In the Days of Poor Richard
CHAPTER XIX
THE VOICE OF A WOMAN SOBBING
Over the ridge and more than a mile away was a wet, wild meadow. Theyfound the cow and horses feeding on its edge near the trail. The moon,clouded since dark, had come out in the clear mid-heavens and thrownits light into the high windows of the forest above the ancientthoroughfare of the Indian. The red guide of the two scouts gave acall which was quickly answered. A few rods farther on, they saw apair of old Indians sitting in blankets near a thicket of black timber.They could hear the voice of a woman sobbing near where they stood.
"Womern, don't be skeered o' us--we're friends--we're goin' to take yehum," said Solomon.
The woman came out of the thicket with a little lad of four asleep inher arms.
"Where do ye live?" Solomon asked.
"Far south on the shore o' the Mohawk," she answered in a voicetrembling with emotion.
"What's yer name?"
"I'm Bill Scott's wife," she answered.
"Cat's blood and gunpowder!" Solomon exclaimed. "I'm Sol Binkus."
She knelt before the old scout and kissed his knees and could not speakfor the fulness of her heart. Solomon bent over and took the sleepinglad from her arms and held him against his breast.
"Don't feel bad. We're a-goin' to take keer o' you," said Solomon."Ayes, sir, we be! They ain't nobody goin' to harm ye--nobody at all."
There was a note of tenderness in the voice of the man as he felt thechin of the little lad with his big thumb and finger.
"Do ye know what they done with Bill?" the woman asked soon in apleading voice.
The scout swallowed as his brain began to work on the problem in hand.
"Bill broke loose an' got erway. He's gone," Solomon answered in a sadvoice.
"Did they torture him?"
"What they done I couldn't jes' tell ye. But they kin't do no more tohim. He's gone."
She seemed to sense his meaning and lay crouched upon the ground withher sorrow until Solomon lifted her to her feet and said:
"Look here, little womern, this don't do no good. I'm goin' to spreadmy blanket under the pines an' I want ye to lay down with yer boy an'git some sleep. We got a long trip to-morrer.
"'Tain't so bad as it might be--ye're kind o' lucky a'ter all is saidan' done," he remarked as he covered the woman and the child.
The wounded warrior and the old men were not to be found. They hadsneaked away into the bush. Jack and Solomon looked about and thelatter called but got no answer.
"They're skeered cl'ar down to the toe nails," said Solomon. "Theycouldn't stan' it here. A lightnin' thrower is a few too many. They'druther be nigh a rattlesnake."
The scouts had no sleep that night. They sat down by the trail sideleaning against a log and lighted their pipes.
"You 'member Bill Scott?" Solomon whispered.
"Yes. We spent a night in his house."
"He were a mean cuss. Sold rum to the Injuns. I allus tol' him itwere wrong but--my God A'mighty!--I never 'spected that the fire in thewater were a goin' to burn him up sometime. No, sir--I never dreamedhe were a-goin' to be punished so--never."
They lay back against the log with their one blanket spread and spentthe night in a kind of half sleep. Every little sound was "like a kickin the ribs," as Solomon put it, and drove them "into the look andlisten business." The woman was often crying out or the cow and horsesgetting up to feed.
"My son, go to sleep," said Solomon. "I tell ye there ain't no dangernow--not a bit. I don't know much but I know Injuns---plenty."
In spite of his knowledge even Solomon himself could not sleep. Alittle before daylight they arose and began to stir about.
"I was badly burnt by that fire," Jack whispered.
"Inside!" Solomon answered. "So was I. My soul were a-sweatin' allnight."
The morning was chilly. They gathered birch bark and dry pine and soonhad a fire going. Solomon stole over to the thicket where the womanand child were lying and returned in a moment.
"They're sound asleep," he said in a low tone. "We'll let 'em alone."
He began to make tea and got out the last of their bread and dried meatand bacon. He was frying the latter when he said:
"That 'ere is a mighty likely womern."
He turned the bacon with his fork and added:
"Turrible purty when she were young. Allus hated the rum business."
Jack went out on the wild meadow and brought in the cow and milked her,filling a basin and a quart bottle.
Solomon went to the thicket and called:
"Mis' Scott!"
The woman answered.
"Here's a tow'l an' a leetle jug o' soap, Mis' Scott. Ye kin take theboy to the crick an' git washed an' then come to the fire an' eat yerbreakfust."
The boy was a handsome, blond lad with blue eyes and a serious manner.His confidence in the protection of his mother was sublime.
"What's yer name?" Solomon asked, looking up at the lad whom he hadlifted high in the air.
"Whig Scott," the boy answered timidly with tears in his eyes.
"What! Be ye skeered o' me?"
These words came from the little lad as he began to cry. "No, sir. Iain't skeered. I'm a brave man."
"Courage is the first virtue in which the young are schooled on thefrontier," Jack wrote in a letter to his friends at home in which hetold of the history of that day. "The words and manner of the boyreminded me of my own childhood.
"Solomon held Whig in his lap and fed him and soon won his confidence.The backs of the horses and the cow were so badly galled they could notbe ridden, but we were able to lash the packs over a blanket on one ofthe horses. We drove the beasts ahead of us. The Indians had timberedthe swales here and there so that we were able to pass them with littletrouble. Over the worst places I had the boy on my back while Solomoncarried 'Mis' Scott' in his arms as if she were a baby. He was verygentle with her. To him, as you know, a woman has been a sacredcreature since his wife died. He seemed to regard the boy as awonderful kind of plaything. At the camping-places he spent everymoment of his leisure tossing him in the air or rolling on the groundwith him."
Solomon Binkus with Whig Scott on his shoulder.]
"One day when the woman sat by the fire crying, the little lad touchedher brow with his hand and said:
"'Don't be skeered, mother. I'm brave. I'll take care o' you.'
"Solomon came to where I was breaking some dry sticks for the fire andsaid laughingly, as he wiped a tear from his cheek with the back of hisgreat right hand:
"'Did ye ever see sech a gol' durn cunnin' leetle cricket in yer borndays--ever?'
"Always thereafter he referred to the boy as the Little Cricket.
"That would have been a sad journey but for my interest in thesereactions on this great son of Pan, with whom I traveled. I think thathe has found a thing he has long needed, and I wonder what will come ofit.
"When he had discovered, by tracks in the trail, that the Indians whohad run away from us were gone South, he had no further fear of beingmolested.
"'They've gone on to tell what happened on the first o' the high slantsan' to warn their folks that the Son o' the Thunder is comin' withlightnin' in his hands. Injuns is like rabbits when the Great Spiritbegins to rip 'em up. They kin't stan' it."
That afternoon Solomon, with a hook and line and grubs, gathered fromrotted stumps, caught many trout in a brook crossing the trail andfried them with slices of salt pork. In the evening they had the bestsupper of their journey in what he called "The Catamount Tavern." Itwas an old bark lean-to facing an immense boulder on the shore of apond. There, one night some years before, he had killed a catamount.It was in the foot-hills remote from the trail. In a side of the rockwas a small bear den or cavern with an overhanging roof which protectedit from the weather. On a shelf in the cavern was a round block ofpine about two feet in diameter and a foot and a half long. This blockwas his preserve jar. A number of two-inch augur
holes had been boredin its top and filled with jerked venison and dried berries. They hadbeen packed with a cotton wick fastened to a small bar of wood at thebottom of each hole. Then hot deer's fat had been poured in with themeat and berries until the holes were filled within an inch or so ofthe top. When the fat had hardened a thin layer of melted beeswaxsealed up the contents of each hole. Over all wooden plugs had beendriven fast.
"They's good vittles in that 'ere block," said Solomon. "'Nough, Iguess, to keep a man a week. All he has to do is knock out the plugan' pull the wick an' be happy."
"Going to do any pulling for supper?" Jack queried.
"Nary bit," said Solomon. "Too much food in the woods now. We got tobe savin'. Mebbe you er I er both on us 'll be comin' through here inthe winter time skeered o' Injuns an' short o' fodder. Then we'll openthe pine jar."
They had fish and tea and milk and that evening as he sat on hisblanket before the fire with the little lad in his lap he sang an oldrig-a-dig tune and told stories and answered many a query.
Jack wrote in one of his letters that as they fared along, down towardthe sown lands of the upper Mohawk, Solomon began to develop talents ofwhich none of his friends had entertained the least suspicion.
"He has had a hard life full of fight and peril like most of us whowere born in this New World," the young man wrote. "He reminds me ofsome of the Old Testament heroes, and is not this land we havetraversed like the plains of Mamre? What a gentle creature he mighthave been if he had had a chance! How long, I wonder, must we beslayers of men? As long, I take it, as there are savages against whomwe must defend ourselves."
The next morning they met a company of one of the regiments of GeneralHerkimer who had gone in pursuit of Red Snout and his followers.Learning what had happened to that evil band and its leader thesoldiers faced about and escorted Solomon and his party to Oriskany.