Jim Long-Knife

By Florance Walton Taylor
Illustrated by Dirk Gringhuis
ALBERT WHITMAN & COMPANY Chicago Illinois
Second Printing 1967 Copyright 1959 by ALBERT WHITMAN & COMPANY L. C. Card 59-9656
Published simultaneously in the Dominion of Canada by George J. McLeod, Limited, Toronto. Printed in the U.S.A.
Dedication To Alan’s three little queens; Elizabeth, Leslie, Sarah.
Permission is gratefully acknowledged for the use of material from “George Rogers Clark Papers” in Vol. 8 of the Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library, edited by James Alton James, copyright 1912.
Minnemung
Thirteen-year-old Jim Hudson thumped a melon with practiced fingers, then pulled it from the vine and laid it in a pile with the others. He wiped his hot forehead with his sweaty shirtsleeve, turning with a smile toward his mother. “Look, Ma!” he called, “See how many melons we have. And how fine the turnips and corn look.”
Ma Hudson, her rifle across her knees, was sitting on a large stump in the little clearing. She turned at the sound of Jim’s voice, and smiled wearily at her towheaded boy. “Yes, Jim. We’ll have plenty to eat this winter, I’m thinking.”
Jim moved on to another vine and glanced along the row to where his father was kneeling. Ma pushed her sunbonnet back over her faded yellow hair and resumed her watch into the wilderness surrounding the clearing.
All during the spring and summer the Hudsons had worked in this fashion. Jim and Pa had planted their crops and enlarged the clearing by felling trees, while Ma had sat ready with the Kentucky rifle, and looked for hostile Indians.