“Faix?”
“Faix, stranger. Yes, yes; I have just written an account of the battle, to be published in England. After the frogs had a battle, the caterpillars had another, and then the hills at a place called Moodus began to rumble and quake, and become colicky and cough. This is a strange country.
“But these things,” he added, “are of little account in comparison to the fact that the heart of the people is turning against the laws that the good king and his minister make for the welfare of the colony. They allow the people here to be one with the home government by bearing a part of the taxes. And the people’s hearts are becoming alien. I do not wonder that frogs fight, and caterpillars, and that the hills groan and shake and upset milk-pans, and make the maids run they know not where.”
“I must seek that man they call ‘Brother Jonathan.’ Something in me says I must. That way? Well, Dennis O’Hay will start now; it is a sorry story that I will have to tell him, but it is a true heart I will have to take to him.”
“I am going back to England,” said Mr. Peters.
“Well, good-by is it to you,” said Dennis, and the young Irishman set his face toward Lebanon of the cedars, on the road from Boston to Philadelphia by way of New York. He stopped by the way to talk with the people he met about the warlike times, and things happening at Boston town.
His mind was filled with wonder at what he heard. What a curious man the same Brother Jonathan might be! Who were the Indian children? What was the story of the battle of the frogs, and of the caterpillars; what was the cause of the coughing mountains at Moodus; why did Brother Jonathan, a man of such great heart, scowl at the same Mr. Peters, and who was this same Mr. Peters?
Dennis took off his hat as he went on toward Lebanon, turning over in his mind these questions. He swung his hat as he went along, and the blue jays peeked at him and laughed, and the conquiddles (bobolinks) seemed to catch the wonder in his mind, and to fly off to the hazel coverts. Rabbits stood up in the highway, then shook their paws and ran into the berry bushes by the brooks.
Everything seemed strange, as he hurried on, picking berries when he stopped to rest.
At noon the sun glared; fishing hawks, or ospreys, wheeled in the air, screaming. A bear, with her cubs, stopped at the turn of the way. The bear stood up. Dennis stood still.