they were 
 
COMFORTS WEDDING 159 
 
 thickly padded with feathers to make them 
 keep their shape. 
 
 No big sleeves and no queerly hanging 
 skirt could dim the rosy beauty of Comfort's 
 face, however. She was well satisfied with 
 her new calico — didn't it cost forty cents a 
 yard ^ And when she threw about her plump 
 white shoulders the shawl which had come 
 from England, there was not a prettier sight 
 in the whole world. 
 
 But the bridegroom — where was he } 
 When the rain had started, he was in the 
 new cabin, putting up a shelf for Comfort's 
 few precious pewter dishes. As the drops 
 came faster and faster, until, in fact, the very 
 heavens seemed to pour down upon the earth, 
 he decided to wait there until after the deluge 
 passed. As the hours went on, the rain came 
 faster, if possible. There was plenty to eat 
 in the house, for he had furnished it well for 
 his young bride, but Severe would not eat. 
 He wished to break bread for the first time 
 in the new home with Comfort. 
 
i6o OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 Finally, when it drew near to three o'clock, 
 he became alarmed. He had intended to 
 dress here ; he had brought his wedding 
 clothes — new butternut jeans and a pleated 
 shirt. Such finery would be ruined in five 
 minutes in such a rain. 
 
 Then a bright idea came to him. He 
 snatched up a buckskin meal sack and thrust 
 the garments into it. Tying the mouth of 
 the bag tightly with a bit of buckskin string, 
 he gave one last glance at the cozy cabin, and 
 then walked out into the downpour. 
 
 It was an anxious bride who greeted him 
 ten minutes later, as he stood dripping on the 
 Rhodes threshold. He answered the banter 
 of the guests smilingly, and then looked 
 soberly at pretty Comfort. 
 
 ^'Comfort," he said, '^I hadn't calklated 
 on comin' like a frog the first time I married 
 you. But I've got all my glory in this meal- 
 bag. I reckon I'd better crawl into the loft 
 and put it on. And then if there's any 
 eatin', I move we eat first and be married 
 
COMFORT'S WEDDING i6i 
 
 afterwards. I'll tell you why. The river's 
 rose awful, and I know Old Liveforever's 
 goin' to have a hard time gettin' here." 
 
 Comfort nodded gravely. "It seems as 
 if everything's just trying to spoil my wed- 
 ding day," she said, with tears in her eyes. 
 "The Blaines haven't come — on account of 
 the high water, I suppose — nor the Joneses, 
 nor the Wheelers." 
 
 ''All the more for us to eat, then," cried 
 Severe cheerfully, as he crawled into the loft. 
 
 The minister who w^as to marry them was 
 to come from the settlement thirty miles 
 away. He was called Old Liveforever, be- 
 cause of his peculiar beliefs. Man, he said, 
 was not meant to die. He himself never 
 meant to die. Old Liveforever had made 
 preaching engagements for five hundred years 
 ahead. 
 
 When Severe descended from the loft, he 
 took his place at Comfort's side, and good Mrs. 
 Rhodes, aided by a very fat neighbor who 
 wheezed as she walked, waited on the quests. 
 
 M 
 
i62 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 Such slices of bear bacon as were eaten — 
 such haunches of venison ! What a number 
 of pies disappeared, and what quarts of 
 coffee made from roasted wheat ! And what 
 happiness there was in the log house, even 
 though the rain poured outside and the 
 minister was many watery miles away ! 
 
 Just about dark, Mr. Rhodes suddenly 
 lifted his hand for silence. 
 
 ''I hear some one shouting," he said. 
 
 Sure enough, there came a long call. 
 '^Severe! Severe Stringfield!" 
 
 "It's the minister," cried Severe joyfully, 
 and ran to the door. The rain had ceased at 
 last. 
 
 "I'll run down to the river and meet him," 
 said Mr. Rhodes, and off he splashed. 
 
 A little later he came back with a sober 
 face. 
 
 "He can't get across," he said. "The 
 water's turrible high, and his horse won't 
 swim it. He says for you to come down to 
 the bank and he'll marry you anyway." 
 
COMFORT'S WEDDING 163 
 
 Severe turned to look at Comfort. 
 
 ^'I suppose that we might as well," she 
 said. 
 
 Then what a hurrying to and fro there was 
 in that little backwoods cabin ! Granny had 
 come to life again, and she gave more shrill 
 commands in one minute than two people could 
 possibly fulfill in a half hour. Mrs. String- 
 field looked down the path to the river ; then 
 she turned doubtfully to Comfort's mother. 
 
 ''I'm thinking," she said, ''that if we see 
 our children married, we'll have to wade." 
 
 And that is exactlv what thev had to do. 
 
 Soon there rode forth from the little house, 
 on old Jinny, the bridegroom and his bride. 
 Comfort clung lightly to the stalwart form 
 of Severe, and she wore around her shoulders 
 the delicate web of the white shawl. As the 
 horse paused for a moment in the light which 
 streamed out from the open doorway, Mrs. 
 Stringfield thought that she had never seen 
 a lovelier sight than the face behind that of 
 her boy. The dampness had made little 
 
i64 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 straying ringlets around the edge of the 
 straw bonnet, and on the girl's breast some 
 one had pinned a fragrant cluster of wild 
 crab apple blossoms. Then old Jinny, of her 
 own accord, started with important steps 
 down to the river. After her came the wed- 
 ding guests, shrieking and laughing as they 
 waded barefooted through the mud and 
 water. Ruin their shoes, even for a w^edding ? 
 Never ! When I tell you that the best im- 
 ported calfskin boots of those days cost five 
 hundred dollars, you will not wonder that 
 these thrifty people tried to save their sturdy 
 foot covering. 
 
 Presently all reached the shore of the river. 
 The tall form of the parson could barely be 
 made out as he sat on his great horse under 
 the big willow^ on the opposite bank. 
 
 "I can't see you," he called. 
 
 Then by dint of much coaxing, he forced 
 his horse out into the yellow water, until It 
 came up to Old Dobbin's flanks. And then 
 and there, by the light of a flickering pine 
 
COMFORT'S WEDDING 165 
 
 torch, with the river hurrying by and the 
 whippoorwills calling in the timber, Severe 
 and Comfort were married. Severe had no 
 money, but he promised to pay his fee in 
 maple sugar the following spring. 
 
 It was here that old Jinny surprised every- 
 body. Whatever made her do so, no one 
 ever knew, but she calmly walked out into 
 the river and was stemming the current before 
 Severe could tighten the reins. She swam 
 steadily through the water and finall}" came 
 out on the opposite bank, where she stopped 
 by Dobbin. 
 
 How the wedding guests shouted and 
 laughed ! And how pleased was Severe ! 
 How concerned Comfort was over her be- 
 draggled gown ! 
 
 In pioneer days, however, few tears were 
 shed over the unexpected and unpleasant, 
 and In a few moments the young people were 
 smiling to think how much sooner they had 
 come home than they had expected. They 
 waved a good-by, which no one saw, to the 
 
i66 _ OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 little group with the torch, and shouted to 
 them a last message for Granny, who had 
 been left in the cabin. 
 
 Then, with the preacher, they rode slowly 
 up the bank and through the woods to their 
 own little cabin with the bed, the blue chest 
 used as a table, the settle, and the shelf for 
 the precious pewter. This was home. 
 
LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 
 
 In March of the year 1830, the year be- 
 fore the memorable "big snow," Thomas 
 Lincoln, an Indiana squatter, started West 
 with his family. There were with him his 
 wife, two daughters and their husbands, and 
 a long, lanky youth of twenty-one, his son 
 Abraham. Although winter was not yet 
 over, there was a hint of spring in the air, 
 and the boy, feeling it, urged forward his 
 slow ox team, while his eyes hopefully sought 
 the prairie stretching endlessly to the west. 
 Behind him followed his father, driving the 
 other wagon, which was pulled by oxen even 
 slower. The spring thaw had begun, and 
 the thick mud in places came to the axles of 
 the heavy movers' wagons. 
 
 Here and there in the leafless trees the boy 
 saw a bluebird or a tufted titmouse, and once 
 
 167 
 
1 68 
 
 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 a Kentucky cardinal called cheerily to him 
 from the top of a dead oak. He greeted it 
 with a slow wave of his long arm as he spied 
 it, a scarlet spot on the topmost branch. 
 
 Birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 Between the sucking sounds made by the 
 oxen's feet as they plunged in and out of the 
 heavy black mire, he heard the cawing of 
 crows and the scream of the bluejays, and 
 once the clear call of a quail. 
 
 To help pass the time, for the wagons trav- 
 
LINCOLN IN IMACON COUNTY 169 
 
 eled more and more slowly, he tried to name 
 the trees he passed. He found that he knew 
 few of them except the burr oaks, the wal- 
 nuts and hickories, the elms and the willow^s. 
 . "Haw!" he called suddenly to the oxen, 
 who had swerved too far to the right, and 
 were about to plunge the wagon into a ditch 
 full of stagnant water. 
 
 John Hanks, who was seven years older 
 than Abraham Lincoln, and who had bought 
 a piece of land next the Lincoln farm in 
 Indiana, had improved it, returning then to 
 Kentucky, whence both families had come. 
 In 1828 he had decided to move to Illinois, and- 
 on his way to the new home he had stopped 
 for a while with the Lincolns in Indiana. 
 
 ''Write to us," said Thomas Lincoln at 
 parting, ''and tell us what you think of the 
 new country. If it's better than Indiana, 
 we'll go too." 
 
 Mr. Hanks had shaken hands, clucked to 
 his oxen, and started away into the west. 
 The bov Abraham had watched him until 
 
I70 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 the wagon was only a white blur in the 
 distance. 
 
 *'I like this place," wrote back Mr. Hanks 
 to his friends. "It's far better than your 
 Indiana soil. You'd better come." 
 
 Hence Thomas Lincoln had started. 
 
 On the morning of the fifteenth day, after 
 traveling two hundred miles, the Lincolns 
 reached Macon County, Illinois. 
 
 "We will stop here," said the young Lin- 
 coln's father. "Let us find a good place for 
 m. 
 
 The place was soon found. It lay on the 
 north side of the little Sangamon River. 
 Abraham was glad to climb down from the 
 wagon when they reached it, for he was stiff 
 from the long trip. 
 
 Mr. Hanks soon came to greet his friends. 
 
 "When I first came," he said, "I intended 
 to locate here on the north bank of the river, 
 but I didn't have horses enough to break the 
 prairie, and so I abandoned the place and 
 went on four miles farther to Hickory Point, 
 
LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 171 
 
 I cut that pile of logs for my house, and you 
 may have them for your cabin, if you like 
 the country and want to stay." 
 
 '' I do," responded Thomas Lincoln. "Abe, 
 you take a yoke of oxen and drag those logs 
 over to. the big oak yonder." 
 
 The boy did so at once, working eagerly. 
 
 Soon work was begun on the cabin. It 
 was made of hewed timber, chinked with 
 moss and clay. It had a puncheon floor 
 (split logs with the smooth side up), puncheon 
 doors, and a big fireplace. Over this the 
 women hung, planning things they would 
 cook. Fifteen days of hard traveling by 
 wagon had made them eager for a house, 
 however poor. The gable ends of the house 
 were boarded up with planks ''rived" of oak 
 by Abraham. 
 
 The work went very slowly, for the only 
 tools Thomas Lincoln had were a common 
 ax, a hand saw, and a drawer knife. He 
 had brought a few nails from Indiana, and 
 these were unbelievably precious. 
 
172 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 After the cabin was completed, the men 
 put up a smokehouse and a stable. Then 
 the boy helped split enough rails to fence a 
 ten-acre lot, and he built the fence himself. 
 Later, when the spring really came, w^ith the 
 ox teams he broke the ground and planted 
 corn. For this he waited "until the hickory 
 leaves were as big as squirrel ears." As he 
 dropped the corn, something in the singing 
 spring made his own blood leap ; something 
 in the vast reach and promise of the prairies 
 called to him, and, as to Dick Whittington, 
 there came to the uncouth lad on the edge of 
 the wilderness, the desire to go forth and seek 
 his own fortune. 
 
 "Father," he said, one evening after he had 
 finished plowing, hung up his 'coon skin 
 cap, and drunk from the hollow gourd, 
 "you're pretty well started here now. Fm 
 going to strike out for myself." 
 
 He did not leave that region immediately, 
 but worked out among farmers, earning 
 barely enough to buy his clothes. Some 
 
LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 173 
 
 people say he broke fifty acres of prairie with 
 four yoke of oxen that year, and that he 
 spent most of the winter splitting rails. 
 
 One summer he worked as ''hired man" 
 for a Mr. Brown, and put in a crop of corn. 
 Every spare moment he could get he devoted 
 to reading. Years later, Mrs. Brown told 
 this anecdote. 
 
 "Mr. Lincoln worked for my old man 
 thirty-four year ago, and put in a crap of 
 corn. The next winter he druv with my old 
 man all the way to town and sold it for two 
 dollars and a half a bushel. 
 
 ''Then there weren't any taverns like there 
 is now, and when you were traveling you had 
 to stop wherever they'd take you In. Well, 
 once one summer evenin' a right peart-lookin' 
 man rid up to our house and asked If he could 
 have lodgin' for the night. 'Well,' said my 
 old man, 'I reckon we can feed your critter 
 all right, and I reckon we can feed you, only 
 you'll have to sleep with the hired man.' The 
 stranger, who was right smart-lookin', kind o' 
 
174 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 hung back at that. 'Where is he?' he sez. 
 'You come see,' sez my old man. And he 
 took him where Mr. Lincoln was layin' in 
 the shade of the house, readin' a book. 
 'There,' sez my old man, 'there he is.' The 
 stranger looked at him hard. 'Well, I reckon 
 he'll do,' he sez. He didn't know he was 
 sleepin' w^ith the future president of the 
 United States." 
 
 You must remember that in those da3^s 
 there were no libraries in the backwoods. 
 Books were few and very precious. Boys 
 walked twenty-five or thirty miles to borrow 
 a volume of Scott, and in many homes the 
 almanac furnished the only literature, except 
 as now and then a package came wTapped in 
 a precious year-old newspaper. Lincoln's 
 friends were glad to lend him the books he 
 craved, and as soon as the farm work was 
 over in winter, the young man threw himself 
 down on the hearth and read by the bright 
 firelight, while the good housewife mixed 
 cracklings, fresh from the newly rendered 
 
LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 175 
 
 lard, with meal and water to bake the crisp, 
 tender corn pone. Corn pone and sweet 
 milk furnished a supper fit for a king. 
 
 Lincoln did not spend all of his spare mo- 
 ments In reading, however. Nor was he 
 without friends. He had several good friends, 
 and one of the closest about this time was 
 James Sanders, who was famed throughout 
 the county for his strength. Once he threw 
 Abraham Lincoln In a wrestling match after 
 Lincoln had thrown the town bully. 
 
 At the wedding of one Uncle Joe Stevens, 
 the men as usual Indulged in feats of strength. 
 Sanders picked up two pieces of lead, each 
 seventy-five pounds in weight, lifted them 
 as high as his shoulders, and made them 
 touch In front. This man, who had come 
 from South Carolina with a wife, five children, 
 four horses, and six and one fourth cents, was 
 Lincoln's constant companion for some time. 
 They frequently went to house raisings and 
 husking bees together. 
 
 In pioneer times the husking bee was a 
 
176 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 great event. Many a time young Lincoln 
 and his brawny friend, both clad in hunting 
 shirt and deerskin trousers, went to a shuck- 
 ing together. Then corn was never husked 
 in the field as it is to-day. The crops were 
 hauled home unhusked, and often thrown 
 down beside the corncribs, so that the ears, 
 when husked, could be thrown into the crib. 
 
 Picture for yourself Abraham and James, 
 on a November afternoon, watching while 
 the great pile of unshucked corn was divided 
 into two equal parts by some zealous soul. 
 This was done by laying rails across the 
 middle of the pile. Next two of the swiftest 
 huskers were chosen as captains for the con- 
 test. These two men now chose sides, pick- 
 ing out the women as well as the men to help 
 them. 
 
 What fun there was when the shucking 
 began ! What a hubbub arose ! What ex- 
 citement when a youth found a red ear of 
 corn and looked about for a girl, according 
 to custom, to kiss ! 
 
LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 177 
 
 Supper was usually served before dark. 
 Before the meal was really ended oftentimes, 
 the young people arose and demanded that 
 the room be cleared for the dance, which 
 always followed the husking. The dishes 
 were merrily snatched off the table, and the 
 chairs put outside the house, though the older 
 people scolded vigorously. The fiddler, who 
 was often a very important and pompous 
 person, tuned his fiddle and broke into the 
 strain of Old Da?i Tucker, 
 
 "Q\d Dan Tucker came to town. 
 Saluted the ladies all around ; 
 First to the right and then to the left 
 And then to the one that you love best." 
 
 It is said that Lincoln was a shy youth and 
 enjoyed looking on at such festivities better 
 than taking part in them. He was more at 
 home in the wrestling matches with which 
 the dances occasionally broke up. 
 
 One of the early residents of Macon County, 
 a Mrs. Woods, often told this tale of Lin- 
 
 N 
 
178 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 coin's shyness. It happened In the days 
 "when harvesters went from house to house 
 to cut the grain. To one of these harvesting 
 gangs, composed of stalwart young men, Lin- 
 coln belonged. He was tall and lanky for 
 his age, with his blue jeans sleeves and 
 trouser legs so short that his arms and feet 
 seemed very large and awkward. To his 
 companions, therefore, he was a constant 
 subject of mirth. 
 
 One day the harvesting gang went to the 
 home of Mrs. Woods' sister. Lincoln by this 
 time had become so sensitive that he refused 
 to eat with the other harvesters when noon 
 came, but ate instead under the apple tree 
 in the back yard. 
 
 On the third day some one persuaded him 
 to go into the house when dinner was ready. 
 He sat on a puncheon stool at the end of a 
 puncheon table. In those days, harvest time 
 was the signal for all the pretty young girls 
 of the countryside to rall}^ to the home of the 
 people whose grain was being cut. These 
 
LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 179 
 
 girls did the cooking and waited upon the 
 table. Just as one of these pretty maids 
 stopped beside young Lincoln with a cup of 
 hot coffee in her hand, his companions again 
 began to jeer good-naturedly at his ungainly 
 height. The youth gave a quick gesture of 
 embarrassment, knocking the cup from the 
 girl's hand, and sending the scalding coffee 
 over himself. After that, all through the 
 harvesting season, he refused to eat with the 
 others, and patiently took his meals outdoors, 
 a lonely, pathetic figure. 
 
 Here is an anecdote of Lincoln's shrewd- 
 ness, often related in Decatur. A long time 
 ago, at the Old Fair Grounds in that city, 
 an enterprising backwoodsman displayed a 
 quarrelsome badger in a barrel. 
 
 "Twenty-five cents," he called,- *' twenty- 
 five cents to let your dog get the badger out 
 of the barrel ! Twenty-five cents if you're 
 successful !" 
 
 At that time every man had at least two 
 of three old hounds following him, and one 
 
i8o OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 by one the owners stepped up and entered 
 each hound for the event. Every dog re- 
 treated before the snarling badger and re- 
 fused to fight. 
 
 On the outskirts of the crowd stood Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, a gaunt, amused spectator. He 
 turned to a friend, at whose feet a dog lay 
 curled in fear. 
 
 'Til furnish the quarter," said Lincoln, 
 ''if you'll enter your dog. If he wins the 
 ten dollars, we'll split it." 
 
 ''Oh, he won't fight," said the owner. "He 
 can't bring it out." 
 
 "Yes, he can," responded Lincoln with a 
 slow smile. "I can get that dog to bring the. 
 critter out. Let's try. I'll succeed." 
 
 "You'll lose your money. Keep your 
 quarter, Abe." 
 
 Lincoln insisted, however. He went up to 
 the owner of the badger and explained the 
 contract to him and to the crowd which had 
 gathered. He handed the man a quarter. 
 
 Then he turned around, quickly grasped 
 
LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY i8i 
 
 the crouching dog by the skin over his hips, 
 and flung him, tail first, into the barreL In 
 a second the dog rushed out, unhurt but 
 howling, with the badger on his back ! 
 
 The spectators broke into laughter and 
 handclapping. 
 
 "No fair!" called the owner of the animal. 
 "That's no fair ! The dog had to go in after 
 the badger and bring it out!" 
 
 "On the contrary," said Lincoln with a 
 good-natured smile, "I only contracted to 
 bring the badger out. The ten dollars is 
 mine." 
 
 And amid the jibes of the crowd the owner 
 of the animal had to hand over the money. 
 
 Before he left ALacon County, Lincoln used 
 occasionally to go see Anne Warnicke, the 
 daughter of Major Warnicke, who was at 
 that time sheriff of Macon Countv. One 
 winter day he was on his way to pay his re- 
 spects to her. He had to cross the Sangamon 
 River at a point about two miles from his 
 own home. The river was frozen, and the 
 
1 82 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 ice apparently safe, but when the young man 
 reached the middle of the stream, the ice. 
 broke, and he had to struggle hard to reach " 
 a firm footing. He was wet to the knees, but 
 he plunged doggedly ahead. The water froze 
 on his clothes, and he felt very cold. He 
 stumbled along the remaining five miles to 
 the Warnicke house. When he reached it, 
 his feet were frozen. Lincoln would have 
 made light of the matter, but the Warnickes 
 would not let him. They promptly put him 
 to bed, and there he stayed tw^o weeks. 
 
 It was while taking this enforced vacation 
 that he eagerly read through the Major's 
 library. This was not large, as it consisted 
 mainly of The Revised Statutes of the State of 
 Illinois. Over this book, as if it had been the 
 most absorbing story ever written, Lincoln 
 pored hour after hour. It was then that 
 he definitely decided to become a lawyer. 
 
 The years went on, and Abraham did be- 
 come a lawyer, as he had wished. The old 
 log court house, where he argued his first 
 
LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 183 
 
 case, still stands In Decatur, lovingly cher- 
 ished and protected by the Daughters of the 
 American Revolution. The square on which 
 it once stood still bears Lincoln's name. 
 
 A story is told of one of Lincoln's first 
 cases. The earnest 3^oung lawyer was de- 
 fending a woodchopper, with whom he was 
 acquainted, soon after his admission to the 
 bar. He cleared the woodchopper, and the 
 man gave him as a fee fifty cents, which was 
 all he had. 
 
 "I will pay you later on," he said thank- 
 fully. 
 
 "No, this is enough," answered Lincoln. 
 "You have paid your bill." 
 
 The story leaked out that Abraham had 
 accepted a fee of fifty cents as attorney. 
 
 "This w^ill never do," thought the other 
 lawyers in the tow^n, and they all w^aited 
 upon Lincoln in a body. He was called to 
 account. Was it true that he had ac- 
 cepted such a ridiculously low fee ? Was It 
 a fact ? 
 
i84 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 *'It is true," said Lincoln. 
 
 *'This will never do. It is a disgrace to 
 the profession. It is very unprofessional to 
 accept such a penurious fee. We are de- 
 graded." 
 
 Lincoln studied a bit. 
 
 "Gentlemen, is it unprofessional to accept 
 a fifty cent fee .^" 
 
 "It certainly is." 
 
 "Well, gentlemen, I took from the man 
 every cent he had in the world. If there is 
 anything unprofessional about that, it's plain 
 where it comes in." 
 
 The years went on, and in i860 Lincoln 
 was mentioned as a candidate for the presi- 
 dency, but few people paid any attention to 
 this. The State Convention was to be held 
 in Decatur in May — but where ? There 
 was no room big enough to hold all the dele- 
 gates, much less the crowd of people who 
 were to be guests. 
 
 Finally the problem was solved. Although 
 lumber vards in Decatur were few then, and 
 
LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 
 
 185 
 
 although lumber was very hard to rent, 
 enough was secured to build, on some vacant 
 lots near the center of town, a rude structure. 
 The roof was flat and sloped south with the 
 surface of the ground. Richard Oglesby se- 
 
 This Queer Structure was Named "The Wigwam 
 
 » 
 
 cured a tent fly from a circus company. 
 ''This was attached to the wooden part," 
 says the Decatur Herald, "and stretched flat 
 across to near the east building, supported 
 by posts and stringers. It was roped down 
 at the ends and sides." 
 
 This queer structure was named "The 
 Wigwam," and as The Wigwam it has gone 
 down In historv. 
 
i86 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 '^To Oglesby, of Decatur," says Mrs. Jane 
 Martin Johns in her Personal Recollections of 
 Early Decatur, ^'must be conceded the honor 
 of creating the candidacy of Abraham Lincoln 
 for the presidency of the United States. . . . 
 One day he met John Hanks who, he knew, 
 had worked with Lincoln on a farm vears and 
 years before, and asked him 'what kind of 
 work Abe used to be good at.' 
 
 '' ' Well, not much of any kind but dream- 
 ing,' was Hanks' reply, 'but he did help me 
 split a lot of rails w^hen we made the clearing 
 twelve miles west of here.' 
 
 "The rest of the story I will give as It was 
 related to J. McCan Davis, clerk of the 
 Supreme Court of Illinois, by Mr. Oglesby 
 himself. 
 
 '''John,' said I, 'did you split rails down 
 there with Old Abe V 
 
 " ' Yes ; every day,' he replied. 
 
 "'Do you suppose you could find any of 
 them now ? ' 
 
 "'Yes,' he said, 'the last time I was down 
 
LINCOLN IN iMACON COUNTY 187 
 
 Lincoln Splitting Rails. 
 
1 88 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 there, ten years ago, there were plenty of 
 them left.' 
 
 *''What are you going to do to-morrow?' 
 
 "'Nothm?.' 
 
 " 'Then,' said I, 'come around and get In my 
 buggy and we will drive down there.' 
 
 " So the next day we drove down to the old 
 clearing. We turned in by the timber and 
 John said, 'Dick, if I don't find any black 
 walnut rails, nor any honey-locust rails, I 
 won't claim it's the fence Abe and I built.' 
 
 ''Presently John said, 'There's the fence.' 
 
 "'But look at those great trees,' said L 
 
 " 'Certainly,' he answered. 'They have all 
 grown up since.' 
 
 "John got out and I stayed in the buggy. 
 John kneeled down and commenced chipping 
 the rails of the fence with an old penknife. 
 Soon he came back with black walnut shavings 
 and honey-locust shavings. 
 
 " 'There they are,' said he, triumphantly 
 holding out the shavings. 'They are the 
 identical rails we made.' 
 
 1 
 
LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 189 
 
 "Then I got out and made an examination 
 of the fence. There were many black wahiut 
 and honey-locust rails. 
 
 "'John,' said I, 'where did you cut these 
 rails ^ ' 
 
 "'I can take you to the stumps,' he 
 answered. 
 
 "'We will go down there,' said L 
 
 "We drove about one hundred yards. 
 
 "'Now,' said he, 'look! There's a black 
 walnut stump ; there's another — another — 
 another. Here's where we cut the trees down 
 and split the rails. Then we got a horse and 
 wagon, hauled them in, and built the fence 
 and the cabin.' 
 
 " We took two of the rails and tied them 
 under the hind-axle tree of my new buggy, 
 and started for town. People would occa- 
 sionally pass and think something was broken. 
 We let them think so, for we didn't wish to 
 tell anybody just what we were doing. We 
 kept right on until wc got to my barn. There 
 we hid the rails until the day of the convention. 
 
I90 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 '' Before the convention met, I talked with 
 several JRepublicans about my plan, and we 
 fixed it up that old John Hanks should take 
 the rails into the convention. We made a 
 banner and attached it to a board across the 
 top of the rails, with the inscription : 
 
 " ^Abraham Lincoln, The Railsplitter Can- 
 didate for President in i860. Two rails from 
 a lot of 3,000 made in 1830 by John Hanks 
 and Abe Lincoln.' 
 
 "After the convention got under way, I 
 arose and announced that an old Democrat 
 desired to make a contribution to the conven- 
 tion. The proceedings stopped, and all was 
 expectancy and excitement. Then in walked 
 old John with the banner on the rails. 
 
 " From that time the rails were ever pres- 
 ent in the campaign. 
 
 "The Seward boom was dead. ^Dick' 
 Oglesby and old John Hanks and two fence 
 rails had killed it. 
 
 " John M. Palmer was soon on his feet Avith 
 a resolution declaring that 'Abraham Lin- 
 
LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 191 
 
 coin is the first choice of the Republican party 
 of Illinois for the presidency,' and instruct- 
 ing 'the delegates to the Chicago convention 
 to use all honorable means to secure the nomi- 
 nation and to cast the vote of the state as a 
 unit for him.' ... 
 
 ''The enthusiasm with which this rail- 
 framed banner was received by the convention 
 is unrivaled in history, unless we except the 
 reception of Mr. Lincoln's nomination in 
 Chicago a few weeks later. The roof was 
 literally cheered off the building, hats and 
 books and canes and papers were tossed aloft, 
 as men jumped and screamed and howled, 
 until part of the awning over the platform 
 fell on their heads. When the enthusiasm 
 finally subsided, the Wigwam was almost a 
 wreck. . . . 
 
 '' It was a complete surprise to Mr. Lincoln. 
 Mr. Lowber Burrows, who was present, thus 
 described the scene. 
 
 " ' Yes, I was present when Johnny Hanks 
 carried that banner into the convention, and 
 
192 
 
 OLD SETTLER STORIES 
 
 the whole crowd went wild. The members 
 were simply frantic with surprise and delight. 
 Lincoln was wildly called for. You know, 
 he could not be found when they wanted him. 
 A committee hunted around and finally found 
 him asleep in the back room of his friend 
 
 ion- 
 
 J 
 
 Wigwam in Chicago where Lincoln was Nominated for 
 
 President 
 
 Jim Peake's jewelry store. Lincoln had wan- 
 dered into the store, seeking for a few min- 
 utes' rest and quiet, and, seeing the couch, 
 threw himself upon it and soon fell asleep. 
 " ' He was roused and rushed through a back 
 
LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 193 
 
 entrance to the platform -of the convention. 
 He knew nothing of the plot, and when con- 
 fronted with the banner, stood for a few 
 moments simply dazed with astonishment. 
 When told that these were rails he had split, 
 he said: "Gentlemen, John and I did split 
 some rails down there, and if these are not 
 the identical rails we certainly made some 
 quite as good." '" 
 
 After that his days were not long in Macon 
 County. He had been called by the world, 
 and he went forth to do the work of the 
 world, one of the truest, finest gentlemen our 
 country has ever known. 
 
 Printed in the United States of America. 
 O 
 
The Everychild's Series is a growing library of supple- 
 mentary reading. The purpose of this series is to broaden 
 the child's growing interest in geography, history, nature 
 study, biography, and the like, and to encourage him to seek 
 for himself entertainment and information in the broader 
 field of life and literature. The scope of the series covers 
 plays, games, fairy tales, fables, myths, folklore, nature 
 study, geography, useful arts, industries, biography, history, 
 government, public service, fine arts, and literature. From 
 this library the child may read about the exploits of Old 
 World heroes and conquerors, about the thrilling adven- 
 tures of early explorers and discoverers, and about the 
 brave deeds of American pioneers and patriots. Real and 
 fanciful stories of nature and of animal life, myths and 
 legends of ancient Greece, ballads and folklore of the 
 Middle Ages, and tales of our grandmother's day appeal to 
 the child's imagination and lay a foundation for further 
 study and reading. The content of each book is carefully 
 graded to correspond to the different stages of the child's 
 development. The simple, vigorous style of each book 
 shows that sympathetic understanding of the child's mind 
 which characterizes the most charming writers of stories 
 for children. This series seeks to instruct the child with 
 simplicity and wholesomeness, to heighten his finer appre- 
 ciation, and to give him, along with keen enjoyment, the 
 things of life that are interesting and valuable. 
 
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 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York City 
 ATLANTA BOSTON. CHICAGO DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO 
 
EVERYCHILD'S SERIES 
 
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 Heroes of the Nation. For Intermediate and Grammar 
 
 Grades. 
 Tales of the heroes of many lands. 
 
 Stories of the Golden Age. For Intermediate Grades. 
 Legends of the Age of Pericles. 
 
 Indian Legends. For Intermediate Grades. 
 The life and the traits of character of the American 
 Indian. 
 
 Great Opera Stories. For Intermediate Grades. 
 Famous operas told in a simple charming way. 
 
 Historical Plays for Children. For Intermediate Grades. 
 Dramatized stories of historical characters. 
 
 Book of Brave Adventures. For Intermediate Grades. 
 The brave adventures of heroes of many lands. 
 
 When Great Folks Were Little Folks. For Grammar 
 Grades. 
 
 Plain little boys and girls who grew up and accom- 
 plished great things. 
 
 Pioneers and Patriots in American History. For 
 
 Intermediate Grades. 
 Our forefathers in the days of the Revolution. 
 
 Camp and Trail in Early American History. For 
 
 Intermediate Grades. 
 The early discoverers and explorers of our country. 
 
 What Shall We Play? For Primary and Intermediate 
 
 Grades. 
 Dramatizations of a variety of well-known children stories. 
 
 Boy and Girl Heroes. For Intermediate Grades. 
 Interesting incidents in the childhood of well-known 
 heroes. 
 
 Nature Stories. For Primary Grades. 
 
 The beauty and usefulness of insects, animals, and 
 
 flowers told in a way that appeals to the imagination 
 
 of a child. 
 
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 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York City 
 ATLANTA BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO 
 
EVERYCHILD'S SERIES — Continued 
 
 HALLOCK : In Those Days. For Intermediate Grades. 
 
 Really true stories of Grandmother's Day. 
 
 HOPKINS : The Knight of the Lion. For Intermediate Grades. 
 
 A delightful story which preserves the quaint style of the 
 original French. 
 
 LARGE: A Visit to the Farm. For Intermediate Grades. 
 
 The adventures of a city boy who visits his country 
 cousin. 
 
 LARGE: Old Stories for Young Readers. For Primary Grades. 
 
 A collection of stories which all children ought to read. 
 
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 Old Time Tales. For Primary Grades. 
 Ballads and folktales that children of the Old World 
 have heard for hundreds of years. 
 
 A Fairy Book. For Primary Grades. 
 A collection of good stories of fairies and other little earth 
 people. 
 
 Stories Grandmother Told. For Primary Grades. 
 Old fairy stories interestingly told. 
 
 How Man Conquered Nature. For Intermediate Grades. 
 Stories that will give vitality to the study of history and 
 geography. 
 
 Stories of the Spanish Main. For Grammar Grades. 
 A collection of stirring adventures on land and sea, por- 
 traying scenes of historical and literary value. 
 
 Heroes of Conquest and Empire. For Intermediate and 
 
 Grammar Grades. 
 Old stories of famous conquerors told with freshness and 
 
 vigor. 
 
 Nonsense Dialogues. For Primary Grades. 
 Mother Goose in dramatic form. 
 
 How Man Makes Markets. For Grammar Grades. 
 
 The story of commerce. 
 
 When We Were Wee. For Intermediate Grades. 
 A vivid picture of child life in war times. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York City 
 ATLANTA BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO 
 
A Child's Book of Holiday Plays 
 
 By FRANCES GILLESPY WICKES 
 
 Cloth l2mo Illustrated 50 cents 
 
 An attractive book of plays for each of the school holi- 
 days. The titles of these plays are : 
 
 THE CAPTURED YEAR. A play for New Years. 
 
 THE LIGHT. A patriotic play suitable for Washington's 
 or Lincoln's Birthday. . 
 
 ST. VALENTINE'S HOUSE. For St. Valentine's Day. 
 
 THE FIRST MAY BASKETS. A May Day play. 
 
 BAUCIS AND PHILEMON. Suitable for Arbor Day. 
 
 A LITTLE PATRIOT. A play for the Fourth of July. 
 
 THE GOBLIN STONE. A play for Hallowe'en. 
 
 THE THANKFUL HEART. A play for Thanksgiving. 
 
 THE CHRISTMAS JEST. A Christmas play. 
 
 These little plays are intended primarily for classroom 
 use as dramatic readings, in all grades of the elementary 
 school. They may also be given as school performances 
 with simple costumes and scenery. Directions for cos- 
 tumes and stage setting given at the back of the book. 
 
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 ATLANTA NEW YORK CHICAGO 
 
 BOSTON SAN FRANCISCO DALLAS 
 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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