When Life Was Young: At the Old Farm in Maine

by C. A. Stephens

Adney's orders to them all were to keep quiet at their posts until they heard him fire a gun. Then all three were to beat the "long roll," then a quickstep; in fact, they were to make all the drum-racket they could, as if a number of companies, or regiments, were advancing on the fort from all quarters, except the south.

Adney himself went down near the fort, just at dusk, and contrived to give the inmates a glimpse of his figure in his army blue—as if he were a spy, reconnoitering the place. He then withdrew, and ten or fifteen minutes later, fired off his gun, when at once from three different points, in the darkening forest, there burst forth the roll of drums, Adney calling out in military accents, "Steady! Close up! Forward! Forward!"

The result showed that the young soldier's estimate of the valor of the skedaddlers was a perfectly correct one. For no sooner did they hear the roll of drums, than, fancying that they were being surrounded by a force of soldiers, they deserted their fort and skedaddled again, out through the woods on the south side. From the stories they afterward told, it is pretty clear that they did some remarkable running that night, and were about as badly frightened as they could be. Six or seven of them kept to the woods and made their way into Canada, where they lived till after the close of the War. One, the "Lieutenant" of the gang, ran home—as his wife told the story—and hid under a pile of old straw in the back yard. Several others were known by their neighbors to be lurking at their homes, keeping in cellars and chambers, during the following week. In short, this well-planned "attack" of Adney's broke up their rendezvous in the "great woods," and the fort was never occupied afterwards. The young soldier, who had approached near enough to witness the stampede, bivouacked his small drum-corps there that night very comfortably, and marched home in triumph next morning. The affair created much merriment and many jokes; and the moral would seem to be, that a fellow who will sneak off when his country calls for his services, is never a person to be feared as a warrior.

It was not a very pleasant place to linger in; and directly after we had taken our luncheon, we resumed our journey along the old trail, having a hard jaunt before us (as Addison well knew) to reach the "old slave's farm" before nightfall. There were a great many windfalls across the trail from the "fort," to the stream; we were an hour at least making the two miles, and the path along the bank was even worse, for freshets had lodged great quantities of drift stuff on the flats, so that, at last, we abandoned the trail altogether and took to the less obstructed woods, a little back from the banks.

The stream is a pretty one, being here not above forty or fifty feet in width, running over a sandy bed, sometimes pebbles, and again bending around in a deep pool where there are trout of good size, or at least were then.

It seemed a very long way to the opening; the girls were becoming tired; and we boys with the baskets had quite enough of it, long before we reached the ford which Addison and Thomas, who had been here before, remembered to be near two very tall pines. Several times we feared that we must have passed it; but finally, at about four o'clock, the great bushy opening on the other side of the stream came in view. Immediately then Addison saw the pines, and taking off our boots and stockings, we all walked across on a sandy bar over which the water ran in a shallow, being nowhere over a foot deep. It was quite cold, however, so that we were glad to replace socks and boots, after crossing.

The old slave's cabins stood about two hundred yards from the brook and, as above described, were situated some twenty yards apart. The land about them had been cleared at one time and put into grass, or corn. But low clumps of hazel-nut bushes were now growing around the cabins. About a year previously a party of deer hunters had camped here for a few days and, thinking the cabins snug and pleasant, had cleared them out nicely and built bunks in them to sleep in. We found the remains of their old couches of fir boughs still in the bunks. Their camp-fire had been made in the open space, midway between the two cabins; and they had constructed a species of stone fireplace for setting their kettles in.

"Here we are!" Addison exclaimed, as we set down our baskets. "What say to this for a camping-place, girls!"

"Oh, this is jolly!" cried Kate. "And won't it be nice, Doad, we girls can have a whole cabin all to ourselves! Now which one can we have?"

"You are privileged to take your choice," replied Addison. "Take the one you like best."