3
Solomon sent his furs to market and went to work on the farm of John Irons and lived with the family. The boy returned to school. After the hay had been cut and stacked in mid-summer, they were summoned to Boston to testify in the trial of Preston. They left in September taking with them a drove of horses.
"It will be good for Jack," John Irons had said to his wife. "He'll be the better prepared for his work in Philadelphia next fall."
Two important letters had arrived that summer. One from Benjamin Franklin to John Irons, offering Jack a chance to learn the printer's trade in his Philadelphia shop and board and lodging in his home. "If the boy is disposed to make a wise improvement of his time," the great man had written, "I shall see that he has an opportunity to take a course at our Academy. I am sure he would be a help and comfort to Mrs. Franklin. She, I think, will love to mother him. Do not be afraid to send him away from home. It will help him along toward manhood. I was much impressed by his letter to Miss Margaret Hare, which her mother had the goodness to show me. He has a fine spirit and a rare gift for expressing it. She and the girl were convinced by its argument, but the Colonel himself is an obdurate Tory--he being a favorite of the King. The girl, now very charming and much admired, is, I happen to know, deeply in love with your son. I have promised her that, if she will wait for him, I will bring him over in good time and act as your vicar at the wedding. This, she and her mother are the more ready to do because of their superstition that God has clearly indicated him as the man who would bring her happiness and good fortune. I find that many European women are apt to entertain and enjoy superstition and to believe in omens--not the only drop of old pagan blood that lingers in their veins. I am sending, by this boat, some more books for Jack to read."
The other letter was from Margaret Hare to the boy, in which she had said that they were glad to learn that he and Mr. Binkus were friends of Captain Preston and inclined to help him in his trouble. "Since I read your letter I am more in love with you than ever," she had written. "My father was pleased with it. He thinks that all cause of complaint will be removed. Until it is, I do not ask you to be a Tory, but only to be patient."
Jack and Solomon were the whole day getting their horses across Van Deusen's ferry and headed eastward in the rough road. Mr. Binkus wore his hanger--an old Damascus blade inherited from his father--and carried his long musket and an abundant store of ammunition; Jack wore his two pistols, in the use of which he had become most expert.
When the horses had "got the kinks worked out," as Solomon put it, and were a trifle tired, they browsed along quietly with the man and boy riding before and behind them. By and by they struck into the twenty-mile bush beyond the valley farms. In the second day of their travel they passed an Albany trader going east with small kegs of rum on a pack of horses and toward evening came to an Indian village. They were both at the head of the herd.
"Stop," said Solomon as they saw the smoke of the fires ahead. "We got to behave proper."
He put his hands to his mouth and shouted a loud halloo, which was quickly answered. Then two old men came out to him and the talk which followed in the Mohawk dialect was thus reported by the scout to his companion:
"We wish to see the chief," said Solomon. "We have gifts for him."