Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 April 1892 — THE BRASS KETTLE. [ARTICLE]

THE BRASS KETTLE.

“Leave off spinning, Mercy, and reel what you’ve got on the spindle for me. There’ll be enough, I guess, to finish this web, and I’ll put it in without scouring. Then run over to Wilson’s and borrow Sarah’s brass kettle. We’ll have some hulled corn to-morrow, now the leach is up.” It was late on a Muy afternoon in Maine, then an outlying part of Massachusetts, more than a hundred and thirtyfive or forty years ago. A pioneer's wife'sat at her loom, plying the shuttle rapidly, while with sturdy blows of .her foot on the treadle, she beat the woof yarn into the web. Her daughter Mercy, a pretty, blueeyed girl of seventeen, who had been making the spinning-wheel hum merrily for the last two hours, laid down the wheel-finger with a willing “Yea, mother,” and plied the less noisy reel, counting off the threads in a low tone. “Six knots, mother,” she said. “It will make enough,” replied Mrs. Cary, her voice half drowned by the loud clatter of the high, brown old loom in widen she sat. “Wiqd it on the quills.” The girl did su, but lingered a bit as she set the quill box in the loom. “Can't I take that piece of cherry ribbon, mother?” she asked, a little Confusedly. “Yea, yes, child,” said the mother, somewhat impatiently. It was not the first time Mercy had asked for the ribbon; and with pleasure in her fresh face, the girl withdrew quietly to the other room of the log-house, where for some secret reason she now attempted a few details of self-adornment, before she set off on her errand to the Wilsons’. A ruddy boy in homespun, eight years old, perhaps, ran in barefoot as Mercy withdrew.

“Mann!” said he, with a mysterious half shake of his head, “I believe there's an old Indian out by the log pile. Tige’s all brustled up, and keeps looking out that way.” “’There, there, Josh, stop that talk!" cried his mother, sharply. “What did your father tell you this morning? He • hade ye not to say ‘lndian’ again for a month. There’s nonj anywhere about now. 'Twas nothing more than a bear that Tige smelt.” “I’ll bet it isn’t a bear,” muttered little . Josh to himself, as he went out, rebuffed. “Tige always barks for a bear; but he never barks* nor growls out loud, if it’s an Indian. Old Jed Haney taught him that when he was a pup.” Tige, a large white and brindled dog, with a broad head ; pink nose and strong, bony legs, was standing in the dooryard. The hair along his shoulders and back •howed a tendency to rise, and from inoment to moment he turned his glaring eyes slowly in the direction of the woods to the southwest of the stumpy clearing. Mercy meantime started on her errand for the kettle. Her mother peered out from the loom frame. “There, Mercy, you vain girl?” she cried, laughing a little; for Mercy, had arranged the cherry ribbon in a bow at her throat, and displayed a little antique pin of gold, a gift of her grandmother. She blushed at her mother’s goodhumored raillery. “Don’t stay,” Mrs. Cary added. ’’lt’ll ■oon be night now. And Mercy!” she called again, stopping the loom a moment. “Take Tige with you. Josh may go, too, if he wants to." An interesting legend from the early folk-lore of the colony has descended to uS of Mwcy Cary’s trip for the brass kettle. F ‘rom Casco—how Portland—the settlers had by this time begun to push forth into the wilderness, in the direction of Yarmouth, Brunswick, New Gloucester and the Saco Valley. It was the period of the French war, with its many Indian outbreaks, which so greatly distressed the people. Incited by the infamous “scalp bounties” and “captive bounties" offered in Canada, the savages not only made attacks in force upon the garrison houses, but singly, or in little parties, lay in wait on the borders of the forest, to cut off the settlers who were at work in their clearings, or going to and fro on their long trip, ito mill or to procure supplies. Many were thus foully .murdered, or captured and hurried away through the woods to be sold to the French in Canada. Young English captives were then in much request among the wealthy French families at Montreal, Three Rivers, Sorel and Quebec, as servants, particularly voting women from sixteen to twentyfour years old. Scores of girls were dragged away into captivity, only a few of whon were ever so fortunate as to meet their relatives again. The settlers built • block-houses as places of refuge here and there; and scouts were sent out to give warning of Indian parties. But often their utmost vigilance failed to detect the presence of the lurking redskins. Three miles from the block-houses at Chepidneck lived the Cary and Wilson families. Their clearings were on the opposite banks of a large brook, the outlet of a considerable lake. The rich intervale land along the stream offered good farm sites; and with hard-working ■

thrift, both these neighbors had already cleared and burned off tracts of from forty to fifty acres. Nathan Wilson and his wife had four boys, named Reuben, Joseph, Hiram and George. Reuben was already nearly twenty, and an expert woodsman. Silas Cary was less favored. His boys, as he was wont jocosely to remark to his neighbor, “were all girls save one—little Josh.” But his girls, of whom Mercy was the eldest, were almost or quite as good as boys for all the lighter labors of the new farm, and helped their father at his planting and harvesting. The distance from Cary's house across to Wilson’s was not much more than a quarter of a mile. A well-beaten path led through the stumpy clearing and down the bank to the brook, over which there was a rude log bridge. Beyond the brook were clumps of bushes and a few maple trees; and still farther on the way led through an open clearing again to Mr. Wilson’s house.

Mercy, with Tige and little Josh, had been gone on her errand perhaps threequarters of an hour. The sun had set; and meantime Siltfe Cary, with the three younger girls, came in from the field where they had been planting corn and potatoes. “Where are Mercy and Josh?” asked Silas, taking down the cedar buckets from their pegs, preparatory to milking the two cows. “I've sent them to Wilson’s for the brass kettle,” replied Mrs. Cary. “It's time they were back.” “They are coming!” cried Patience, as a faint outcry was borne to their ears. “I hear Josh shouting ‘Tag!’ to the Wilson boys.” The lad was indeed shouting, but not to the Wilson boys. As he and Mercy crossed the bridge on their way home with the kettle, the dog suddenly growled and drew back. Mercy hurried across, and little Josh followed; but as soon as they had reached the other end of the bridge two hideously painted savages leaped out from the alders there, and seizing them by the wrists, dragged them away along the hollow of the brook. Tige dashed at one of the savages and would have pulled him down; but the redskin beat him off with his tomahawk. Mercy screamed, and the lad cried out and kicked his captor, but was beaten so cruelly that he dared not resist further. Mr. Cary, now out in the yard with his buckets, heard Mercy’s piercing scream. He rushed into the house, seized his gun, and dashed down the path to the log bridge, past the bushes. He met Tige running toward the house. The dog’s head was bleeding from a out; his hair stood up like bristles; and his eyes glowed like live coals. “It’s Indians! It’s Indians!”'muttered Cary, stopping short. “Tige's after help!” Presently he heard a quick step up the path on the other side, and saw young Reuben Wilson coming hastily down to the bridge. Mercy’s scream had reached his ear, too, where he had been at work mortising fence-posts with a postaxe, beside the path, about fifty rods distant. Not ten minutes before, he said, Mercy had stopped to chat with him, as she passed. He had only the post-axe in his hands. “Reuben!" hailed Cary,in tones which shook from a father's anguish. “The Indians have got Mercy and Josh.” Reuben turned without a word and ran back to his father's house to give the alarm and get his gun. Hearing the tidings, Nathan Wilson at once despatched Hiram to the block-house, to summon assistance. Joseph he bado guard the house, and sent George toiCary's place. Then seizing his own gun and ammunition, he followed Reuben. They overtook Cary half a mile up the brook, and came out on the shore of the lake, a mile father to the northward,just as the last gleam of the fading twilight shone on the water. Faintly as it gleamed, it was still sufficient to disclose the light imprint of a canoe’s bottom on the soft sand. Near by were several moccasin tracks. Tige Lad led the way directly to the place.

“That’s bad,” murmured the elder with a sharp glance along the darkening shores. “There are two. We sha’n’t come up with them to-night.” The savages had gained a start sufficient to have already doubled a point on the shore, six or eight hundred yards distant. The settlers had no boat on the lake. The pioneer knew that the Indians could paddle their canoe faster than the whites could follow them through the woods by night, around the shores. The contour of the lake, too, was such that the whites must take a wide circuit, and cross two tangled swamps. It was probable that the Indians would make directly for the head of the lake, I six or seven miles distant; yet there was no certainty of this. They might veer away to the right or the left shore. After a hasty consultation it was decided that the elder Wilson should return and get a pnek-of provisions, and lead the party which might come from the block-house; while Cary and Reuben, with Tige, should skirt the lake in the hope of discovering where the Indians landed. The night bade fair to be very dark. At about ten o'clock in the evening eight men arrived at Wilson’s place with their guns, from the garrison-house; but by this time clouds had gathered, awi they deemed it unwise to enter the forest until daybreak. Cary and Reuben, meantime, had pushed on around the lake and reached the mouth of a small brook near the head of it, by the time the clouds obscured the stars. Not only did they find moccasin tracks in the sand here, but other smaller tracks, which Cary had no doubt were those of his children. The trail led along the bank of the small brook. But Cary thought it imprudent to go on before Wilson and the expected party came up. Reuben took Tige and went on alone. The dog followed the trail readily, and the young pioneer kept pace with him, breaking a twig now and then to guide the party when they should follow him. At last he came to the foot of a gorge, or ravine, from which the brook issued. Here Tige sniffed about, and soon entered a little thicket of firs. There Reuben found a bark canoe, evidently hidden by the Indians. Why they had left it there Reuben did not at first understand. He did not touch it, but continued up the ravine, and after a mile or two gained the summit of a long, rocky ridge, covered with a growth of hemlock-trees. Northward the ridge fell off abruptly in a line of crags. Tige followed the trail downward over the ledges; but Reuben halted for a moment to look off across the expanse of forest beyond. The sun was now just rising. A mile away he could see a sheet of water which appeared, from the way it opened to view around the base of a mountain, to be part of a larger expanse, out of sight beyond it A slight bluish mist hovered over the tree-tops along the nearer shore, which Reuben was at first inclined to think might be die smoke of a camp-fire. He heard the cry of blue-jays in the

distance; and as he scrutinized the land* scape, his sharp eyes detected, even at that distance, three crows flying ovej the woods along the shore. Suddenly the crows circled around and dived downward, and a faint, inquisitive car-r-r was borne to his ears on the still morning air. Reuben had noticed that the crows always uttered this peculiar cry when they saw a human being in an unexpected place; and he was sure that the Indians and their captives were even now on the shore of the pond or bay. Then he made his way down the steep side of the ridge, whither Tige had preceded him, but in a thick group of hemlocks at the foot of the ridge he met Tige coming back with bristled hair. The dog turned, but stood still at Reuben’s feet, as if listening. His hair rose more stiffly on his shoulders, and he backed against Reuben's legs. His whole aspect seemed to give warning of danger near.' This hint was not lost on the young woodsman, who quickly stepped aside and concealed himself in the dense hemlock thicket. Tige crouched by his side. The boy and the dog had scarcely hidden themselves when two Indians came swiftly up the hillside, their moccasined feet scarcely seeming to stir a dead leaf or crackle a twig, as they went backward upon the trail over which they had came. Each carried a gun, and had a tomahawk and scalping-knife at his belt. The faces of both were streaked with war-paint, and their black hair stood up in tall, stiff tufts. Silent and swift as two spectres, they glided past, and in a moment were lost to wiew. Reuben’s heart beat fast, and he could see Tige’s eyes glowing like fire from his strong hatred of the redskins. But not a growl escaped the dog. The reason why the savages were retracing their steps occurred instantly to Reuben. They had led their captives to the larger lake and secured them there, and had gone back to fetch their canoe. Emerging from his concealment, Reuben pushed forward as fast as Tige could follow the trail. In a few minutes he caught a glimpse of the water through the trees ahead.

But Tige now unexpectedly held back again; and after peeping ahead for some minutes, Reuben moved cautiously around to the left, to gain the c6ver of a swamp of fir balsams. It was fortunate he did so, for on creeping forward through the thickets here till he could gain a nearer view, he saw a third Indian coming along the shore with a bunch of fish in his hand. The savage approached the embers of a fire which was smouldering beside a drift-log, and sat down. Raising himself cautiously for a little better view around, Reuben discovered a large black object beside a tree, which after a moment’s keen scrutiny he saw was Mercy Cary, tied to a small tree, with the brass kettle over her head! Immediately, too, he espied little Josh’s bare head and woe-begone face. The lad, like his sister, was bound to a sapling close to the shore, his hands tied behind his back and around the tree. Reuben reflected hurriedly. What he did must be done at once, for the other two Indians would soon return with the canoe, and probably embark with their captives upon the lake. Presently he heard little Josh crying dolefully. “0 Mercy,” whimpered thja lad, "my arms ache awfully, they are tied terribly tight!” Mercy said something to him in a low tone, which Reuben could not distinguish, for her voice was muffled in the kettle. The Indian, who was placing the fish on the embers, grunted angrily, rose, and gave Josh three or four Lard blows with a stick. The boy screamed from the pain, and his sister, unable to see, but hearing the blows, cried out, too. Thereat the savage rushed toward her and rained blows upon the kettle to frighten her into silence. Reuben, his blood boiling, was already sighting along the barrel of his flintlock, but he did not fire until the Indian had drawn back a little fr >m the children.

Then the old musket roared heavily on the morning air and the young marksman saw the Indian fall. Thinking that he might be wounded merely, and that he would crawl to his gun, Reuben remained concealed, and hastily reloaded his piece. But Tige had run out, and Reuben had scarcely time to ram down a charge when he heard a frightful outcry from the wounded Indian. Tige was taking satisfaction for his own wound by fiercely gfiakjng his hated enemy. 1 tearing the shot andthfi growls of the doc. Mercy made a supreme effort to withdraw her head from under the kettle, and bud succeeded in doing so as Rueben dashed forward. With his knife he cut the thongs that bound her arms, and those which bound little Josh.

He seized the savage's gun, threw the brass kettle into a thicket, and started, leading Josh with a strong hand, while Mercy followed hastily in his steps, and Tige brought up the rear. Having first taken u look around to get his bearings, Reuben made a wide circuit across the swamp and far off to the southward of the trail along which the Indians would come. He hoped that the two redskins might have crossed into the ravine, on the other side of Hie hemlock ridge, before the shot was fired, and that they had not heard it. The distanca was two or three miles. After a hot walk of two or three hours, Reuben, with his companions, came around to the lower lake, where he had left Silas Cary. But before this time Nathan Wilson, with the party from the block-house and two dogs, had arrived at this spot, and with Cary had set off up the brook, following the trail, as Reuben had done. They reached the foot of the second lake just in time to see the two Indians escaping in their canoe. A scout returned and found the three young people at the head of the lower lake, and later in the day the whole party reached home in safety. So much did the pioneers’ wives miss their brass kettle, however, that Reuben and his brother Hiram made a trip to recover it the following week. The great-ly-prized utensil was found in the swamp where Rueben had thrown it, and it was immediately put to service again in preparing the hulled corn. The legend, indeed, runs that Mercy Cary, who afterward became Mrs. Reuben Wilson, inherited the kettle from her mother-in-law, and made a proper use of it for forty years.—[Youth’s Companion.

Evidence increases that the universal language will be English. It has already taken the place of French in Germany and Russia. All the deliberations of the recent Conference concerning Samoa were conducted in English instead of French. A gentleman in Liberia says that English has driven out every other foreign tongue from the west coast of Africa, where once Portuguese was dominant This progress in India is steady, as it is also in Japan.