THE STOLEN CHILDREN.
BY MRS. M.A. LIVERMORE.
Not many years ago, the beautiful hills and valleys of New England gave to the wild Indian a home, and its bright waters and quiet forests furnished him with food. Rude wigwams stood where now ascends the hum of the populous city, and council-fires blazed amid the giant trees which have since bowed before the axe of the settler. Between that rude age and the refinement of the present day, many and fearful were the strifes of the red owner of the land with the invading white man, who, having crossed the waters of the Atlantic, sought to drive him from his hitherto undisputed possessions. The recital of deeds of inhuman cruelty which characterized that period; the rehearsal of bloody massacres of inoffensive women and innocent children, which those cruel savages delighted in, would even now curdle the blood with horror, and make one sick at heart.
It was in this period of fearful warfare that the events occurred which form the foundation of the following story.
Not far from the year 1680, a small colony was planted on the banks of the beautiful Connecticut. A little company from the sea-side found their way, through the tangled and pathless woods, to the meadows that lay sleeping on the banks of this bright river; and here, after having felled the mighty trees whose brows had long been kissed by the pure heavens, they erected their humble cottages; and began to till the rich alluvial soil. The colonists were persevering and industrious; and soon a little village grew up beside the shining stream, fields of Indian corn waved their wealth of tasselled heads in the breezes, the rudely-constructed school-house echoed with the cheerful hum of the little students, and a rustic church was dedicated to the God of the Pilgrims. He who officiated as the spiritual teacher of this new parish, also instructed the children during the week. A man he was of no inferior mind, or neglected education; of fervent, but austere piety, possessing a bold spirit and a benevolent heart. His family consisted of a wife and two daughters; Emma, the elder, was a girl of eight summers, and Anna, the younger, was about five.
Never were children so frolicsome and mirth-loving as were Emma and Anna Wilson, the daughters of the minister. Not the grave admonitions of their mother, or the severe reproofs of their stern father; not their many confinements in dark and windowless closets, or the memory of afternoons, when, supperless, they had been sent to bed while the sun was yet high in the heavens; not the fear of certain punishment, or the suasion of kindness, could tame their wild natures, or force them into anything like woman-like sobriety. Hand in hand, they would wander amid the aisles of mossy-trunked trees, plucking the flowers that carpeted the earth; now digging for ground-nuts, now turning over the leaves for acorns; sometimes they would watch the nibbling squirrel as he nimbly sprang from tree to tree, or overpower, with their boisterous laughter, the gushing melody of the bobolink; they mocked the querulous cat-bird and the cawing crow, started at the swift winging of the shy blackbird, and stood still to listen to the sweet song of the clear-throated thrush; now they bathed their feet in the streamlets that went singing on their way to the Connecticut, and then, throwing up handfuls of the running water, which fell again upon their heads, they laughed right merrily at their self-baptism. They were happy as the days were long; but wild as their playfellows, the birds, the streams, and the squirrels.
One beautiful Sabbath morning in July, their mother dressed them tidily in their best frocks, and tying on their snow-white sun-bonnets, she sent them to church nearly an hour before she started with their father, that they might walk leisurely, and have opportunity to get rested before the commencement of services. But it was not until near the middle of the sermon that the little rogues made their appearance. With glowing faces, hair that had strayed from its ungraceful confinement to float in golden curls over their necks and shoulders,—with bonnets, shoes and stockings tied together and swinging over each arm,—with dresses rent, ripped, soiled and stained, and up-gathered aprons filled with berries, blossoms, pebbles, fresh-water shells and bright sand, they stole softly to where their mother was sitting, much to her mortification, and greatly to the horror of their pious father.