EARLY SETTLERS GOING TO MEETING.—Drawn by Howard Pyle.
The settlers had their guns ever at hand. If at work in the field, they placed them where they could seize them quickly. When they went to bed at night, they put a stout bar of wood across the door, and examined the flints and the priming. On Sunday, when they went to meeting, each man carried his gun, and the minister looked down from the pulpit upon men who had powder-horns and bullet-pouches slung across their shoulders, and whose muskets were standing in the corners of their pews. Some of the settlers kept watch outside while the others were in meeting. They went on scouts through the dark woods, peering among the trees to see if the Indians were prowling in the vicinity.
The settlers were obliged to work hard. While the men were at work in the fields, the women were spinning and weaving. Boys and girls had little time for play. There was always something for them to do. When a boy was sixteen years old, he was expected to do the work of a man. They all learned to shoot, and some of them, when they were only twelve, could bring down a squirrel from the highest tree every time, or shoot a deer upon the run.
Two boys—Isaac Bradley, who was fifteen years old, and Joseph Whittaker, who was eleven—were at work one day in Mr. Bradley's field, when suddenly a party of Indians sprang out from the woods and seized them. Isaac was small, but he was bright, cool-headed, and brave-hearted. Joseph, though four years younger, was as large as Isaac, but he was not so stout-hearted nor self-reliant as his companion.
The Indians were from Canada. They did not stop to kill any of the settlers, but hastened away, travelling through the dark woods northward to the beautiful Lake Winnipiseogee, where they remained through the winter. The lake swarmed with trout and pickerel, which they could catch through the ice, and the woods were full of bears and deer.
Isaac made himself at home in the wigwam, and picked up the language of the Indians in a very short time. The squaws made him do their drudgery; but the warriors liked him, and the Indian dogs wagged their tails when he looked at them out of his kindly eyes.
Winter passed and April came.
"We go to Canada now," said one of the Indians.
Isaac had no intention of going to Canada. Day after day he thought over the matter. He knew that the English settlements were far away to the south, but there was no path to them. He had no compass. How could he ever reach them? He would be guided by the sun by day, and the stars by night. He would make the attempt. He might perish, but death was better than captivity.