The remark was lost on the old gentleman. He was pursuing his own train of recollection now. “I knew your grandmother’s folks better ’n I did your grandfather’s,” he said. “Moses Hadley married Mercy Bridgewood, and the Bridgewoods and our folks neighbored a good deal.”
“Did they?” exclaimed the young man, with a quick eagerness in his voice. “It was the Bridgewood line that I came to see you about. Did you ever hear of Jabez Bridgewood?”
“Jabez Bridgewood!” exclaimed Ruel Saxon. “What, old Jabe that used to live on Cony Hill? Why, sartin, sartin! He ’n’ my grandfather were great cronies. I’ve heard my mother say more ’n once, when she saw him coming across the fields: ‘Girls, we may as well plan for an extra one to supper. There’s Jabe Bridgewood, and he ’n’ your grandfather’ll set an’ talk till all’s blue. There’ll be no getting rid of him.’”
The young man colored again, and this time the girls did too. But they might have spared their blushes. The old gentleman was serenely unconscious of having said anything to call them out, and was pursuing his subject now under a full head of delighted reminiscence.
“He was an uncommon bright man, old Jabez Bridgewood; sort o’ crotchety and queer, but chuck full of ideas, and ready to stand up for ’em agin anybody. He was pretty quick-tempered, too, when anybody riled him up. My grandfather’s told me more ’n once about a row he got into with Peleg Wright; and the beginning of it was right here in this room. You see, Peleg was a regular Tory, though he didn’t let out fair ’n’ square where he stood; and Jabez he was hot on the other side, right from the start.”
A gleam of amused recollection came into his eyes as he added: “They used to tell about a contrivance he had on the hill to pepper the British with, if they should happen to come marching along his road. It was a young sapling that he bent down and loaded with stones and hitched a rope to, so he could jerk it up and let fly at a moment’s notice. They called it ‘Bridgewood’s Battery,’ but I guess he never used it. He was firing that old flint-lock gun of his instead. He was one of the minute-men, you know.
“But about that fuss with Peleg Wright. I don’ know just what ’twas Peleg said. He was sitting here talking with Jabe ’n’ my grandfather, getting hold of everything he could, I guess; and he said something about our duty to the king that stirred Jabe up so that he just bent down and scooped up a handful o’ sand—you know they had the floors sanded in those days, instead of having carpets on ’em—and flung it right square into Peleg’s face.”
“Shocking!” exclaimed Mr. Hadley, laughing. “Is that the sort of manners my great-great-grandfather had? I’m ashamed of him.”
“Well, there was a good many that thought he hadn’t or’ to have done it,” admitted the old gentleman, “but I don’t know. Peleg was a terrible mean-spirited, deceiving sort of cretur. It came out afterwards that ’twas he that put the British on the track of some gunpowder our folks had stored up; and sometimes I’ve kind o’ thought it served him right. The Bible says, ‘Bread of deceit is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel,’ and I don’ know but your grandfather was just fulfilling scripture when he gave it to him.”
“Do you suppose he thought of that verse when he did it?” said Mr. Hadley, laughing more heartily than before.