As Enoch stood at the door of the cabin and watched the red glow from the fires in the newly cleared lot, he went over in his mind the incidents of the day. Such holidays were not plentiful in his life. It was mostly work and little play, and he would remember this occasion for many months. He did not suspect how many months would elapse, and how many momentous happenings would occur, before he saw all his young friends together once again.
CHAPTER VII
A NIGHT ATTACK
Not often did the Harding children enjoy such a day as that of the stump-burning. Life was very real indeed to pioneer folks, although the fact that every family in the community had to work hard left no loophole for complaint on any side. There were no very poor people then, and there were no immensely rich. It is only by comparison that human beings become discontented with their lot.
The widow’s children had to work little harder than their neighbors. Their mother labored with them in the fields, as well as paying full attention to her household duties. She could swing an axe with most men in the township, and was no mean shot with the rifle. She led the corn hoeing and taught the older boys to do those things which were needful about the farm. The crops during this summer prospered well, and after clearing up and barreling the ashes made during the stump-burning, Enoch and Bryce ploughed and harrowed the new piece along the creek’s edge. They sowed it to winter grain and hung “scare-crows” all about the field to keep the wild birds from pulling up the tender shoots when they appeared above the mold.
Besides leading her children in the work of the farm, Mistress Harding paid more attention to their education than most parents of the settlement could. There was a school in Bennington during the winter months; but it was too far away for any of the Hardings to attend. But the widow had been a school-teacher before her marriage and she had brought some books with her from her old home. So part of almost every day she taught her children. The girls and little Harry, who was just learning his letters and “a-b, abs,” studied during the daytime; but the older boys did their lessons by the light of the candle dips, or lying on the hearth before the dancing fire. Both summer and winter these studies were kept up and therefore Enoch and his brothers and sisters were rather farther advanced in learning than the other children of the scattered community.
To this study Enoch took rather kindly; but to Bryce, who possessed more of his father’s roving disposition, the school hour was distasteful. Bryce, too, complained more than a little because he was not allowed to go to Bennington on training days. He was growing rapidly and was well nigh as big as his brother, and he felt that he should be counted a member of the military company.
This drilling in the manual of arms had become a very serious matter to the Grants people. The Green Mountain Boys, which nickname had before the end of the summer become fixed upon the bands, were divided into four companies of which Seth Warner, ’Member Baker, Robert Cochran and Gideon Warner were the captains. Ethan Allen was elected colonel commanding by acclamation and plans were made to watch over many of the outlying districts liable to be troubled most frequently by the Yorkers. With all his impulsiveness, Allen was long-headed and something of a strategist; yet he leaned to some extent upon Captain Warner’s good sense. Warner was a man of much finer mould than the chief of the Green Mountain Boys, was well educated and had a personal following of his own in the Grants, second only to Allen’s. But there was never any jealousy between them. Allen’s was a nature too frank and generous to harbor such a despicable feeling, while Warner was too deeply interested in the cause to do so.
Nuck Harding was a proud boy indeed, for he was nigh the youngest among those who drilled. Such raiding as was done by the Green Mountain Boys that year was the work of small parties under Allen, Warner, or Cochran, and no general engagement occurred between the Grants settlers and the New York authorities, so Nuck saw no real service. At home, however, he and Bryce frequently talked over what they would do if Simon Halpen should visit them. That he had been scouting about the farm on the day of Sheriff Ten Eyck’s fiasco at James Breckenridge’s place, the older boy was sure. He was certain that the man he had seen beside the campfire in the wood, and whom Crow Wing seemed to befriend, was the Yorker who, twice before, had tried to drive the Hardings from their home. But neither the man nor the Indian youth appeared in the neighborhood as the summer waned and the autumn harvests approached.
Nevertheless, after harvest, when the farm work was well cleared up, the boys put into practice a plan which, after much thought they had evolved. Many a frontier home of that, and an earlier day, had connected with it an underground passage, or room which, although usually devoted to the simple storage of potatoes and roots, could in time of need be used as a refuge for the family. Of an Indian attack there was little danger; but they did not know to what length the Yorkers might go when once they did appear. Nuck believed Simon Halpen to be a man without compassion or mercy, and that the house might be attacked and burned over their heads.