OLD GREY TELLS PIONEER TALES.
Many events similar to the one related in the last chapter spread the Morgan’s fame throughout the Valley, and when Evans finished his clearing Justin Morgan once more took possession of the horse, for his health was sufficiently restored to take up school-teaching again.
The change from hard farm-work was very agreeable to True, and they cantered from place to place right gaily, albeit the horse missed the sweet singing of Master Morgan, who coughed now incessantly, and often had to dismount and rest in the shade of an oak on the roadside.
He was scarce forty years old, but seemed much more on account of his grievous malady.
Regularly they went to Royalton, some ten miles to the southward, and True grazed about until school let out. Through the window he sometimes saw the gentle, delicate face of the teacher at his desk, his Continental coat slightly open at the throat, showing a bit of fresh white linen, his queue, in the fashion of the day, tied with a stiff bow of black ribband.
He was a master of whom any horse might have been proud.
One day, while waiting for his owner, True wandered into the woods to escape the flies and dust of the highway, and there he met his friend, Old Grey, who told him how the Indians had burned Royalton in 1780; and among the anecdotes relating to this time there was one which amused the young horse no little.
It ran as follows:
For some unaccountable reason the Indians had failed to burn the hut of one Jones, who had a wife known far and wide as a scold and a shrew. To get a day’s rest from her abuse, poor Jones oft-times had to go hunting or trapping, and when he saw an especially bad tantrum coming he would snatch his gun from the mantel-shelf and, calling his dog, rush forth into the forest, a storm of reviling in his wake. Sometimes he remained away for days.
Nobody ever remembered having seen Jones smile.
One day, his wife’s temper and tongue being worse than usual, he found it expedient to go hunting, and stayed away over night. There are times when a silent dog is sweet company and the peaceful forest a haven of refuge.
On the second afternoon, thinking it might be safe to return, Jones approached his home cautiously. Stranger sounds than usual greeted his listening ear.
He paused, alert and intent, silencing his intelligent dog with a gesture. Creeping stealthily forward under the shadow of the trees, he beheld a small band of Indians in the act of breaking open his hut-door. He waited tensely, to see them drag his wife out and scalp her.
Instead, from inside came her familiar voice raised in vituperation and upbraiding. Jones could scarcely believe his ears, and for the first time since his marriage he grinned.
“This time those red imps have met their match,” he murmured to his dog with an audible chuckle.
Hardly had he spoken when out came half a dozen Indians dragging the shrew between them. Not for one moment, however, did she cease her abuse, terrified though she surely must have been.
Jones, standing at the edge of the forest, watched—fearfully at first, then with curious interest. Finally he sat down on the ground and gave way to uncontrollable mirth.
The Indians had paused on the river bank in consultation.
Suddenly, without warning apparently, two of them gathered the scold in their arms and sprang into the chill water. The others stood on the bank and whooped mad encouragement, fiendishly, as only Indians can.
Mistress Jones’ green homespun petticoat filled quickly with air and swelled around her like an enormous squash, out of which her scarlet face glowed furiously.
The savages on the bank yelled and danced. Those in the water ducked their victim up and down, howling with glee, cracking her over the head as she rose.
“And there be some who say an Indian can’t see a joke,” spluttered Jones, under his breath, holding his sides. The dog looked at his master with suspicion—he thought the man was choking.
But Jones soon saw that the savages merely meant to discipline his wife and give her a bath. An interruption from him might disturb these laudable intentions, so he remained quietly in the background.
When they had finished to their entire satisfaction they lifted the woman out of the river and flung her, gasping and shivering, among the tree-roots on the bank. She looked like a huge wet log. Yelling, they swam the river and disappeared in the dense woods beyond.
Trembling, Jones drew near—his mirth turned to seemly gravity; but he found a very subdued person. Cautiously Mistress Jones opened her eyes, one at a time, first peering carefully between the lids to see if the approaching footsteps were those of her tormenters returning.
When she saw her husband she groaned feebly.
“Have they gone?” she whispered.
“Yes,” replied Jones, with becoming seriousness.
Mistress Jones rose heavily, and squeezed the water from her skirts, shaking, humble and sobered.
“It served me right, husband dear,” she wailed at last. “I have ever been what those savages called me, ‘a dirty blouze of a thing,’ but from now on I am a changed woman and will be a better wife to you. The Indians said they would teach me a lesson—and they have!”