Meanwhile, people in Windham grew anxious about their own safety. If the Indians were in truth offended, would not the French now encourage them to take their revenge? That dread of the cruel savages, which was continually in the minds of all Connecticut settlers in those early days, increased in “Windham as rumors reached there, from time to time, of uprisings among the Indians. On the spring and summer evenings of that year breathless tales were told about Indian attacks: old tales which, like the one at the beginning of this story, had been handed down from earlier days in Connecticut, and new tales of fresh atrocities on the borders of the northern settlements in Maine and New Hampshire. The children listened as long as they were allowed and then went to bed trembling, seeing fierce painted faces and threatening feather headdresses in every dark shadow. Older people asked each other what would happen when the men were called out to serve in the army and the women and children were left helpless at home.

“While the town was in this tense state of anxiety, those of its inhabitants who lived near Windham Green were awakened out of their sleep, one warm June night, by strange and unaccountable noises.” There began to be a rumble, rumble, rumble in the air, and it grew louder and louder and seemed to be like drums beating. A negro servant, coming home late, heard it first. The night was still and black, and clouds hung low over the hot hillsides. He thought it might be thunder, but there was no lightning and no storm coming. He stopped and listened, and the sounds grew stranger and wilder. Perhaps it was witches, or devils; perhaps the Judgement Day was at hand! Terror seized him and he ran home breathless and awoke his master.

By this time others, too, were awake; windows flew open and heads were pushed out, and everybody asked, “What is it? What is it?” Some hurried out half-dressed, and frightened women and crying children gathered on the Green; they could not see one anothers’ white faces in the darkness. The beating of drums drew nearer and nearer. “It is the French and Indians coming,” cried the men; but no one could tell from which direction the enemy was advancing; the dreadful noise seemed to come from all sides at once, even from overhead in the sky.

By and by they thought they could distinguish words in the uproar. Deep bass voices thundered, “We’ll have Colonel Dyer; we’ll have Colonel Dyer,” and shrill high ones answered, “Elderkin, too; Elderkin, too.” As these were the names of the two lawyers in Windham who had been most prominently connected with the Wyoming plan,—­the “Susquehannah Purchase” as it was called,—­every one was sure that a band of Indians bent on revenge was approaching, and hearts beat fast in fear.

All night long the noises lasted, sometimes coming nearer, sometimes dying away in the distance, and all night long the people of Windham waited in dread and awful expectation. At last, toward daybreak, the dark clouds slowly lifted and with the first light in the east the sounds ceased. In the gray, early morning men looked at each other and then crept silently back, each to his own home. When the sun rose, clear and bright, and no French and no Indians had appeared, Windham regained its courage, and before the morning was over an explanation had been found of the strange noises of the night.

The frogs in the millpond had had a great battle, or some terrible catastrophe had overtaken them. Dead and dying frogs lay on the ground all about the pond, and their gurgles and croaks and clamor had made all the trouble and excitement. The story was soon told all over Connecticut, and everybody laughed, and ballads and songs were written about it, to the great mortification of the people of Windham. Yet the danger that explained the terror of that night was a real one in the history of many a Connecticut town, and therefore the Frogs of Windham have their legitimate place in Connecticut’s story.

References

  1. Larned, Ellen. History of Windham County. Worcester, 1874.
  2. Barber, J. W. Connecticut Historical Collections. J. W. Barber. New Haven, 1836.
  3. Todd, Charles Burr. In Olde Connecticut. The Grafton Press. New York, 1906.
  4. Sylvester, Herbert Milton. Indian Wars of New England. W. B. Clarke Co. Boston, 1910.

[Old Wolf Putnam]

One day, long ago, some boys were out bird-nesting. They saw a nest they wanted high up in a tree and far out on a limb, in a hard position to reach, One of the boldest of them climbed the tree to try to get it, but a branch broke with him and he fell. A lower projecting limb caught his clothes, and he hung there head down, arms and legs dangling helplessly. He could not climb back and he could not drop down, because he could not get free.