THE COURTING STICK
Asenath Short—I seem to see her now (said the elder). One day she said to her husband:
“Kalub, now look here; we’ve got near upon everything so far as this world’s goods go—spinnin’ wheels and hatchels, and looms and a mahogany table, and even a board to be used to lay us out on when the final time shall come. The last thing that you bought was a dinner-horn, and then I put away the conch shell from the Indies along with the cradle and the baby chair. But, Kalub, there’s one thing more that we will have to have. The families down at Longmeadow have all got them; they save fire and fuel, and they enable the young folks and their elders all to talk together at the same time, respectfully in the same room, and when the young folks have a word to say to each other in private it encourages them. Now I’m kind o’ sociable-like myself, and I like to encourage young people; that’s why I wanted you to buy a spinet for Mandy. I don’t like to see young folks go apart by themselves, especially in winter; there is no need of extra lights or fires, if one only has one of them things.”
“One of them things? Massy sakes alive, what is it, Asenath?”
“Why, haven’t you never seen one, Kalub? It is a courtin’ stick. They didn’t used to have such things when we were young. A courtin’ stick is like Aaron’s rod that budded.”
“A courtin’ stick! Conquiddles! Do I hear my ears? There don’t need to be any machinery for courtin’ in this world no more than there does to make the avens bloom, or the corn cockles to come up in the corn. What is a courtin’ stick, Asenath?”
“Well, Kalub, a courtin’ stick is a long, hollow wooden tube, with a funnel at each end—one funnel to cover the mouth of the one that speaks, and one to cover the ear of the one that listens. By that stick—it is all so proper and handy when it works well and steady—young people can talk in the same room, and not disturb the old people or set the work folks and the boys to titterin’ as they used to do when we were young. It was discovered here in the Connecticut Valley, which has always been a place of providences. Just as I said, it is a savin’ of fire and lights in the winter-time, and it suggests the right relations among families of property. It is a sort of guide-post to life.
“Kalub, don’t you want that I should show you one?”
“Where did you get it, Asenath?”
“Asahel made it for me. I told him how to make it, but when I came to explain to him what it was for his face fell, and he turned red and he said, ‘Hyppogriffo!’ I wonder where he got that word—‘hyppogriffo!’ It has a pagan sound; Asahel, he mistrusted.”
“Mistrusted what, Asenath?”
“Well, I haven’t told you quite all. When the head of a family knows that a certain young man is comin’ to visit him at a certain time and hangs up a courtin’ stick over the mantel-tree shelf, or the dresser, it is a sign to the visitor he is welcome.”
“But there is no need of a sign like that, Asenath.”
Asenath rose, went into the spare bed-room, a place of the mahogany bureau, the mourning piece, valences and esconces, and brought out a remarkable looking tube, which seemed to have leather ears at each end, and which was some dozen feet long.
“Moses!” said Caleb, “and all the patriarchs!” he added. “Let’s you and me try it. There, you put it up to your ear and let me speak. Is the result satisfyin’?”
Asenath assured him that the experiment was quite satisfactory.
“Well, well,” said Caleb. “Now I will go on shellin’ corn and think matters over; it may be all right if the elder says it is.”
For a few minutes there was a rain of corn into the basket, when Caleb started up and said, “Cracky!” He put his hand into one pocket after another, then went up to the peg board and took down his fur overcoat and felt of the pockets in it. He came back to the place of the corn-shelling doubtfully, and began to trot, as it were, around the basket, still putting his hand into one pocket after another.
“Lost anything, Kalub?” asked Asenath.
“Yes, the stage-driver gave me a parcel directed to Asahel, in the care of Amanda, and I don’t know what I did with it. I meant to have told you about it, but you set me all into confusion over that there courtin’ stick.”
We know not how many old New England homesteads may have a courting stick among their heirlooms, but imagine that they are few. Such a stick used to be shown to the curious in the Longmeadow neighborhood of Springfield, Mass., and we think it may be seen there still. It was especially associated with the manners and customs of the Connecticut Valley towns, and it left behind it some pleasing legends in such pastoral villages as Northampton, Hadley, and Hatfield. It was a promising object-lesson in the domestic life of the worldly wise, and could have been hardly unwelcome to marmlet maidens and rustic beaux.
Caleb Short continued his shelling corn for a time, but he worked slowly. He at last turned around and looked at his wife, who was sewing rags for a to-be-braided mat.
“Well, what is it now, Kalub?” asked the latter.
“Asahel.”
“Yes—I know—I’ve been thinkin’ much about him of late. He came to us as a bound boy after his folks were dead, and we’ve done well by him, now haven’t we, Kalub? I’ve set store by him, but—I might as well speak it out, he’s too sociable with our Mandy now that they have grown up. It stands to reason that he can never marry Mandy.”
“Why not, Asenath?”
“Why not? How would you like to have people say that our Amanda had married her father’s hired man? How would it look on our family tree?” Asenath glanced up to a fruitful picture on the wall.
“Asahel is a true-hearted boy,” said Caleb. “Since our own son has taken to evil ways, who will we have to depend upon in our old age but Asahel, unless Mandy should marry?”
“O Kalub, think what a wife I’ve been to you and listen to me. Mandy is going to marry. I am going to invite Myron Smith here on Thanksgiving, and to hang up the courtin’ stick over the dresser, so that he will see it plain. That stick is goin’ to jine the two farms. It is a yard-stick—there, now, there! I always was great on calculation; Abraham was, and so was Jacob; it’s scriptural. You would have never proposed to me if I hadn’t encouraged you, and only think what a wife I’ve been to you! Just like two wives.”
“But Asahel Bow is a thrifty boy. He is sensible and savin’, and he is feelin’.”
“Kalub, Kalub Short, now that will do. Who was his father? Who but old Seth Bow? Everybody knows what he was, and blood will tell. Just think of what that man did!”
“What, Asenath?”
“Why, you know that he undertook to preach, and he thought that if he opened his mouth the Lord would fill it. And he opened his mouth, and stood with it open for nearly ten minutes, and he couldn’t speak a word. He was a laughing-stock, and he never went to meetin’ much after that, only to evenin’ meetin’s in the schoolhouse—candle-light meetin’s.”
“Yes, Asenath, that is all true. But Seth Bow was an honest man. Just hear how he used to talk to me. He used to say to me—I often think of it—he used to say: ‘Caleb Short, I’ve lost my standin’ among the people, but I haven’t lost my faith in God, and there is a law that makes up for things. I couldn’t preach, but Asahel is goin’ to preach. He’s inherited the germ of intention from me, and one day that will be something to be thankful for, come Thanksgiving days. I will preach through Asahel yet. I tell you, Caleb, there is a law that makes up for things. No good intention was ever lost. One must do right, and then believe that all that happens to him is for his good. That is the way the Book of Job reads, and I have faith, faith, faith! You may all laugh at me, but Asahel will one day be glad that his old father wanted to preach, and tried, even if he did fail. The right intention of the father is fulfilled in the son, and I tell you there’s a law that makes up for things, and so I can sing Thanksgiving Psalms with the rest of um, if I don’t dare to open my mouth in doin’ it.’ Asenath, I look upon Asahel as a boy that is blessed in the intention of his father. The right intentions of a boy live in the man, and the gov’nin’ purpose of the man lives in his boys or those whom he influences, and I tell you, Asenath, there’s nothing better to be considered on Thanksgiving days than the good intentions of the folks of the past that live in us. There are no harvests in the world ekul to those. You wait and see.”
At this point of the story, the clergyman said:
“That is good old Connecticut doctrine, Brother Jonathan.”
The story-teller continued:
The weather-door slowly opened, and the tall form of a young man appeared.
“Asahel,” said Asenath, “we were just speakin’ of you and your folks, and now I want to have a talk with you. Take off your frock, and don’t be standing there like a swamp crane, but sit down on the uniped here close by me, as you used to do when you was a small boy. I set store by you, and you just think what a mother I’ve been to you since your own mother was laid away in the juniper lot! But I am a proper plain-speakin’ woman, as your own mother was—she that answered the minister back in meetin’ time when the good old elder said that your father was a hypocrit.”
Presently the weather-door opened, and Amanda appeared and sat down on the same uniped with Asahel.
The good woman continued:
“You two have been cowslippin’ together, and sassafrassin’ together, and a-huntin’ turkeys’ nests and wild honey, and pickin’ Indian pipe and all. Now, that was all right when you were children. But, Asahel, you and Amanda have come to the pastur’ bars of life, and you must part, and you, Asahel, must be content to become just one of our hired men and sit at the table with the other hired men, on Thanksgivin’ days the same as on all other days, and not stand in the way of any one. And, Amandy Short, do you see that?”
Asenath held up the courting stick.
“Do you know what that is?”
“It is just a hollow stick. I’ve seen sticks before. What does all this mean?”
“You’ve seen sticks before, have you, Amanda? And you have experienced ’em, too, for I have been a faithful mother to you—as good as two. But this is the stick that must unite some farm to ours, and I am goin’ to hang it up over the dresser, and when the right young man comes, Amanda, I want you to take it down and put it up to your ear, so, and it may be that you will hear somethin’ useful, somethin’ to your advantage and ourn. I hope that I made myself clearly understood.”
She did. The two young people had not been left in any darkness at all in regard to her solution of their social equation. Asahel stepped into the middle of the great kitchen floor. His face was as fixed as an image, and the veins were mapped on his forehead.
He bent his eyes on Asenath for a moment and then his soul flowed out to the tone of the accompaniment of honor.
“Mrs. Short, you were good to me as a boy, and I will never do a thing against your will in your family affairs. My father prayed that I might have the ability to fulfil what he was unable to do in life. To inherit such a purpose from such a father is something to be grateful for, and now that I am disappointed in my expectation of Amanda I shall devote all that I am to my father’s purpose in me. I am going to be a minister.”
“You be, hey? But where is the money comin’ from?”
“Mrs. Short, it is to come out of these two fists.”
Poor tender-hearted Caleb, he shelled corn as never before during this painful scene. Suddenly he looked up and about for relief. His eye fell upon the courting stick.
“Here,” said he to Amanda, who was crying, “just let us try this new comical machine, and see how it works. Mandy, let’s you and I have a little talk together. I’ll put the thing up to my mouth, so, and you just listen at the other end of it. There—I’m going to say something. Ready now, Mandy? Did you hear that?”
“Yes, father, I heard it just as plain as though you spoke it into my ear.”
“You didn’t hear anything in particular, did you, Asenath?”
“No, only a sound far away and mysterious like.”
“Curis, ain’t it, how that thing will convey sound in that way? I should think that some invention might come out of it some day. Now, Amanda, you just put your ear up to the funnel and listen again. Mandy,” he continued through the tube, “if your heart is sot on Asahel, do you stand by him, and wait; time makes changes pleasantly.” He put aside the tube. “There, now, do you hear?”
“You didn’t hear, mother, did you?” said Caleb to Asenath, glancing aside.
“No, Kalub.”
“This is a great invention. It works well. Now let me just have a word with Asahel.”
Amanda conveyed one end of the tube to Asahel’s ear.
“Asahel.” He took his mouth from the tube. “Did you hear?”
“You didn’t hear anything, did you?” he said, looking toward Asenath.
“No, Kalub.”
“Now, Asahel, you listen again,” said Caleb, putting his mouth to the tube. “If your heart is sot on Mandy, you just hang on, and wait. Time will be a friend to you, and I will. There, now, did you hear, Asahel?”
“You didn’t hear anything, did you?” asked Caleb of Asenath again with a shake.
“I don’t know,” said Asenath, “it seems to me as though the hands are the hands of Esau, but that the voice is the voice of Jacob.”
“Show! Well, now, Amanda, you and Asahel talk now with each other. Here’s the tube.”
“Asahel Bow,” said Amanda, through the tube, “I believe in you through and through.”
“Amen!” said Asahel, speaking outside of the tube. “Amen whenever your mother shall say Amen, and never until then. There is no need of any courting stick for me.”
At this point of family history Caleb leaped around.
“I know what I did with it—I do now!”
“Did with what, Kalub?” asked Asenath.
“That letter for Asahel—it is right under my bandanna in my hat!”
Caleb went to his hat and handed the lost letter to Asahel.
The latter looked at it and said, “England!” He read it with staring eyes and whitening face, and handed it to Mrs. Short, who elevated her spectacles again.
“That old case in chancery is decided,” said he, “and I am to get my father’s share of the confiscated property. I may have yet to wait for it, though. My great-grandfather was Bow of Bow. He was accused of resisting the Act of Uniformity, and his property was withheld.”
Asenath lifted her brows.
“Bow of Bow,” she repeated. “He was a brave man, I suppose. Resisted the Act of Uniformity? How much did he leave?”
“An estate estimated at £20,000.”
“Heavens be praised!” said the suddenly impressible Asenath. She added: “I always knew that you had good blood in you, and was an honest man, Asahel, just like your father; nobody could ever turn him from the right, no more than you could the side of a house; no Act of Uniformity could ever shape the course of old Seth Bow. And you are a capable man, Asahel; your poor father had limitations and circumstances to contend with, but you are capable of doing all that he meant to do. I always did think a deal of your father, and I think considerable of your grandfather now. I always was just like a mother to you, now wasn’t I, Asahel, good as two or more ordinary stepmothers and the like?
“‘Bow of Bow,’ ‘Bow of Bow,’” continued Asenath. “Well, I have prayed that Amanda might marry well, and your part of £20,000 would be just about twenty times the value of the Smith farm, as I see it. That farm isn’t anything but a bush pastur’, anyhow.
“‘Bow of Bow,’ what a sort of grand sound that has! ‘Bow of Bow.’ I once had an uncle that was a stevedore, an English stevedore, or a cavalier, or something of the kind, but he didn’t leave any estate like Bow of Bow. I think he uniformed in the time of the Uniformity.
“Asahel, you just put that there courtin’ stick up to your ear once more and let me say a word, now that I have new light and understand things better.”
Asahel obeyed. There came a response that could be heard outside of the hollow tube: “Amen!” A murmurous sound followed which was understood only by Asahel. “You will overlook my imperfections now, won’t you, Asahel? Pride is a deceitful thing, and it got the better of me. I only meant well for Amandy, same as you do. I’m sorry for what I said, Asahel. Marry Mandy, and I’ll be a mother to you as I always have been. As good as two common mothers, or more, same as I have always been to Kalub.”
“And I am Asahel. Have my father’s intentions been fulfilled in me?”
“Yes, elder,” said the Governor. “They have!” shouted all. “That is a tale that makes me pray to become all I can,” said a taverner from Boston.
“The purpose of life is growth,” said the Governor. “Growth is revelation. Grow, grow, and past intentions will be fulfilled in you.”
He crossed Lebanon green in the moonlight.
Lebanon, the place that had been filled with life, with hasty orders to couriers, as “Fly!” “Haste!” was silent now. What would be the next news to come by the green?
CHAPTER XV
“CORNWALLIS IS TAKEN!”
These were thrilling days. The American armies were marching south, and with them were advancing the bugles of Auvergne.
Simple incidents, as well as incidents tragic and dramatic, picture times and periods, and we relate some of the family stories of General Knox of the artillery, who had collected powder and directed, often with his own hands, the siege-guns of the great events of the war.
When the French officers arrived in Philadelphia after their journey from Lebanon, they were entertained at a banquet by Chevalier de Luzerne, the ambassador from the French court. Philadelphia was the seat of the American Government then.
The banquet was a splendid one for those times, and it had a lively spirit. The American guests must have been filled with expectation.
For the plan to shut up Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown was full of promise, and the military enterprises to effect this were proceeding well. The lord himself was dissatisfied with the plans he was compelled to pursue, and any fortress is weak in which the heart of the commander is not strong in the faith of success.
In the midst of the banquet, there was a summons for silence. The Chevalier arose, his face beaming.
He looked into the eager faces and said:
“My friends, I have good news for you all.
“Thirty-three ships of the line, commanded by Monsieur le Compte de Grasse, have arrived in the Chesapeake Bay.”
A thrill ran through the assembly. The atmosphere became electric, and amid the ardor of glowing expectation the Chevalier added:
“And the ships have landed three thousand men, and the men have opened communication with Lafayette.”
The guests leaped to their feet.
“Cornwallis is surrounded and doomed!” said they.
They grasped each other’s hands, and added:
“This is the end!”
The army, now confident of victory, marched toward Yorktown, under the command of Washington.
The inhabitants along the way hailed it as it passed—women, children. There were cheers from the doorsteps, fences, and fields, from white and black, the farmer and laborer. The towns uttered one shout, and blazed by night. The land knew no common night, every one was so filled and thrilled with joy. All flags were in air.
The morning of liberty was dawning, the sun was coming, the people knew it by the advance rays. The invader must soon depart.
“Cornwallis is doomed!” was the salutation from place to place, from house to house.
General Washington, with Knox and members of his staff, stopped one morning at a Pennsylvania farmhouse for breakfast.
The meal was provided. The officers partook of it, and ordered their horses, and were waiting for them when the people of the place came into the house to pay their respects to Washington. He stood in the simple room, tall and commanding, with the stately Knox beside him.
“Make way,” said the people, “make way for age!”
An old man appeared, the patriarch of the place. He entered the house without speaking a word. He looked into the face of Washington and stood silent. There had come to him the moment that he had hoped to see; the desire and probably prayers of fading years had been answered. The room became still.
The old man did not ask an introduction to the great commander. He lifted his face upward and raised his hands. Then he spoke, not to Washington and his generals, but to God:
“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”
The generals rode on toward Virginia, cheered by the spirit of prophecy in the patriarch’s prayer.
It was a little episode, but the soul of destiny was in it.
October, with its refreshing shade of coolness, its harvest-fields and amber airs, was now at hand. Cornwallis was surrounded at Yorktown. He had warned Sir Henry Clinton, his superior, that this might be his fate. He is lost who has lost his faith, and begins to make the provision to say, “I told you so!”
Knox with his siege-guns, twenty-three in number, was preparing for the final tempest of the war.
And against Yorktown were marching the heroes of the old liberty banners of Auvergne sans tache.
In the early autumn of 1781 the field of war had become the scene of a thrilling drama in the British camp. Lord Cornwallis had taken his army into Yorktown, and under the protection of the British fleet on the York River had fortified his position by semicircular fortifications which extended from river to river.
He must have felt his position impregnable at first, with the advantage which the fleet would bring to him in the wide river, until there came news to him that unsettled his faith in his position. But he soon began to lose confidence. He seemed to foreshadow his doom.
Yorktown was situated on a projecting bank of the York River. The river was a mile wide, and deep. Lord Cornwallis expected to have the place fortified by middle fall, and that Sir Henry Clinton would join him there.
“I have no enemy now to contend against but Lafayette,” he thought until the coming of the French fleet was announced to him.
Washington determined to cut off Lord Cornwallis from any retreat from Yorktown by land or by sea. His plan was to pen up the British commander on the peninsula, and there to end the war. He largely entrusted the siege by land to young Lafayette. He probably felt a pride in giving the young general the opportunity to end the war. He liked to honor one who had so trusted his heart, and whose service had so honored him.
Washington ordered the French army to the Virginia peninsula, and with them went the grand regiment of Gatinais, or Gatinois, with which many years before Rochambeau had won his fame. The heroes of old Auvergne were to be given the opportunity to fight for liberty here, as they had done in the days of old.
These heroes had had their regimental name officially taken away from them on being brought to America—Auvergne sans tache. They desired to serve liberty under this glorious name of noble memories again. They appealed to Rochambeau for that distinction.
Their hearts beat high, for they were going to reenforce Lafayette, who was born in Auvergne, and who had desired their presence and inspiration.
So on sea and land a powerful force was gathering to shut up Lord Cornwallis in Yorktown and to shatter the British army on the banks of the York.
Washington himself was approaching Lafayette by way of Philadelphia, Rochambeau by way of Chester and Philadelphia, and De Grasse by the sea. General Thomas Nelson, Governor of Virginia, was arousing the spirit of Virginia again and calling out the militia.
At the great banquet which was given in Philadelphia by the French minister, Chevalier de Luzerne, to Washington and the French officers, when came the news that Count De Grasse and Marquis St. Simon with 3,000 troops had joined Lafayette, all Philadelphia had rung with cheers, and the news thrilled the country. At that hour the destiny of America was revealed. There could but one thing happen at Yorktown now—Cornwallis must surrender. The General was certain to be blocked up in York River.
Everything was going well. Washington and Rochambeau went to Baltimore and found the city blazing as with the assurance of victory. At this time, with victory in view, Washington visited Mount Vernon, from which he had been absent six anxious years. He passed the evening there with Count Rochambeau, and they were joined there by Chastellux. Washington now left his old home for the field of final victory.
The great generals next faced Yorktown, with their forces, some 16,000 men. They saw the helplessness of Cornwallis, and as De Grasse wished to return soon to the West Indies, the combined forces prepared to move on the British fortifications at once. Seven redoubts and six batteries faced the allies, with abatis, field-works, and barricades of fallen trees.
The allies began to prepare for an immediate conflict. They erected advancing earthworks, in a semicircle, and with the French fleet in the bay, the 1st of October heard the sound of the cannonade.
The peninsula thundered and smoked, and the drama there begun was watched by Washington, Rochambeau, Chastellux, and Count de Grasse. What men were these with Lafayette at the front!
A great cannonade began on the 9th of October, Washington himself putting the match to the first gun.
Governor Nelson of Virginia was in the field. His house was there, too, within the enemy’s lines in Yorktown. “Do you see yonder house?” said he to a commander of the artillery. It was the headquarters of the enemy. “It is my house, but fire upon it.”
This recalls John Hancock’s message to Washington at the beginning of the war. “Burn Boston, if need be, and leave John Hancock a beggar.”
The enemy responded. The shells of each crossed each other in the bright, smoky October air. The British fired red-hot shot, and set on fire some of their own shipping. The nights seemed full of meteors, as though red armies were battling in the sky.
The 14th of October came—a day of heroes. That day the redoubts were to be stormed.
Lafayette prepared his own men for the assault.
Then Baron de Viomenil led out the heroes of Gatinais.
Before this regiment De Rochambeau appeared to give them their orders, which meant death. He had won, as we have said, his own fame in Europe with these mountain heroes. The attack to which he was to order them now was to be made at night.
“My lads,” said he, “I have need of you this night, and I hope that you will not forget that we have served together in that brave regiment of Auvergne sans tache.”
A cheer went up in memory of old, followed by:
“Restore to us our name of ‘Auvergne sans tache’ and we will die.”
“That name shall be restored,” said Rochambeau.
They marched to death side by side with the bold regiment of Lafayette, who was to lead the advance.
About eight o’clock the signal rockets for the attack reddened the sky.
The regiment of Gatinais rushed forward. They faced the hardest resistance of the siege. This redoubt was powerfully garrisoned and fortified.
Baron de Viomenil led his heroes into the fire, and his men fought like ancient heroes, to whom honor was more than life. In the midst of the struggle an aide came to him from Lafayette.
“I am in the redoubt,” said the message. “Where are you?”
“I will be in my redoubt in five minutes.”
Strongly fortified as that redoubt was, it could not withstand the men of Gatinais. They entered it with a force that nothing could withstand, but one third of them fell.
“Royal Auvergne,” said Rochambeau, “your survivors shall have your own name again.”
He reported the action to the French King, and the latter gave back to the heroes their regimental name of old Auvergne sans tache.
These men are worthy of a monument under that noble motto. We repeat, the words should be used on decorative ensigns of the Sons of the Revolution; nothing nobler in war ever saw the light.
Yorktown fell on the morning of the 17th, and a courier sped toward Philadelphia, crying, as he went: “Cornwallis is taken!” Bells rang, people cheered.
The messenger reached Philadelphia at night—“Cornwallis is taken!”
Windows opened. The citizens leaped from their beds. The bells rang on, and the city blazed with lights, and Congress gave way to transports of joy.
Dennis and Peter came riding back to the alarm-post, shouting by the way, “Cornwallis is taken!”
The Governor knelt down in the war office, and the people shouted without the silent place.
Peter could afford to be magnanimous now to his feeble old uncle. He hurried to the old man’s cabin and knocked at the door.
“I chop wood,” said a voice within.
“Uncle, it is Peter. Cornwallis has surrendered!”
The latch was lifted, and the wood-chopper appeared as one withered and palsied.
“What is that you tell me? Cornwallis has surrendered? What has become of the King?”
“The cause of the King is lost!”
“Then I don’t see that I have anything more to live for. Come in. I have nothing against you now, so far as I am concerned, for you came back—don’t you remember that on the night that I was to have been robbed you came back? I have never forgotten that. You came back.”
He tottered to the chest beside the table.
“Here, let me open the chest now while I have strength to unlock the lid. The King! the King! How he will feel when he hears the news! And he said of young Trumbull, ‘I pity him.’ His heart will go down like a sailor on the sea on a stormy night. Peter, I feel for him. Don’t you pity him? Sit down by me.”
He lifted the lid of the chest, and took out of the chest a leather bag. He untied the bag-string, and turned a pile of doubloons on the table.
“One. That is yours. You came back to your poor old uncle on the night when the robber was trying to find me.
“Two. It is yours, for you came back.
“Three. My sight is going. It is all yours, for you came back.
“My hands grow numb, the world is going. I can feel it going. But all that I leave is yours. My breath grows cold. I have only time to say, ‘God save the King!’ I want to go, and leave what I have to you, Peter, for you came back. Good-by, earth; I leave you my woodpile; warm yourself by my fire when I am gone. God—save—the—King!”
He sat silent. Peter bent over him. The old man’s breath was cold, and soon the last pulse beat.
Peter gathered up the gold. He would turn it into education at Plainfield Academy and at Yale College. Then he would go away, after Dennis, perhaps, to the Western territory which would become a new Connecticut.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes:
Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
Except for the frontispiece, illustrations have been moved to follow the text that they illustrate, so the page number of the illustration may not match the page number in the List of Illustrations.
Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.