Israel Putnam, as a boy, lived with his father on a farm in Connecticut when wolves were still there. Every winter an old mother wolf would come with a family of young wolves with her. The hunters always killed the young wolves, but could not catch the mother. One winter this old wolf killed seventy sheep and goats in one night. All the farmers started out to find her. They saw her track in the snow and after a long hunt their dogs drove her into a cave. They sent the dogs into the cave, but the wolf bit them and drove them out again. Then they put straw in the cave and set fire to it to smoke her out. It made the wolf sneeze, but she would not come out. Then Israel Putnam said, “I will go down into the cave and bring her out.” So they tied a rope to his legs and let him down into the cave. He held in his hand a burning piece of birch-bark, for he knew wild animals are afraid to face fire. He crawled along on his hands and knees in the narrow cave, holding the blazing bark, until he could see the wolf’s eyes. The wolf gave a sudden growl. Putnam jerked the rope and the men pulled him out quickly. He was badly scratched by the rocks and his clothes torn, but he got his gun and went in again. This time the wolf growled and snapped angrily, but he shot the wolf and brought her out dead. The sheep had peace after that.
22. BOONE AND HIS SWING
Daniel Boone was an early settler in Kentucky. He knew all about the woods and the ways of the animals and the Indians. Almost all the men that went with him into Kentucky were killed by the wild wolves or the savage Indians. One day when Daniel Boone was left alone in his cabin, four Indians came to kill him. He made his escape over a hill, but the Indians ran after him. He ran as fast as he could till he reached a wild grape-vine, which he saw reached to the top of a high tree, and was long enough to swing over a steep ravine. When he was a boy he had often made a swing of a wild grave-vine like this. So he quickly cut the vine off near the roots, took hold of it and swung out into the air with all his might. He was carried far out as he swung over the ravine. Then he let go, and as soon as he fell to the ground he ran away in a direction in which he knew the Indians could not find him. When the Indians came up to the place they could not find his tracks anywhere. So Daniel Boone was saved by a swing.
23. KIT CARSON AND THE BEARS
Kit Carson knew all about wild animals. He was a great hunter and a good guide to soldiers and settlers. On a march one day, as he was dragging an elk he had just shot for supper, he saw two bears running toward him. His gun was empty. He threw it down, ran as fast as he could, and reached a tree just as the bears reached him. He caught hold of a branch and swung himself up in the tree just in time. Bears know how to climb trees, and soon they were climbing up in the lower branches. Kit Carson broke off a limb, and from the highest branch, where he hung, he began clubbing the bears over the nose, their tender spot. “Whack! Whack!” The stick hurt, and the bears whined and growled with pain. First one bear and then the other tried to get at him, but each got his nose hurt. When their noses felt better they tried again. But Kit Carson pounded faster and harder than ever. One of the bears cried like a baby. Then both bears got down and went away and never came back again. They were too busy rubbing their noses.
24. THE HEROINE OF GETTYSBURG
One morning in the awful days of the Civil War the boys in blue and the boys in gray met together for their decisive battle near the little town of Gettysburg, Pa. Hearing that this town was to be the center of the battle, a neighbor ran into a little red-brick cottage and cried, “Jennie, you must remove your folks at once.” “Hush, hush!” she whispered, “there’s a little new-born baby and its mother in the next room, and they cannot be moved whatever happens.” “Why girl, the shells will crash through these brick walls as through paper!” said the man. “No matter, my sister and her babe cannot be moved, and I must stay here with mother to care for them,” replied Jennie, and the neighbor hastened sadly away.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, marched regiment after regiment in turn belonging to both sides, as they passed the little cottage, and Jennie noticed that every soldier’s eye rested eagerly on the windlass of the well in front of the little red-brick cottage, for the July sun shone hot in the sky. “They are thirsty,” said Jennie, as she filled the old oaken bucket from the well, and brought out every dipper and ladle and cup she could find for the soldiers to fill their canteens or to drink as they hurriedly tramped by. “I’m glad I did not go away,” she said; “there is something I can do here to help others.” And so she helped all she could until the troops had passed by for the battle. Later in the day the tide of the battle turned. The boys in gray reached the ridge and captured the town of Gettysburg. Then the boys in blue, on the run, retreated, moaning and groaning as they rushed past the little red-brick house, which now became the very center of the battle. Cannon, like thunder, shook the ground. Bullets, like hailstones, fell around them. Balls crashed through windows and walls as through paper, as the neighbor had said. The space around the well was strewn with the dead and dying. Hungry men begged for bread and the brave girl gave everything she had until she had not a crumb left. Then she said, “I’ll make some bread.” But scarcely were the loaves in the oven before a loud knock was heard at the door, and a soldier-boy stood there pleading, “I’m so hungry. Give me a bit of bread.” It would be three hours before the bread was baked, but biscuit would soon be ready, she thought. She quickly took up the dough and was remixing it to make biscuits, when whizz! a rifle-ball crashed through the open door, striking the girl in the breast, and she fell to the floor dead!
That night they buried Jennie Wade, with the dough still in her hands—buried her as thousands were buried, on the field of Gettysburg, without ceremony. Should you visit her grave in the little cemetery there, on her tombstone you would see these words: “Jennie Wade, died aged nineteen. She hath done what she could!”