| ANDY AND THE GUN. |
He had a violent[3] temper, and when, as the boys said, "Andy got mad all over," not many cared to face him. Once some of his playmates secretly loaded an old gun almost up to the muzzle, and then dared him to fire it. They wanted to see what he would say when it kicked him over. Andrew fired the gun. It knocked him sprawling; he jumped up with eyes blazing with anger, and shaking his fist, cried out, "If one of you boys laughs, I'll kill him." He looked as though he meant exactly what he said, and the boys thought that perhaps it would be just as well to wait and laugh some other day.
1 Wrestling (res'ling).
2 He settled in Union County, North Carolina, very near the South Carolina line. See map in paragraph [140]. Mecklenburg Court House is in the next county west of Union County.
3 Violent: fierce, furious.
[207. Tarleton's[4] attack on the Americans; how Andrew helped his mother.]—When Andrew was thirteen, he learned what war means. The country was then fighting the battles of the Revolution. A British officer named Tarleton came suddenly upon some American soldiers near the place where young Jackson lived. Tarleton had so many men that the Americans saw that it was useless to try to fight, and they made no attempt to do so. The British should have taken them all prisoners; but, instead of that, they attacked them furiously, and hacked and hewed them with their swords. More than a hundred of our men were left dead, and a still larger number were so horribly wounded that they could not be moved any distance. Such an attack was not war, for war means a fair, stand-up fight; it was murder: and when the people in England heard what Tarleton had done, many cried Shame!
There was a little log meeting-house near Andrew's home, and it was turned into a hospital for the wounded men. Mrs. Jackson, with other kind-hearted women, did all she could for the poor fellows who lay there groaning and helpless. Andrew carried food and water to them. He had forgotten most of the lessons he learned at school, but here was something he would never forget.
4 Tarleton (Tarl'ton).
[208. Andrew's hatred of the "red-coats";[5] Tarleton's soldiers meet their match.]—From that time, when young Jackson went to the blacksmith's shop to get a hoe or a spade mended, he was sure to come back with a rude spear, or with some other weapon, which he had hammered out to fight the "red-coats" with.
| THE BEES BEAT THE "RED-COATS." |