LITMIR.BIZ

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brake, keeping as still as possible when we were hidden behind it.

      A flock rose presently, and flew straight over our heads toward the river. I took aim, brought down one, then loaded quickly, and hit a second, as the flock circled, calling noisily to each other.

      Ellen ran fleetly into the marshy grass, and brought both of the dead ducks to me.

      "I wish you had two rifles with you," she said, her eyes shining with excitement. "I might be loading one, while you shoot the other."

      I smiled at her enthusiasm. "The next flock that rises is yours," I said, "I want to see how well you can aim."

      In less than half an hour we again heard a whirring in the brake, and this time the flock flew low, and between us and the river, affording Ellen a fine chance. She waited with a coolness that surprised me, then took careful aim and shot the leader.

      "Well done!" I said, seizing the gun to reload, and getting it ready to pick off one of the scattered flock before they could all get back into the brake.

      By the time the light began to fail we had six ducks, two of which Ellen had killed. Already we were good friends, and the child looked so happy, as she tripped lightly beside me, that I could not believe that she would ever again seem to me sullen and forbidding as she had that morning.

      "It's a pity you're a girl, Ellen," with the patronizing air of a youth of nineteen.

      "I wish I were a boy!" with a profound sigh; "I'd live in the woods, and eat roots, berries, and game; I'd never have to weave and spin for my keep, then. Why must I wear skirts and live in the house just because I'm a girl, Cousin Donald?"

      "I'm not sure I can give a better answer than the one Aunt Martha would likely make you. God fixed it that way. He meant women for the home, and men for the fields and for war. There's one good thing, maybe, about being a girl – that is, some persons might think it a compensation, – you will never have to fight, or go to war."

      "I think fighting would be fine, a heap more fun than staying at home and hearing about it. Don't women ever go to war?"

      "Of course not, child, though in this valley they have more than once helped to fight Indians."

      "I do wish I were a boy," she repeated, "or I'd like better still to be a splendid, big man like you."

      This flattery, whether intentional or not, had its effect upon me, and I constituted myself Ellen's champion from that moment. When we reached the house I marched boldly in with her to Aunt Martha, and after announcing that I had taken the child to the river to pick up ducks for me, made Aunt Martha a peace offering of half of them.

      CHAPTER IV

      My father had destined me for a lawyer, there being at that time need for one in our valley – a fact which sounds strangely now, when knights of quill and ink horn are everywhere so numerous. An accumulation of legal lore requiring, as was then thought, the deep laid foundation of a thorough classical education, I was sent, after old David Ramsey had imparted to me such measure of his learning as his failing powers permitted, to the Augusta Academy, to continue my Greek and Latin, while at the same time I read Coke and Blackstone, and practiced on legal forms.

      We had just begun a second session of eleven months, and I flattered myself I was making some progress in comprehending the great underlying principles of law, as well as in unlearning certain faults of pronunciation and scanning acquired under old David, when my studies encountered a sudden interruption in an event whose influence upon my after life was of sufficient importance to justify me in briefly recording it.

      The class room that August afternoon was hot and buzzing, and most of the lads in the Greek class awaited the coming of the master with a sort of drowsy impatience, while a few bent their eyes upon well thumbed books, and read the coming lesson over greedily, hoping to make up for previous neglect by diligent use of an unexpected respite. When the master did come, he had an absent and very serious look upon his face, and he heard us recite with surprising indifference to mistakes. We knew intuitively that he held something in waiting, to tell us as soon as the lesson should be over, and a subdued inward excitement quickly counteracted our drowsiness.

      After the last line had been recited, he got on his feet, his tall gaunt figure, stern mouth and Roman nose more impressive than usual, and told us, as quietly as if he were announcing the next day's lesson, that news had been received of a confederated rising of the Indians in the Ohio Valley, and that Colonel Lewis had been ordered to call out the militia, to enlist volunteers, and to march to the frontier to meet the savages. He, the master, being a militia man, was in duty bound to go, and as it was but two days to the one set for the mustering, he would not meet his class again until his return – if it should be God's will to spare his life and liberty, and allow him to come back to more peaceful pursuits. Meantime, he hoped we would not neglect our studies, or grow careless of our duty to our parents, and our country. That duty, at present, was to train our minds by constant exercise, and to fill our brains with varied knowledge, that we might become useful and honored citizens in a commonwealth, standing upon the threshold of a future which promised to be one of glorious and continued progress. Then he bade us good-by feelingly, and left us, each one envying him his chance of adventure and danger, and each sheepishly conscious of tears in his eyes. A moment later I made a sudden but resolute decision, and having put my books, desk, and other school belongings in the care of a fellow student, struck out across the fields, and walked the twelve miles to the home stile by sunset.

      "Father," I said, before he had time to express astonishment, "I am going with Colonel Lewis to whip the Indians."

      The day after the next, my father accompanied me to the mustering, and gave full consent to my enlistment for the campaign.

      The long march we made through an almost trackless wilderness, and the effectual check we gave Cornstalk and his warriors, are, now, facts of history, and since they in no way serve to help on my story, I must resist the temptation to dwell upon our brief campaign. I cannot even stop to point out convincingly the far reaching and most important consequences to the cause growing out of this victory. But this much of a digression must be forgiven me – though my story halts while I say it.

      Had not the strength and confidence of the Shawnees, and the tribes confederated with them, been shaken at Point Pleasant, and the prestige and influence of the brave and capable Cornstalk destroyed, the Indians would, doubtless months before, have made impossible that intrepid defiance of Washington, the memory of which we Scotch Irish cherish with so much pride: – that he would never surrender but if driven to bay would make a last stand in the mountain fastnesses of Augusta; and, rallying to his aid those brave pioneers, yet bid defiance to the enemy and hope to pluck victory from apparent defeat. Nor, had there been no battle of Point Pleasant, would a dauntless rifle company have been available for service under the gallant Morgan, to march to Quebec, to win the decisive battle at Freeman Farm, and the telling victories of King's Mountain and of Cowpens.

      Returned from the Ohio, I went back to my books, but I could not settle down contentedly to Latin odes and Greek classics. The excitement of the march, the battle, and the victory, had aroused within me a sleeping aptitude for the life of a soldier, and I chafed at the prospect of a safe and uneventful career.

      At Christmas I had two weeks' holiday, and what time I was not tracking game in the snow, was spent breaking the colts to the cutter, or coasting on a plank down the steepest hills to be found, with Jean and Ellen O'Niel behind me. My grandmother, who did not share the universal disapproval of the Irish child's "defiant spirit," had persuaded my mother to have Ellen over to spend the holidays with Jean, using the adroit argument, with both my mother and Aunt Martha, that Jean's gentle and tractable spirit might have a good influence over the untamed Ellen. She had come, but not very graciously, and sat silent among us, for the first day and evening, looking sullen and unhappy.

      Few could resist, however, the contagion of our kindly home atmosphere, and by the second morning, Ellen had melted sufficiently to smile at grandmother's quaint jokes and stories of Ireland. By dinner time she was ready to listen with interest to some of my father's pioneer experiences, and that night when mother bade me give her a relation of my fight with the panther, she listened with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. We were by this time drawn in the usual

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