"As if we would have come without you. The whole fun to-day is showing you the river," responded Martine, who had been up with Clare before. "There," she continued, "I forgot to give you my one piece of information—that Sewall's Bridge near the Country Club is the oldest pier bridge in the United States, and was built by the same Major Sewall who built the first bridge between Cambridge and Boston."
"Unimportant, if true," and Mrs. Stratford smiled at Martine's earnestness. "I approve, my dear, of your zeal for history, but in New England people often make too much of unimportant trifling things."
"Bridges and houses."
"Yes, and Indians and wars and—"
"Then you won't appreciate this verse that Clare recited the other day:
"Hundreds were murdered in their beds
Without shame or remorse,
And soon the floors and roads were strewed
With many a bloody corse."
"Evidently the writer of those lines had a real tragedy in mind," replied Mrs. Stratford.
"Yes," interposed Clare, "it was the Indian massacre of 1792, when more than three hundred savages came into York on snow-shoes, and killed half the people of the place,—all in fact except those who had taken refuge in the old garrison house. The minister, Rev. Shubael Dummer was shot while standing at his door—and—"
"Tell her, Clare, about the little boy," said Martine.
"Oh, Jeremiah Moulton, the only person within the Indian's reach whom they spared. He was a fat little boy, and when he caught sight of the savages he waddled away as fast as his little legs would carry him. This so amused the Indians that they laughed and laughed and spared him. Though hardly more than a baby at the time the boy never forgot his fright, and years later he revenged himself on the Indians in what was known as the Harmon Massacre,—and many people have since blamed him for his cruelty."