Forest Glen; or, The Mohawk's Friendship

by Elijah Kellogg

This announcement was received with shouts by the children, for they well knew Scip had no rival for getting up a savory mess.

After he had washed his face and hands, Mrs. Sumerford put an apron on him, and he set to work.

The girls picked over the berries, and the boys plucked the pigeons. There were many hungry mouths, and Scip made corresponding preparations. There was no oven: but Scip lined a kettle with crust, put in his pigeons and other things, and put on the upper crust; then, putting a large iron bake-pan over the mouth of the kettle, set it on the coals, and filled the pan with hot coals.

Mrs. Sumerford's plates were all either wood or pewter; but she was better off than some, for she had one large earthen pan for milk, and one smaller one. She made her pie in the small one, and baked it in the Dutch oven which she borrowed from Mrs. Honeywood for the occasion: she also made a berry-cake, and baked it on a board set before the fire, with a stone behind to hold it up. Potatoes were baked in the ashes.

Notwithstanding the lack of the customary utensils, and more than all of an oven, she made a capital pie: it was not only good, but a good deal of it. Scip was equally successful, and made a glorious pie.

"Dere, chillen [setting it on the table in the kettle], he good stew ebber man put in his mouf: under crust done, upper crust jes brown." The very dog began to lick his chops as he inhaled the savory smell.

After the repast they decorated the house with boughs of sassafras, locusts, wild flowers, and the pods of the cucumber-tree, and Scip played on the jew's-harp. You would have thought they had just got out of prison, they were so wild and full of tickle; and in one sense they had, having been confined to a limited circle around their homes, kept hard at work in the field, or set to fight for their lives with the Indians.

None of the inmates of the garrison, old or young, were so supremely happy as Scip; and before they separated he hugged the children all round, and they hugged him, and Dan Mugford made the philosophical reflection, that if the Indians had killed them all, Scip never could have made that pie, nor could they have enjoyed the pleasure of eating it.

The children now naturally supposed that the bars were all to be taken down, and that they were to enjoy their old-time liberty: therefore the next morning, the moment the chores were done and the cattle turned to pasture, they were about to set forth on a fishing expedition, when, to their no small surprise and grief, they were told that this liberty had been granted them because of their long confinement in close quarters, and also to show how highly their good behavior and pluck (when the fort was threatened by the Indians) was appreciated, but that they could not go again for a week at least. It would be useless for me to attempt to describe how slowly and wearily the hours dragged along for some days. The settlers were restricted from hunting as much as usual, on the account of the risk of life and scarcity of powder and lead. They had raised a less number of cattle and hogs, because the animals were liable to be killed by prowling Indians in the pasture, and there was a lack of salt with which to preserve pork and beef.

In this condition of affairs, the settlers, ever fruitful in expedients, hit upon another method to supply themselves with food, namely, by rearing a great number of fowls. These could be kept on grain, of which they had an abundance, and, in the event of their being compelled to live in garrison, could be kept very well inside the stockade; and the eggs and flesh would afford a constant supply of food.