EAST AM) WEST 
 
 A STOET OF NEW-BORN OHIO 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD E. HALE 
 
 AUTHOR OP "THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY," "TEN TIMES 
 
 ONE," "UPS AND DOWNS," " IN HIS NAME," "LIFE OF 
 
 WASHINGTON," "LIFE OF COLUMBUS." 
 
 " HOW THEY LIVED AT HAMJTTON." 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY 
 CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 
 All rights reserved, 
 
 THE MERPHON COMPANY PRE88, 
 RAHWAY, N, .T. 
 
EAST AND WEST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OOD-BYE," said Jane as she opened the 
 front door. 
 
 " Good-bye," said Sarah as she stood in the 
 hull. " Shall I see you to-morrow ? " 
 
 "Why, yes," said Jane, " I shall see you at 
 Ipswich, if not before." 
 
 "Ipswich?" said Sarah. "What is Ips 
 wich?" 
 
 "I mean the sleigh ride, you goose. You 
 do not mean you are so interested in your 
 Cowper and your Adam Smith and your other 
 stuffs, that you have forgotten the sleigh ride 3 
 Be sure you wear your best bib and tucker. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 "Good-bye," said Sarah, and Jane closed the 
 door, and went on her way. Sarah returned 
 into the house. 
 
2 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 No, she had not forgotten the sleigh ride, 
 for the simple reason that she had never heard 
 of it. And now it seemed that all the girls in 
 Salem knew that there was to be a sleigh ride, 
 and she did not know. That was not very 
 satisfactory, to a girl who had a right to con 
 sider herself one of the best beloved and most 
 esteemed of the Salem girls ; the general 
 favorite, who had no enemy. At the very 
 bottom of her heart, of course Sarah Parris 
 knew why she had not heard of the sleigh 
 ride. She knew perfectly well, at the very 
 bottom of her heart, that the young men had 
 had a talk after the party at the Norrises and 
 had agreed that, if the sleighing lasted, there 
 should be a ride to Ipswich and a dance there. 
 This she knew "of native impulse, elemental 
 force" ; she constructed it from the law of 
 the instrument, the moment that she knew 
 that there was to be a sleigh ride. In the 
 same way she also knew, at the very bottom 
 of her heart, that Harry Curwen had said to 
 the other young men, in his off-hand dicta 
 torial way, " I shall ask Sarah Parris, and you 
 can ask whom you like." Then she knew 
 
EAST AKD WEST. 
 
 that Harry Curwen had gone up to Boston the 
 next morning with his uncle, and that he had 
 taken it for granted that she would go with 
 him on the drive ; and so had not so much as 
 taken the pains to write her a note to tell her 
 to hold herself engaged to him. And so it 
 was that she had the mortification of being 
 the only girl in Salem, who was worth asking, 
 who had not been asked to the sleighing 
 party. 
 
 All this, I say, she knew from native 
 impulse ; but it was not very satisfactory, to 
 have thus to construct for herself the picture 
 of what was going on in the town. Least of 
 all was it satisfactory that the news should 
 have been given her by Jane Endicott. Sarah 
 did not ask herself in what way she would 
 have liked to have the news come, but she did 
 know that it could not have come to her in 
 a more disagreeable way. And at the very 
 bottom of her heart, she had a provoked feel 
 ing, that it was not the first time that Harry 
 Curwen had treated her in this off-hand and 
 take-for-granted way. 
 
 Here was nice, sweet, pretty Sarah Parris 
 
4 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 left in the lurch, and yet not left in the lurch. 
 She must have all her things ready for a long 
 sleigh ride, and yet she must pretend that she 
 did not know there was any sleigh ride. She 
 must meet her aunt and her cousins, and talk 
 of the party or not talk of the party, as she 
 thought best, while she knew at the bottom of 
 her heart, that, as surely as three o clock came 
 around the next day, Harry Curwen would 
 arrive, with his elegant horses and beautiful 
 sleigh, and would take it for granted that she 
 would be capped and coated and ready to go 
 with him. 
 
 Now, it is perfectly true that, in a regula 
 tion story, Sarah would have at once admin 
 istered to the young man a proper rebuke- 
 She would not have made ready to go, she 
 would not have been ready to go ; and, when he 
 came with his span of horses and his sleigh, 
 he would have been told to go about his busi 
 ness, and would have lost the party to Ips 
 wich. But that was not what Sarah Parris 
 determined, and this was not what Sarah Par 
 ris did. 
 
 When, on the afternoon of Thursday, he 
 
EAST AND WEST. O 
 
 did come around just before three, Sarah ran 
 down the steps to meet him, exactly as if he 
 had written the little note to her, which he 
 should have written. She had her hands in 
 her muff, she had her pretty fur hood upon 
 her head, she had her heavy shawl and the 
 rest of her wraps, and her pretty little feet 
 were in the carpet moccasins, and even these 
 were pretty, because everything she had was 
 pretty. And Harry Curwen lifted her into 
 the sleigh, with the expression, to which she 
 was not unaccustomed, of perfect satisfaction 
 with her appearance. They bade good-bye to 
 the home party on the steps, and drove away. 
 They were among the first at the place of ren 
 dezvous, but the last were not two minutes 
 behind them ; and then, with great shouting, 
 cheering, and calling back and forth, the long 
 procession took up the line of march, if march 
 it may be called, and swept out over the South 
 Danvers road toward Ipswich. 
 
 So soon as the long line was under way, 
 Harry Curwen, having made sure for the tenth 
 time that the bearskins were well tucked in on 
 the weather side of the lady, said to her with 
 
t> EAST AND WEST. 
 
 real feeling, "Sarah, you are good not to 
 scold me ; if ever a fellow deserved to be 
 scolded, it is I ; but, really, my dear Sarah, 
 it was not until I gave Brewer the order for 
 the horses to-day, that I remembered that I 
 had not told you about the party. And I 
 drove up to the house mortified ; well, morti 
 fied is no word, ashamed and frightened. 
 You know very well that there are twenty 
 other men in this party who would have been 
 glad enough to knock me out, and how should 
 I have known that you had not engaged your 
 self to one of them?" 
 
 Sarah would not laugh, as, perhaps, he had 
 hoped she would. She said to him very seri 
 ously that he would have been served quite 
 rightly if he had not found her ready ; and 
 that the thought of leaving him in the lurch 
 as he deserved had passed through her mind. 
 
 "To tell you the truth," said she, "if I 
 could have mortified you without mortifying 
 myself, I would have done so, and would have 
 done so gladly. But in the first place, I 
 wanted to dance ; I wanted to see the girls, 
 and I wanted to be in Ipswich. I did not 
 
EAST AND WEST. 7 
 
 choose to give up my party because my man at 
 the stable was late in sending around my horses. 
 That was the way in which* I finally put it in 
 my mind. But you have no right to expose 
 me, or any other girl, to any such mortifi 
 cation. You have been careless enough be 
 fore ; and somehow, in some way, we will see 
 that you are rightly punished. You must not 
 expect to find me with my muff on my hands 
 whenever you choose to whistle." 
 
 The young fellow deserved a great deal 
 worse scolding than this. And to tell the 
 truth, bit by bit, he had his share that night, 
 of scoldings worse than this. But the foun 
 dation was thus laid for the whole evening, in 
 which he was taught a hundred times that he 
 was on his good behavior, that lie must repent 
 and reform. The truth was that he was the 
 spoiled child of Salem. Everybody knew him, 
 and everybody liked him ; and he went and 
 came like a sort of Alcibiades, doing very 
 much as he chose, and supposing his omissions 
 would be atoned or overlooked, on the ground 
 of his general public spirit and infallible good 
 nature. 
 
& EAST AND WEST. 
 
 Among other good things which he had 
 picked out for his own had been the compan 
 ionship of Sarah Parris, on any such occasion 
 as this sleighing party. She was the favorite 
 of everybody, and well deserved to be. She 
 was pretty, graceful, good-natured, and suf 
 ficiently well informed. In the simple society 
 of Salem at that time, she was a leader, as he 
 was a leader. If Sarah Parris and Harry Cur- 
 wen determined that thus and so should be 
 done in the range of things which came into 
 the life of the young people of Salem, that 
 thing was done. This was as sure as the rising 
 of the sun. Naturally, he conferred with her 
 and she with him ; naturally, she called him 
 Harry, and he called her Sarah ; naturally, he 
 waited for her when the dance was over at 
 Mrs. Pickering s, or Colonel Lee s, and walked 
 home with her. He would do so without ask 
 ing leave beforehand ; or with asking leave, as 
 might happen. Indeed, this illustration was 
 the only one he used, in the lame attempt he 
 made to excuse himself to Sarah, as they rode 
 together. "Why, of course you were to go 
 with me, from the first moment we talked it 
 
EAST AND WEST. 9 
 
 over at Madam Endicott s. I should have as 
 soon asked Parson Bentley to come and preach 
 next Sunday. I no more thought of asking 
 you to come with me, than I thought of ask 
 ing you to walk home with me from my 
 mother s." 
 
 The young people of a hundred years ago 
 certainly knew how to enjoy themselves. 
 Here were more than fifty gay couples, each 
 lad and each maid dressed, and well dressed, 
 for winter ; here were more than fifty gay 
 horses or spans of horses, who enjoyed the 
 frolic as much as those who drove them. 
 Here was an innocent earth, white with "inno 
 cent snow," and over it a heaven of unspotted 
 and unclouded blue. The country rolls a little, 
 just enough to vary, from second to second, 
 the shimmer of the bright sun on the sparkling 
 frost. There was forest enough and not too 
 much; enough for the cheerful suggestion of 
 life and strength and shelter, which invariably 
 belongs to the grave, good-natured, hospitable 
 evergreens, while, through open fields and with 
 long afternoon shadows, the merry party 
 scampered on. Sometimes they shouted to 
 
10 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 each other. Sometimes one sleigh struck up a 
 song, and the neighbors before and behind 
 took it up, and in a long trailing fugue, it ran 
 over the voices of half a mile of singers. More 
 often, what Lady Delacour called "propin 
 quity " did its perfect work, and the two part 
 ners said to each other aloud what they need 
 not whisper, and talked of one or another 
 trifle, or of one or another of the eternities, 
 more easily than they could have talked were 
 they looking into each other s faces, or were 
 there any possibility of another listener. 
 
 And so, in an hour and a half of the liveliest 
 life which can be conceived, the gay young 
 party, driving always north, in the bright af 
 ternoon, came to the hill on which Ipswich 
 stands, and almost for the first time, the 
 drivers drew rein a little, as the horses walked 
 up to Squire Beers s tavern. The sun was just 
 setting in the unclouded west, and as one after 
 another of the ladies was almost lifted from 
 the sleigh by her cavalier, the party grouped 
 together to watch the daily wonder, as the red 
 ball sank down behind the hills. For a mo 
 ment only, and then all rushed into the open 
 
EAST AND WEST. 11 
 
 halls of the great tavern, which would not 
 have known what you meant, had you called 
 it an inn, and welcomed the preparations 
 which had been made for them. 
 
 No one had forgotten to send word to Mr. 
 Beers. Belles might have been forgotten, but 
 not the entertainment for the evening. A 
 messenger had informed him, the day before, 
 that a party of the gayest, and brightest, and 
 best of Salem would be there, and half of Ips 
 wich had been at work to make proper prep 
 aration. There was a fire of oak in every fire 
 place of every room. In the hall there stood 
 great pitchers of flip, which only needed to be 
 heated ; and in the great fireplace of the cor 
 ner room, which was a sort of room of entrance, 
 were a dozen pokers at white heat, waiting to 
 be plunged into the pitchers, at the moment 
 of arrival. As one girl after another was led 
 in by her attendant, he took her to one or 
 another of the tables, on which these great 
 pitchers of sweetened cider, tempered perhaps 
 with a little spirit, stood ; and one or another 
 laughing attendant brought the heated poker 
 and plunged it in. No girl thought that she 
 
12 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 did anything wrong when she sipped from the 
 hot cup what her attendant poured out for 
 her. There would be some joking about a 
 little ashes, more or less, which stuck perhaps 
 to her red nose or lingered on her lip; but it 
 was a generation before the time when any one 
 would have said to her, that she was violating 
 any law, human or divine, as she thus re 
 freshed herself. 
 
 After this welcome, the girls scattered to 
 rooms, where they were led by the ready 
 maidens of the tavern, and threw off and piled 
 up the wraps in which they had been protected, 
 appearing like so many butterflies coming out 
 of their winter homes, in all the lightness of 
 muslin and its decorations, ready for the dance 
 in the great hall. At each end of this hall was 
 a fire of oak logs, which had been kept going 
 since early morning, so that there was not the 
 slightest chill in the room. The whole party 
 were in tip-top spirits. They were just cold 
 enough to be ready to dance, to warm their 
 feet. They had breathed in ozone or oxygen, 
 or whatever it is that gives life, till every 
 nerve and pulse were aglow. All animosities 
 
EAST AND WEST. 13 
 
 or jealousies, with which they might have 
 started, were forgotten, and they had and 
 knew they had before them, hours upon hours 
 of undiluted exhilaration. 
 
 It will not do, after a hundred years, to try 
 to explain to the decorous modern reader how 
 the partners were selected, or how they were 
 changed after they were selected. Suffice it to 
 say, that by the generous equality of democ 
 racy, which had taken the place of the conde 
 scension of ante-revolutionary times, the ladies 
 drew lots for the head of the dance. For cer 
 tain ends connected with the purpose of the 
 dance, similar lots were then drawn for the 
 gentlemen ; and as everybody knew everybody 
 there were no inconveniences in this arrange 
 ment. But it soon appeared, by processes 
 which need not be explained to the reader, 
 that the right gentleman and the right lady 
 danced with each other pretty much as they 
 would, and the arbitary decision of the lot did 
 not make any contretemps, while it did make 
 a great deal of good-natured fun. 
 
 Thus, in point of fact, the number that 
 Sarah Parris drew was 27, which would have 
 
14 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 put her well down the line of dancers. But 
 Ruth Crowninshield, who drew number 1, 
 came to Sarah at once, and said that she hoped 
 she would exchange numbers with her, that she 
 was herself a little tired and cold, and would 
 rather sit by the fire a few minutes, and not 
 be obliged to begin quite as soon as the others. 
 Our pretty Sarah was not unused to such ne 
 gotiations. She well appreciated the courtesy 
 by which Ruth recognized the truth, that she 
 would guide the set better than a more inexper 
 ienced person would do, and, after due confer 
 ence on both sides, the exchange was made. Of 
 course, as the reader will say, the men s number 
 1 fell upon a certain Mr. Bellamy from the 
 West Indies, about whom the girls had been 
 disposed to make considerable fun, as if he 
 were stupid or awkward. Accordingly, Mr. 
 Bellamy took Miss Sarah to the head of the 
 dance, and other couples fell in almost imme 
 diately. All were a little curious to know what 
 dance the manager would name. The manager 
 was, of course, Harry Curwen. He named 
 " The Country Bumpkin," with distinct malice 
 toward Mr. Bellamy. For it was supposed 
 
EAST AND WEST. 15 
 
 that the dance would be the special favorite of 
 " a person of fine form and graceful figure," 
 and Harry Cur wen chose to imagine that Mr. 
 Bellamy had neither. But it was clear at once 
 to all men and angels, that Mr. Bellamy must 
 have had certain advantages, either in Phila 
 delphia, or Barbadoes, or London, or some 
 where, which had made him quite the equal of 
 any of the Salem beaux, in his various curvet- 
 tings. If there had been any expectation of 
 showing him at a disadvantage, Mr. Harry 
 Curwen was disappointed. 
 
 But it is no part of the little story to go into 
 the ins and outs of the various dances of that 
 jolly afternoon. The twilight, of course, fell 
 almost at once. Mr. Beers and his assistants 
 lighted one set of candles, and the young 
 people saw with satisfaction that another set 
 were left unlighted, for a relay, as the night 
 should wear on. Dance followed after dance, 
 partner after partner exchanged, as the lots 
 fell wrong, Harry Curwen yielded the manage 
 ment to one or another friend, who had, or 
 supposed he had, personal purposes to advan 
 tage by this temporary control ; and, by one 
 
16 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 exchange or bit of good fortune or another, 
 it happened that Harry and Sarah Parris 
 danced together four or five times, as the even 
 ing and the night went by. When the first set 
 of candles had burned nearly to the hoops that 
 held them, a lively march from the black mu 
 sicians announced that it was time to go out to 
 supper. The whole party moved in procession 
 together, headed, of course, by Harry Curwen 
 and Sarah Parris. This was not to any modest 
 bit of ice cream or sherbet, but to long, well- 
 spread boards, resting on trestles, loaded with 
 the substantial food which the kitchens of 
 Mrs. Beers had been preparing for thirty- six 
 hours, since the swift messenger brought the 
 news from Salem of the ride. And there w r ere 
 appetites quite of the heroic order, ready for 
 the feast. There w r ere cups of tea from East 
 ern vintages, such as only Salem merchants 
 could have furnished from their most secret 
 stores. Neither ladies nor gentlemen declined 
 flip, which was brought in hot. from minute to 
 minute. Nobody, let it be said, drank more of 
 the tempting stimulant than was good for 
 
EAST AND WEST. 17 
 
 him ; and after half an hour or more of such 
 refreshments, they returned like so many play 
 ful giants to the scene of their amusement. 
 Four hours more of stiff dancing, and then 
 Harry Curwen, mounting upon the seat of an 
 armchair, which he drew from a corner, an 
 nounced in a mock heroic speech that he 
 was sorry to say that the dance was at an 
 end. 
 
 The ladies rushed upstairs, that they need 
 not hinder their attendants. The gentlemen 
 found their boots, went out to the stables, and 
 assisted in harnessing their own horses ; and 
 so by the light of a half moon, which was just 
 rising as they stood upon the steps of the 
 tavern, they started for their homeward ride. 
 And there was now more singing than ever. 
 Every thing was gay, and, as between four and 
 five o clock in the morning the gentlemen bade 
 the ladies good-bye, on the steps of one and an 
 other hospitable home in Salem, it was agreed 
 that there had never been so successful a sleigh 
 ride since the memory of man. 
 
 What passed between Sarah Parris and 
 
18 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 Harry Curwen, on this ride, this writer cannot 
 tell. This is because he does not know. But 
 he does not believe that anything passed 
 which the excited novel reader would call crit 
 ical. He thinks that the talk was now grave, 
 and now gay, now personal, and now rambling, 
 over the various features of the entertainment 
 in which the two had been directors. Some 
 times Harry Curwen would skirmish up to the 
 very edge of finding out how far MissParris was 
 enraged, and then, the young man, who was 
 not, after all, so skillful as he thought he was, 
 would find out that they were talking about 
 the blue ribbons on Miss Crowninshield s dress. 
 Sometimes he fancied that the inevitable scold 
 ing, which he knew that he deserved, was 
 going to come ; and just then they would 
 emerge from the wood, through which they 
 had been riding, and the glory of the moonlight 
 upon the ice below them would call out one of 
 her enthusiastic shouts of joy, and she would 
 compel him to join her in wonder that the 
 world could be so beautiful. On the whole, as 
 she gave him both hands in bidding him good 
 bye, Harry Curwen felt that all would be well 
 
EAST AND WEST. 19 
 
 in the future between them ; and he drove his 
 span of bays to the stables, and gave his last 
 orders to Knapp, the hostler, much more cheer 
 fully than he had given them in the morning, 
 when he had gone around to be sure that the 
 equipage would be ready in time. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 PERHAPS Sarah Paras, as she gave both 
 hands to Harry and as she went upstairs, 
 did not consider that the "incident was ex 
 hausted " as entirely as he did. But, with the 
 same self-control which she had exercised ever 
 since the sudden announcement of the sleigh 
 ride, she held herself on pleasant thoughts, of 
 the various successes of the party ; and she 
 fairly laughed aloud, as to her poor sleepy 
 aunt she told its brief history. For, as the 
 girl went to her own bedroom, she stopped for 
 a moment to tell Mrs. Whitman that all was 
 well, and that they had all returned safely 
 after a "perfectly splendid time." 
 
 The reader may believe it or not, but true 
 it is that the good girl undressed herself 
 quickly, did not stop a moment to look out at 
 the moon, knelt by her bedside, repeated her 
 accustomed prayer, and in less than a minute 
 was sound asleep. If the ride and conversa- 
 
EAST AND WEST. 
 
 tion with Harry Curwen had seemed to her in 
 any sense critical, the crisis was not one which 
 hindered much the regular course of her 
 healthy life. Nor had she any dreams which 
 she remembered, whether of sleigh bells or of 
 sunset, whether of flip or roasted turkey, 
 whether of "country bumpkin" or of courtly 
 cavalier. She slept the sleep of the righteous 
 and of the young ; dreamless, and indeed 
 motionless, until at noon her Aunt Huldah 
 wakened her, and asked her if she thought 
 she were enough rested to dress herself for 
 dinner. 
 
 The girl started with amazement that she had 
 slept all the morning. Such a thing had never 
 happened since she could remember. And, as 
 dinner went by, she constantly turned the 
 laugh upon herself by calling herself the slug 
 gard and the aunt of the sluggard. Dear 
 stately old General Thomas, who at three 
 score and ten maintained the elegance of man 
 ners which he had picked up when he was 
 with the fleet before Louisburg, asked her, as 
 he always did, who was the belle. And, to 
 the admiring group of aunt and grand-aunt, 
 
2 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 grand-uncle and cousins, she told the story of 
 the great sleigh ride. She left out what she 
 chose, she exaggerated where she thought it 
 fair, and sometimes she would say that she was 
 the belle, and sometimes that Jane Endicott 
 was. He said that he knew less of the party 
 at the end of her story than he knew at the 
 beginning. But all of them knew that she 
 had well enjoyed it all, and the old general 
 made to her the compliment, which he had made 
 a thousand times before, that she had brought 
 her roses through all the brighter for their ex 
 posure to the night air. All which, indeed, 
 was true. 
 
 Was all this gayety and raillery the natural 
 outgrowth of a night of good sleep and of 
 sound health, well fed and indulged in plenti 
 ful supplies of oxygen and exercise ? Or was 
 there in it, not noticed even by those who 
 loved her, the least possible element just a 
 flavor of defiance? Was here the stout, 
 staunch determination of a brave girl, who had 
 highly determined that she would measure 
 herself against the world ; and meant to begin 
 by showing to the world that she would take 
 
EAST AND WEST. 23 
 
 hold of the first duty which came along, and 
 would do it thoroughly well \ Who shall say ? 
 Not this writer. 
 
 Only this is sure, that after a generous din 
 ner which Aunt Huldah had ordered with per 
 sonal care after lounging with the rest in the 
 great parlor Miss Sarah excused herself in 
 the f rather formal fashion of that day, and 
 found her way -to her own bedroom, where, 
 in the indulgence which waited on all her 
 wishes there, she was permitted to have always 
 her own fire. 
 
 As if she were foreordained to do this thing, 
 as if she were the daughter of Jephthali advan 
 cing in a sort of triumph to the altar, she 
 crossed the room to the table where her Bible 
 lay, she took from a drawer a little ink bottle 
 and uncorked it, drew from another drawer a 
 large sheet of paper, such as people used in 
 those days of enormous postages, and began to 
 write. She addressed her letter to Mr. Manas- 
 seh Cutler, who is gratefully remembered in 
 our time as being one of the handful of men 
 who made the first arrangements for planting 
 Ohio. 
 
24 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 SALEM, February 15, 1790. 
 
 MY DEAR MR. CUTLER : I come to you to claim your prom- 
 ise sooner than you supposed ; and though we parted in joke, 
 I am now writing in earnest. I have made up my mind to go 
 to the Muskingum. I told you that I should. Will you make 
 inquiry for me, and find some family whom you like, and who 
 would be willing to take me with them as one of their party ? 
 Do not be afraid but what I can bear rough life as well as 
 anybody. I shall make no trouble for any one. I will dp my 
 share of the work on the way. 
 
 When we come to the settlement it -will be time for me to 
 see if they want me to teach the school. Very likely they have 
 somebody much better fitted than I ; but it will be hard if I 
 cannot make myself of use, as my poor mother would have 
 been proud to have had me do ; and if the worst comes to the 
 worst, I can return again to Essex County. 
 
 I am wholly in earnest in what I write, and I want to be sure 
 to go as soon as the soonest go. 
 
 My dear Mr. Cutler, I can never thank you enough for your 
 kindness to my poor mother, and to my brothers, and you see 
 that I trust to that same kindness now. Your own little girl, 
 
 SARAH PARRIS. 
 
 The girl wrote without the slightest hesita 
 tion, and in fact the letter had burned itself 
 into her mind before she began. For, really, 
 she had been thinking of it these two days, 
 and it was the certainty that she was going to 
 take this stroke, and to cut herself off from all 
 
EAST AND WEST. 25 
 
 the life she had been living until now, which 
 had given that sort of calmness and decision 
 to her movements, even in preparing for the 
 frolic and in the frolic itself, which, afterward, 
 her friends remembered. But she did not 
 propose to take into her confidence, even now, 
 her uncle or her aunts, or, indeed, anybody in 
 the household. It would be time enough for 
 that when the good parson s letter came. 
 
 Sarah Parris had indeed the right to make 
 her own determination where she would go 
 and where she would live. The girl hardly re 
 membered her father, who had never recovered 
 from the exposure which he had gone through 
 at Valley Forge in the terrible winter with 
 the army there. With her mother she had been 
 almost a sister, and the death of her mother, 
 when she was but seventeen or eighteen years 
 old, had made a mark in her character which 
 was never effaced. But, as perhaps the reader 
 has seen already, the girl was sprightly and 
 brave, and knew how to take life on the best 
 terms. She had come, as soon as her mother 
 had died, to the home of her Aunt Huldah. 
 She had entered into the life and duties of the 
 
26 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 home with heart and spirit, and she knew that 
 she was indeed one of the family, so long as 
 she chose to stay there. They would have 
 said she was of use to them with the younger 
 children, and all this was true. But, really, 
 she had never meant to stay in that home al 
 ways, and live the listless life of a petted niece. 
 She knew very well that if she had discussed 
 this with her aunt or uncle, they would have 
 urged her to stay. But there was an element 
 of adventure in her blood, and she was not dis 
 posed to live in this world without seeing more 
 of it than she had seen in Wenham or in Salem. 
 And, in the forty-eight hours which had passed 
 before the sleigh ride on St. Valentine s day, 
 she had determined that she might cut the 
 knot of her destiny now as well as ever. In 
 this determination she had written to her old 
 friend, Parson Manasseh Cutler. 
 
 When the letter was written she made no 
 hesitation or delay. She read it over to be 
 sure of her spelling and punctuation, folded it 
 in a way in which no girl of this end of this 
 century could fold it, but in a way which was 
 then one of the accomplishments of a lady or 
 
EAST AND WEST. 27 
 
 gentlemen. She sealed it, as no girl of this 
 generation could seal it, but as every lady and 
 gentleman was trained to seal a letter then, 
 and then addressed it. She put no stamp 
 upon it, for there had not been a stamp in 
 America since 1763, and would not be for gen 
 erations after. She did not dare carry it to the 
 post office, for if she had been seen to put it 
 into the box, all Salem would have been dis 
 cussing that evening the question whom Sarah 
 Parris had written to, and what she had said. 
 It was necessary for her to wait until night, 
 before she confided it to the secrecy of the 
 public mail. 
 
 But, as soon as the sun set, she put on her 
 hood and mantle, and walked down to the vil 
 lage. She bought herself some trifles which 
 were kept for sale in the house of the Seven 
 Gables, and, returning after dark, passed the 
 post office, and so put her letter into the open 
 slit of the door. When the postmaster ap 
 peared at nine o clock, and handled the five 
 letters which he found in the box, he looked at 
 her bold writing without recognizing it, shook 
 the letter and held it to the light, but was not 
 
28 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 then able to tell his wife the name of the per 
 son who wrote this letter in his mail of that day. 
 The letter was carried to Newburyport to wait 
 its chances there for three or four days, and by 
 the end of a week it arrived at the house of 
 Parson Cutler, which was perhaps ten miles 
 from that of the writer. 
 
 And so in due course of return mail, after 
 the parson had had time to make the inquiry 
 which she wished, his answer came to the pa 
 tient girl. 
 
 It was all she could ask. He had himself 
 taken pains to ride across to West Newbury, 
 to see some people there, in whom he had con 
 fidence, who were going to join the party. 
 They would be well pleased to admit her as a 
 partner with them in their adventure, and 
 every detail was given which she would need 
 for her outfit and her other preparations. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Titcomb were people in whom he had 
 entire confidence, they had two or three young 
 children with them, of whom they would be 
 glad that she should take a part of the charge ; 
 and so far as comfort could be predicted of 
 life in an emigrant s wagon, for a journey of 
 
EAST AND WEST. 29 
 
 six hundred or seven hundred miles, she might 
 be sure of comfort ; at all events she would be 
 sure of safety. 
 
 When it was announced in family council 
 that Sarah had a letter by mail, the excite 
 ment was equal to that which would be felt 
 in any well-established household in Salem 
 to-day, if a large square box had been sent 
 from the English steamer in Boston, marked 
 " By order of the Queen," and left by the Amer 
 ican Express at the door. Probably Sarah 
 had never had five letters by mail in her life, 
 and probably, indeed, the women of the house 
 hold would not receive five in the next two 
 years. She had expected the excitement 
 which the letter would cause, and when it 
 was at last brought up to her from her uncle s 
 store on the wharf, from which the tidings of 
 its arrival had already been received, she 
 called the family around her, before she 
 opened it, and explained to them the sub 
 ject. Every one of them grew pale with sur 
 prise, dear Aunt Huldah threw her arms 
 around the girl and broke into tears. The 
 scene was just such as she had anticipated ; 
 
30 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 but she had now had days upon days in which 
 to forecast what it would be and what she would 
 say, and she bore herself bravely through it 
 all. She told her dear Aunt Huldah that she 
 must not think she was going away forever. 
 What had happened was this : that she was 
 determined to see more of the world ; they had 
 often laughed about it, and, in their laughing 
 about it, she had been more serious than 
 they thought. She was determined to go 
 now, and they would see how she was 
 going. Thus she broke the letter open and 
 revealed to them its contents. 
 
 Of course it was not long before the whole 
 of Salem knew her secret. There was no reason 
 why it should be secret, and the girl had faced 
 this possibility as she had faced all the rest of 
 the adventure. The passage in it which had 
 the one thrill for her of keen excitement was 
 the inevitable visit of Harry Curwen. 
 
 That visit came at eight o clock in the even 
 ing of the day of the arrival of the letter. 
 Harry came into the room playing with his 
 little cane, and affecting to be in high spirits ; 
 
EAST AND WEST. 31 
 
 but Aunt Huldah knew, and Sarah knew, this 
 was but affectation. He did not so much as 
 take off his coat. He said at once : 
 
 "I thought, perhaps, Sarah, you would 
 walk with me. The road is dry. The night 
 is lovely, and I have something I want to say 
 to you." 
 
 He was too intimate in the house to be 
 afraid to be frank ; in two minutes the girl 
 was with him in the street. Then he was 
 eager ; he was passionate. Why had she done 
 such a thing as this, without letting him have 
 a word ? Had he not some rights that no one 
 else had \ And the girl, with dignity, said that 
 she did not know that he had any, and did 
 not know why he should claim any. To 
 which Harry replied in an eager protestation 
 of his affection. He supposed that she under 
 stood that he could not live without her, and 
 did not pretend he could live without her. 
 He had not supposed that she was like a girl 
 in a book, who wanted to see him on his 
 knees, or to hear any protestations in words. 
 But he had tried to show in a thousand ways 
 
32 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 that her pleasure was his pleasure, and that 
 he did nothing in life which he did not asso 
 ciate with her. Now he came, on the first in 
 stant that he heard this folly, to say that if he 
 had done wrong he was sorry. He was hers, 
 and he was only hers, as she perfectly well 
 knew. Would she take him, bear with him, 
 love him, and let him show as life went by 
 that if he had not offered himself to her in the 
 right way at first, the offer was none the less 
 sincere ? 
 
 It would not be fair to say that Sarah was 
 not affected by the dignity which, after all, 
 this spoiled child managed to throw into his 
 protestations of attachment. It would not be 
 fair to say that she was not proud that he had 
 at last made the declaration which he had 
 been so sluggish in making, and which he had 
 been willing to leave unmade. But if she 
 were proud, or if in any way she were pleased, 
 she did not let him know that. She simply 
 said that he had no right to presume upon any 
 good-nature of hers. She said that they had 
 all lived a simple life, as he had said ; and that 
 lie had no right to charge her with showing 
 
EAST AND WEST. 33 
 
 him any more regard, than she would have 
 shown to any one else with whom she was on 
 friendly terms of daily intimacy. 
 
 The poor boy interrupted her to say that he 
 made no charge at all. 
 
 Then, she went on to say that she was 
 honored, as any woman might be honored, by 
 what he was pleased to say to her. But, with 
 a good deal of dignity, and with words which 
 he never forgot, she said that she thought he 
 had no right to ask any woman to be his wife. 
 She told him that he was a spoiled child ; she 
 told him that he lived merely to amuse him 
 self ; she told him that if in amusing himself 
 lie played with other people, he did not seem 
 to care a great deal for them. She told him, in 
 short, that he had no right to ask any woman 
 to marry him, while he was a butterfly, play 
 ing around the life of the world, which he 
 seemed to her to be. "I cannot see," said 
 she, " that you are of any use to any body. I 
 do not see that this world is better because 
 you live in it. I do not choose that my 
 husband should be a man who cannot stand 
 before God and men, and say : I am doing 
 
34 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 some service to the country to which 1 be 
 long. " 
 
 Such was, condensed, only too severely, for 
 the purposes of this little tale, the substance 
 of the sharp dismissal which, in that night s 
 walk, Master Harry Curwen received from Miss 
 Sarah Parris. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 IN a thousand discussions, renewed morning, 
 evening, and night, about the probabilities 
 and the possibilities of Sarah Parris s journey, 
 the conversation turned most often on what 
 sort of a woman Mrs. Titcomb was most likely 
 to be. To this undecided problem, Aunt Hul- 
 dah and Mrs. General Thomas and the girls 
 returned two or three times a day, while the 
 preparations went forward. 
 
 "But, Aunt Huldah," said the laughing- 
 Sarah, as she laid out in the sun a pile of 
 clothing she was marking, " you did not won 
 der half so much what sort of a man the mate 
 of Robert s ship was to be. Now, Robert was 
 to be under the mate three years, but I shall 
 only be under Mrs. Titcomb for three months, 
 or Madame Titcomb ; perhaps she is Madame 
 Titcomb," the girl added with mock courtesy. 
 
 " You will not be under her a minute and a 
 half, replied her admiring aunt, with a fond 
 
 35 
 
36 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 look upon the girl which meant : " You were 
 never under any body in your life, and are not 
 apt to be." " But I tell you it is one thing to 
 sleep at one end of a ship 
 
 "In a comfortable forecastle," laughed the 
 girl. 
 
 To sleep in one end of the ship, whether it 
 is comfortable or uncomfortable," thus per 
 sisted Aunt Huldah, "and to know that the 
 mate is sleeping at the other end. Now, that 
 is one thing. Half the time you do not see 
 your first mate, and half the time you forget 
 there is any. But your Mrs. Titcomb, you see 
 her every minute, and like enough hear her, 
 when you get up and when you lie down, as 
 the Scripture says, when you go out and 
 when you come in. 
 
 "And yon will hear her," groaned elegant 
 Mrs. General Thomas, "with her I be and 
 I vum, and Be ye goin to do this, Sarey ? 
 and Be ye goin to do that ? " 
 
 All of them laughed, but the irrepressible 
 Sarah laughed most of all. Mrs. Titcomb 
 should not be abused in advance, she said. 
 She did not doubt that she was a French lady, a 
 
EAST AND WES?. 
 
 maid of honor of Marie Antoinette. She knew 
 all the ways of court. Probably Mr. Titcomb 
 had carried a load of codfish to Versailles and 
 sold it, and Miss Adele had fallen in love with 
 him and eloped with him. "She shall teach 
 me French, dear Aunt Huldah, and I will teach 
 her pure Yankee, with the true Essex County 
 accent." 
 
 Such rattle as this gave a special interest to 
 the fatal moment at Andover, when the ele 
 gant cortege which accompanied Sarah Parris 
 on her first stage from Salem arrived there. 
 General* Thomas took the girl in his own 
 chaise. Other carriages followed, in which 
 were the various boxes, bags, and other lug 
 gage which it was hoped Mr. and Mrs. Titcomb 
 would receive in their wagon. More than one 
 of the girls who had danced in the Valentine s 
 Day party had come to say good-bye. And, 
 as they all stood by the side door of the great 
 stage house in Andover, and Sarah bade one 
 and another good-bye, it was clear that they 
 would have made of themselves a very pretty 
 colony, if they only would all persevere to the 
 new home. 
 
EAST AND WEST. 
 
 At last, Silas Gilman came running to 
 announce that the wagons were in sight, and, 
 sure enough, a train of four or five canvas- 
 topped "ships of the prairie," as they were 
 afterward called, filed by on the main road be 
 low them. One of these detached itself from 
 the caravan, and came slowly up the hill. 
 
 Two spirited boys, each on horseback, rode 
 up in advance. They swung themselves off 
 their horses, and, a little shyly, approached 
 the curious group who stood on the piazza. 
 These were Moses Titcomb and his younger 
 brother Cephas, with whom, as the year went 
 on, Sarah Parris had much to do. The elder 
 boy introduced himself to General Thomas, 
 who stood a little in advance, and explained 
 that it was his father s wagon which was com 
 ing up the hill. A minute more, and General 
 Thomas was assisting Mrs. Titcomb to alight, 
 with the same courtesy, as Sarah could not but 
 observe, even in that critical moment, with 
 which he would have given his hand to the 
 Queen of France, who was at that moment the 
 idol of all Young America. And then, a little 
 confused, good Mrs. Titcomb turned and 
 
EAST AND WEST. 30 
 
 looked around, along the bevy of girls, to see 
 which was to be her partner for the next three 
 months. For there had been quite as much 
 discussion in the Titcomb camp as there had 
 been in the house of Parris. 
 
 Sarah stepped forward, and the sensible, 
 good-natured, shy, motherly woman took the 
 girl to her arms and to her heart at once. She 
 looked at her with admiration, and then, as if 
 she broke the bonds of her native reserve, 
 kissed her eagerly. " My dear girl," she said, 
 tk I shall not be afraid of you a minute now." 
 And they both laughed heartily and the crit 
 ical introduction was over. Aunt Huldah 
 came forward and shook hands with Mrs. Tit- 
 comb, and with her husband, who had now 
 appeared from the heads of the horses. Then 
 began the negotiations as to where Sarah s 
 baskets and boxes could be swung and packed 
 away ; this one beneath an axletree, which 
 had been reserved for it, that one from a cross 
 bar, in the top of a wagon, this and that parcel 
 under the feet of Miriam and of Polly, and so 
 on, and so on. Clearly enough, Sarah had a 
 friend at court in Mrs. Titcomb, and she 
 
40 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 would not hear no, not of a pin, being left be 
 hind. Sarah had, in her mind, divided her 
 luggage, as skilful travellers will, into the 
 " must be" and the " may be " sections ; but, 
 with good Mrs. Titcomb every thing was " must 
 be." And she said that even if they left be 
 hind them the bag of beans for the horses, 
 everything "of Sarah s should go till the last 
 inch of the journey. This was a good begin 
 ning, and it was a beginning which was not too 
 bright a dawn for the ninety days which fol 
 lowed. 
 
 Readers of these degenerate days, if they are 
 east of the Alleghanies, have, I am afraid, 
 never seen "a ship of the prairie." If they 
 have the good luck to live west of the Missouri 
 River, they know what was the vessel in which 
 our pretty heroine was embarked. It was a 
 strongly built wagon, not very different from 
 any other large four-wheeled cart in its " hull," 
 but attracting the notice of all eyes by its long, 
 broad, white canvas cover, which was, indeed, 
 a long tent stretched on large ash hoops fas 
 tened to the sides of the wagon. The country 
 butcher s wagon of our day is a miniature em- 
 
EAST AND WEST. 41 
 
 igrant s wagon, but that the top should swell 
 out on both sides, and project over the driver s 
 seat in the front, and far back beyond the rear 
 of the cart itself. It will easily be seen that 
 such projections gave additional shelter from 
 the sun and from the rain. Under the seats of 
 this roomy wagon every sort of store was 
 crowded. There must be something for the 
 horses who drew the machine, and for those 
 which were ridden by the boys, for they might 
 come to places where there would be neither 
 grazing, nor corn nor grain to be bought. For 
 the rest, every essential which the experience 
 of the early settlers had suggested, which 
 would be needed in the building up of the new 
 home on the Muskingum, was packed away 
 somewhere. 
 
 Of these stores, the older Cephas Titcomb, 
 the father, was the nominal steward, but, in 
 fact, dear Mrs. Titcomb knew better than he 
 did, where this or that could be found from a 
 horseshoe round to a Bible, if there should be 
 a sudden demand. The wheels were quite 
 high, and space was thus given under the 
 wagon for slinging several boxes or trunks 
 
42 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 from the axletrees. Rifles and shotguns, with 
 one or two pistols, and Cephas Titcomb s old 
 cavalry sabre, hung from hooks on the right 
 and left, above the heads of the women, as 
 they sat in the wagon. At night, by simple 
 enough processes, the body of the wagon be 
 came a bed on which the women folk slept, ar 
 ranging their places according to size or other 
 conveniences. 
 
 For the men, they spread bearskins or wolf 
 skins, having the shelter of the wagon to creep 
 under if the night should be rainy, or, as some 
 times happened, as they crossed the higher 
 ridges, if the snow were falling. When morn 
 ing came, the frying-pan and tea-kettle were 
 lifted down from the hooks on which they 
 hung, and the fire in the open air, made by the 
 earliest boy, was ready to prepare the hot 
 water for the invariable cup of tea, and the 
 coals for the inevitable salt pork. 
 
 If by good luck there were eggs, why there 
 were eggs, and Mrs. Tit-comb and Sarah vied 
 with each other in showing in how many ways 
 eggs could be cooked. As they went on, in- 
 
EAST AND WEST. 43 
 
 deed, their skill in using their scanty kitchen 
 equipage, under the hindrances for prepara 
 tion, and of open air life, and with its advan 
 tages for appetite, became greater and greater. 
 They arranged with each other to take turns 
 day in and day out, as cooks for the day, and 
 the boys soon loyally ranged themselves under 
 Sarah s banner, in a determination that her 
 days should not be inferior to those directed 
 by the world-renowned skill of their mother. 
 Foragers before and behind would bring in a 
 squirrel or rabbit, or possibly a stray wild 
 turkey. If these failed, there was the infallible 
 salt pork, and on Sundays, with the regular re 
 currence of the sacred seventh day, there was 
 a pot of baked beans. For, however one place 
 or another place in this world may be rated for 
 its loyalty or its disloyalty to that article of 
 food, Essex County, which these travellers were 
 leaving forever, will always be the central 
 shrine of its most sacred worship. 
 
 No, Emma, no, Lily, this story cannot last 
 forever, like a Chinese comedy, as you and I 
 would be glad to have it. So that if you want 
 
44 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 to know where they washed their hands every 
 morning, when they walked, and when they 
 rode, when the side saddle was fitted for 
 Sarah, or when she and the boys tramped 
 on far in advance, over muddy roadways, you 
 must call up some spirit by the hands of a 
 successful medium, or you must burrow in the 
 old chest, where are left the diaries and letters 
 of a forgotten generation. We must hurry on 
 and bring them to their destiny. For I will 
 confess to you here that they were not 
 drowned, as they crossed the Hudson, they 
 were not murdered in Jersey, they did not 
 die of scarlet fever in Bethlehem, they were 
 not poisoned in Allentown, they were not 
 caught under a snowdrift and frozen to 
 death on the crest of the Alleghanies, and 
 they did not die of despair, when they came 
 to the western waters, and found them too 
 low for navigation. Here is just one little 
 scrap from a letter of Sarah s to her Aunt 
 Huldah which you may read first, Emma, 
 and then you may pass it over to Lily, and 
 that shall be all the detail of the long journey 
 to the Alleghany River : 
 
EAST AND WEST. 45 
 
 MY DEAR AUNT HULDAH : 
 
 I would write at the top of my letter, in the true epistolary 
 style, where I am, if I only knew. But all that I do know, 
 is that we have crossed what they call the watershed and are 
 well on the western side of the famous Alleghany Mountains. 
 And I know this, that last night the boys were talking Dutch 
 with a Dutchman who lived at a place called Stillings. But 
 what his name is, dear aunt, I do not know. So now you are 
 as wise as I am. We have had a funny adventure with the 
 Dutchman s dog, and I will tell you this first of all, though it is 
 not very important. He had this pretty little dog which he 
 was very fond of. They played with it last night, and fed it, 
 and made it lap milk. For you must know that we have as 
 good milk as you have. Our two cows have not given out at 
 all since we started. There was one night when they could 
 not keep up with us, but, excepting that, we have had milk 
 all the time. Well, this morning, I do not know how, some 
 body took the little dog and put him under the seat of the 
 wagon, and there he went to sleep, and we did not find him 
 until we had gone a good many miles. Then, Cephas had to 
 ride all the way back with him, for fear they should think we 
 had stolen him. Somehow, Cephas missed the Dutchman s son. 
 and he has just now brought us a funny letter written in the 
 worst English I ever did see, expressing his surprise at our 
 ingratitude. But Cephas will be back soon, to tell us that he 
 has saved our reputation, though we have lost our little dog. 
 
 Now, I will begin my story. All the way through the Bay, 
 people run out to see us, and our wagon, which was such a 
 strange sight to them, and in Connecticut, too, we were quite 
 famous, but after we came into Jersey, people did not mind 
 
46 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 us any more than you mind Parson Bentlcy s chaise. For 
 there are a great many wagons going forward and we fell in 
 with some almost every day, for we go faster than most of 
 them do, having such good horses. Of course we go faster 
 than people with oxen do, and I must confess also, that we 
 go faster than those who have yokes of cows as one man had 
 whom we passed yesterday. One day I do the cooking, and one 
 day my dear Miriam does ; for, do you know, I have learned 
 to call Mrs. Titcomb, Miriam, and we have not been afraid of 
 each other since that very first minute when I left you at An- 
 dover. 
 
 And my dear Aunt Huldah, you will be proud of your own 
 little girl, for I really believe that I am almost as good a tent- 
 keeper as you are a housekeeper. It is not for nothing that 
 you have taught me to keep pots and kettles clean. Miriam is 
 not ashamed of me at all, and I am not at all ashamed of my 
 breakfasts or dinners. We are not getting on as fast as Mr. 
 Titcomb expected we should, but as I say, we are getting on 
 faster than most of them do, and for my part, I like the life. 
 I walk every day three-quarters of the way ; I have often 
 walked fifteen miles. Then the boys are very eager that I 
 shall ride, and some days I have ridden all the way. We have 
 a side saddle for me and for Miriam, but she rather pre 
 fers what she calls the luxury of the wagon. We make a long 
 halt in the middle of the day, for the sun is beginning to be 
 hot, and it is better for the beasts. This gives a chance for 
 the cows to come up, and for the boys to go off for their 
 shooting. In fact, both of my boys are away now. I hear 
 every now and then the crack of their guns, so I shall be 
 quite ashamed of them if they do not bring us in a rabbit or 
 
EAST AND WEST. 47 
 
 two for our supper. We have a good deal of time for our 
 reading, and it will quite surprise you to know how learned 
 we are beginning to be. Do you know, dear aunt, that your 
 dear Mr. Cowper can be quite as jolly as he can be sorry. Mir 
 iam has brought with her a newspaper in which there is the 
 funniest song, or sort of ballad, rather, that you ever did see. 
 It is about the adventure of a man who went out on a frolic 
 with his wife and never came near her from the minute they 
 started from his house in London, because his horse ran away 
 with him She will give me a copy of it and I will send it 
 to you, when we come to the Muskingum. When that will be 
 I will not 
 
 And here the reader must give up this little 
 day by day gossip, for, alas ! the long yellow 
 page has given way here, by much folding 
 backward and forward, as different loving de 
 scendants have read the story, and so we are 
 not able to print the autograph of Sarah Par- 
 ris, in the nineteenth year of her age, as we 
 would be glad to do. 
 
 But a good geographer, who chooses to plot 
 on the map of Pennsylvania, the route which 
 they were following, from such hints as he can 
 get from the diaries of other emigrants and 
 from this story about the Dutchman, will see 
 that they were nearly at their land journey s 
 
48 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 end. It was not many days after Sarah had 
 written this letter before they came out on the 
 Alleghany River, and here they were to build 
 for themselves an " ark of safety " which was 
 to float them the rest of the way. Here, there 
 fore, a camp was made, while Mr. Titcomb and 
 one or t\vo of the men who went with him, 
 with some other pioneers from old Newbury, 
 men all of them skilful in woodcraft, indeed 
 in shipbuilding, should frame and build the 
 boat which took its name from Noah s, in 
 which they were to complete their voyage. 
 For the women and children, this fortnight in 
 July, spent under canvas, in a delicious cli 
 mate, would rest after the fatigue of travelling, 
 and rest with a sort of feeling that they were 
 back in shepherd life again. Our modern life 
 knows no such harbors in the midst of our 
 daily storms, but the men and women of a 
 hundred years ago were none the worse, that 
 they lay land-locked thus, sometimes for two 
 or three weeks or more at a time. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 TN the whole mass of letters there is not one 
 -L line from Sarah Parris to Harry Curwen, 
 nor one line written by him to her. But, on 
 removing the faded goatskin cover, which 
 some prudent hand had sewed on the Bible 
 which the girl carried from Salem to the Mus- 
 kingum, there was found a little note billet, 
 it was called in those days in which he asked 
 her to accept a farewell present. The present 
 was a basket fitted with knives and forks and 
 spoons, which he had carried more than once 
 when they went on a picnic together. 
 
 In all the little familiar tea parties which 
 Salem sadly made by way of bidding good-bye 
 to Miss Parris, Mr. Curwen never appeared. 
 He had gone to New York, it was said, and, 
 though Salem was apt to know the business of 
 everybody in Salem rather better than he knew 
 himself, Salem did not know why he was gone. 
 No letters came from him, or, if they did, the 
 
50 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 postmaster had not recognized the handwriting. 
 So it was, that excepting for the picnic basket 
 and for that little billet which was happily pre 
 served, Sarah Parris had no good-bye from 
 Harry Curwen. 
 
 A hundred years have lifted some mysteries, 
 so that there is no reason why I should not tell 
 both of you, dear Lily and dear Emma, what 
 Mr. Harry Curwen had done with himself. 
 
 First of all he had written the little billet, 
 and had sent off the basket with the silver 
 spoons and knives and forks, to the young 
 lady. Second, he had gone to Boston, and 
 had spent two or three days there in confer 
 ence with his father s old military friends. 
 He had obtained from them letters of introduc 
 tion to General Knox in New York. Then he 
 took the stage to Providence, and from Provi 
 dence with a northeast wind he took the 
 packet Lady Washington and sailed for the 
 city of New York. Three days after he found 
 himself at Francis s hotel in that city. It was 
 then the seat of government of the United 
 States. Washington had taken his first oath 
 of office as President, not one year before. 
 
EAST AND WEST. 51 
 
 Harry Cur wen dressed himself in his best, 
 and called upon his old friend Colonel Timothy 
 Pickering, to whom he told his plans. The 
 colonel advised him as men of forty will some 
 times advise men of twenty. That is, he ad 
 vised him to change all his plans and go home. 
 But by this advice Harry Curwen was not 
 moved. He asked Colonel Pickering, also, to 
 give him an introduction to General Knox, 
 which he could not refuse. Now, General 
 Knox was at this time the Secretary of War to 
 the new-born nation. And, as soon as Colonel 
 Pickering had written the note to General 
 Knox, Harry Curwen repaired thither. 
 
 The general was most kind. There had 
 been no need, he said, that our friend Harry 
 should bring him letters. Frederic Curwen s 
 son needed no introduction to him. He went 
 back to old days when the young man s father 
 was in college. " And after those days, my 
 dear young man, he would come into the store 
 in King Street, it was King Street then, and 
 we would talk of everything, of your dear 
 mother, my boy, of your aunts and your 
 uncles why, I knew Salem as well as your 
 
52 EAST AND WKST. 
 
 father knew Cambridge and Boston, and what 
 could I say more ? Then at Morristown, why, 
 Harry, where did I not know him? No, in 
 deed, his boy needs no letter to me." This was 
 all very nice and flattering, and Harry went 
 bravely on to tell his business. But instantly 
 General Knox s smile died away, his forehead 
 wrinkled itself, and he could hardly let the 
 young man finish his appeal. 
 
 " Oh, my dear Mr. Curvven, ask for anything 
 but a commission. Every one wants a commis 
 sion, and there is no commission to give any 
 one. See here, and here, and here, each of 
 these is a file of applications for commissions. 
 Each separate paper is an application. The 
 recommendations are yonder," and he pointed 
 across the room. " If I were our august ally, 
 King Louis, himself, 1 " and now he laughed 
 again, "I should not have commissions 
 enough for these young men who want 
 them." 
 
 "But these young men," said Curwen 
 boldly, "want to kick their heels here in 
 garrison. I do not. I want to see service, I 
 want to see life. General, I want to do what 
 
EAST AND WEST. 5B 
 
 you did, and my father ; I want to begin. 
 Remember, you showed me how." 
 
 " That is prettily said, my boy," said the 
 veteran, who was not himself forty years old. 
 "And if these days were those days, you 
 should have had your commission and should 
 have been in your regimentals before now. 
 We did not wait long then for papers, or for 
 service. But these are days of peace, alas ! 
 so much the worse for you and me. 
 
 "No, my lad, if it is to the Ohio or Ken 
 tucky you would go, you must go and talk 
 with Parson Cutler, by your own home, or to 
 Mr. Symmes here. For me, I have not power 
 to send one enlisted man there, far less an 
 ensign. I hate to say no to you, but truly 
 there is nothing else to say." 
 
 So Harry Cur wen experienced the second 
 sharp rebuff he had received within a week. 
 As he passed out through the door, which was 
 held open for him by a courtly black man, and 
 in the raw northeast wind, stepped out upon 
 the stoop, he remembered bitterly enough, that 
 it was just at that hour that day week that he 
 had heard in Salem of Sarah Parris s intention. 
 
64 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 Slowly enough lie returned to Francis s and, 
 with little enough interest, entered on the 
 business which came next his hand, which was 
 the eating of his supper. Then, with a group 
 of young Virginians who had come on to see 
 the Congress, he went to the theatre and tried 
 to amuse himself with the remorse and punish 
 ment of George Barnwell, and, afterward, with 
 the humor and music of the Beggars Opera. 
 But these things, which would have seemed to 
 him very brilliant ten days ago, seemed very 
 stupid now, and the Southerners found him a 
 poor companion. He left them early and went 
 back to the inn and to his bed. 
 
 Morning brought courage arid counsel. He 
 made his plan, and from that moment life 
 seemed tolerable to him. He could not follow 
 it out until afternoon, but he was sure it would 
 succeed then. So he hired a boat and bade 
 the man take him to Brooklyn, and up the 
 river to Harlem, and across to the Jersey side. 
 He found the man was an old veteran, willing 
 enough to spend the morning in pointing out 
 this and that memorial of the war. As they 
 walked and talked, the morning passed by, 
 
EAST AND WEST. 
 
 and Harry Curwen knew that he was nearer 
 and nearer the issue which he waited. 
 
 Two o clock came and he walked boldly to 
 the house which had been shown to him the 
 day before as the President s. On the side 
 walk, and even in the street, was quite a crowd 
 of the people who had most curiosity and least 
 occupation, and Harry was not displeased to 
 see this ; for it showed him that he had been 
 rightly informed, and that this was the Presi 
 dent s reception day. 
 
 The young fellow s good fortune had not de 
 serted him. This means that he came alone, as 
 it happened, no one else appeared at the same 
 moment. An usher led him to the door of the 
 large reception room, where the President was 
 standing, whom Harry recognized at the mo 
 ment ; he had seen him the year before, when 
 he had made his progress through the Eastern 
 States. General Knox and Colonel Pickering 
 were both standing near Washington. 
 
 Even at that moment, all strung up as he 
 was by the audacity of his own determination, 
 and by the miracle of his own success thus far, 
 young Master Harry Curwen noticed a certain 
 
56 EAST AKD WEST. 
 
 shyness of manner which never deserted George 
 Washington on occasions of ceremony. If he 
 had a poacher to thrash, a servant to scold, a 
 regiment to lead, an army to rally, or an enemy 
 to send packing, Washington was in no sort 
 shy. But, when he was in the midst of the et 
 iquettes of elegant social life, even to the end 
 of his career, there would appear just a shade 
 of the not unbecoming diffidence, with which 
 the fatherless Virginian boy, trained in the 
 field sports of the Rappahannock farm, may 
 have first met Lord Fairfax in his lordship s 
 drawing-roorn. Harry Curwen had found him 
 self sufficiently bold in Governor Bowdoin s 
 drawing-room, or in Mr. Crowninshield s. 
 Still his audacity was not so great but that his 
 voice quivered a little as he said to the man 
 whom he believed to be the greatest in the 
 world : 
 
 "Let me introduce myself, Mr. President. 
 My name is Curwen. I come from Salem, in 
 Massachusetts Bay." 
 
 " I thought I was not wrong," said the Pres- 
 dent, who did not, however, take the out 
 stretched hand which Curwen had half pre- 
 
EAST AND WEST. 57 
 
 sented a little awkwardly. " You were one of 
 the marshals last summer, when we rode out to 
 see the new bridge the bridge to Beverly." 
 
 Curwen was surprised now, and, of course, 
 was nattered. He was at his best one always 
 is when he speaks to a great man and frankly 
 expressed his surprise that the president 
 should have remembered him. 
 
 "I believe I remember you, sir, because I re 
 member your father. Indeed, sir, I do not for 
 get how he died." And after conquering his 
 own shyness thus, as Washington could do 
 sometimes, under strong emotion, he asked 
 how long the young man had been in New 
 York, and if he were travelling to the south 
 ward. 
 
 But, of course, Harry s luck could not last 
 forever. Before he could answer, other visi 
 tors swept in, and it was impossible for him 
 to keep a place, which would arrest their pas 
 sage. 
 
 The etiquette, however, did not require that 
 he should leave the room. He was able to 
 speak to Colonel Pickering and General 
 Knox, and he joined a party of his friends of 
 
58 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 the evening before, who were chatting in a 
 corner. All the time he watched the great 
 man, as, indeed, they all did. And at last 
 Harry s moment came again. 
 
 He saw that the tide of visitors was ebbing ; 
 for a moment the President was disengaged, 
 and even turned to speak to a friend, who left 
 him as if on a commission. With the audacity 
 of youth, Harry crossed the room and said at 
 once : 
 
 " Mr. President, you are kind to young men ; 
 I want to ask you what General Knox has 
 refused me." 
 
 Washington was amazed but amused. 
 " General Knox and I are good friends, Mr. 
 Curwen. We have fought many battles to 
 gether we are apt to be on one side." 
 
 The young man smiled and bowed, but per 
 sisted. "I asked General Knox to let me go 
 to the Ohio, and he does not want me." 
 
 Again the great man laughed. "It is the 
 Congress that does not want you. I believe 
 that my poor General Harmar would be glad 
 of a thousand as good as you." 
 
 u Mr. President," persisted the boy, "I am 
 
EAST AND WEST. 59 
 
 more in earnest than you think. General 
 Knox showed me a thousand begging letters 
 from young men who would be ensigns. Gen 
 eral Washington, tell me is there one of 
 them who wants to serve as I do, for the honor 
 of serving my country and you ? I want to 
 see service. I want to serve as you did. I 
 want to serve as a volunteer, and General 
 Knox thinks there is not room for me in the 
 Northwest Territory" this almost proudly. 
 u I do not ask for a penny. I do not ask for 
 a horse. I do not ask even for a chance for 
 promotion. I only ask to serve my country 
 under such an officer as George Washington 
 puts over me." 
 
 The boy had lost all shyness, as the reader 
 sees. The man looked on his glowing face, and 
 remembered his own u Light Horse Harry," 
 and his almost son, young John Custis, who 
 died at Yorktown. He turned to look for 
 Knox, who had left the group, and was 
 standing among some members of Congress, 
 in the embrasure of a window. But they 
 scattered when the unexpected happened, 
 and the President himself rapidly crossed 
 
60 EAST AND -WEST. 
 
 half the room and put his hand on Knox s 
 shoulder. 
 
 "Knox, you remember this boy s father. 
 But you were not with us when we lost him. 
 I never forget the last words he said to me. He 
 bowed, on his horse and said : It shall be as 
 you say, General, and rode away. It was as 
 I said ; but they told me he was dead when they 
 brought the news. Here is his son, he seems 
 a good follow." 
 
 Knox assured him that Harry had distin 
 guished himself at college, and was highly es 
 teemed among young men. "The blood is the 
 best in Essex County. Some of them were 
 Tories, but then I have been talking with 
 Pickering about him." 
 
 " Knox, this is the kind of fellow to encour 
 age. Keep him with you a few weeks, then 
 send him with despatches to Harmar. He is a 
 volunteer. You need not get him on any 
 roll." 
 
 Knox laughed, as between themselves these 
 two men did. "Your Excellency, I will make 
 Mrs. Knox take him home with us. I will 
 treat him as you did the Marquis." 
 
EAST AND WEST. 61 
 
 And Washington went back to his station. 
 He beckoned to Curwen and bade him talk to 
 General Knox. And so all we care for of the 
 reception was over. 
 
 So youth and audacity and sentiment had 
 their way, as they will, where prudence and 
 propriety and what is called reason fail. Hap 
 pily for us who live in the world, this often 
 happens, more often than men choose to be 
 lieve. And so it was that Harry Curwen saw 
 the interior of the little war office of that day, 
 and then that he was sent to Philadelphia and 
 Lancaster on government commissions. The 
 details of this journey and what followed must 
 be left to another chapter, for it is time that 
 the reader should know what has become of 
 Sarah Parris, who was the real lodestar of 
 Harry Curwen s adventure. If the grave men 
 whom he thought veterans Washington, who 
 had arrived at the fabulous age of fifty-seven ; 
 Knox, who, as has been said, was almost forty ; 
 and Pickering, who was a veteran a year or 
 two older if these grave old men suspected 
 that a pretty woman was at the bottom of this 
 adventure, they had no immediate evidence, 
 
EAST AND WEST. 
 
 that this was so. Curwen kept his own 
 counsel, and in the zeal of his volunteering 
 told none of th secrets of his heart to his 
 advisers. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 IT was a week or ten days after the depar 
 ture of the "ship of the prairie," with 
 Sarah Parris and her earthly possessions, that 
 a sailor young, sun-burned, cleanly shaven 
 presented himself at the side door of the 
 Whitman house at Salem, and knocked. After 
 he had knocked, he looked curiously up to 
 the heavens, with a serious smile. It seemed 
 to intimate that he bad himself been advised 
 with as the trees had been set to their work of 
 the spring-time, and that he had himself sug 
 gested the special fringes of opening elm buds 
 which were growing larger every day. One 
 would have thought, also, that the special tint 
 of the blue had been given in accord with his 
 particular fancy. The smile seemed to inti 
 mate his satisfaction with the success which 
 had been attained by any power which had 
 the direction of these particulars. 
 To young readers, in closely built towns, to- 
 
64 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 day, it must be explained that the side door 
 was the " practicable" door, as the acting 
 play-wright says, of the house. As kings and 
 queens have thrones, on which they sit on 
 occasions of the very highest ceremony, so the 
 Whitman house and every other house in 
 Salem had a front door, opening upon a little 
 passage between two patches of grass, now 
 growing green. But, as kings and queens 
 usually sit on chairs, as all other people do, 
 except uneasy usurpers, so every person in 
 Salem used the side door of every house on all 
 occasions of life except the most august. Silas 
 Ransom would have been much more likely to 
 enter the Whitman house by any window in it 
 than by the front door. 
 
 He had now no reasons for ceremony, how 
 ever, and on this occasion at the side door he 
 knocked, greatly to the surprise of the good- 
 natured servant who answered the knock. It 
 may be noticed in passing that she had never 
 been called a servant, and would have walked 
 out of the house had anybody called her a ser 
 vant. But as she was one, and acted like one, 
 and did as much work as three or four people 
 
EAST AND WEST. 65 
 
 who usually take that name, it may be as well 
 to call her by it, after a hundred years. 
 
 She welcomed the cheerful sailor with the 
 surprise with which an unexpected arrival is 
 welcomed. 
 
 "Back agin, Silas ? Good vige ? " 
 
 He disdained to answer the low inquiry 
 which accompanied the welcome, except by a 
 nod and smile, and came at once to his object, 
 as if the maid were quite unworthy his atten 
 tion, and knew she was, as indeed she did. 
 
 4 Miss Sally t ome V And then he was over 
 whelmed by the long explanation of the girl, 
 intermingled with her surprise that he did not 
 know, what all Salem knew and what all the 
 county knew, that Miss Sally had gone to the 
 Muskingum with some of Parson Cutler s 
 people; that for her part she did not know 
 why people wanted to go ; that she was sure 
 that they would all be scalped by Indians as 
 her own grandfather had been in Lovell s 
 fight ; that she was also sure Miss Sally would 
 never come back again. All which the young 
 seaman received with a certain air of scorn, 
 which intimated that no woman s opinion was 
 
66 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 of the least importance to him or to any one 
 a scorn, however, which was not consistent 
 with his first words. 
 
 u Ef Miss Sally s gone with Parson Cutler 
 she knows what she s about. Yeh won t make 
 her out a fool by savin so. She knows what 
 she s about ef she s gone with Parson Cutler." 
 And he consented to go into the house with 
 the maid, and to share the hospitalities, al 
 most unlimited, of that spacious kitchen, where 
 he was cordially received by the other members 
 of the working staff. He took off the heavy 
 pea-jacket which he wore, and put his knit 
 cap aside. When he was established in the 
 most comfortable chair, he took up his pro 
 phecy again : 
 
 " Eh knew Parson Cutler myself that s long 
 ago knew him myself." His pauses were 
 longer than those of most men in easy talk. 
 Always he gave to the hearer the feeling that 
 his short sentences were oracles of wisdom, 
 worth waiting for indeed. And, though this 
 impression was almost never a true one, it had 
 so much foundation in the gravity of the state 
 ment, and, above all, in those pauses which 
 
EAST AND WEST. 
 
 67 
 
 preceded eacli utterance, that no person who 
 had to deal with him ever escaped its sway. 
 Men listened as if, this time, it were sure that 
 the oracle was one to be remembered. 
 
 " Eh knew Parson Cutler myself that s long 
 ago. He s no fool, tell yeh. He knows what 
 he s about. You 1 11 see. Went to him one day 
 when I worked at Cabot s. Carried him some 
 new reddishes old man had. They was new 
 reddishes, from France. Old Cabot sent em 
 over to the parson s. Told me to carry em, 
 n I carried em. He knows what he s about. 
 You ll see. He s no fool, tell you. Yes, I 
 knew the parson, Parson Cutler, myself, long 
 ago." And he paused and looked up at the 
 smoke-jack with that pleased smile which, in 
 this case, made them all suppose that he had 
 made the smoke-jack and was glad to see it 
 again, that all the interview with Parson Cut 
 ler had been gracious and hearty, that the 
 radishes, in particular, had been of perfect 
 flavor, and that, in short, that special trans 
 action had been one of the few on which the 
 world turned. 
 
 "Wen you say she went, Miss Sally?" 
 
08 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 This was the first question with which he broke 
 the silence. And as Temperance Cutts, the 
 cook, began to supply, on the table by which 
 he sat, a substantial repast which, in his par 
 ticular case, answered for breakfast, lunch, 
 and dinner combined he plied his slow ques 
 tions so definitely, and interspersed his slow 
 oracles so sparingly, that, by the time he was 
 done eating, he had learned every particular 
 concerned with Sarah s Hegira, even to all the 
 details which the wondering maid could give 
 as to the behavior, explicable or inexplicable, 
 of Harry Ctirwen on that critical and central 
 occasion. 
 
 When the nondescript meal was finished, a 
 message came from Mrs. Whitman that she 
 wanted to see Silas Eansom before he went a 
 message which he had expected. He would 
 not have obtruded himself upon her. But he 
 had come to see Sarah Parris. He had not 
 come to see the confidantes to whom he had 
 been talking, and, failing Sarah Parris herself, 
 he meant to see her aunt. His interview with 
 her was long. He had to explain why he had 
 gone off on a fishing voyage at this unusual 
 
EAST AND WEST. 69 
 
 season ; he had to go at considerable length 
 into the folly of the master of the vessel, of 
 the mate, and of all parties concerned but 
 himself ; he had to show why he had been 
 dissatisfied with them, and had left them when 
 they ran into Cariso ; he had to tell why it was 
 that he came back alone. And now that he 
 had come back, he had reported, as a perfect 
 matter of course, to Miss Sarah ; for he wanted 
 to know "how Miss Sarah was gettin on." 
 And he would not undertake to join in an 
 other fishing voyage until he had seen her and 
 given her his advice for the summer. 
 
 For Silas Ransom had been from his child 
 hood what in old-fashioned times would have 
 been called a retainer in the Parris family. 
 This means that, when he chose, he lived in 
 their house. Often he lived there for wages ; 
 sometimes he lived there without wages. This 
 was for him a matter of comparative indif 
 ference. He had always imagined himself, 
 from the time that he was thirteen years old, 
 to be the chief adviser of the family, and 
 in certain matters his advice was certainly 
 good. Sarah s mother, while she lived, never 
 
70 EAST AND WEST 1 . 
 
 dreamed of buying her own wood from the 
 farmers who brought wood into Salem, by any 
 means more direct than telling Ransom that 
 she wanted the wood and that he was to buy 
 it. The consequence was that she had the 
 best wood in the market, though perhaps she 
 paid the highest price for it. Silas Ransom 
 was entirely indifferent to price. Going on 
 what has since proved to be the national 
 motto of America, he "got the best" in all 
 his arrangements. 
 
 He would not show that he was bitterly dis 
 appointed in finding that his pet Miss Sarah 
 had gone off on this mad adventure. He 
 would not, to Mrs. Whitman, by the turn of 
 an eyelash, intimate that he considered the 
 adventure absurd, or that he wondered why 
 Miss Sarah had engaged in it. His loyalty to 
 the family was like the loyalty of Caleb Bal- 
 derstone, and while he would have criticised 
 Miss Sarah pitilessly to her face, he would not 
 drop a syllable of comment to any person, 
 even her aunt, in her absence. 
 
 After he had heard the whole fatal story of 
 her departure, and assured himself that she 
 
EAST AND WEST. 7l 
 
 had been gone too long for him to cut her off 
 in her march : 
 
 " Shall go myself," said the young fellow, 
 after a full minute of silence. 
 
 "Oh, no!" the optimistic and amiable lady 
 replied. "You must not think of that. It 
 would take you so long to go and c me, and 
 what would become of your fishing \ 
 
 "Guess the mackerel can wait," said the 
 sturdy young fellow, with his own grin, im 
 plying a certain self-confidence which was 
 quite indifferent to mackerel. "Shall go 
 after Miss Sarah. She ll be all alone out 
 there with them Injuns. Guess the mackerel 
 can wait." 
 
 Mrs. Whitman persisted longer than was 
 wise. For if anything were ever needed to 
 confirm Silas Ransom in any fancy which was 
 not yet a resolution, it was opposition. 
 
 " Silas, you do not know what a journey it 
 is. It is more than seven hundred miles, and 
 part of it is in a boat ; I heard Mr. Titcomb 
 say so." 
 
 Again Silas s face beamed with that smile, 
 which intimated that if he intended to walk to 
 
72 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 the moon he should walk there. In his only 
 reply in words, delivered, as always, after a 
 moment s consideration, he said: 
 
 "Ain t afraid of boats. Was in a dory 
 three nights fortnight ago. More boats the 
 better. Ef Miss Sarah rode I shall walk. Ef 
 Miss Sarah went in a boat, shall go in a boat. 
 More boats the better Was in a dory three 
 nights fort nigh J j ago. Ain t afraid of boats. 
 Never was." 
 
 Mrs. Whitman saw that she had made noth 
 ing by her persistency. She yielded, or ap 
 peared to yield, to his purpose, as she had 
 often done, thinking wisely that the chances 
 were that the wind might change, of a sudden, 
 and the vane which showed the fancy of a 
 moment might turn round. 
 
 "Well, Ransom," she said, " you will 
 want to get ready. Of course you will stay 
 here while you are in Salem. Take your 
 things up into the north room in the L. That 
 is your room. Nobody has been there since 
 you were here." 
 
 Ransom smiled his thanks, well pleased at 
 the recognition of his place in the family. 
 
EAST AND WEST. 73 
 
 The beam of glory came over his face, and he 
 looked for a moment at the center rosette in 
 the plaster work of the ceiling, as if a messen 
 ger from above might be expected there. But 
 he only said, after it proved that no such 
 message arrived : 
 
 " Thank you, mum; 11 leave meh jacket 
 there, n meh tarpaulin, n Jason s shoes. 
 But uh shall start after dinner. Miss Sarah s 
 ahead of me nigh a fortnit now." He rose, 
 and the audience he had given to Mrs. Whit 
 man was ended. 
 
 And that very afternoon the good fellow 
 started on his tramp, the length of which Mrs. 
 Whitman had in no way exaggerated. But he 
 declined all information upon the subject 
 from her, from General Thomas, or the au 
 thorities most in repute in Salem. Maps 
 were brought forward, which he would not 
 look at. Indeed, he rejected them with scorn. 
 It was vain to tell him that Miss Sarah joined 
 the Titcombs at Andover, and crossed the 
 State westward from that town. He was 
 going to Boston. He believed all roads ended 
 there, as people of his sort once believed all 
 
74 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 roads ended in Rome. He said nothing of his 
 geographical views to any one. But his idea, 
 though unexpressed, was that if all roads 
 ended in Boston, the road to the Muskingurn 
 must begin there. He would sail from Boston, 
 he said to himself, as he had in the voyage 
 from which he had just now deserted, after a 
 quarrel with his skipper. 
 
 So that afternoon saw him on the Boston 
 road the same, be it said in passing, that 
 Winthrop passed over six generations be 
 fore, when he went on that eventful voyage of 
 discovery which, as it proved, transferred the 
 headship of the colony from Nahumkeag or 
 Salem to Boston at the "head of the bay." 
 Ransom knew every hamlet, and indeed every 
 house, on the way. And, after a tramp of an 
 hour or two toward Boston, he turned up with 
 perfect confidence to a little wooden house 
 which stood a few paces from the road. It 
 did not directly face the road, but seemed to 
 have dropped from heaven where it was. 
 Twenty feet or less from it, standing also as a 
 cubical meteorite might stand, was the wooden 
 shoe-shop, in which the inmates of the house, 
 
EAST AND WEST. 75 
 
 when they were disposed to make shoes, 
 turned from their other vocations to that 
 avocation. 
 
 Ransom refused the shoe-shop, as a soldier 
 would say, knowing, indeed, perfectly well, 
 that the two shoemakers of that family were 
 at that moment catching cod on the Banks of 
 Newfoundland. He had brought messages 
 from them to the women folks at home. 
 
 "How d ye do, Aunt Tammy ? " he said, as 
 he entered the house without knocking. 
 
 The old woman dropped the almanac which 
 she was studying, and looked out over her 
 spectacles with amazement. 
 
 " Silas Ransom, where be you come from ? " 
 She spoke with a certain terror, fearing that 
 her own husband and boy could not come, 
 and asking herself why, as she dared not ask 
 him. 
 
 "Come from the Banks," said the sailor, 
 "and come the shortest way. Left Loammi all 
 right, n Cephas. Sent their love n is all right, 
 they says. I wa n t all right, n uh come 
 away. Told the skipper he was a darned fool, 
 n he was. N he told me ef uh didn t like 
 
76 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 uh might go, n uli went. Landed at Canso 
 fust chance, n let em go on on the vige. 
 Old man said uh might go, n uh went. Told 
 him he was a fool a darned fool n he was. 
 So I come away. Left Cephas n the old man 
 aboard the schooner. They was all right, or 
 said they was." 
 
 Then he went on with the special messages 
 he had, about the probable period of their re 
 turn, and ii particular about the food which 
 was to be given to certain hens, and the special 
 treatment of their eggs if and when those eggs 
 should appear. As to the time named, Silas 
 expressed his doubts. 
 
 " Ketch good?" asked the woman doubt 
 fully. 
 
 "Good? I guess so. You d think so. 
 They ain t no ketch, n they won t be, while 
 that old fool s the skipper. Uh told him so 
 muhself. Told him the fish was all gone to 
 Bay Shaloor, n he must go after em. N 
 he didn t. Said he was skipper, n he d have 
 his own way. Didn t mind word uh said. 
 Told him he must go after em. Told him he 
 must go to Bay Shaloor, Told him so, my- 
 
EAST AND WEST. 77 
 
 self. Told him ef they stayed w are they was 
 they wouldn t be no ketch. N they won t 
 be." 
 
 But after this gloomy prophecy his face as- 
 summed no expression of gravity, but only 
 that conscious glow of self-satisfaction that his 
 skirts were clear. He was, as he had always 
 been, the Cassandra of the party. He had 
 sounded the trumpet. No man had cared. 
 But his skirts were clear. 
 
 The woman asked no further questions 
 knew his temper, indeed, well enough to know 
 that she might rouse a tempest of rage if she 
 crossed him. She busied herself as they talked 
 in hospitable cares, putting a neat cloth 
 on the table, hanging on the crane a pan 
 with store of baked beans and pork for 
 warming, lifting upon the coals a pot of 
 tea which was standing on the hearth, and 
 making other preparations for an unexpected 
 visitor. 
 
 It was now Silas Ransom s turn for ques 
 tions. He had known as he entered that she 
 would be anxious about her men folks till he 
 made his report. 
 
78 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 " W are sEnos ? " he said. " Stopped to the 
 forge n they said he d gone off." 
 
 Then the good woman explained, almost with 
 tears, that her only remaining boy, Enos, who 
 had been at the forge when the schooner left, 
 had been misled by the fools who were going 
 to the "Hio," as she put it. Why the boy 
 could not stay where there were clams and fish 
 and the sea, she did not know. People had 
 been telling him stories about cornfields where 
 the corn grew up to heaven, and flocks of 
 pigeons that darkened the sky, and wild 
 turkeys roosting on every tree, and he had 
 been lured off by these romances. It was a 
 fortnight since he had left her. All this she 
 told, as she put on the table the extemporized 
 meal, for which Silas Ransom in his turn pre 
 pared himself. She told him her story almost 
 with tears, and doubtful how it might meet 
 his masterful criticism. 
 
 "Goin myself," he said. "Everybody s 
 goin . They s rivers there n they build 
 ships there. They s enough to eat there, n 
 more. Injuns is nothin . Run n way. They s 
 enough to eat there n enough to drink. They 
 
EAST AND WEST. 79 
 
 build ships there n send m to sea. They s 
 rivers there. Everybody s goin . Goin my 
 self." 
 
 Such was all the comfort the poor woman 
 got. She had certainly expected sympathy, in 
 the burning question of the day, from a man 
 who, like Silas Ransom, had been so much on 
 the sea that he might well have been web- 
 footed. 
 
 "The burning question of the day," one 
 says. For serious people, who wished the 
 prosperity of Massachusetts under its new 
 constitution, looked most sourly on this new 
 passion of its young people to go out of it. 
 They were most seriously advised of the dan 
 gers of the wilderness. Caricature, protest, 
 and careful reasoning were all invoked to 
 check the wave which rose higher every day. 
 Silas Ransom s old friend, therefore, had the 
 sympathy of most of the older people in Lynn 
 and in her little world. But, as the older peo 
 ple of a place will, she found the drift so 
 running against her, that her own son had 
 abandoned his regular wages at the forge to go 
 off on this wild adventure. If he had gone to 
 
80 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 the Banks to catch cod, or had gone with "the 
 fleet to catch mackerel, she would have taken 
 it as a matter of course, as every mother in 
 Essex County had for a century and a half 
 taken such adventures, when their sons came 
 into their teens. But that a son of hers should 
 go away from the sea, and to the West, was an 
 inexplicable thing to her. She had opened 
 her heart to Silas Ransom, and now had this 
 horrible reply, that he was going on the same 
 adventure himself. Truly, if Silas Ransom 
 turned from the ocean and went into the 
 woods, no one could be expected to remain in 
 the Bay ! 
 
 " Who s ever goin to keep up my garden for 
 me ? " she said. " Enos he just dug it over be 
 fore he went or said he dug it over. But 
 you d a thought a dog dug it. I spaded it 
 ag in myself, an I raked it myself, and I cut 
 up the potatoes an put em in, and I seeded 
 it with corn myself. But I can t keep it up 
 all summer, an I dunno who s going to weed 
 it for me now." 
 
 Silas Ransom was by this time well engaged 
 in discussing the baked beans and other pro- 
 
EAST ANI> WEST. 81 
 
 visions which she had laid before him. He 
 was sinking into the mood of perfect good 
 nature which was his general characteristic, 
 when not aroused to controversy by an unfor 
 tunate red rag. He smiled his own benign 
 smile on her, and said : 
 
 "I ll go out and see to it myself. Guess 
 they ain t much more to do than you n I can 
 do together. I ll see to it myself." 
 
 And the good fellow did so, and before half 
 an hour was over you would have said that 
 there was no thought of the Muskingum Val 
 ley, or of going out after Miss Sarah, or any 
 of the other enterprises. Silas Ransom was 
 in the garden, revising Aunt Tammy s plans, 
 suggesting some real improvements and some 
 which were entirely chimerical. He was at 
 work there, as he always worked, as if with 
 the impression on his mind that he was the 
 owner of the garden, and the general manager 
 of the concern. But he made no sign of going 
 farther toward Boston that day, and that 
 night took possession of Enos s bed, as if 
 he belonged there. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ACCORDINGLY it happened that it was not 
 -LA- till noon of the next day that Ransom 
 found the garden in such order that he could 
 properly leave it, on the great crusade in which 
 he had engaged. He had stopped to right this 
 poor woman s affairs, very much as Richard 
 the First would stop at Crete or at Palermo to 
 settle any enterprise which he found needing 
 assistance, when he was on the way for the re 
 demption of the Holy City. Aunt Tammy, 
 refreshed and encouraged by his sympathy, 
 had his dinner ready for him about eleven 
 o clock of the morning after his arrival, and 
 at noon he took up his march again toward 
 Boston. 
 
 He did not go till he had accepted from 
 Aunt Tammy a commission. She brought out 
 from a stocking three Portuguese "Joes," 
 which he was to give to Enos when he found 
 him. As Enos was west of the Alleghany 
 
EAST AND WEST. 83 
 
 Mountains, and as Silas was going to that coun 
 try, there was, of course, every probability that 
 they would meet. Both parties were wise 
 enough to know that the gold of Portugal 
 would be even more valuable there than it 
 would have.been in Lisbon. She had wrapped 
 the money carefully in a piece of cloth, which 
 she stitched together. Silas put this in an 
 inner pocket, to please her. But, so soon as 
 he was well out of the town, he opened a cart 
 ridge-box which swung at his side in the fash 
 ion of a haversack, took out the wooden block 
 which sustained the cartridges, and laid the 
 little parcel of gold beneath the whole. He 
 then replaced the block, and his treasure was 
 thus effectually concealed. 
 
 The road in some parts passed through what 
 was really a desert. There is little to encour 
 age the farmer on that shore, and there has 
 been but little since the days when Winthrop 
 passed over it in its bleakness. Ransom was 
 disposed to make up for the time he had lost ; 
 he could march at a quick step when he chose, 
 and it was the middle of the afternoon 
 when he arrived at the long wooden bridge, 
 
84 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 lately built, which united Chaiiestown with 
 Boston. 
 
 A little cabin, five feet square and seven feet 
 high, at the entrance, and a gate which could 
 have been swung to had it been necessary, in 
 dicated that he was to pay the toll exacted 
 from all travelers. With his usual habit of 
 falling into conversation with everybody, Ran 
 som drew back and read the newly painted 
 sign which was over the toll-house. The toll- 
 gatherer leaned against the half-open door, 
 and met Ransom s benign smile. 
 
 " Be ye back so soon, Silas ?" said the man. 
 And Silas repeated to him much the same 
 story which he had told once and again before, 
 that the skipper of the fishing vessel did not 
 choose to be governed by his advice, and that 
 he had left him, therefore, to the error of his 
 ways. 
 
 " Don t often come a-foot into town. Never 
 crossed yer old bridge afore. N now uh m 
 here ye want to make me pay fer comin ." 
 And he read in a burlesque way the first line 
 upon the sign. 
 
 " For one foot passenger, two-thirds of a 
 penny. " 
 
EAST AND WEST. 
 
 85 
 
 "Hain t got no pennies. Hain t had none 
 since George the Third went a-packing, 11 old 
 Howe. Bat there s a soo markay, ef ye like 
 that, V ye can take it n give it to yer children 
 ef ye don t like it. Hain t got no pennies." 
 And he laughed with a good-natured guffaw. 
 
 The toll-keeper asked him if he would not 
 stop and partake the hospitalities of his cabin. 
 This would probably have been a glass of hard 
 cider, and possibly some liquor rather stronger, 
 distilled from the molasses of the West Indies. 
 But Ransom assured him that he was in haste, 
 and pressed on into the town. 
 
 Nor did he arrive at all too early. He was 
 working his way through streets, all of which 
 showed the dependence of the town upon 
 foreign commerce, and, to a certain extent, 
 upon ship-building and the fisheries, when his 
 attention was called by loud yells and calls for 
 succor, as of Homer s heroes rallying their 
 followers for a fight. He saw at once that, 
 behind the great molasses hogsheads in the 
 yard of a distillery were crowded boys of much 
 better dress and fashion than the typical Boston 
 North-ender of that time. Ransom surveyed 
 
86 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 the position with the eye of a leader. It was 
 clear that one rabble rout of boys, whom he 
 recognized by a certain seafaring habit as being 
 genuine North-enders, held possession of the 
 street on which he was approaching. He saw 
 that the hidden troop behind the casks meant 
 evil to these fellows if they should advance. 
 He knew the Boston of that day well enough 
 to know that he was in the midst of one of the 
 encounters, arranged by heralds beforehand, 
 in which the North End and the South End 
 were to fight for victory. Himself a seaman, 
 and belonging to the seaman class, he had at 
 the same time an instinct, the same, indeed, 
 which had made him part from his own com 
 mander, which made him desire for the mo 
 ment to antagonize the party which seemed to 
 be the stronger. He dropped off, therefore, 
 from the principal highway, and crossed by 
 a narrow street to the point where, as he sus 
 pected, a side party had organized itself. 
 
 In point of fact, these were the West End 
 boys, who had nothing whatever to do with the 
 original quarrel of the North End and the 
 South End. They were, in fact, boys of a 
 
EAST AND WEST. 87 
 
 higher social grade than the combatants of 
 either of the two armies which were to meet that 
 day. But they knew the encounter was to 
 take place, and they had supposed that their 
 assistance, to one side or the other, would be 
 important. They had, therefore, come down 
 in groups of ones and twos, had hidden them 
 selves in the distillery yard, meaning to attack 
 the rear of the North End boys at the moment 
 when a sudden attack might affect the victory. 
 It is impossible to say how much this simple 
 strategy had been suggested by the careful 
 reading of the Old Testament, to which in 
 those days such young fellows were accus 
 tomed. 
 
 It is impossible for us to give the account, as 
 Homer would have done it, of the forward and 
 backward rushes in which from this moment 
 Silas Ransom, and the West End party to 
 which he allied himself, engaged. Suffice it to 
 say that they were thoroughly beaten. Their 
 attack in the flank or in the rear was not well 
 timed, and with forces vastly less than the 
 North-enders had, with less experience in 
 street fighting than they had, they were igno- 
 
88 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 miniously driven from the ground. After half 
 an hour s screaming, shouting, swearing, 
 throwing of brickbats and stones for there 
 were scarcely any hand-to-hand encounters in 
 these battles Silas Ransom found himself, 
 with a fine boy almost in his arms, scarcely 
 able to stagger along. The lad had been hit 
 by a heavy club which had been flung from the 
 window of a house, and was now fairly totter 
 ing under the influence of the blow. He did 
 not know his name, he did not know where he 
 belonged, he only begged Ransom to let him 
 lie down and die. 
 
 But Silas Ransom had been in too many 
 fights, on the water and on the land, to abandon 
 an ally, even though he knew nothing of him. 
 He dragged him out from the thick of the con 
 flict ; he learned from one or two of the 
 passers-by where the boy belonged. Of Bos 
 ton he knew every inch from one end to the 
 other, having spent almost all his land-life 
 there, since the death of Mrs. Parris, when he 
 had first " tried the adventure" of its streets. 
 Learning, therefore, that this boy was a Breck, 
 he knew at once to which of the Breck fami- 
 
EAST AND WEST. 89 
 
 lies he belonged ; and almost carrying the lad 
 in his arms, always supporting him as he stag 
 gered along, he appeared an hour before sun 
 set at the side door of the elegant mansion, 
 which faced the common, not far from the 
 Granary. 
 
 Ransom had been mortified that he had not 
 known the boy whom he had rescued. In fact, 
 the poor fellow had come from the West Indies 
 not long since, and Ransom had never seen 
 him in his Boston life. But as he led him 
 home, he met one and another of his old com 
 rades, and told them, more or less briefly, and 
 with more or less exaggeration, as their cir 
 cumstances in life or other conditions required, 
 the story of the conflict. It must be confessed 
 that in these stories there was little regard for 
 the Eternal Verities. Ransom took his own 
 almost lordly measure of the person to whom 
 he talked, and adapted the narration to the 
 person in hand. These different narrations 
 did not bear critical comparison with each 
 other. 
 
 Avoiding the wider streets, which were nar 
 row at best, and passing through alleys and 
 
90 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 back courts, with which both were familiar, 
 they came, as has been said, to the side door. 
 
 The boy went in first, and cried out, "Aunt 
 Mary, Aunt Mary ! We ve had a fight with 
 the North End, and Jim had his eye put out, 
 and Tom Cradock has sprained his ankle, and 
 they drove us all back, and I ve got a black 
 eye!" 
 
 At this sudden announcement his aunt ap 
 peared. She was clearly a lady, but she was 
 dressed for immediate action, in her kitchen, 
 or anywhere, indeed ; with a white apron on, 
 with her sleeves rolled up, as if within five 
 minutes she had been assisting her cook. She 
 showed that general aspect of resolution, with 
 which the New England woman of her time 
 addressed herself to the affairs of "a great 
 party." In truth, at this moment Mrs. Breck 
 was making the last arrangements for the 
 hospitable reception of her guests for an ele 
 gant evening party. No moment could have 
 been selected more inopportune for the arrival 
 of her wounded nephew. She intimated as 
 much in a few words of surprise, but she did 
 not lose her temper. She called the boy into 
 
EAST AND WEST. 91 
 
 her own room to wash himself ; she found one 
 of her maids into whose hands she then put 
 him, and having caught a glimpse of Silas 
 Ransom, as she was making these hurried 
 arrangements, she came to ask what it was 
 that had happened. 
 
 "Why under the heavens should he have 
 anything to do with the North End and the 
 South End? Exactly what he is not is a 
 North-ender or a South-ender, and why he 
 must go into their lights I am sure I do not 
 know." 
 
 She spoke to Silas Ransom as if he were an 
 old friend almost, as indeed he was. In the 
 intervals of his recent voyages, which were 
 somewhat long, Silas had condescended to 
 make Boston his place of call or address. He 
 had a mysterious room somewhere in which 
 he placed this, that, or another bit of prop 
 erty which he had chosen to bring home, and 
 where were the two or three different seamen s 
 chests which he had had on different voyages. 
 But if it pleased him to take up the life of a 
 landsman in one of these intervals of seafaring 
 experience, he would "hire out" as a sort of 
 
92 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 ont-door man or man of all work in any one of 
 the better families of Boston. He knew them 
 all their genealogies, their successes, and 
 their failures. He had nursed men through 
 their sicknesses with the skill of a profes 
 sional nurse ; he had taken the children to 
 school ; he had harnessed the horses in the 
 most elegant stables in the little town, and he 
 had waited on table at their entertainments. 
 Not to know Silas Ransom, indeed, would 
 have argued one s self unknown among those 
 people in Boston who considered themselves 
 of the most account. With such people he 
 was always respectful, bearing in mind that 
 he had known them as a person employed 
 knows his employer. But he would never 
 hesitate to give them advice on points the 
 most critical, advice which might go into their 
 political relationships, or which might in 
 struct them on some of the intricacies of the 
 lower orders of society, of which they them 
 selves might not be informed. 
 
 He had, clearly enough, expected that Mrs. 
 Breck would receive him cordially, nor was he 
 disappointed. 
 
EAST AND WEST. 93 
 
 "I did not know you were here, Ransom. 
 Somebody told me you had gone to sea 
 again." 
 
 "Yes m. Been to sea. Got back. Skip 
 per s an old fool. Told him so. Didn t 
 know nothin about the vyge. Told him so. 
 Old fool told him so. I ve come back 
 agin." 
 
 "And were you in this fight, too, Silas ?" 
 
 "Why, I come in over the bridge from 
 Charlestown, n just as uh come up to the dis 
 tillery, there was these boys hidin behind the 
 casks. See they d get into a scrape. Did get 
 into a scrape. No business to be there, none 
 on em. Looked round to see what was goin 
 on. Saw Master Frank with his eye bleedin , 
 n uh knew he ought to get home. Asked 
 where he was stayin , n they said he was 
 stayin with you. Knew he ought to get home, 
 had his eye bleedin , n uh brought him home. 
 They got well licked, n twas good enough for 
 em. No business in the fight at all. Fight s 
 a fight o North-enders and South-enders. 
 Good enough for em. Got well licked." 
 And the same beaming smile passed over his 
 
94 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 face which more than once we have tried to 
 describe. 
 
 Mrs. Breck thanked him effusively for res 
 cuing the boy ; said she supposed boys must 
 be boys. She knew that there was no good in 
 her scolding this young martyr to his convic 
 tions ; and evidently she doubted whether 
 her husband would administer any such 
 discipline. 
 
 "Now you are here, Silas, you must make 
 yourself at home. The women will be glad to 
 see you, and you must help us through to 
 night. We have got this great party the 
 Governor and all his people will be here ; the 
 French people will be here ; there are some 
 English people here ; I do not know who there 
 is not here. Mr. Breck has made a great 
 party, and you must help us through." 
 
 Silas Ransom received his commission with 
 a certain satisfaction. He would have taken 
 a place among Mrs. Breck s people even if she 
 had not told him to, and this she knew per 
 fectly well. She had maintained possibly a 
 little more dignity by accepting the services 
 which he would certainly have rendered. Tins 
 
EAST AND WEST. 95 
 
 satisfied her. If she was satisfied, he was 
 satisfied ; and from that moment, in his fash 
 ion, he took very much the direction of the 
 kitchen, and of the hospitalities which from 
 the kitchen emanated. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 NOT one of Mrs. Breck s foreign guests 
 suspected, that evening, that the really 
 elegant waiter who, in a suit which was only 
 not livery, offered them lemonade, or currant 
 shrub, or a glass of Madeira, exquisite beyond 
 any dream of to-day had that afternoon been 
 engaged in a street fight with the North End 
 boys, in the costume of a fisherman from the 
 Banks, in clothing, indeed, which had been 
 worn day and night for three weeks or more. 
 So soon as Silas Ransom had understood that 
 there was to, be a great party at the house in 
 particular, as soon as he was sure that " some 
 of them Frenchmen was to be there," he de 
 termined to equip himself for duty. Mrs. 
 Breck s words were hardly necessary for en 
 couragement. 
 
 He had, therefore, stepped across up to the 
 attic room which he had at his orders in Frog 
 Lane, From the recesses of deep-sea pockets 
 
 96 
 
EAST AND WEST. 97 
 
 he produced two keys of most intricate pat 
 tern, which gave him the open sesame of two 
 complicated locks. Once within the door, he 
 looked round with satisfaction, as the mere 
 dust on the chests was enough to show, so 
 soon as one pushed back the shutters, that 
 neither cat nor dog, man nor woman had en 
 tered in the months since he left. He then se 
 lected the costume which he proposed to wear 
 at the party; and dressed himself with the pre 
 cision of a court chamberlain. He was about 
 to take the part of a court chamberlain, why 
 should not he be dressed like one ? 
 
 Wholly dissatisfied with the training or ac 
 complishments of any little barber in the capi 
 tal, he brought out from hidden crypts the ma 
 chinery of the most exquisite manufactures 
 known, by which to shave himself. The even 
 ing light lasted long enough for him to be sat 
 isfied with the process. He closed the sb ut 
 ters and bolted them, locked the two locks, 
 and went back to the kitchen an elegantly 
 dressed person who would hardly have been 
 recognized as the sailor of an hour before. 
 
 So soon as he showed himself in the pantry 
 
98 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 or in the kitchen, his supremacy was recog 
 nized without the slightest hesitation by the 
 diversified forces of girls, young women, and 
 men, whom the hostess had summoned, in a 
 certain feudal fashion, to lend a hand for 
 her service in the evening. What Ransom 
 bade, was done ; what he ridiculed, was not 
 done. The hard became easy ; the doubtful 
 sure ; the impossible was accomplished. 
 
 " My dear," said Mrs. Breck to ter sister, as 
 she ran upstairs to meet her hair-dresser, and, 
 indeed, to array herself for the evening, "I 
 have no worry now ; it will be all right. Who 
 should appear when I was half crazy, but Ran 
 som !" 
 
 "Ransom, indeed? Where did he drop 
 from?" 
 
 We need not give as much space to the de 
 scription of every evening party as was needed 
 to describe the dance at Ipswich. In a way, 
 Madame Breck s party as she would have 
 called it ; she had never heard of a reception, 
 and had not given a ball was like the dance at 
 Ipswich ; in other ways, it was wholly unlike. 
 
EAST AND WEST. 99 
 
 There were young people and country dances. 
 But there were old people as well ; and for 
 some of the most dignified of these there were 
 cards. The house was divided into two parts 
 by a hall which ran through from front to rear. 
 On each side of this hall were three large rooms, 
 handsomely finished with wainscotting painted 
 white, and ornaments of stucco on a blue 
 ground, which ran to a plain ceiling. The ceil 
 ings themselves had no painting, but from the 
 centre of each hung a brilliant chandelier. 
 
 A band, if three violinists may be called one, 
 in the largest of the parlors, played for the 
 younger people to dance, and naturally they 
 gathered on that side of the house. On the 
 other side, Mrs. Breck, with her sister and 
 daughters, and her husband, who seemed a 
 little ill at ease, received their friends. Before 
 eight o clock, the greater part of them had 
 arrived. 
 
 And before nine, in the willing hospitality 
 of the time, it was supposed that the guests 
 would already be faint. Indeed, to provide 
 for such an exigency, fruit and a variety of 
 biscuits were already placed on the sideboards 
 
100 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 in almost all of the rooms. And at the same 
 sideboards any eager guest might have served 
 himself with wine or more fiery liquids. But 
 this was as a sort of show, and, in fact, no 
 one availed himself of the provision thus 
 made. 
 
 The real physical entertainment, or refresh 
 ment, as it was called, of the evening, began 
 as Ransom, in the full elegance of costume 
 which has been described, with a white nap 
 kin thrown easily over one arm as if to indicate 
 his new profession, entered with an enormous 
 salver, on which were the different lemonades, 
 wines, and other liquids which had been pro 
 vided. A pretty and skilful maid followed 
 him, with a tray, only smaller than his, on 
 which were little cakes of forty kinds. Another 
 servant, with another salver of drinks, another 
 with more cakes, made up a rapid procession, 
 which divided as soon as it had passed the 
 master and mistress of the house, so that, in 
 different couples, the attendants might hunt 
 all the guests to whatever lurking-places ; and 
 even the most modest girl and the shyest boy, 
 hid away in the embrasure of whatever win- 
 
EAST AND WEST. 101 
 
 dow, might have the grateful cream-cake, or 
 sherbet, or wine, or water which were pro 
 vided. 
 
 Ransom s welcome was as warm as his 
 utmost vanity or pride which was it ? could 
 have asked for. As has been said, not to 
 know Ransom would have argued one s self 
 unknown in the little court circle of that queer 
 little capital. And few, indeed, were proved 
 unknown in this experiment. He blushed and 
 smiled at each cordial salutation, as if it were 
 not more than his deserts, yet as if it were 
 totally unexpected. 
 
 "Are you back, Ransom? Why, I heard 
 you were at sea." 
 
 " Yes, back again, Miss Ellen back again." 
 " Why, Ransom, is it you ? You look as if 
 your voyage had been prosperous." 
 u Thank you, Governor, thank you." 
 "Do tell me, Ransom, where are you stay 
 ing \ When did you come \ Can you come to 
 my party, Thursday?" And the fastidious 
 inquirer took a plate, a napkin, and a glass of 
 Madeira upon the plate, waiting to take a 
 cream-cake from the girl behind, who followed 
 
102 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 Hansom meekly, astonished to find herself 
 even a witness of such an ovation. 
 "Thank yon, mum, can t come. Goin to 
 the Ohio to-morrow. Can t come, thank you, 
 mum," was the modest sailor- waiter s reply. 
 
 And so it was buzzed from lip to lip that 
 Ransom, of all people, the most elegant waiter 
 in the town which was never called a city by 
 its own people for thirty years after that time 
 that Ransom was going to the wilderness. 
 If this was so, that summer madness of Parson 
 Cutler s was ripe. What dinner parties would 
 Ransom wait at ? Or, if he chose to take up 
 his other profession, where would he find 
 mackerel or codfish in the prairies ? If Ran 
 som were going, who in Boston was to stay ? 
 
 It must be remembered that here, as in sim 
 pler circles in degree indeed in all circles 
 which prided themselves either on foresight in 
 government or on elegance in manners the 
 whole scheme of emigration beyond the Alle- 
 ghanies was held at that time to be utterly 
 absurd, and was ridiculed. Wit and satire 
 exhausted themselves in the caricatures which 
 sought to make it ridiculous, and in the lam- 
 
EAST AND WEST. 103 
 
 p 00ns _ written, printed, or spoken by Avhich 
 its absurdity was shown. Pictures were 
 painted of the lank, starving, hungry man who 
 came home on foot, with nothing, and you 
 were told that he was the same man whom you 
 saw, on another page, as the fat, prosperous 
 farmer going out with everything. This man 
 was said to have gone out with a jug of mo- 
 asses as his investment. When he returned 
 in the autumn, and was asked what profit he 
 had made, he had said that he had the jug 
 still, though now it was empty. Such were 
 the gay criticisms of the provincial Charivari. 
 
 And now Ransom was going ! 
 
 The news soon slipped round in circles of 
 people more important than Miss Ellen Cham- 
 pernoon or the fidgety Mrs. Cradock. And 
 when Eansom made his second tour at the 
 head of the column which supplied refresh 
 ments, perhaps half an hour after the first, the 
 conferences he had with different gentlemen 
 took almost the importance of state affairs. 
 
 " Mr. Ransom, they tell me you are going to 
 the Muskingum." 
 
 "Be, Doctor. Going out where Parson Cut- 
 
104 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 ler is. Out on the Ohio. Parson Cutler s 
 place it is. Goin there." This as Dr. Water- 
 house arranged on a plate a glass of Madeira. 
 
 "And when do you go, Ransom? Could 
 you take a little parcel for me to General Put 
 nam ? Come round to-morrow, before ten, and 
 I will have it ready." 
 
 He thought it as much a matter of course 
 that Ransom would take the parcel as if he 
 had asked him to give him a napkin. And 
 Ransom assented, as if it were of course. 
 
 So the governor asked him if he would leave 
 a parcel of some value for him in New York, 
 and again Ransom, of course, accepted. Mrs. 
 Higginson had some lace which she wanted to 
 send her daughter, who was in the garrison at 
 Fort Washington. Could Ransom take that ? 
 If he did not go to Fort Washington himself, 
 he must give it to some one who did. Of 
 course Ransom could take it. It never oc 
 curred to him that he could not take it, or 
 that there was any difficulty for a traveller on 
 foot, in accepting these commissions. 
 
 The news passed from house to house as the 
 guests retired. The announcement that Ran- 
 
EAST AND WEST. 105 
 
 som had returned filled with delight the circle 
 of boys at Old Stamford s school, when they 
 assembled in the morning to talk over 
 their defeat and flight of the day before. 
 Their leaders, who had led them to dis 
 aster, were, perhaps, not sorry to have a 
 new subject of interest brought before the 
 group of their adherents, as they assembled in 
 the street before the schoolhouse, half an hour 
 before any rules required their presence. 
 That little Breck had been helped home by 
 Ransom made Breck a hero, even more than 
 the great patch of black plaster which Dr. Jef 
 fries had put over his eye. And Breck was 
 himself astonished to know that Ransom was 
 as important a person among the boys as he 
 had found him to be with his aunt, when they 
 returned home. 
 
 But after school, the boys were all disap 
 pointed. Ransom was not to be found in any 
 of his haunts. He was, indeed, engaged in a 
 series of state visits, somewhat as a diplomat, 
 who has been away from his place on leave, has 
 to spend a morning in renewing his relations 
 with the different friendly nations or their 
 
106 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 representatives. General Bowdoin had ex 
 pressed a wish to see him, Madame Gore had 
 told him to call, Mrs. Cradock wanted him to 
 take a letter to Bethlehem, where she had a 
 daughter at the Moravian school. And as 
 Ransom had no intention of making any stay 
 in Boston, but wished to close up, as fast as 
 superior speed could do it, the gulf between 
 himself and Miss Sarah, he addressed himself 
 to these visits at once. In those days, people 
 of higher rank than he had such parting duties 
 to attend to. A journey then was a journey. 
 You bade your friends good-bye. Indeed you 
 were known as what was called an oppor 
 tunity." And, among your last cares was the 
 collecting of the letters and parcels which you 
 had promised to take toward all places which 
 were in the general line of direction which you 
 meant to follow. Ransom arrayed himself, for 
 the purpose of these visits, in a costume as dif 
 ferent from that in which he fought the North- 
 enders as from that in which he waited on 
 Madame Breck s guests. The boys considered 
 his store of clothing as unlimited. Certainly 
 he would not have committed the impropriety 
 
EAST AND WEST. 107 
 
 of visiting Mrs. Bowdoin in a pea-jacket. He 
 took her commissions and those of all the rest 
 seriously and most respectfully. He was on 
 his best behavior while in the presence of 
 these members of the aristocracy. But it 
 would prove afterward that this was no pledge 
 for the future. On occasion he would criti 
 cise their faults or their virtues with the same 
 omniscience with which he spoke of all affairs, 
 human or superhuman, natural or unnatural. 
 
 Of these visits, the only one which need be 
 specially noted was his call at the Massachu 
 setts Bank, the only bank in the little town. 
 Hard by Madame Breck s house, opposite a 
 dismal looking burial-place and a weather- 
 stained building which was the granary of the 
 town when there was any occasion for storing 
 corn, was the more elegant building, somewhat 
 incongruously placed, which to wondering rus 
 tics announced, by a newly gilded sign, that it 
 was the "Massachusetts Bank." 
 
 He was as well known here as in the other 
 mansions of the great. He had a very respect 
 ful bow for president, cashier, and directors. 
 He had words of comradeship for the teller. 
 
108 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 And he produced very curious currency of dif 
 ferent kinds, all of which he exchanged into 
 Spanish gold dollars little coins, not so big as 
 what New England then called a " fourpence 
 ha penny" of Spanish coinage in silver. He 
 carried these away with him in a little leather 
 pouch. When he returned to his lair, he 
 emptied six of the cartridges that were in his 
 box, substituted the little coins for the powder 
 which he had shaken out, and returned these 
 precious cartridges to their places. He slung 
 the box upon his shoulder again, and was 
 ready for his journey. 
 
 At one o clock, when Mrs. Breck s family 
 dined, he repaired to her house, and ate his 
 own dinner with her admiring servants, who 
 received his oracles as the last words which 
 they might ever hear from a master s lips. He 
 then waited on Mr. and Mrs. Breck in their 
 drawing-room, and started for Providence, hav 
 ing suddenly determined to go to New York 
 by passing through that town. To this change 
 of route he had been led by the accident that 
 Mrs. Molyneux had given him a letter to her 
 sister there. 
 
EAST AND WEST. 109 
 
 He made ten or twelve miles in his after 
 noon s tramp, and at Dedham, which is the 
 county town of Norfolk, he was only embar 
 rassed by the number of homes which were 
 open to him. Among the different farmers in 
 the circle round the village, whose wood he had 
 bought for one or another of his chiefs, or 
 whose potatoes he had chosen in fitting out 
 one schooner or another, he had only to choose 
 which listed him. And it required all his 
 strictness to break away as early as he chose to 
 do in the morning, that he might make Provi 
 dence, thirty miles away, in time to enquire 
 about the packet to New York. 
 
 As he left the village, he stopped, naturally 
 enough, at the tavern, to say good-bye to his ad 
 herents and friends there, and found the clients 
 of the place in more excitement than usual, as 
 they witnessed and assisted the departure of a 
 foreign traveller. Ransom, of course, immedi 
 ately knew the stranger, and took upon him 
 self the adjustment of the little valise behind 
 his saddle, and the correction of the stirrups 
 which his valet used, with that decision which 
 made all the humbler denizens of the inn retire 
 
110 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 ashamed. Ransom s acquaintance with Count 
 Zapoly had, in fact, begun, when he offered 
 that gentleman his choice between Madeira, 
 currant shrub, and lemonade at Mrs. Breck s 
 party. But from that moment he assumed a 
 personal care and responsibility for him, as he 
 did for all other persons with whom he had to 
 do ; care and responsibility, be it said, which 
 would be thrown off on any occasion as readily 
 as they had been taken on. The count s Hun 
 garian servant was as much terrified as if he 
 had been in a jungle ; and he knew the lan 
 guage of the Dedham people as well as he knew 
 that of the chimpanzees of Africa. Ransom s 
 services were of use, therefore. But Count Za 
 poly was as doubtful how he should acknowl 
 edge them, as he would have been had it been 
 Louis XVI. who had condescended to tighten 
 his servant s surcingle. Very wisely he did 
 not offer to Ransom the English half-crown 
 which his fingers played with in his pocket. 
 He took his leave as if he were parting from a 
 court chamberlain at Versailles. And this 
 pleased the other entirely. 
 
 " See ye again " he said, as the count took 
 
EAST AND WEST. Ill 
 
 his direction for Fisher Ames s house where 
 he was to present a letter from Governor Bow- 
 doin. " Both goin the same way ; see ye 
 again." 
 
 Surely enough, at half a dozen places on the 
 road, the count came up with Ransom and 
 talked with him in his queer broken English, 
 and took his instructions for his further jour 
 ney. Then, as will happen, when a resolute 
 foot-traveller holds to his work all day, while 
 another traveller relies on his horses, so that 
 he may stop when he chooses, Ransom would 
 pass him again. 
 
 His air with the count was always respect 
 ful, but the count could never understand 
 whether he were perhaps some nobleman of 
 the country in disguise, whether he were a 
 peasant, or whether he were a " bourgeois." 
 
 The count himself was as difficult a person 
 for the country-people to make out as was 
 Ransom to him. He was a Hungarian officer 
 in the Austrian army. He had, however, been 
 nettled by the transcendental reforms which 
 the Emperor Joseph had been making in the 
 military establishment of that country, as in 
 
EAST AND WEST. 
 
 all its other affairs. This was the Joseph who 
 is said to have inoculated Austria with liberal 
 notions, so that that country never took that 
 disease in the natural way. The inoculation 
 had proved disagreeable to many of the 
 officers of the army, and Zapoly who had had 
 some little hope that there might be service 
 in the Low Countries finding that there was 
 nothing for him at home but the wretched 
 garrison routine, afflicted by more jealousies 
 and petty intrigues than ever, had taken leave 
 of absence that he might study war in foreign 
 parts. Arriving in France it had happened 
 to him to fall in with some people who had 
 talked to him about America. Only the 
 faintest rumors of the conflict of America 
 with George III. had come so far as the bar 
 racks in which he was bred ; but, meeting 
 some jolly Frenchmen who had served under 
 Rochambeau in the war, and learning from 
 them of the adventures which they had ex 
 perienced in the new country, he had formed 
 the idea of American travel. Indeed, for ten 
 years or more at that time, American travel 
 was what our modern language would call a 
 
EAST AND WEST. 113 
 
 fad of young men on the Continent. Zapoly, 
 with the smallest possible preparation in the 
 way of language, with some good letters of 
 introduction from the American legation in 
 Paris, had recently landed at Portsmouth, 
 and made his way as far as Boston on the 
 enterprise, which was as difficult then as it is 
 now for a European, of seeing America. 
 
 It need hardly be said that Eansom, on 
 foot, arrived in Providence before Zapoly and 
 his servant arrived on horseback. Ransom 
 had delivered the parcels and letters with 
 which he had been intrusted in Boston when, 
 as he left the deck of the packet-boat, after 
 arranging for his passage, he met Zapoly and 
 his servant, who had just found their way 
 there. Ransom at once took upon himself 
 the proper stabling of the two horses in the 
 forecastle of the packet. The master of the 
 packet was, almost of course, one of Ransom s 
 old sea companions. And Zapoly now some 
 how took the impression that Ransom was a 
 sort of .commodore of the fleet in which this 
 master was a subordinate officer. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MASTER HARRY, meanwhile, on the 
 very day of the reception had trans 
 ferred his traps from Francis s Hotel to Gen 
 eral Knox s house. He found no difficulty 
 in winning his way to Knox s heart. He did 
 it without effort, and Knox welcomed him 
 with that comradeship of an old soldier 
 which is always so charming. Harry was at 
 home with the children. They liked him and 
 he liked them ; and, in the midst of official du 
 ties, there was always time for him to make a 
 boat for one of the boys, or to dance one of the 
 girls upon his foot. It was one day when he 
 had taken them down to the Battery, that they 
 might see the gay people there, that, to his 
 surprise, he stumbled upon Silas Ransom. 
 Silas had just landed from the Lady Wash 
 ington packet, and was leading one of Count 
 Zapoly s horses, while the groom led the other, 
 to the stables behind Francis s Inn. Not that 
 
 114 
 
EAST AND WEST. 115 
 
 Ransom had ever been in New York before, or 
 knew an inch of the streets, any better than 
 Count Zapoly did or the Hungarian groom. 
 But they were both dazed, and took it for 
 granted that they should not know their way. 
 Ransom was never dazed, took it for granted 
 that he should know his way, and made him 
 self lord and master of every new city as he 
 entered it. 
 
 He had informed himself, from his old com 
 rade the commander of the packet, that Fran 
 cis s was the proper place for a gentleman such 
 as Count Zapoly to live in ; and so it hap 
 pened, by one of the oddities of that early life 
 in America, that Count Zapoly owed his intro 
 duction to General Knox and to General 
 Washington, not to the great letters which 
 he had brought from the American legation, 
 which might or might not have answered their 
 purposes as fully as he could have wished, 
 but to the accident that a man-servant had 
 offered him Madeira at Mrs. Breck s party. 
 
 With the respect with which Silas would 
 have spoken to any friend of Miss Sarah 
 Parris, or indeed, to any of the old Salem gen- 
 
116 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 try, ho stopped in the street, touched his hat, 
 and in a few minutes explained to Henry Cur- 
 wen how he came to be in New York. When 
 lie told Curwen that he was on his way to the 
 Muskingum, to follow Miss Sarah, he saw the 
 visible start which the young man gave. Han 
 som, from the first instant of meeting him, had 
 meant that he should start, and was well satis 
 fied with the dramatic passage, when it came. 
 Ransom undoubtedly supposed that he under 
 stood the affairs of the heart of these young 
 people a great deal better than they did 
 themselves. He did not so much as offer to 
 carry any message to Miss Sarah from Master 
 Harry ; he knew, if Master Harry wanted him 
 to take any message, he would give it himself. 
 When Curwen asked him how long he should 
 be in New York, he said that he doubted 
 whether he should remain more than a day. 
 Miss Sarah was a good way ahead of him, 
 and he wanted to overtake her before she 
 needed him. 
 
 Ah me ! Harry would gladly have said the 
 same thing had he dared to do so. His face 
 flushed a little, as Ransom was glad to see, 
 
EAST AND WEST. 117 
 
 for Ransom was always glad to have any 
 body s secrets in his possession. But, to take 
 our modern slang, Harry did not "give him 
 self away," nor did he tell Ransom that his 
 business in New York was simply that he 
 also might join the colony on the Muskingum, 
 and meet the woman who was to him more 
 than all the world beside. 
 
 As they talked together Zapoly himself 
 came up, and in a perfectly proper way Ran 
 som introduced the two to one another, and 
 then respectfully he left them, as they walked 
 up to Francis s together, while, with the groom, 
 he led the horses and placed them in the 
 stable. 
 
 This incidental meeting near the Battery was 
 the beginning of what finally amounted to a 
 personal friendship between Harry and Zapoly. 
 It was an advantage to both of them. Zapoly 
 had the manners and training of the continent 
 of Europe, and at the same time he was no 
 dandy or butterfly. It had really been an 
 instinct for something more manly than the 
 life of the garrison which had called him to 
 America. He had his eyes open, he was eager 
 
EAST AND WEST. 
 
 to learn the language, he was of that natural 
 rnake-up that he was glad to be of service, and 
 although it is impossible for a man trained 
 under the formalities of courts to feel, in a 
 year, in ten years, or indeed in fifty years, 
 what is the habit of people trained in a democ 
 racy, where every man bears his own burdens 
 and his brother s, Zapoly soon had an interest, 
 passing almost into admiration, for the genu 
 ine courtesy which comes in in the give-and- 
 take of democratic life. He adapted himself 
 to all this much more readily than his servant 
 did. He, poor dog, was constantly getting 
 into scrapes with the grooms and other work- 
 ingmen whom he found around him. Zapoly 
 got into scrapes sometimes, but this happened 
 less and less frequently ; and, for Harry, the 
 presence of such a companion, with his real 
 knowledge of military affairs, was a matter of 
 real good fortune. 
 
 It was natural enough that under such cir 
 cumstances Harry having introduced Zapoly 
 to Knox s personal "acquaintanceship they 
 should be together, again and again, in the 
 little war-office of the day. The reader must 
 
EAST AND WEST. 119 
 
 understand that the capital of the country was 
 still at New York ; it was not transferred to 
 Philadelphia until the next year. So it hap 
 pened, one morning, that they were all inspect 
 ing together some pack-saddles, of which a 
 pattern had come from Lancaster. The gov 
 ernment had contracted for a couple of hun 
 dred of them, which were to be sent across the 
 mountains to Fort Washington. Zapoly made 
 some suggestions, of which Knox approved, 
 with regard to some of the minor details of 
 these saddles. Harry, who was himself a good 
 backwoodsman, made others, and the whole 
 ended in Knox s sending the two young men 
 to Philadelphia, with instructions to go to 
 Lancaster if they chose, to see that some radi 
 cal improvements should be made before the 
 contract was carried farther. They were per 
 mitted to travel as they chose, Knox knowing 
 his men well enough to know they would do 
 the best they could, and that their own good 
 sense, from day to day, was better than any 
 instructions he could give them. They went, 
 therefore, on horseback, Curwen having the 
 sense to travel without a servant, Zapoly still 
 
EAST AND WEST. 
 
 encumbered by his man, who was forever get 
 ting into quarrels, and of whom he made him 
 self, as he said, the slave. They took careful 
 instructions from Hamilton and Knox how 
 they might see to the best advantage the battle 
 grounds of the Jerseys, which had for Curwen 
 a particular interest, because he had read all 
 Captain Parris s letters, which were almost 
 love letters, home, when he was in those cam 
 paigns. For him, indeed, there was the tender 
 interest in going to see the exact spot where 
 Captain Parris had lost his life, and in visit 
 ing the little village burial-ground where his 
 body lay. 
 
 These excursions did not delay the young 
 men, however, on their journey. At every 
 point they met men who had served in the 
 campaigns. The very groom who rubbed down 
 the horses would prove to have been a cavalry 
 man or a scout. It was but a little more than 
 thirteen years since Washington had turned on 
 his pursuers, had crossed the Delaware, had 
 taken the Hessian regiments prisoners, and had 
 made one of those bold pushes which showed 
 how, when there was occasion, he was as 
 
EAST AND WEST. 121 
 
 prompt as ever Napoleon was, while he was, 
 all the time, earning the reputation of a 
 Fabius, because the necessities of the service 
 compelled him to delay. 
 
 Having made their visit at Trenton, they 
 went down the river as far as Bordentown and, 
 as everywhere, at the Jersey tavern where they 
 slept, they took their meals with the people of 
 the neighborhood who chose to use the tavern 
 as a convenience. Harry s attention was at 
 once called to the grave, care-worn face of the 
 man who sat at the head of the table. This 
 sad-looking fellow hardly spoke, unless in a 
 civil way he asked for butter, for pepper, or 
 for salt. As Harry said to Zapoly the next 
 day, he had the air of a prophet in prison of 
 a man who, having a message for the world, 
 was not permitted to announce it. He 
 awakened the young fellow s curiosity, for it 
 was clear that he was not a very old man ; his 
 downcast looks could not be accounted for by 
 any physical weakness, and yet it seemed as 
 if the talk of the people around him about 
 horses, or liquor, or a street fight which had 
 come off irritated him, while he had some 
 
122 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 larger notions on his mind. Harry was deter 
 mined to solve the mystery, for mystery he 
 was sure there was ; and, after supper, when, 
 in the heat of the evening, all parties sat out 
 of doors some of them together, upon what 
 they called in that country a stoop, some tilt 
 ing back in chairs which they had carried 
 down to the ground Harry boldly approached 
 his prophet, and said to him : 
 
 " You do not smoke, sir ? Let me offer you 
 some tobacco which a friend of mine has just- 
 brought from the Islands." 
 
 The prophet smiled a little sadly; at first de 
 clined the offer, and then, as if out of cour 
 tesy, accepted it, produced from a deep side 
 pocket a corn-cob pipe, filled it, and accepted 
 Zapoly s courtesy in offering him his own pipe 
 to light it from. None of the group were 
 smoking cigars, which, in fact, were not intro 
 duced at all freely in the Northern States till 
 many years after this time. 
 
 All parties sat silent for a little, but Harry 
 was determined, with the eagerness of youth, 
 to find out what was the prophet s secret, and 
 what the cause of his sadness. In a little, 
 
EAST AND WEST. 123 
 
 therefore, after explaining slowly to Zapoly 
 some of the queer things which every mo 
 ment presented to his European eye, Harry 
 turned, in his most gracious and engaging 
 manner, to the care-worn man, and said : 
 
 " We are going as far as Lancaster. Can 
 you give us any advice as to the road which 
 we should follow ? I cannot understand 
 whether I had better cross the river here, or 
 whether we should go down on this side and 
 cross at Philadelphia?" 
 
 The man turned and looked at him with a 
 certain surprise, as if to see whether he were 
 making fun of him. But Harry s face was too 
 open to permit the suspicion to remain. It 
 was clear that he was a stranger, and was as 
 ignorant of the route as he pretended. 
 
 " Why should you cross the river at all, sir ? 
 Why not go upon the river? It will be so 
 much rest for your horses, and you will be 
 able to start from Philadelphia with the day 
 before you, unless, indeed, you wish to tarry 
 there." 
 
 "But," said Harry in return, c we are but 
 poor sailors, and for one, I am sure, I do not 
 
124 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 want to take the chances of a south wind, and 
 having to sweep the boat against it. My 
 friend s hands, I am sure, would be blistered 
 before we had gone twenty rods. As long as 
 we have our horses, our horses must carry us." 
 
 " I do not ask you to sweep the boats along. 
 Why should men sweat and toil like cattle or 
 galley slaves, when the good God has pro 
 vided that which shall take their boats along 
 for them?" 
 
 Now Harry was sure that his prophet was 
 an insane man. 
 
 But, on his pressing the matter a little, the 
 prophet again said : 
 
 "If you are not too tired, sir, walk down to 
 the river with me and see the Perseverance, 
 which will make her regular voyage to-morrow 
 morning. Leaving here at eight o clock, you 
 have merely to fasten your horses in the bow 
 of the boat, and smoke your pipe or read your 
 book as we go to Philadelphia." 
 
 Harry was talking to John Fitch, the real 
 practical inventor of steam navigation. 
 
 Accordingly, on the next morning, the Hun 
 garian groom, more frightened than he had 
 
EAST AND WEST. 125 
 
 ever been in his life, led down the three horses 
 to the Perseverance, the first steamboat which 
 ever plied regularly in America. He found, to 
 his astonishment, that provision was made for 
 receiving horses as it would have been, indeed, 
 on any other ferry-boat. By this time, the 
 man ought to have lost his terror of crossing 
 a river on a boat, but he was in fact almost 
 beside himself. Harry at last went with him, 
 soothed his fears, and saw that the horses 
 were well arranged in the stalls provided for 
 them. The little luggage which anybody car 
 ried was easily enough transferred by the pas 
 sengers themselves, and at eight o clock, with 
 the wind dead against them, the little party 
 started on the Perseverance, on their novel 
 voyage to Philadelphia. 
 
 It was five years since Fitch had begun his 
 experiments on the Delaware River. It seems 
 now, that if he had begun them on the Hud 
 son, where there was more need of steam navi 
 gation, his name would have taken the place 
 which Robert Fulton s name has since taken, 
 as a successful inventor. As it was, he had 
 had the scanty recompense and encourage- 
 
126 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 ment which in those days was given to invent 
 ors. But, by hook and by crook, a steam 
 engine had been built which would work, and 
 this summer of 1790 was the one summer 
 which can be called successful of poor Fitch s 
 invention. In less than ten years after, he 
 had died of the disease called a broken heart, 
 which is so fatal to men who are in advance 
 of their time. But on this auspicious morn 
 ing Count Zapoly sat on a little stool, Harry 
 on one of a dozen chairs which were provided ; 
 and Fitch, eager with delight at finding two 
 intelligent men to whom he could talk freely 
 of his invention, walked up and down the 
 little quarterdeck, pointed out to them the 
 interesting points on the shore, and in par 
 ticular called their attention to the work of 
 the engine and of the paddles. 
 
 The boat was wholly unlike the modern 
 steamboat. A row of oars, nearly vertical 
 studied, it would seem, after the fashion of 
 the paddles with which the Indians drove 
 their birch canoes along stretched on each 
 side of the vessel. The regular stroke of the 
 piston in the cylinder of the engine drove 
 
EAST AND WEST. 127 
 
 these paddles forward or brought them back 
 with a strong pull. As they went forward, 
 their blades turned so that the collision with 
 the water was trifling, and as they came back 
 the full blade was presented to the water and 
 the boat was driven rapidly along. Count 
 Zapoly was vastly entertained and amazed. 
 He had at last come to the region of romance 
 which he had hoped America might be. He 
 was constantly begging, in his very broken 
 English, to know what was the rate of speed, 
 and asking in advance how many miles it 
 would be to this steeple or to that barn. In 
 point of fact, the little boat made nearly nine 
 miles an hour, against the wind and with the 
 current. 
 
 When they arrived at the front of Philadel 
 phia, and Curwen and Zapoly bade good-bye to 
 Fitch, it was as if they were leaving an old 
 friend. Apart from his interest in his inven 
 tion, they had found him a very well-in 
 formed man. He knew, so to speak, all about 
 the country to which they were going. It was 
 his interest in the great rivers of the West 
 that had stimulated his invention. He ex- 
 
128 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 pected to return there himself, and could not 
 tell them enough of the riches and beauty of 
 the valley which they were to visit. 
 
 The frightened groom was found, and was 
 well satisfied that his many crossings and se 
 cret prayers had been of avail, and that he and 
 his horses were rescued from this vessel of hell 
 in which they had been conveyed. With alac 
 rity such as he had never shown before, he 
 led the horses from the boat to the wharf, and 
 turned to cross-question his master with an 
 eagerness which had never been seen before. 
 Zapoly laughed heartily, and in French ex 
 plained to Curwen that the man was trying to 
 make him promise that he should not be sub 
 jected to any such terrors again. "I wish I 
 could have frightened him," said Zapoly, " but 
 I knew too well that we had travelled on the 
 only steamboat in the world." 
 
 As they turned from the groom to go up 
 Chestnut Street, of course they met Silas Ran 
 som. 
 
 This is not a guide book, and we must not 
 undertake to give the route or the method by 
 which Ransom had arrived in Philadelphia, 
 
EAST AND WEST. 129 
 
 He had had parcels to deliver, and had been 
 charged with letters and commissions in the 
 city of New York. He had worked his way 
 through New Jersey by a route quite different 
 from that by which Cur wen and Zapoly had 
 come, and had now been in Philadelphia for 
 nearly twenty-four hours. He had no interest 
 in battle fields, no recollections of the past to 
 feed or renew ; his only wish was to find his 
 young mistress. As he had done with Zapoly 
 at Providence, he here took the part of a sort 
 of lord chamberlain, appointed by the city of 
 Philadelphia to entertain two gentlemen so 
 distinguished. He already knew the way from 
 place to place ; he recommended a particular 
 boarding-house where they should live while 
 the business which brought them to Phila 
 delphia was being transacted ; and having 
 seen that they were well established, left 
 by the Lancaster turnpike on the same after 
 noon. 
 
 Zapoly asked Curwen with a certain curios 
 ity, talking with him in French, who the man 
 was, and how it was that he appeared unex 
 pectedly at these different points. With some 
 
130 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 exaggeration, lie described the occasions on 
 which lie had seen him himself, first at 
 Madame Breck s party, then at Dedham, 
 again at Providence, in New York as has 
 been described, and now here. 
 
 Cur wen did not pretend to conceal his 
 amusement. "Now," said he, "you will go 
 home and tell all your friends that America is 
 full of these extraordinary people, who have 
 no home, and who always appear, as if they 
 were familiars, when a man waves his wand. 
 The truth is that Silas Ransom is one of the 
 great exceptions. Nobody knows where he 
 came from, nobody knows why he is where he 
 is. But, with this sort of shrewd native 
 knowledge of the world which you see, he has 
 this peculiar gift of turning up in the right 
 place, of often doing the right thing as of ten, 
 of doing the wrong thing. But he is one of 
 the most affectionate, and in his way one of 
 the most reliable, people in the world. In his 
 way, also," said Curwen laughing, "he is 
 one of the most unreliable. He is going on this 
 errand to the Muskingum with a motive as ab 
 solutely chivalrous as ever led Amadis on any 
 
EAST AND WEST. 131 
 
 of Ms adventures. And yet it is quite possible 
 that we shall find, when we arrive there, that 
 he has been turned to the right or to the left 
 by some fancy of the moment, and, while he is 
 in advance of us now, it may well be that we 
 shall be months in advance of him when we 
 appear." 
 
 There is something pathetic, as one goes 
 back in these old memories, in the thought of 
 the small ness and difficulty of the work of 
 officers of the government at that time. The 
 Congress of the old confederation, which had 
 gone out of existence without so much as dis 
 solving itself, had not money enough when it 
 died to pay for the quills with which were 
 written its resolutions and its entreaties 
 for contributions. Such were the " United 
 States" of 1788. Such were the United States 
 of 1789 until the 30th of April, when Wash 
 ington was inaugurated at New York. More 
 than a year had now passed, and the United 
 States was beginning to assert itself. People 
 were beginning to understand that a singular 
 verb, and not a plural verb, was to follow 
 when "the United States" was spoken of. 
 
132 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 The great name of George Washington was 
 respected everywhere, and the chiefs whom he 
 had under him such men as Knox, and 
 Hamilton, and Jefferson began to find that 
 their orders were respected. But they only 
 began to find this, and when Mr. Harry 
 Curwen went to a saddler s shop or to a 
 carriage-builder s, he did not find that the 
 courtesy waited upon him to which Count 
 Zapoly was used in the dignities of Austrian 
 service. 
 
 "You pay your court to these people," 
 said the count indignantly. "Why do you 
 not swear at them ? Why do you not 
 strike at them with your whip ? Why do 
 you not say, It is in the name of the 
 President, and I command you to do thus 
 and so? " 
 
 Once and again the groom had tried the ex 
 periment of swearing and striking with his 
 whip. But every time that this happened the 
 man was arrested and brought before a Phila 
 delphia justice of the peace ; so that Zapoly 
 found it more convenient to leave him at 
 
EAST AND WEST. 133 
 
 home when he accompanied Harry on his com 
 missions. 
 
 Curwen only laughed at such suggestions, 
 and said, "My dear Count, you are learning 
 what it is to live in a republic." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AS for Ransom, the successes, great and 
 -A_ small, followed him which wait on youth, 
 good temper, and resolution. He stayed in 
 Philadelphia only long enough to see that the 
 count s horses were disposed of, and that both 
 gentlemen were well lodged, and to give a final 
 bit of his mind to the poor Hungarian groom. 
 Taking him into the stable where for a time 
 the horses were to stay, he gave him first, in 
 a language of which the Hungarian did not 
 understand five words, full instructions what 
 he was to do with the feet of the count s horse, 
 in certain circumstances which he thought 
 might probably occur. Then, bringing him 
 out from the stall, in presence of all the loafers 
 who loitered about the stable, he gave him 
 some practical instructions regarding demo 
 cratic institutions, shaking his fist in his face, 
 and giving emphasis by oaths, of which the 
 
 134 
 
EAST AND WEST. 135 
 
 unfortunate fellow did not understand a syl 
 lable. 
 
 "Take care you don t take no more of your 
 darned airs on here when I am gone. Yer ll 
 not find nobody else so good to yer as I be. 
 Yer ll get your eyes knocked out fore yer 
 know it, an good enough fer yer too. You 
 don t know no thin , no more nor a coot. An 
 yer mustn t come all the way over the sea here 
 to take airs. So take care yer don t take any 
 of yer darned airs on here when I m gone." 
 
 Thus he relieved his mind by inspiring more 
 terror in the poor wretch. For Ransom, in his 
 own despite, had suffered more or less annoy 
 ance from that condescension, which, as Mr. 
 Lowell says so well, all European travellers or 
 emigrants always manage to exhibit in a new 
 country, whatever their penury or ignorance. 
 
 For Ransom himself, though he started on 
 foot, he rode as often by the side of some team 
 ster who was returning to Lancaster County 
 in some great empty grain wagon. To such 
 people, he testified a general approval of the 
 rich Pennsylvania farms which he now saw for 
 the first time, and even of the palaces, as they 
 
136 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 seemed to him, in which their cattle and horses 
 were stabled. The town of Lancaster itself 
 was then a place almost as large as the Boston 
 of his love. Inwardly he was surprised to find, 
 the farther he went, that there were homes as 
 comfortable, not to say as elegant, as he had 
 left behind him. Still, he never confessed this, 
 by word or accent, in his talk with travelling 
 companions, or with the people whom he met 
 in the stables of the country inns. To them, 
 he was remembered for months as the distin 
 guished prophet who had told them such mar 
 vellous stories of Mugford s and Whipple s 
 fights upon the sea, of the wonders of ocean 
 life, and of the untold wealth as of Monte- 
 zuma, and the Incas of the City of the Bay. 
 His announcement of the tide of travel which 
 was to follow him, when he rendered the report 
 of his own John Baptist pilgrimage, was such 
 that these honest work-people looked for it for 
 years with a faith which only slowly gave way. 
 Of all the three parties of emigrants whom we 
 have to trace, he took the longest route. It 
 might be said in general of his life, that such 
 was almost always the result of his wayward 
 
EAST AND WEST. 137 
 
 habits, of his stubborn determination to rely 
 on a first impression, and his utter indifference 
 to the knowledge of others. It must be con 
 fessed, at the same time, that he generally 
 arrived at his destination before rivals who 
 were really better informed. For such success 
 is the prize, as has been said, which waits upon 
 youth, resolution, and good nature. 
 
 He had not gone far on the route by which 
 he was to cross the mountains when he ap 
 proached a neat village, where the barns and 
 houses were painted of a uniform color, so that 
 they showed, miles away, that they belonged 
 to some one organized company which carried 
 on its agriculture in co-operation. Silas was 
 not displeased to see an establishment which 
 gave such good hope for good fare and a com 
 fortable bed. He swung down the hill, there 
 fore, at a faster pace than he generally pur 
 sued. As he turned the corner of the roadway, 
 which was little used, he found that the birches 
 had been cut away from the side, and that the 
 whole sweep of the river was in sight, which 
 had before been concealed. The sloping 
 ground which led down to the river was 
 
138 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 wholly open, and the high grass had been cut 
 away, and lay to the right and left, as it had 
 been drawn aside. 
 
 As Ransom approached, he found that he 
 was closing a procession of nearly a hundred 
 persons, who seemed to be of all ages. Of 
 their age he could guess nothing more, for they 
 were all arrayed in long woollen robes of heavy 
 brown stuif, with hoods of the same over their 
 heads. Ransom had once seen Capuchin friars 
 in France, who were dressed in a costume al 
 most precisely similar. But these people were 
 not Capuchins. He was approaching the clois 
 ter town of Ephrata, and these were the Dun- 
 ~kers or Tunkers of that settlement, who had 
 come out for a great ceremonial of baptism. 
 
 As they advanced they sang loudly, and 
 even rapturously, a hymn of triumph. As the 
 leaders approached the river, they turned and 
 marched back through the procession, dividing 
 it on the right and left, waving their hands to 
 show where the others were to go, and still 
 singing. 
 
 Ransom followed the others reverently. He 
 was the only person in what the newspapers 
 
EAST AND WEST. 139 
 
 of to-day would call citizen s dress." He 
 took his place, however, as if he had been in 
 full Capuchin costume, and regarded himself, 
 in the mere force of his singularity, as being 
 in a position superior to that of all the en 
 thusiasts who surrounded him. As soon as the 
 groups were properly marshalled, the singing 
 stopped. One of the elders of the party waved 
 a little staff which he held in his hand, and all 
 fell upon their knees. He then offered prayer, 
 referring once and again to the ceremony which 
 was about to take place, which was the baptism 
 of several of the members of the company. The 
 prayer lasted for some minutes. An occasional 
 shout of "Amen!" from an excited wor 
 shipper can hardly be called an interruption. 
 When it was over, they all rose to their feet, 
 and, at a signal from the same leader, five men 
 stepped forth from the group. Each loosened 
 the rough cord which was tied around his 
 waist, and stepped forward in the common 
 underclothing of a workingman. They ranged 
 themselves in a little rank, on a wooden ridge 
 which had been built out over the water, evi 
 dently for this purpose. They bent almost to 
 
140 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 their knees, and held their hands forward, pre 
 cisely as if they were going to dive. At one 
 word given by the elder, the five, in fact, 
 plunged headlong into the water. In a mo 
 ment three or four of the attendants stepped 
 in after them, nearly to their waists, and, as 
 they rose, dragged them from the stream. A 
 series of cries of "Hallelujah ! " followed, and 
 when these cries were over, the sacred formula 
 of baptism was repeated by the elder. An 
 other long prayer followed ; a hymn began, 
 which soon proved to be a sort of "reces 
 sional," if we may take the modern antique 
 words of our own day, and the party, in slow 
 movement, marched back to the house from 
 which they had come. Ransom had been wel 
 comed, meanwhile, by the elder who had con 
 ducted the service, and walked with him in 
 advance, somewhat as Rochambeau might have 
 walked with Washington at the head of a tri 
 umphal procession. 
 
 Returning to the great house the different 
 parties separated, by rules understood by them 
 selves ; Ransom, and perhaps half a dozen 
 elders, repairing to a certain central office, 
 
EAST AND WEST. 141 
 
 where, as was clear enough, were the head 
 quarters of the institution. As they entered, 
 he observed that eight chairs were hanging 
 from the walls upon nails, a custom which he 
 had never noticed before. Seeing that one of 
 the elders took down a chair for himself, Ran 
 som did the same. In fact, through the whole 
 of his interview with these interesting people, 
 he took a position like that which Xavier and 
 his comrades took in Ceylon. They said to the 
 Buddhist monks in Ceylon that they were 
 much interested in their rites and services, be 
 ing themselves members of a superior order in 
 the same line. Ransom, from the beginning, 
 affected to sympathize with the people around 
 him, and to be able to make suggestions to 
 them, if circumstances permitted, by which 
 they might profit. The elders did not resent 
 this assumption of superiority. When the 
 time for the evening meal came, he was asked 
 to take a place by the side of him who had 
 conducted the baptism, and did so. It was 
 not till this meal was over, and, in fact, 
 till the sun was down and twilight well 
 advanced, that Ransom left the group with 
 
142 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 whom he had been sustaining these con 
 versations, and walked out alone, as if he 
 would inspect the premises. By a certain 
 divine instinct, as Cicero would have called 
 it, he passed into one of the large stables in 
 which the oxen were kept, walked through 
 it, as if to see how they stood, and what was 
 done in the way of their evening meal, passed 
 from stall to stall, nodding with a certain digni 
 fied courtesy to the men who were employed 
 there. He seemed to find suddenly what he 
 came for, and, in an undertone, said to the 
 man at work there. 
 
 " Enos, be ye there? Come out o the 
 % barn." 
 
 And, as if called by a divine authority, the 
 man so summoned followed him. He took 
 from a pin, as he did so, the long robe which be 
 had hung there when lie went to his work, and 
 instantly drew it on. Silas led him away from 
 the stable, and when sure that they were out 
 of hearing in the darkness, said : 
 
 " Enos, be ye crazy ? I knew ye was a fool 
 a darned fool but I didn t think ye was 
 sech a fool as this. Be ye crazy ? 
 
EAST AND WEST. 143 
 
 At this Enos Breed made answer that he was 
 not crazy, but that he had become very foot 
 sore in his journey, had been left behind by 
 the other forgemen who had gone with him, 
 had met many returning adventurers who had 
 told him of the folly of the affair, had spent 
 all the money which had not been stolen from 
 him, and in pure despair had tarried with the 
 brethren at Ephrata. Once there, he had been 
 told that he could not remain there, unless he 
 joined the brotherhood. Joining the brother 
 hood seemed to him to imply an easy day s work 
 in the care of cows and oxen, and the assuming 
 of a robe which was as well as any other dress 
 if a man chose to wear it. Ransom listened to 
 all this with undisguised scorn. He told Enos 
 again, in language more pointed than he had 
 ever had addressed to him before, that he was 
 a fool. He told him that nothing would dis 
 tress his mother so much as to hear that her 
 son was wearing such toggery, and bade him be 
 ready to go with him two hours before sun 
 rise the next morning. He added that the 
 mother had intrusted to him for Enos s use the 
 Portuguese coins which have been spoken of, 
 
144 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 and that lie had them packed away at the bot 
 tom of his cartridge-box. 
 
 "But ye ll never see hide nor hair on em, 
 En os, till ye be in Muskingum with me. 
 I ll give em to yer then, and General Putnam 11 
 give me a receipt for em. A fool n his 
 money is soon parted. Yer was goin to the 
 Ohio, yer started for the Ohio, and to the Ohio 
 ye ve got to go. Take care you re up by three 
 o clock, n out o the winder ef they lock ye 
 in, n come down ter the corner here, n I ll 
 be waiting fer ye. But ye 11 never see hide 
 nor hair of yer mother s money, till ye be in 
 Muskingum." 
 
 What was said was done. Whether the 
 Bunkers would have made the slightest oppo 
 sition to the departure of Enos may be doubted. 
 But it pleased Silas Ransom s fancy to think 
 that he was rescuing him from some terrible 
 domination of some terrible priest, and that he 
 had scored one in the great battle of liberty in 
 this adventure. Probably the directors of the 
 Dunkers had found out, by this time, that 
 their convert would only serve them in some 
 very inferior capacity, such as in fact poor 
 
EAST AND WEST. 145 
 
 Erios had been familiar, at forge or in fishing- 
 vessel, all his life. They had undoubtedly got 
 more out of him in work than would pay them 
 well for the food which he had eaten, and for 
 the Capuchin robe which he wore away from 
 them. His escape was a matter as little con 
 sidered in their councils as would have been 
 the flight of one pigeon more or less from the 
 dovecots above their barns. But to Ransom 
 the enlistment of Enos with his fortunes was 
 an encouragement and real gain. He had now 
 with him, in the lonely hours of his march, 
 some one whom he could astonish, and even 
 command. He made his way rapidly to the 
 city of Lancaster, and, passing through that, 
 crossed to the Monongahela River, at the place 
 known to Pennsylvanians to-day as Browns 
 ville, but then better known as Red Stone Old 
 Fort, 
 
 At this moment, the people of that place 
 supposed that they were to be the great city 
 of the West. To this day a certain aspect, 
 somewhat like that of the interior French 
 towns, distinguishes the place from almost any 
 other village in America. The main street is 
 
146 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 as closely built as if it were in Orleans, the old 
 est church is a pretty stone church, which would 
 seem at home in some old English town. 
 People had crowded down to the shore, as if 
 there were danger that there would not be 
 room enough in Western Pennsylvania for their 
 homes. Here Ransom arrived, with his newly 
 gained follower, and, before he had been in the 
 town ten minutes, was looking around in the 
 numerous establishments of the boat-builders. 
 For here he found a little fleet of "arks," 
 which were in different stages of completion, 
 and all of them were being driven forward, as 
 Noah might have driven forward the original 
 ark had a threatening black cloud appeared in 
 the south. For the passion for emigration had 
 not only struck Essex County, it was every 
 where through the land ; from New England 
 to Carolina people had determined that they 
 would go to the West. As they struck the 
 rivers which flow into the Ohio, their first care 
 was to build an ark. Indeed, that was the 
 best equipped emigrant party which had with 
 it men, as Cephas Titcomb s had, who them 
 selves could take this matter in hand. For 
 
EAST AND WEST. 147 
 
 the rest, they had to rely on such craftsmen as 
 they could find at towns like Red Stone Old 
 Fort or Brownsville. This place, not yet dis 
 tinguished as being the birthplace of the great 
 American statesman of to day, was then dis 
 tinguished as being at the head of the naviga 
 tion of the Ohio. Boat-builders and carpenters 
 of the greatest and of the least ability, had 
 congregated there, and were ready to offer 
 their services to every " ship of the prairie," 
 as it arrived. 
 
 The builders of arks, however, were sadly 
 disappointed in their interviews with Silas 
 Ransom. He spoke with such language of 
 contempt of the model of the crafts, which 
 they had, in various stages, on the ways, that 
 the men themselves turned away from him, 
 reluctant to follow the conversation. He was 
 * not in search of an ark. He had satisfied him 
 self, by an hour s conference in the different 
 inns, or taverns as they were called, that Ce 
 phas Titcomb s party had not come to this 
 branch of the river, and his first care, there 
 fore, was to find a boat in which he and Enos 
 meet them at the junction of the Mo- 
 
148 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 nongahela with the Alleghany. He did not 
 fancy the river-built boats much more than 
 he did the arks. But, fortunately for him 
 and Enos, coming to a little yard rather lower 
 down the river than the more important boat 
 building stations, he found a man actually en 
 gaged in laying out the keel and fastening on 
 what might be called the ribs, of a skiff which 
 was to accompany one of the large arks on 
 the stocks just above. Ransom immediately 
 closed with him a bargain for the work which 
 he had done ; he told the man that he would 
 give him a dollar for the right to use his tools 
 in the next week ; and then, in fifteen minutes, 
 his coat was off, and he was at work with 
 Enos, in cutting down the cross-pieces and 
 other parts which had been arranged for the 
 skiff, so that they should make the proper 
 lines of a Marblehead dory. Enos, to tell the 
 truth, was more skilful as a carpenter than 
 he was as a forgeman, as a fisherman, as a 
 gardener, or as a devotee. The poor boy s 
 spirits rose as he found himself with a saw in 
 his hand, and, under Ransom s direction and 
 with his work, in a couple of days there grew 
 
EAST AND WEST. 149 
 
 up such a boat as Brownsville had never seen 
 before, and as Brownsville has never seen 
 s i nce a boat which would have floated with 
 credit on the waters of the bay of Marblehead. 
 So it was that, after forty-eight hours stay 
 in Red Stone, Ransom and Enos bade good-bye 
 to the somewhat slow Germans with whom 
 they were surrounded, among whom they had 
 made friends in spite of Ransom s domineer 
 ing qualities. They waved a little American 
 flag in triumph as they pushed off upon the 
 rapids, and were on their way down the river 
 to what we now call Pittsburgh, but what was 
 then still often known as "old Duquesne." 
 It would probably be safe to say that no emi 
 grants of that summer went so rapidly for 
 ward after they struck the water. The custom, 
 universal excepting with officers of the gov 
 ernment, was for men to trust themselves to 
 the current of the stream. But Ransom and 
 Breed were both happier if they rowed thirty 
 or forty miles a day, than they were if they 
 sat still. Accordingly, in four or five different 
 stretches each day, they gave themselves to 
 the business of driving the dory along. And, 
 
150 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 not to dwell on their curious adventures, as 
 they passed Pittsburgh and went through the 
 turns backward and forward of the river, it 
 may be said that they arrived at the new set 
 tlement on the Muskingum, thanks to Ran 
 som s impetuosity, more than a month before 
 Cephas Titcomb could have arrived there 
 under the most favorable circumstances, and 
 nearly two months before, in point of fact, he 
 did arrive. 
 
 Ransom would not have said that he ex 
 pected to meet Sarah Parris and to shake her 
 hand at the moment when he landed. But he 
 did expect this. And a bitter disappointment 
 crossed him when he found no woman at the 
 little wharf, where he and Enos fastened their 
 dory. He met one and another man whom he 
 knew. He was led at once to General Rufus 
 Putnam, the leader of the little colony, who 
 knew him perfectly well, and called him cord 
 ially by name as he gave him his sunburned 
 hand. But then, with a grief which had no 
 words, but which showed no sign upon his 
 face, poor Silas found that there was no Sarah 
 Parris there ; there were no Titcombs there, 
 
EAST AND WEST. 151 
 
 and nobody knew that any such, people were 
 coming. In truth, he and Enos, in their swift 
 push down the river, were the first arrivals of 
 the summer from any place on the seaboard 
 east of Lancaster. 
 
 He was, as the event proved, several weeks 
 in advance of the Titcomb party. It was long 
 before he could persuade himself of this. 
 But every conversation he had, with one and 
 another of the Essex County people who were 
 on the ground, made it more sure. Eansom 
 personally knew some of them. He knew of 
 the antecedents of all. He was obliged to 
 satisfy his eagerness by walking up and down 
 the streets of the new-made city, and talking 
 with one and another of the hard-working 
 men and women. The town had been laid out 
 with care by the surveyors, and the regular 
 lines of the streets could be seen. Nothing 
 was finished. Roads were as ruts and the 
 horses feet had left them. Fences were not 
 begun ; houses were only covered in. The 
 "Campus Martius," which was a central pa 
 rade, surrounded by a fortification against the 
 Shawnees, was laid out as being a sufficient 
 
152 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 defence against an enemy s incursion. To 
 this defence Silas gave a somewhat qualified 
 approval, as if he had been entirely ac 
 quainted with all the arts of fortification. 
 Practically it was, at this moment, little more 
 than a square stockade, in which, however, 
 block-houses had already been partially built, 
 and in these block-houses were the central 
 offices and storehouses of the colony. 
 
 The way to the landing was well travelled. 
 An occasional boat from the fort, or an occa 
 sional party of emigrants who had come from 
 the western side of the mountains, brought in 
 a little wave of interest, from day to day, 
 as Ransom s own arrival had done. But it 
 would be fair to say that never in his life had 
 he found his time hang so heavy, nor had he 
 known so little what to do with himself, as in 
 the first few days of his visit here. With his 
 natural good nature, however, he "lent a 
 hand," sailor-fashion, to one and another of 
 his old friends whom he found here, and he 
 was determined to make the time of use in 
 making some preparations for the arrival of 
 Miss Sarah. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 WHILE Ransom was pushing down the 
 river, Curwen was learning to talk Ger 
 man and to keep his temper among the workers 
 in leather, whom he called Dutchmen, in Lan 
 caster. And Sarah Parris, whom they were 
 both seeking, was making nosegays or direct 
 ing the copy-books of boys under a tent on the 
 shore of the Alleghany River. Any guardian 
 angel who had in charge the oversight of the 
 three parties, could have seen them, at one 
 moment, not two hundred miles from each 
 other. The traveller of to- day would have torn 
 his hair and burned his books were he obliged 
 to wait thus until he could build his own boat. 
 But the Titcomb women, as has been intimated, 
 were not sorry for a few weeks in the open air, 
 in a country unspoiled by man, in a perfect 
 climate, in the rare month of June. The chil 
 dren took the temper of the elders, as children 
 will, and the weeks sped pleasantly away. 
 
 153 
 
154 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 At last the famous ark was finished, and a 
 good ark it was, although the building of it 
 had not taken so long as the building of 
 Noah s. There was* a great deal of joking 
 about the name which the ark should bear 
 whether it should be called " Sarah " for Sarah 
 Parris, or "Miriam" for Mrs. Titcomb. Mrs. 
 Titcomb voted every time for Sarah, and Sarah 
 voted always for Mrs. Titcomb, and instructed 
 the boys to do so, but Mr. Titcornb, like Sarah, 
 voted every time for Mrs. Titcomb ; and thus, 
 according as, at the discussion, there were 
 more or less of those who had had a share of 
 the building, the vote went for the one party or 
 the other. At last it happened, on the same 
 moonlight night, one eager party painted the 
 name "Sarah" on the port bow if bow it 
 might be called and at a later hour another 
 party, under the same moon a little farther 
 advanced in the heavens, painted "Miriam" 
 on the starboard side of the cabin. So the ark 
 started on its way with a double name. 
 
 One does not often see an ark on the West 
 ern waters now, though probably a diligent 
 antiquarian or adventurer might find one, As 
 
EAST AND WEST. 155 
 
 became a party of Newbury men, half of whom 
 were ship-builders, and some of whom had even 
 had a hand in the building of the Protector, 
 the Sarah-Miriam was more stanch and 
 seaworthy than were most of her class. Below, 
 the vessel was what they would have called on 
 the Merrimac a good hay-scow. The gunwale 
 on each side ran up rather higher than it 
 would have done for a hay-scow, but there 
 was not any very heavy freight to put on 
 board, and all that one wanted, as John Fair- 
 child said, was that "the critters and the 
 babies should not tumble over." Ample space 
 was reserved for the "critters" fore and aft. 
 They stood a little as the "critters" stand on 
 a Jersey ferry-boat to-day. Indeed, there were 
 many occasions on the voyage when, on a fav 
 oring shore, they were able to land for green 
 food and exercise. Amidships, a cabin, well 
 protected to stand the weather of June and 
 July, took up perhaps one-half of the space in 
 the long scow. But it was not so wide but 
 that one could walk on the right hand and on 
 the left, as one walks on the guards of a Mis 
 sissippi steamer to-day. And it was not so 
 
156 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 frail, but on top there were chairs and a long 
 settee, so that here was the favorite place for 
 all parties to sit as they floated along, unless, 
 indeed, the sun were too severe. 
 
 As for means of motion, the Alleghany 
 River, and afterward the Ohio itself, took care 
 of that. All rivers run to the sea, and these 
 rivers, as they ran, bore with them the emi 
 grants who were faring West. It is true that 
 the way was not as direct as the modern rail 
 way engineer would make it. Sometimes they 
 went north and sometimes south, sometimes 
 they went east and sometimes west, but their 
 progress, if not fast, was sure, and as Red 
 Jacket said of his life, " they had all the time 
 there was." Cephas Titcomb and the other 
 men would growl a little when after a good run 
 to the southwest the river chose to bend and 
 carry them back again toward the rising sun, 
 but there was nothing to be gained by growl 
 ing, and the women and children were soon 
 hardened to all signs in the heavens, excepting 
 to those of threatening or present rain or 
 lightning. 
 
 At night, as sunset drew near, all eyes were 
 
EAST AND WEST. 157 
 
 eager to find a good spot on the broad bank, 
 where the ark might be run up and tethered, 
 where a fire could be made upon the shore, and 
 the pork fried and the tea made, and where 
 children, and perhaps beasts, might have a run. 
 Then the men were apt to sleep on shore ; the 
 women generally preferred the seclusion, and, 
 indeed, the security of the cabin. There was 
 more or less talk of risk from Indians, but In 
 dians they never saw, and Sarah became quite 
 incredulous of such stories, as they drifted on. 
 At the earliest gray of morning the fire would 
 be built, and whoever was responsible for the 
 cooking, came to make the breakfast, and to 
 make ready what should be eaten at noon. As 
 soon as it was light enough to discern a "saw 
 yer" or a snag, the ark would be unmoored, 
 and would be floating again upon its way. 
 
 The word snag has come into the English 
 language, and has a meaning generally known. 
 A "sawyer" was a log firmly fixed at one end, 
 but working backward and forward with the 
 current. It took its name from the resem 
 blance of its motion to that of an old-fashioned 
 saw in a saw-pit, 
 
158 EASE AND WEST. 
 
 For the women folks there was sewing 
 enough and knitting enough, and a reasonable 
 share of time and care was needed to keep 
 the children from climbing too high, or from 
 tumbling into the water. There were two or 
 three books to read, and Mrs. Titcomb s inval 
 uable scrap-books, which Sarah had dipped 
 into already ; and there was, of course, long 
 talk on the mysterious future before them. 
 Sarah never forgot her promise to kind Parson 
 Cutler that she would cut and dry plants for 
 him, to send back if ever she had an opportu 
 nity, and all the boatmen and all the children 
 were eager to bring contributions to her from 
 the treasures, wholly new, of the woodland 
 and the meadow land as it opened upon them. 
 Long letters home were written to take the 
 chance of conveyance by a returning emigrant. 
 But they were within twenty miles of Fort 
 Harmar before anything occurred which could 
 be called an adventure. 
 
 They had tethered the boat a little earlier than 
 usual, when three rifle-shots, fired together, 
 called their attention to the other side of the 
 river, and here they saw the women of another 
 
EAST AND WEST. 159 
 
 party, people whom, by this time, they knew 
 perfectly well, waving a flag, and evidently 
 beckoning to them. In the courtesies of ark 
 life, these other emigrants had kept up very 
 friendly relations with our party. More than 
 once they had breakfasted together, and often 
 one party had " spent the day " with the other. 
 This waving of the flag was simply an invita 
 tion that our friends should come across the 
 river to a cup of tea. Probably the hunters 
 had brought in a deer out of season, or, perhaps, 
 a stray wild turkey. 
 
 Cephas Titcomb hesitated about accepting 
 the invitation, but the boys were eager to go, 
 and, after some hesitancy, he gave his consent 
 that they and Mary might go, as Sarah said 
 she would go with them and take care of them. 
 For Sarah was accredited the best boatman of 
 the party, as well she might be, knowing all 
 the intricacies of Salem and Marblehead Har 
 bor, and well able to pull a dory through the 
 surf on any beach in any bay. To be sure, 
 she knew, and Cephas Titcomb knew, that all 
 this had nothing to do with the management 
 of a dug-out ; but at the same time he would 
 
160 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 have been ashamed of his own boys if they 
 could not paddle the dug-out across the river 
 and back at any time of day or night, and the 
 presence of Sarah was rather a precaution of 
 prudence, that all persons might be home 
 early enough, than it was a compliment to her 
 powers of navigation. 
 
 So the boys hair was brushed, their Sun 
 day hats put on, Mary was properly arrayed 
 for a visit, and the four started in the rude 
 canoe, Sarah in the stern and the two boys 
 paddling. When they came into the proper 
 current of the river they found it faster than 
 they expected. It happened that at the same 
 moment an unexpected squall struck them 
 from the northwest, so that they found they 
 could not make their course so perfectly direct 
 to the other ark as they had proposed. Sarah 
 bade the boys let the head fall off a little, and 
 told them they would easily enough work up 
 in the eddy of the southern shore. So in fact 
 they would have done. She was rightly ma- 
 noeuvering her little vessel, and was passing one 
 of the little islands, on the south side of the 
 river, when Cephas, by some accident or care- 
 
EAST AND WEST. 161 
 
 lessness, lost his stroke. The boat swerved a 
 little too near the shore, and struck into the 
 top of a fallen tree, which projected several 
 rods into the water. On the instant she rolled 
 over, and all of them were swimming. The cur 
 rent ran very fast, and they found the bottom 
 of the boat " fearfully slippery," as Mary Tit- 
 comb said afterward. 
 
 They could get no hold upon it, and Sarah 
 said afterward that she doubted whether it 
 helped them or hindered them most. But as 
 the younger Cephas said, he did not want to 
 lose the boat. He seemed to be indifferent, 
 even to carelessness, to any risk of his own life. 
 But seeing, in a moment, that neither his sister 
 nor Sarah were in any fear of sinking, he bade 
 them shelter themselves on the island, and 
 said that he would go down with the boat, 
 turn it over with the first chance, and bring it 
 back to them. His brother determined to hold 
 on in the same adventure, and the girls, thus 
 losing their escort, looked about for some 
 means of working their way in under the wil 
 lows to the shore. 
 
 "Never fear, Mary. Come with me, come 
 
162 EAST AKD WEST. 
 
 with me," and turning on her back, Sarah 
 struck out boldly to the point which stretched 
 below them. The frightened child obeyed her, 
 and in less than a minute they found them 
 selves clutching to the arms of a fallen willow. 
 Of course, the branches tangled themselves in 
 their dresses, but, after a little dragging, and 
 pulling, and tearing, they dragged themselves 
 along till their feet struck the sand, and in a 
 minute more they were out of the water upon 
 the shore. 
 
 At such a time the first feeling, to a person 
 who has never undergone the experience be 
 fore, is surprise at the possible wetness of 
 clothing. After that comes gratitude or indig 
 nation or hope or fear. In the present case, 
 Sarah laughed and poor little Mary cried. 
 But the elder girl took possession of the other, 
 in an instant pulled off the outer wraps, which 
 were not very heavy on that July evening, and 
 began to wring the water from them. The sun 
 was already down, and she was doubtful how 
 their night would take care of itself, but she 
 pushed along under the bushes, and through 
 the tangle as well as she might, to see what 
 
EAST AND WEST. 168 
 
 sort of an island had changed her into a Rob 
 inson Crusoe. A minute more, and her ques 
 tions were all answered. There were evident 
 signs of human presence. Logs had been cut, 
 and she could see the stumps of fallen trees. 
 She pressed on with her little charge, and in a 
 moment more came out upon what was half a 
 tent and half a cabin, with a little smoke rising 
 behind it, full in the face of the first Indian 
 women whom she had ever seen in her life. 
 
 Once more, the interview had not the terror 
 which she would have said would have at 
 tached to it, had one asked her that morning 
 how she would have liked to meet two Indian 
 squaws. The consciousness that there was a 
 bit of fire, where that wet child could be dried, 
 quite overcame her fear of tomahawk or 
 scalping-knife. And, while she was inwardly 
 aware that she ought to be conciliating these 
 queens of the soil, if such they were, Sarah 
 once more broke out into uncontrollable 
 laughter. 
 
 To tell the truth, the queens of the soil had 
 not much of the aspect of Boadicea or of Zeno- 
 bia, or of any other of the mistresses of man- 
 
164 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 kind. They were very dirty, their faces were 
 heavy, the black hair, which fell around their 
 very dirty faces, was tangled and matted- 
 each of them was wrapped in a blanket, which 
 seemed never to have been white or yellow, and 
 each of them was smoking a corn-cob pipe. 
 The first thought of which the girl was really 
 conscious, was one which had nothing to do 
 with the circumstances in which she found her 
 self. It was this question: "Why in the 
 world do people call these Indians copper- 
 colored ? and why did that Major Denny call 
 them yellow?" Indeed her own feeling was 
 that they were very black, and of the color of 
 dirt, or smoke, whatever that color might be. 
 But an instant was enough for these critical 
 considerations, Essex-bred. The girl at once as 
 sumed the most friendly attitude approached, 
 as if she were quite sure of those to whom she 
 spoke, and offered to them her hand. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 HARRY CUR WEN, meanwhile, was draw- 
 ing nearer and nearer to the Titcomb 
 party. At Lancaster he stormed and f umed ]et 
 us think he did not swear he flattered, coaxed 
 and bribed. Zapoly s man was once put in the 
 lock-up by a justice, who was called a Dutch 
 man because he spoke German ; and more than 
 one of the old men whom Curwen consulted told 
 him that they made the .saddles as the great 
 Dr. Franklin had told them to make them forty 
 years before, and that they would make them 
 in no other way. But, at last, Harry was able 
 to send a special messenger, in post-haste, as it 
 was called, to General Knox at New York. It 
 seemed certain that the saddles would at last 
 be delivered, and the wagoners ready for them, 
 on the next Monday. The messenger was 
 prompt, and Knox was prompt, so that on the 
 ninth day after he had written to New York 
 he received his orders, directing him and Count 
 
 165 
 
166 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 Zapoly to take in charge the saddles, and carry 
 them to Fort Washington on the Ohio River. 
 That is to say, he was to be responsible for their 
 delivery at the fort where the city of Cincinnati 
 now stands. For this it was necessary that he 
 should accompany them in a wagon to the 
 Monongahela River, that he should superin 
 tend the building or the purchasing of the boat 
 which was to take them, and then deliver them 
 to the commanding officer at the fort. For this 
 purpose he received the government s commis 
 sion for the first time. He was instructed to 
 permit Zapoly and a servant to accompany him 
 as volunteers. 
 
 Zapoly had begged of Knox this favor when 
 he passed through New York. "I shall not 
 be difficult," he said, half in French and half in 
 English. " Give me all the days an omelette, 
 and a little of soup, and I shall be very con 
 tent." Knox was obliged to tell him that he 
 had named the two articles of food which at 
 that moment could not be prepared in America. 
 
 Curwen was instructed also to wait in Lan 
 caster, until he should receive ten or twelve re 
 cruits, whom the recruiting officers in Philadel- 
 
EAST AND WfcST. 
 
 phia would forward to him. The men came, 
 in fact, before the saddles were ready. They 
 were not much better than Falstaff s regiment. 
 The government paid but little ; the probable 
 service was hard. In these days we should 
 have called the recruiting officer an agent for 
 the Society for Discharged Convicts, so many 
 gentry of doubtful reputation had he enlisted. 
 Uncle Sam could not be a chooser. He had to 
 take what he could have. And Harry found 
 himself in company with a motley set of sol 
 diers, so called, from every country and every 
 State, who had enlisted some from a love of 
 adventure, some to get away from their wives, 
 some to escape the sheriff, and others from no 
 motive at all, which could be defined. At this 
 moment they had not even been formed into 
 an awkward squad. 
 
 Among them was a tall, delicate-looking 
 young Virginian, to whom Harry took a fancy 
 from the first moment when he met the ser 
 geant who had this party in charge. He made 
 a chance to speak to the boy, who was shy and 
 lonely, and drew from him, without difficulty, 
 his whole story. He had come from a lonely 
 
168 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 home near Fort Cumberland. Years ago, when 
 he was not more than twelve years old, in a 
 raid of Indians across the mountains, they had 
 carried off his sister. The boy, boylike, had 
 even then tracked the party of marauders, in 
 the childish hope of rescuing her. And now 
 that he had shot up to the height which gave 
 him the right to go about among men, he had 
 enlisted in the army in the hope of finding her. 
 It was clear enough to Harry, who was en 
 dowed with the preternatural wisdom of three- 
 and-twenty, that the boy had no other requisite 
 for a soldier life than the five feet nine inches, 
 without which he could not pass the recruiting 
 sergeant, unless, indeed, indomitable will were 
 to be counted as a requisite. Of that the good 
 lad had abundance. He was simple in man 
 ners, very shy, as has been said, and avoided, 
 as a woman might do, the rough play and 
 jokes of the reckless men around him. In 
 deed, in the lonely log-cabin life of a single 
 family, he had not learned all the language 
 which came into the polyglot talk of these 
 men. One of the many trials which the sen 
 sitive boy had to meet from hour to hour, came 
 
EAST AND WEST. 169 
 
 from his own utter inability to understand the 
 chaff which was thrown at him, the requests 
 which were addressed to him, or even the com 
 mands of his superiors. 
 
 Crossing the mountains by the same route 
 which Ransom had followed, this military 
 party came, as he had done, to Brownsville. 
 Here, also, they had a boat to build. It dif 
 fered wholly from the ark of the settlers. 
 General Harmar, or some other officer in high 
 command, had said that a barge for the use of 
 Fort Harmar or Fort Washington would be 
 needed, and six or eight good ship-builders had 
 been enlisted, nominally as "artificers," but 
 with the understanding that they might ask 
 for their discharge whenever they chose, after 
 they arrived at the forts. Curwen had sent 
 them on, while he waited in Lancaster, and at 
 Old Fort Red Stone found his boat almost 
 ready. 
 
 These men were quite the superiors of the 
 rest in bearing and in education. But, as navi 
 gators, they had to do an extra turn of duty 
 as the voyage went on, because half of the re 
 cruits hardly knew the difference between one 
 
EAST AND WEST. 
 
 end of an oar and the other. In truth, the 
 barge, so called, was much too large for any 
 such service as was proposed at the forts. She 
 was rather a "galley," as the language of the 
 time had it. As the men always slept on shore, 
 she was not an uncomfortable vessel for the 
 enterprise they had in hand. Amidships, as 
 the builders chose to say, a considerable space 
 was taken for the stores of the party, and for 
 the all-important pack-saddles. Fore and aft 
 of this space were seats for rowers, who, with 
 very heavy sweeps or oars, could hasten the 
 vessel whenever the flow of the current was 
 not considered sufficient for the purpose. It 
 was not long before the boat-builders, who were 
 all from New England ports, and rowed a boat 
 as well as they built it, had trained the sol 
 diers, as they were called by courtesy, to 
 handling the heavy sweeps. 
 
 Day after day Curwen drove the barge along, 
 eager to gain a day by which he might stop at 
 Marietta, and show to Sarah Parris that some 
 body respected him. And so it happened, as 
 things in this world will happen, that on the 
 third day of his voyage, as his jolly crew and 
 
EAST AND WEST. 171 
 
 he sped down the river, a little flag flying in 
 the fore of the boat, Sarah and the children 
 waved their flag as a signal on their side, while 
 the barge flew by on the other, and the eager 
 young man never dreamed whom he was pass 
 ing. It was Gabriel and Evangeline again. 
 
 Harry Curwen saw that the boy Clendenin 
 was not strong enough for this work, and man 
 aged, by one excuse or another, to call him off. 
 Eventually he attached him to his person, and 
 the boy discharged the thousand duties of an 
 officer s servant. Curwen made a log like that 
 which would have been used in one of the 
 Salem East Indian voyages, and he made a 
 pretence of keeping a journal of the rapidity 
 with which the boat sailed, using his log as the 
 basis of his observations. This he had put into 
 Phil Clendenin s charge, and the easy work of 
 guessing at their speed, and making notes of 
 the rapidity of their voyage, relieved the boy 
 from furthei duty. 
 
 It was clear enough, whenever they stopped 
 at night, that he was grateful for the " Yan 
 kee s" oversight, and was eager to repay it, 
 with a sort of gentleness and good-breeding 
 
EAST AND WEST. 
 
 which had interested Harry from the first. 
 Harry always would find that his bed had been 
 made ready, that the stumps were carefully 
 cut out, or the crooked snags dragged out, 
 which would else have broken his back in his 
 night s turnings. The reeds and branches 
 would be brought by Clendenin s care, with 
 which the bed was made. 
 
 As they sat at the fire one night, Curwen 
 pressed the boy for old stories of frontier life. 
 In a more confiding mood than usual, the 
 young Virginian gave some idea of the way in 
 which he was brought up, and he told a story 
 of what happened in his very earliest recollec 
 tions. One cold night they were all awakened 
 by the barking of the dogs outside their little 
 cabin. " I was five years old," said Clendenin, 
 "I should have never thought of it again but 
 for what followed. My father got up in his 
 shirt, pushed open the doors to see why the 
 dogs barked, and in an instant fell back on the 
 ground. A bullet had struck him in the breast 
 the moment the door was opened. My mother, 
 who was close behind him, rushed to the door 
 and bolted it, and was only just in time. I can 
 
EAST AND WEST. 173 
 
 tell you, Mr. Curwen, the bolts are strong in 
 those cabins, and if the cabin will stand the 
 door will stand. This was just what the door 
 had been built for. 
 
 "The redskins did not mean to be kept out 
 by bolts, and little boy as I was, I knew what 
 they were doing, when they began to hack at 
 the door with their tomahawks. It is queer, 
 sir, but the thing that I remember is a great bit 
 of wood breaking out and hitting me on the 
 head, and seeing the axe come through. Then 
 the hole grew bigger and bigger, and more 
 axes came through, but my mother told me to 
 get under the bed, which I did not do. But 
 she stood in the corner with father s axe, wait 
 ing until the first Indian stuck his arm through 
 the door, and then his head. The minute his 
 head came in she hit him hard with the back 
 of the axe twice, and I can see the blood run 
 down on the floor now, Mr. Curwen. He had 
 got so far in that he hung, sir, in the hole, and 
 she was so all-fired wild, that she pulled him 
 in. "We had not had a chance to cry out, be 
 fore another of the critters poked his head in in 
 the same way. She waited a minute longer 
 
174 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 this time, until half of his body was in, and she 
 hit him just the same way, on the back of his 
 head. Then there came a third, and then a 
 fourth, and my mother dragged them all back 
 and laid them out in the corner. Then the 
 critters outside began to guess what had hap 
 pened, and no more came in at the door. They 
 were gone so long that she nailed her bread 
 board over the hole, but then she heard a noise 
 on top of the cabin. My mother knew what it 
 was, but she did not dare to go to the chimney 
 for fear of the door, so she threw her knife to 
 me, and told me to cut open the feather bed, 
 and throw the feathers into the fire. I do not 
 think I was in the least frightened ; I was wide 
 awake, you may be sure, and T threw the 
 feathers into the fire. And I was just in time. 
 Two of them came pitching down the great 
 wooden chimney, smothered by the smoke, and 
 fell into the open coals. By this time my 
 father had come to, and got upon his feet. He 
 found his gun, which she had not had time to 
 handle. He blew out the brains of one of 
 them, and she finished the other with the axe. 
 My father said afterward that another man 
 
EAST AND WEST. 175 
 
 tried to get in, but he got as good as he sent, 
 and went away howling. They tell this story 
 all up and down the valley now, and one of 
 these copper-headed redskin blackguards said 
 afterward when he came into Cumberland to 
 trade, Things was bad. The white squaws 
 fought worse than the long knives. 
 
 Curwen did not wonder that a boy who could 
 tell such stories as this had in his blood the 
 elements of a scout or Indian hunter. After 
 he had heard this story, he did not so much 
 wonder that he did not succeed in impressing 
 upon Clendenin the sentiments of humanity 
 with regard to the redskins which he had 
 brought with him from his eastern home. 
 
 With such help as the long oars and stout 
 arms of the recruits gave, with the occasional 
 good luck of heavy rains swelling the current 
 of the river, the boat made as fast progress 
 as any one ought to have expected. Master 
 Harry Curwen, who was eager to show the 
 woman whom he loved that he had found a 
 place in the world and was respected by other 
 people, thought that the boat did not go fast 
 enough. And particularly, when by the va- 
 
176 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 garies of the current lie found himself sailing 
 directly east, when his heart was rushing west, 
 he quarrelled with fortune as young men will. 
 But, what with an occasional extra glass of 
 grog, which he took the responsibility of serv 
 ing out to the crew, and what with making 
 the days as long as he and the sergeant dared, 
 the boat made the shortest trip, as it proved, 
 which had yet been made, except by Ransom, 
 and arrived safely at Fort Harmar. When 
 the last day came the young man dressed him 
 self in his uniform as an officer of the Massa 
 chusetts militia, assumed such military aspect 
 as he could, and reported to General Harmar. 
 To say the truth he was a little disappointed 
 when he came to see the fort. He had seen 
 Fort Pitt, as he passed it, but had supposed 
 that that was an exception to what he was to 
 find westward. The word fort gave him asso 
 ciations of what he had heard and read of 
 Marlborough s campaigns, and of Frederick, 
 and he was a little disappointed when he found 
 that the defences most to be relied upon were 
 the stout wooden posts which were erected 
 just like " a pale fence," as he wrote home to 
 
EAST AND WEST. 177 
 
 one of his Salem friends, only with the poles 
 ten feet high arid the logs of which they were 
 made a foot or two in diameter. Within, 
 however, was a parade, properly enough ar 
 ranged, and, as it happened, a company of men 
 were at dress parade when the boat arrived. 
 Curwen and Zapoly were also duly challenged 
 by the sentinel, arid other military forms were 
 gone through, as if they had been an invading 
 army and the garrison a garrison of some 
 thousand men. The boy liked General Har- 
 mar, who was quick and to the point, received 
 him as a gentleman, and at once put him in 
 the care of an officer, who found him a room 
 in one of the barracks and did his best to 
 make him feel at home. With the military 
 business which passed between the lad and the 
 old soldier, we need not now interfere. The 
 matter most on his heart is most on ours. 
 
 He had still some days voyaging before 
 him before he could deliver his pack-saddles 
 at Fort Washington. But at last he was, as 
 he supposed, within a few miles of the woman 
 he loved. He could not pass by her. It was 
 easy enough to persuade himself and to per- 
 
178 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 suade General Harmar that his motley crew 
 needed to refresh and refit themselves at the 
 fort. For him, he wanted to see the Yankee 
 settlement on the Muskingum just above, 
 which was full of Essex people. "Do as you 
 will," said the old soldier. "You are not 
 under my orders. Your saddles will be of use 
 when they get ready yonder, but I shall not 
 be there oh, for weeks I shall not be there. 
 Our Kentucky friends are very slow." 
 
 So Curwen asked for a boat ; chose four of 
 his best men as oarsmen, and very soon stood 
 on the little wharf on the Muskingum at Mari 
 etta, just as poor Ransom had stood there 
 three or four weeks before. Curwen, too, 
 worked his way up through the muddy street 
 to the Campus Martius. He asked for Gen 
 eral Putnam, who knew him well. They had 
 met more than once at the May meetings of 
 the Essex militia and at fall parades. He was 
 delighted to give his hand to the son of an 
 old companion-in-arms. Curwen s uniform re 
 minded him of home, and it was pleasing to 
 the old soldier to see so fine a settler. 
 
 "You have come to stay with us ; you have 
 
EAST AND WEST. 179 
 
 come to stay with us?" said lie. " That is so 
 good. I shall have the best blood of Essex 
 here." 
 
 No, Harry Curwen had not come to stay. 
 He was in Uncle Sam s commission, though he 
 wore the uniform of Massachusetts still. He 
 was on the way to Fort Washington, but he 
 had come up to see the Yankee town on the 
 Muskingum. And General Putnam begged 
 him to make his headquarters in the block 
 house his home. 
 
 No, he could not stay, he said. But he had 
 a message and here his voice faltered for a 
 family of settlers from Newbury, Mr. Cephas 
 Titcomb and his wife. And here he tried to 
 hold his voice that the general might not 
 know his secret. "Miss Sarah Parris, the 
 daughter of your old friend, is with them." 
 
 Putnam turned on him with a certain de 
 cision. "There are no such people here, Mr. 
 Curwen ! It seems to me that everybody who 
 comes into this place is asking after Miss 
 Sarah Parris and the Titcombs ! Whitcombs 
 I thought there were, but there are no Tit- 
 combs here ; I am sure that no such people 
 
180 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 have arrived. I will tell you who was asking 
 for them ; it is now three weeks ago. John, 
 when was it that Silas Ransom came in and 
 was so much cut up because we could not tell 
 him anything about these Whitcombs or Miss 
 Parris ? " And John, in the vague recollec 
 tion of a hard-pressed bureau of information, 
 was sure that that was five or six weeks be 
 fore. Curwen found, to his amazement, that, 
 with all the speed of his party and the will 
 ingness of his rowers, Silas Ransom was long 
 before him. 
 
 All that day he searched for Silas Ransom. 
 He never asked anybody about him who was 
 not sure that he was in the next street or in 
 the next cabin. But all that day Harry did 
 not find him. No, nor did he find him on the 
 next day. Before he had done, he had gone 
 into every cabin in Marietta. He had received 
 the same reply, but he had made himself sure 
 that Silas Ransom was not there. ~No pos 
 sible excuse could be made for tarrying at the 
 little colony any longer, and, a much sadder 
 man than he was when he arrived, he dropped 
 back in his boat to Fort Harmar. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 T WAS the wettest girl that ever you did 
 JL see." Thus wrote Sarah Parris to the 
 old friends at home. "Indeed, I did not 
 know any one could be so wet. And as we 
 dragged ourselves along the beach, and over 
 the trunks of fallen trees, it seemed to me as 
 though I should have done better, if I were 
 drowned. But poor little Mary was crying bit 
 terly, and it seemed to do me good to have to 
 keep her alive. And in a minute more I saw 
 smoke, and I took it for granted that all was 
 well. I never once thought that the Indians 
 could make as good fires as the white people, 
 though for a day or two we had been on the 
 lookout for Shawnees." 
 
 In truth, the one terror of the expedition 
 had been that they might fall into the hands 
 of some roving Shawnees, who would prefer 
 the present plunder of such a party to any ad 
 vantage, real or potential, which might belong 
 
 181 
 
182 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 to such treaty obligations as bound them to 
 the Great Father at New York. The Great 
 Father, as he then existed, was hardly two 
 years old, and any prospect of his strength or 
 power to redress injury did not much affect the 
 average Shawnee conscience. But, as it hap 
 pened in this case, and as Sarah soon found, 
 there was no occasion for alarm. The men of 
 the party were away hunting, and the dirty, 
 smoke-begrimed squaws and children who met 
 them, seemed at first as much afraid as she 
 was. She had native pluck enough to make 
 the best of the situation. She dragged the 
 crying child across the beach, up to the fire, 
 and said to her, " You will soon be dry," as if 
 she had built the fire herself ; and then with a 
 cheerful smile offered her hand frankly to the 
 only woman of the party who rose from the 
 ground to meet her. She remembered at the 
 instant that the Shawnee squaw would not be 
 likely to speak English, and was wondering 
 for a moment what she would say, when the 
 other good-naturedly enough, but without 
 smiling, gave a hand to the child, lifted her 
 where she could rest against the cottonwood 
 
EAST AND WEST. 183 
 
 log against which the fire was burning, and 
 said, " Wet, wet, cold and wet. Warm more 
 by-by, by-by warm more ; cold, wet, cold, wet." 
 Sarah was amused and surprised that the re 
 sponsibility of the conversation was thus taken 
 from her. She assented to these simple propo 
 sitions, chiefly by repeating the words of the 
 other, in different inflections, and varied order, 
 somewhat as she would do in saying a lesson 
 in a French primer ; and she adapted herself 
 to the occasion, by taking off some of her 
 outer clothing and of that of the little girl, and 
 proceeding to wring the water out from them 
 as well as might be. In this act, sufficiently 
 necessary, the other joined her, Sarah laugh 
 ing already and her hostess quiet and grave. 
 
 " But really, my dear aunt," Sarah wrote to 
 Mrs. Whitman, u from that time she and I were 
 very good friends." "I remember thinking 
 if they were going to roast me alive, it would 
 be good to get dry and warm as it began. But 
 the young woman was so good-natured in her 
 deeds, though she was so glum in her looks, 
 that I was not afraid two minutes after it 
 began. 
 
184 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 The other women looked on grave as 
 Sphinxes might have been. But gradually, as 
 the three worked over petticoats and shawls 
 and stockings, and brought them into tolerable 
 condition, hag No. 1, hag No. 2, and hag No. 
 3, took more and more interest in these vari 
 ous processes, and at last little Mary Titcomb 
 found that she had conquered her terrors and 
 was not above wondering what could come 
 out of the broken iron pot which formed 
 a sort of centre-piece in the fire, and from 
 which clouds of steam came up in puffs as the 
 women kept the fire up with driftwood. 
 
 As the long twilight advanced, one and 
 another dive into the pot made by hag No. 2, 
 with a long fork of cherry wood, seemed to 
 show that affairs were advancing toward a solu 
 tion of the girl s wonder. Sarah made one or 
 two efforts at conversation with the younger 
 girl, who had given to them such welcome as 
 they had had. But any reader of these lines, 
 who, after the full French course of the " New 
 Padua Female Seminary," has found out, say 
 in Normandy, how little the average French 
 
EAST AND WEST. 185 
 
 peasant understands of the French language, 
 will readily believe that the two young women 
 did not obtain much mutual information. 
 Whether the Shawnee women had any boat 
 or canoe by which Sarah and her companion 
 could cross to the western shore, she could 
 not find out ; nor why they had, all three, 
 been left together on the island with no men 
 folk visible. Sarah had never heard that in 
 valuable counsel, u the dumb man s borders 
 still increase," but she was forced to fall back 
 on the great truth hidden in it, whether she 
 would or no. She and Mary, however, had all 
 the more conversation because the communion 
 with the Indian girl was so unsatisfactory. 
 Mary consulted her as to the propriety of their 
 eating, or, perhaps, drinking the provision in 
 the pot. 
 
 " My dear child," said Sarah, " if they ask 
 us we had certainly better take what they will 
 give, asking no questions, for conscience 
 sake. I am sure that dear Dr. Bentley would 
 tell us that this was good sense and good 
 Scripture, I am not so doubtful about eating 
 
186 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 for I had but little dinner as I am about 
 what we should eat with. But we are as well 
 off as Adam and Eve were." 
 
 And this matter was soon tested. Hag No. 
 2 announced by sundry " ughs ! " and more def 
 initely by lifting the pot from the coals, that 
 she was satisfied with her study of the con 
 tents. Hags No. 1 and No. 3 then rose from 
 the sand where they had been crouching, and, 
 at a call from them, three or four children ap 
 peared who had kept away before. The three 
 hags and the interpreter produced such articles 
 of table furniture as were at hand or as were 
 thought necessary. These were, lirst, a long 
 bit of bark, which was laid on the sand of the 
 upper part of the beach, and supported with 
 stones that it might not roll. To Sarah s sur 
 prise and relief, two or three bowls of cracked 
 earthenware, two or three half-gourds, and 
 three small wooden trenchers appeared. A 
 trencher was given to Mary, and a gourd to 
 Sarah, who kept it from rolling by sticks and 
 little shells from the ground. The old pot was 
 then set on the stones just above it. A rude 
 earthen pot appeared in the hands of hag No. 
 
EAST AND WEST. 187 
 
 1, and this was set upon the bark. Then hag 
 No. 2, with a long gourd from which one slice 
 had been cut, so that it made an excellent dip 
 per, ladled out the contents of the iron pot 
 into the earthen one. She uttered several 
 grunts, probably of approval, though of this 
 let no one speak certainly. Certain discussion 
 in the Shawnee tongue followed, of which there 
 is no record on the cylinder of any phono 
 graph, or in any earthly archives. But it was 
 clear enough that none of the party were dis 
 satisfied. Sarah suspected already what proved 
 to be true, that the basis of their meal would 
 be boiled hominy. 
 
 So soon as the mixture had a little cooled, 
 No. 2 practically announced that condition of 
 things to the others, by plunging deep with a 
 large shovel, made from an elk horn, into the 
 mass at the bottom, and bringing up two or 
 three loads of the more solid substances. As 
 Sarah had guessed, the principal material was 
 pounded corn, and the boiling had made a tol 
 erable hominy. But this was interspersed 
 with the joints of two or three squirrels, which 
 had been added. 
 
188 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 As soon as hag No. 2 had discovered that all 
 was cool enough, she ladled out from pot No. 
 2 a mass of the whole compound, and dis 
 tributed it in the several gourds and platters. 
 Then, and not till then, did hag No. 3 produce 
 several wooden and horn spoons, of various 
 shapes and sizes, and distribute them. Mary 
 was beside herself with eagerness to begin, and 
 was relieved from a certain fear which she had 
 had, that she could not take the hominy with 
 her fingers. There was no semblance on the 
 part of any one of waiting for a proper moment 
 to begin. As soon as a hag filled a gourd, its 
 possessor for the moment began to empty it. 
 Poor little Mary followed an example so excel 
 lent. She burned her mouth at first a little, 
 but this experiment gave her caution. "Is 
 there no salt, dear Auntie?" she said after a 
 minute. "None this side the Kentucky 
 licks, I am afraid, said Sarah, laughing. We 
 must thank God for hominy, and eat it without 
 salt." " But here are big peppercorns, Auntie, 
 if they only tasted like pepper." No; they 
 only simulated pepper in shape. They were 
 dried berries which had been puffed out by the 
 
EAST AND WEST. 189 
 
 hot water. In truth, they had lost any flavor 
 which they had had, in the drying. 
 
 The squirrels had been cut or torn to pieces 
 before they were put in the pot, and Mary had 
 no difficulty in managing them with her fingers, 
 expressing to her so-called aunt her wonder as 
 to what her mother would say, if she saw such 
 defiance of the decorous table habits of Essex 
 County. It seemed, however, that something 
 more was expected at the feast than these ele 
 ments provided. This something more ap 
 peared, after the joints of the squirrels had 
 been selected by one and another of the party, 
 when two of the hags, diving again in the first 
 pot with a fork made of wood, brought out in 
 triumph a fish which Sarah recognized as a 
 small catfish, such as she had herself more 
 than once cooked since they had been on the 
 river. In a moment more another was brought 
 forth from the same depths. There was little 
 talk of the methods of carving. So soon as 
 the fish were cool enough to eat, a smart blow 
 from a little hatchet divided each of them 
 into two parts, and the four halves thus 
 created were torn to pieces by the ready 
 
190 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 fingers of the darker members of the hungry 
 company. In the distribution, however, Sarah 
 and her younger friend were not neglected, 
 and large flakes of the fish were assigned 
 them. Before the feast was all over, even 
 the long summer twilight was over also, and 
 it was finished under such light as the flick 
 ering fire gave. Very little was said as it 
 went on. Whether what was said was appro 
 bation of the cooks or severe criticism Sarah 
 could not guess, so passionless was the tone of 
 the speakers. But when all was over, the va 
 rious dishes and gourds were taken by one and 
 another to the river, and roughly washed, and 
 then piled altogether upon the driftwood, well 
 up from the beach. The English-speaking 
 woman, if so she may be called, who had a vo 
 cabulary of perhaps twenty words of English, 
 then resumed her care of the two waifs who 
 had been flung upon the shore. She beckoned 
 Mary, and led Sarah to a certain tent, roughly 
 made of two buffalo robes stretched upon 
 branches of cottonwood, which our friends 
 had not seen before, hidden, as it were, by a 
 growth of willow trees, Two such tents had 
 
EAST AND WEST. 191 
 
 been pitched together there, and under the 
 shelter of that to which they were led, Mary 
 and Sarah lay down not unwillingly, finding 
 that they were in the hands of such a good 
 friend. The friend discovered another buifalo 
 robe, sadly worn, and not of the sweetest 
 smell, which she threw over them after they 
 lay down, in the same unsympathetic manner 
 which she had shown before. 
 
 " If she had been going to cut our throats," 
 wrote Sarah to her aunt afterward, "she could 
 not have been more melancholy about it. But 
 for rue, I was so tired I thanked her heartily, 
 hoping she understood some word I said, and 
 before you could say Jack Robinson, I was 
 asleep, and so was Mary." 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE two girls slept the sleep of the right 
 eous, with the advantage which the 
 righteous do not always have, that one of them 
 was but twenty years old, and the other was 
 hardly thirteen. It was with a struggle that 
 Sarah roused herself to consciousness, in the 
 gray of the morning indeed, when she could 
 hardly see though she had opened her eyes, 
 finding herself summoned by the English- 
 speaking member of the Shawnee party. This 
 woman then made a prompt gesture of silence, 
 which gave her to understand that the fewer 
 words spoken the better. The woman awak 
 ened Mary as soon as she saw Sarah was awake, 
 and in a whisper Sarah bade her to be as still 
 as she could be. In a moment they were both 
 upon their feet, and their guide silently led 
 them along the beach, on the other side of the 
 island from where they had been upset. Here, 
 in the gray morning light, to Sarah s infinite 
 
EAST AND WEST. 193 
 
 relief, they could see a canoe stranded. She 
 needed no solicitations, when her guide pointed 
 her where she was to sit. She placed Mary on 
 the seat, but did not enter the canoe herself till 
 she had helped the other to push it down the 
 sand, and it was afloat in the water. The girl 
 had herself rowed dories through the surf at 
 Marblehead, and would have had no trouble in 
 paddling the canoe, even had she been alone, 
 but she was not to be alone. Her silent 
 guide pushed the boat into the water, and 
 held it where the water was above her own 
 knees, and then, when she saw Sarah and Mary 
 both seated in the stern, entered it herself, so 
 dexterously that they were hardly aware of 
 any roll in the light craft, and then with her 
 own paddle steered off shore. She let the cur 
 rent carry her well by the island, then crossed 
 to the western or southern side, and in the eddy 
 which she found there worked up to the very 
 camp which the girls and Cephas Titcomb had 
 been trying to make when their unfortunate 
 accident befell them. The sky began to grow 
 red in the east, as she ran the canoe upon the 
 beach there, and pointed to the ark which lay a 
 
194 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 little way above. Then, without so much as 
 heeding Sarah 1 s good-bye, she entered her ca 
 noe as she had done before, paddled stoutly out 
 into the current, and permitted herself to drift 
 down to her island. She had made no attempt 
 to explain herself, and Sarah s eager expres 
 sions of gratitude to her seemed to fall un 
 heeded ; they were, perhaps, wholly unintel 
 ligible. For herself, Sarah Parris was more re 
 joiced than words could tell. With her charge 
 she walked along the sand to the ark, and as 
 she approached it, saw one of the men come 
 out, stretching himself and yawning, from a 
 little shelter which he had made for himself in 
 the cottonwood. He recognized her, having, 
 indeed, often seen her, in the hospitalities of 
 the voyage of the fleet, if it may be so called, 
 and, of course, asked her story, which was 
 quickly told. The other inmates of the ark 
 were called at once, even rather earlier than, 
 perhaps, they had expected ; a fire was soon 
 built upon the shore, and an early breakfast 
 made. With the skiff which this ark trailed 
 with her as a sort of tender, the two girls were 
 soon dispatched to their side of the river, and 
 
EAST AND WEST. 195 
 
 carried with them their own account of their 
 adventure. 
 
 u So, my dear aunt, all s well that ends 
 well." This is the end of the letter which 
 Sarah wrote to her aunt in the morning, as 
 they were waiting for the return of the two 
 boys. There was a certain anxiety lest these 
 boys might have fallen into the hands of the 
 hunting party, whose weaker side had rendered 
 the two girls the hospitalities of the night 
 before. As often as once in a quarter of an 
 hour a shot was fired, in the hopes that it 
 might call some response from them if they 
 were straggling in the woods, and once Mr. 
 Titcomb even loaded the little swivel which he 
 had upon the ark, and made it wake the echoes 
 of the banks on both sides. But the balance of 
 probabilities was in favor of the two stout boys, 
 who had been seen holding on by the canoe ; 
 and, in fact, before two o clock of the same 
 day, the boys presented themselves. They 
 had drifted down the river farther than they 
 expected before they had been able to make 
 the shore; then, in the morning, they had 
 made a visit, which had taken them more time 
 
196 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 than they liked, to what Mary insisted on 
 calling "the friendly island," but they had at 
 last escaped from the temptations of the sirens 
 there, and worked their way up to the encamp 
 ment of the party. This would have been done 
 much more quickly, had they known the 
 eddies and currents as well as did Sarah s 
 guide. 
 
 Everything was then refitted for the voyage 
 down the river, and we have now told "the 
 only adventure which was an adventure," as 
 Sarah wrote in her letter to her aunt, which 
 occurred before the party arrived in the mouth 
 of the Muskingum. The Ohio River, at this 
 point, sweeps down almost parallel with the 
 Muskingum, and then, after a sudden turn, 
 receives the addition made by that river. The 
 Titcombs knew the lay of the land well enough 
 to be on the look-out for the fort, and the great 
 helm of the ark brought her up to its landing. 
 The current of the Muskingum that day was 
 very strong, and the hour was late. Gen. 
 Harmar and the officers were cordial and hos 
 pitable, and begged the travellers to spend the 
 night within the barracks. But they could not 
 
EAST AND WEST. 197 
 
 bear to come so near the journey s end without 
 finishing it, and Mr. Titcomb excused himself 
 from accepting these hospitalities. He would 
 leave the ark, he said, to be carried across the 
 stream when he should find where she was to 
 lie ; but he borrowed one of the boats 
 of the garrison, and with his boys pad 
 dled the women of the party across and up to 
 the Marietta landing, carrying with them such 
 conveniences as they might need for the night. 
 And so, just as the sun went down, they found 
 themselves in their new home. It was a week 
 to a day since Harry Cur wen had for the last 
 time, landed at the same spot, and had walked 
 up to First Street, looking after the very 
 people who, in their turn, were now wondering 
 at all they saw. Every one asked first for Gen 
 eral Ruf us Putnam. That noble leader of the 
 p e0 ple_a man who showed himself equal to 
 the largest cares and concerns was called 
 upon, almost of course, for each smallest ser 
 vice, and was as ready in the one as he was 
 successful in the other. 
 
 At this moment he was in his own cabin, 
 with the members of his household around 
 
198 EAST AND WkSf. 
 
 him, at supper. To Mary s amusement, the 
 string, of which she had often heard, hung out 
 from an augur hole in the door, and when a 
 hearty "Come in!" answered her father s 
 knock, and he pulled at this string, the wooden 
 latch rose, and the door swung open. At a 
 long pine table, set on trestles, was a large 
 party of men and women. At the head was 
 Rufus Putnam, looking the leader that he was. 
 He was still in the prime of life tall, vigorous, 
 and handsome. In a moment he had sprung 
 from his seat and came forward cordially, but 
 he said at once, u I do not know you, do I ? " 
 The elder Titcomb laughed and said, " I know 
 you, General ; everybody knows you, but you 
 have not spoken to me since the day you sent 
 me, with a file of men, to burn the bridge over 
 Dobson s Creek, in Jersey. I don t know, 
 General, but I always thought that when you 
 turned away, you said to that Frenchman that 
 the ten of us were enough to be cut to pieces. 
 I was Sergeant Titcomb, that day, of the Nine 
 teenth Massachusetts ; now, I am plain Cephas 
 Titcomb, and I have come with my folks to see 
 
EAST AND WEST. 199 
 
 what kind of farming there is in the Mus- 
 kingum." 
 
 Rather to his surprise, General Putnam 
 seemed to care more for his name than for 
 the memory of Dobson s Creek, although he 
 perfectly well remembered the circumstance 
 of the bridge. The general confessed very 
 frankly that he probably said to the French 
 officer that the file of men which be sent were 
 enough to be cut to pieces. But now, with 
 a laugh, he was willing to say, "You under 
 stood your business so w r ell that we cut off 
 that whole cavalry troop, if you remember ; 
 and I think, Sergeant, that you were not 
 sergeant many days longer." At which rec 
 ollection of his promotion, the other smiled, 
 well pleased. But the conversation drifted at 
 once into matters of more immediate impor 
 tance. 
 
 "Your name is Titcomb ? " said General 
 Putnam, "Titcomb, and you are from New- 
 bury ? " Cephas replied that it was precisely 
 so. 
 
 " Who is it, who is it, who is here, who 
 
200 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 wants to see you?" said General Putnam. 
 "There was a man asking for you her6 yes 
 terday ; no, not yesterday, but not long ago. 
 Are there any Newbury people here whom 
 you know ? The Boyntons and their set 
 have moved up the river to Belpre." 
 
 Cephas Titcomb enumerated the various 
 Newbury families who would know him, and 
 the general again raked his memory, all filled 
 as it was with a thousand such details, to 
 recollect who had been asking for some Tit- 
 combs. 
 
 But, meanwhile, his women folk had asked 
 in the other women folk, had entreated them 
 hospitably, and made them lay aside their 
 wraps ; and stools and boxes and barrels had 
 been provided for them to sit upon. The men 
 of Putnam s household had moved away, 
 some with bits of bread and pork in their 
 hands, and some pretending their supper was 
 finished. Clean plates had been brought and 
 put upon the table, and, in spite of all protes 
 tations that they were not hungry, good Mrs. 
 Titcomb, Sarah, Mary, and the rest found them 
 selves seated at the amply provided table. No 
 
EAST AND WEST. 201 
 
 token here of the destitution or starvation of 
 new colonists. The different hospitalities were 
 pressed by Mrs. Putnam, who presided at the 
 table, and matters were going on with rapid 
 question and answer, as to the success of the 
 voyage. But Sarah could not listen to her, 
 and she was unable to answer the question as 
 to what she saw at Fort Pitt, because she 
 heard General Putnam say : 
 
 "I have it, Whitcomb; I know who was 
 asking after you. That queer fellow, Silas 
 Ransom, was the first man from the sea we 
 had here. You know him. He used to work 
 for Cabot, and went off afterward with one of 
 the Dodges. Queer fellow always knows 
 your business better than you do yourself 
 and is apt to tell you so. Well, he came here 
 in a dory a Marblehead dory" and the 
 general laughed at his joke. "He was sure 
 you were here. He took days to show 
 us all that you were here, and he said 
 none on us knew a cussed thing about our 
 own business. He s gone. John, where is 
 he?" 
 
 And John said that he believed Hansom 
 
202 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 and his companion were at Belpre, some 
 fifteen miles up the river. 
 
 "That is so," said the general. "Then 
 there was another man wanted to see you, and 
 asked about Miss Parris that I am sure of," 
 said the old soldier, bowing to Sarah. "He 
 came up from Fort Harmar. Titcomb, you 
 know the man; it was Harry Curwen. He is 
 a lieutenant in your Salem company. He 
 acted as aide to Yarnum two years ago at the 
 muster at Ipswich. I don t know whether 
 your company was there, but I saw him. We 
 had dinner together that day in my tent. A 
 nice manly looking fellow he is, though he is 
 of the old Tory stock. It was he that was 
 here, and he was asking after you." 
 
 "Asking after me?" said Cephas Titcomb. 
 " Why should any of the Curwens ask after 
 me ? My brother John, he see old Lisha Cur- 
 wen in London once when the war was over, 
 and he said that the old Tory sung pretty 
 small, and wished he was back in Essex again. 
 I guess they all do, General. I guess they d 
 rather be in your cabin here than feasting 
 with the king in his palace. But I never see 
 
EAST AND WEST. 203 
 
 any of the Curwens. They went their way 
 and I went mine. Why should any of the 
 Curwens ask after Cephas Titcomb?" 
 
 Sarah Parris listened with all her ears. But 
 the conversation refused to turn on the Cur 
 wens any more, and she found that the men 
 were talking of trees, and lumber, and saw 
 mills, and boat-building, while the women 
 were talking of Jersey tea, and drying berries, 
 and weaving, and spinning, and she was left 
 to wonder herself to sleep that night with the 
 question, " How could it be that Harry Cur- 
 wen should be talking to General Putnam 3" 
 and in wondering what had become of him. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SILAS RANSOM, in his disappointment, 
 had at first vented his rage on the igno 
 rance of the settlers around him. Then, in his 
 own good nature, he had gone to work to help 
 one and another in their gardening or build 
 ing, as he thought they needed. But this was 
 no life for his fancy. In a few days he felt 
 sure that Miss Sarah s delay was longer than 
 he had at first expected. He satisfied him 
 self that summer would be over before she 
 came, and that there would be no house ready 
 for her. He considered it his own business to 
 provide this house, and he looked round him 
 accordingly. 
 
 The city of Marietta now has comfortable 
 and happy homes for six or seven thousand 
 persons. It had then, perhaps, three hundred 
 in the same limits. But to them, and indeed 
 to Ransom, these seemed close and crowded 
 quarters. His general disposition compelled 
 
 804 
 
EAST AND WEST. 205 
 
 him to disapprove of what had been done by 
 persons who had not consulted him. And, in 
 his usual habit, he condemned the plan and 
 situation of Marietta pitilessly. "Miss Parris 
 ain t goin to live in none o these hog-pens. 
 Ain t used to no such places," he said. He 
 had, by this time, invented the fiction that she 
 had sent him in advance to take up land for 
 her and to build her a house ; that Mr. and 
 Mrs. Titcomb were the farmer and the farmer s 
 wife whom she had hired; and that, as they 
 were delayed, he must himself put the winter 
 grain and the turnips into the ground. He 
 thought he should also sow some buckwheat. 
 He was reticent in general, and only confided 
 these plans to favorite companions. But, after 
 the first days of his arrival, these were the 
 plans he worked upon. 
 
 A rumor that Newbury people were at 
 Belpre, some miles up the Muskingum, sent 
 him up to their settlement. After he had 
 come there he was never tempted to return. 
 He had not been able to buy even a small allot 
 ment at Marietta. But at Belpre and above, 
 he found "fresh fields and pastures new." 
 
206 EAST ATO) WEST. 
 
 The first settlers had taken up enormous 
 claims." Silas was wise enough to be satis 
 fied with a hundred acres of the best woodland 
 and meadow in the world. After walking 
 around the different new-created farms for a 
 day or two, sleeping under the sky where it 
 might happen, he proposed to Achitophel 
 Moody that he should sell to him these particu 
 lar acres. 
 
 The man could not conceal his amazement. 
 
 " Why don t you go further, Silas ?" said he. 
 
 " Coz uh should fare wus," replied Silas. 
 "No good talkin . A in t buyin fer merself. 
 Uh don t want no land. M buyin fer Miss 
 Parris. She sez to me, sez she, fifty acres of 
 meadow, Silas, n fifty of woodland. That s 
 enough, sez she. Ain t buyin fer merself. M 
 buyin fer her. No good talkin . Don t want 
 no land merself Gimme a deed. Go down 
 to old Put s, n I ll hand over yer money." 
 
 Achitophel of course declined. He lighted 
 his pipe. Silas refused tobacco, as he always 
 did. They sat and listened to the frogs, and 
 when darkness was absolute pulled each a 
 deerskin over him and slept on the hay. 
 
EAST AND WEST. 207 
 
 But after breakfast Achitophel approached 
 Silas, and renewed the talk of the evening. He 
 had received the counsel of Mrs. Moody in the 
 morning, and under her instructions attempted 
 to persuade Silas to advance his price. Silas 
 refused with storms, even with oaths. Achito 
 phel returned to his wife returned again to 
 the place where Silas was splitting shingles, 
 and closed the bargain. Silas counted out to 
 him in gold the price agreed upon, and it was 
 promised that the deed should be brought from 
 Marietta the first time they went down for 
 stores. 
 
 For Silas, he went to work at once, chopping 
 down trees and cutting logs. Here was none 
 of the easy cutting of pine trees with which his 
 boyhood was familiar. But he was now known 
 to be a man of means. One and another penni 
 less stranger was glad to "hire out to him." 
 Ten days saw logs enough of the right length 
 for a raising. The newly finished saw-mill 
 furnished slabs for a roof. Enos Breed was 
 kept to such toil as he had never dreamed 
 of. And so it was that, before five weeks were 
 passed, there was a habitable cabin, ten acres 
 
208 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 of prairie bad been in a fashion broken up, and 
 in other regards some beginnings had been 
 made. 
 
 Governed by some divine intelligence, or tired 
 of work pursued so long on one line, one Mon 
 day morning Silas appeared in the attire which 
 through July had been maturing into more and 
 more elegance with every "Sabbath Day." 
 His own needle, skilful for the finest work, 
 and those of the " wimmen-folk " of Bel- 
 pre, none of whom could resist his impetuosity 
 or assurance, had contributed to this result. 
 The Capuchin robe, which Enos had brought 
 from Ephrata, had furnished some of the 
 material, and the sutler s shops at Fort Pitt 
 and Fort Harmar the rest. Arrayed in his 
 new costume, Silas announced his intention of 
 going to Marietta. 
 
 "Bout time fer Miss Sarah V er people. 
 Shan t come back till they come. Always knew 
 they d come with the full moon. Moon fulls 
 to-night thet s time fer em. Shan t come 
 back till they come." 
 
 Then, with care, he took Mrs. Moody s com 
 missions and those of every hanger-on in the 
 
EAST AND WEST. 209 
 
 little settlement, and so, seating himself in his 
 beloved dory, trusted himself to the stream, 
 and pulled rapidly down. Once and again he 
 had to make a portage. But there were always 
 good-natured men at work not far from the 
 river, and the afternoon found him at the 
 landing. He fastened the boat and walked 
 up, as on that cruel day of his disappointment. 
 He looked right and left, with that determined 
 eye which was never deceived, and in less than 
 five minutes he had his great reward. 
 
 He turned into a rough inclosure, and 
 stepped upon the shaking boards which made 
 a trembling floor between two cabins, over 
 which one roof was formed. Here was a room 
 open to the air before and behind, but on two 
 sides shut in by log- walls. In this open space 
 was a young woman, playing with a child 
 whom she had on her knee. 
 
 "Here I be, Miss Sarah. I heerd you was 
 comin , n uh thought uh d come too n here 
 uhbe!" 
 
 Ten minutes before, Sarah Parris had been 
 the saddest girl west of the mountains. Every 
 body was as kind to her as they knew how to 
 
210 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 be, but everything was so different from home ! 
 There seemed no place for her in the settle 
 ment. Mr. Titcomb seemed ill at ease. 
 There was no place for him. He was off pro 
 specting. Mrs. Titcomb was visiting some 
 ISTewbury cousins. Sarah had made herself as 
 agreeable as she could with these people, in 
 whose crowded cabin she made one more. 
 Still, poor girl, she felt alone oh, so hor 
 ribly alone ! She cried, she shed tears, in 
 spite of her resolution. Then she called her 
 self a fool, found this child, and came out of 
 the crowded cabin to play with her. 
 
 And now here was Silas ! Here was a bit 
 of home ! And poor Sarah was in heaven. 
 
 And so ifc proved that Silas Ransom, in his 
 helter-skelter, reckless way, directed the for 
 tunes of the serious and forward-looking 
 Cephas Titcomb and his family. " Come, see 
 Miss Sarah s place before you settle." This 
 was Silas s steady advice, or command, when 
 ever Titcomb was called to one opening or 
 another, by the land-agents who besieged 
 every newcomer. And the end was as he 
 
EAST AND WEST. 211 
 
 expected and determined. It was farther 
 from the Ohio than Titcomb had proposed. 
 It was farther than was prudent. But a be 
 ginning had been made there. There was a 
 place for the women. Titcomb went and was 
 tempted. Miriam and Sarah went and were 
 delighted. And to that charming valley, 
 where Silas had Miss Sarah s cabin almost 
 ready for her, the Titcomb company went. 
 Here Cephas Titcomb bought his land, and 
 on this land his descendants live to this day. 
 
CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 A NOVELIST of the architectural or con 
 structive vein could make for us a story 
 of those cabins as they rose. Some of the com 
 panions of the Titcomb family determined " on 
 the whole " to remain with their chief through 
 the winter; though to people who understand 
 the New Englander it need not be said that 
 no man had bound himself no, not for an 
 l lour to do anything, or to be anywhere in 
 the future. But, "on the whole" again, it 
 "seemed as if they might as well" stay with 
 him. And the sturdy men who had helped to 
 build the ark began the work of erecting the 
 cabins. None of them were afraid of work not 
 a man, woman or child. The women did not ply 
 the axe, except to split wood ; but the men did, 
 and the boys did. Silas s choice Hobson s 
 choice and Titcomb s choice together, had re 
 sulted in their being near one of the groves 
 which distinguished the Ohio prairies from 
 
 212 
 
EAST AND WEST. 213 
 
 those further west. And it was not long be 
 fore logs enough were cut to make the walls of 
 their cabins high enougli for any man who 
 would enter through the door, " We ll make 
 them seven foot in the clear," said Cephas 
 Titcomb, with a grim humor, "lest any of 
 them big Virginny men they tell on want to 
 come in and make us a visit. They shan t 
 have to duck their heads because they come 
 into our cabins." 
 
 The little saw-mill on the river was heavily 
 pressed by the different settlers, but still a few 
 planks were floated up for use in the floor, and 
 for making doors and tables. Cephas went so 
 far as to rig a saw-pit, much to the grief of the 
 boys and young men who occasionally had to 
 work in it ; but this work was avoided by 
 every device, and the simpler power of the 
 stream was made to take its place. The days 
 were growing shorter, and at their very best 
 they seemed only too short to the industrious 
 workmen and work- women. " You re all as 
 hungry as bears three times a day," said 
 Mrs. Titcomb good-naturedly, as her working 
 party came into the little cabin which Silas 
 
214 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 had built for Miss Sarah, and which bore 
 her name. 
 
 The reader understands, of course, that one 
 and the same room was hall of entrance, 
 kitchen, sitting-room, best room, and bedroom. 
 At one end an immense fireplace, of logs cov 
 ered thick with clay, opened an immense 
 chimney to the sky. It never really hap 
 pened that logs were hauled into the cabin 
 by the horses, but they were rolled up by 
 crowbars, and lifted to their places by the 
 joined force of two or three men. A fire once 
 made held to its work through the day and 
 evening, never went out indeed ; and, as the 
 great logs burned, the women threw in light 
 stuff, enough to give the blaze or special heat 
 which they required, when a pot was to be 
 " brought to a boil," or when a turkey was to 
 be roasted. For food there was constant stock 
 of what we call prairie hens, until the family 
 tired of the frequent luxury. There were as 
 many turkeys as people would eat. The 
 gardens of Marietta, as autumn drew on, 
 furnished already the white beans, which 
 replaced those which Mrs. Titcomb had taken 
 
EAST AND WEST. 
 
 from the bags so carefully brought from New 
 England. The Marietta farms had also pro 
 duced enough Indian meal to carry them 
 through the winter. They ground this in 
 hand-mills, from time to time, as they needed 
 it. If anybody complained of salt pork he 
 was told to take his gun into the woods and 
 bring in a deer or a bear, and there was no 
 difficulty in supplying the demand. It was 
 clear enough that they were not to die of 
 hunger that winter. 
 
 At first there was no lack of society. Al 
 most every day there would be a messenger 
 sent down to the town for this or that which 
 had been forgotten, or which was needed in 
 building. But this changed as autumn came 
 on. They were themselves almost the last of 
 the settlers of that summer who came up the 
 Muskingum. At first, from time to time, one 
 or another adventurer going farther, or one or 
 another surveyor returning, stopped for their 
 hospitality at night, or at breakfast, at dinner, 
 or at supper. But such occasions became 
 more and more rare as October closed in, and 
 now it would happen that, for a week at a 
 
216 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 time, no one spoke to them from outside their 
 company. It might happen that an Indian 
 tramp came to their door, and gave an unin 
 telligible indication that he was present and 
 wanted something to eat. They already knew 
 that the presence of an Indian meant that he 
 was hungry. These lords of the soil had 
 established a certain ground-rent shall we 
 sa y? by which the new occupants were noti 
 fied from time to time that they were not orig 
 inal possessors. There was not a woman, and 
 there was hardly a man, who would have 
 dared refuse the application thus made. And 
 if a great Shawnee hunter did appear, Mrs. 
 Titcomb and Sarah had learned, before the 
 winter had come on, not to be afraid of him. 
 They knew that, like all other men, he was 
 hungry, and they knew that he expected to 
 be fed. They knew that he would be quite 
 indifferent as to knife or fork, but they knew 
 he would eat more than they had conceived it 
 possible for a human being to eat when they 
 left home. 
 
 *On the other hand, they were not particular 
 as to what they gave him. If there were hard 
 
EAST AND WEST. 217 
 
 and dry johnny cakes laid aside, they were 
 good enough for Indians ; if there were only 
 hominy half cooked in the pot it was good 
 enough for Indians ; if there were salt pork 
 not yet boiled or fried, it was good enough for 
 Indians ; and they had no experience of any 
 warrior or hunter refusing anything that was 
 set before him. If the man wanted to spend 
 the night, a buffalo skin was given him and he 
 spread it where he chose. No salutes were 
 exchanged on the arrival of such guests, and 
 none when they departed. 
 
 Sarah Parris wondered with herself some 
 times, especially when the quiet Sunday came, 
 with an opportunity to look in upon herself a 
 little, that she was so entirely satisfied with 
 the life that she was living. There was no 
 writing in a journal, there was no committing 
 to memory of Mr. Cowper s poems, or Mr. 
 Young s sentimentalities ; there was no chat 
 tering with other girls of her own age ; there 
 was no adorning of dresses or matching of 
 ribbons ; there was absolutely nothing of the 
 life which had interested her only a year ago. 
 And yet, as she said to herself again and again, 
 
218 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 she was happier and stronger ; indeed, in 
 every sense she was better than she was in 
 Salem. Sometimes, when she was in a mood 
 for analysis, she said to herself it was because 
 she was of more use ; sometimes, she said it 
 was because she dealt more with the realities 
 of things. Sometimes, she tried to persuade 
 herself it was because she was in the open air. 
 Sometimes, in her reverential moods, she said 
 she was nearer God under his sky than she 
 was in a lighted dancing room, or in an elegant 
 parlor. Of a rainy Sunday she would bring 
 out from her little chest one or another of her 
 books, and try to read, as she knew she would 
 have read in her pretty room at Mrs. Whit 
 man s, if she were in Salem, and there were a 
 storm. Sometimes she did read, but she was 
 well aware that she was not interested in any 
 book, as she had been when there was less to 
 interest outside. She even wished sometimes 
 that she had the writing of the book herself, 
 and felt that she could come nearer to what 
 she called the " true thing," once, when she 
 was trying to make Mrs. Titcomb understand 
 her, than these stately English writers in whom 
 
EAST AND WEST. 219 
 
 she had been so much interested while she was 
 at home. The truth was that in the six months 
 which the girl had spent in measuring herself 
 against other people and against the world, 
 she had advanced in life as she had not done 
 in five years before. Her soul was a larger 
 soul, her mind was a larger mind, even as her 
 body was a different body. And as she sat, 
 one day, cutting to pieces one of the dresses 
 which she had brought out for the winter, so 
 that she might be able to put it on, she said to 
 herself what she dared not say to Mrs. Tit- 
 comb that she believed that she had grown as 
 much in other ways, as she was sure she had 
 gained in the length of the belt she wore. 
 
 They were all happy because it did not occur 
 to them that they were happy. They had not 
 time to ask themselves the question whether 
 they enjoyed their lives, and the first conse 
 quence was, that they had " the joy of event 
 ful living," and all lived as if they had never 
 lived before. So passed October and so, with 
 an occasional frost now, the glorious Indian 
 summer of November came in. 
 
 It was then that Cephas Titcomb for the first 
 
220 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 time began to feel any distrust of the Shaw- 
 nees. But he did doubt now whether he had 
 been wise in giving way to Ransom s impulses, 
 and in planting his family on the very out- 
 skirts of the Massachusetts settlement. 
 
 Poor Ransom himself was the first to suffer 
 from the results of his own decision. Through 
 the summer* and autumn his faculty of a Jack- 
 of-all-trades had been most happily exercised. 
 He was a carpenter, though not a master-car 
 penter ; he could plough, though he hated to 
 do so ; he milked well enough, but considered 
 milking to be work for women. He could wash 
 out a gun and put the lock in order, but he 
 would rather do this than shoot a deer. But 
 over all deficiencies, his sovereign good-humor 
 and readiness to serve those he loved made him 
 a happy master of the situation. His natural 
 restlessness was sufficiently gratified by this 
 varied experience of a frontiersman s life, and 
 he had the real satisfaction of feeling that he 
 was lifting from Miss Sarah some burdens 
 which she would have been obliged to bear, 
 and relieving her from many inconveniences. 
 
 It was when November was well advanced 
 
EAST AND WEST. 221 
 
 that, late at night, a message came in from the 
 settlers at Big Bottom that there was a war- 
 party of Shawnees somewhere they could not 
 say where. The messenger came for powder, 
 for he said the young |nen were afraid they 
 might need to use more than they had. Cephas 
 Titcomb s supply was quite too small to answer 
 the full requisition, but he promised to send 
 up all the horns they could fill, advising the 
 messenger to press on to Marietta. Young 
 Putnam, General Rufus Putnam s son, was one 
 of the Big Bottom party. 
 
 Silas Ransom, who was no soldier, and who 
 did not pretend to be one, offered to carry the 
 powder-horns so soon as they were rilled and 
 corked. Fastening them well together, he 
 slung them by a double cord around his neck, 
 and then fastened the cord, so that it need not 
 swing, by a belt around his waist. Heavily 
 laden thus, he pulled up the stream in his 
 boat, under the light of a moon in its third 
 quarter, fastened the boat, and carefully 
 pushed up a trail which the cattle had made 
 when they came and went for water. He heard 
 no sound but the howling of wolves, nor <Jj<J 
 
222 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 he expect to. He knew, however, that he 
 should find a sentry when he passed into the 
 clearing. 
 
 As he paused a sickening smell swept down 
 on him, and a cloud of smoke, which had a 
 weird look in the moonlight, was all that he 
 could see when he looked for the block-house. 
 He knew the place perfectly. He had been 
 there only the month before. And now, the 
 srnoke-cloud was all. 
 
 Hardly had their messenger left them, when 
 the little company, secure for the moment, had 
 gathered for supper. Even their dogs followed 
 tli em, unobserved, to take their chances for the 
 meal. As they gathered round the great fire, 
 the door was thrown open, and one and another 
 were shot down in the house before they could 
 seize their arms. Mrs. Meeks, the wife of one 
 of the hunters, seized an axe and cut down an 
 Indian as he entered the room. But a blow 
 from a tomahawk took fatal revenge. In less 
 than ten minutes the little company of whites 
 were dead, excepting one boy, whom the Shaw^ 
 nees took into captivity. At once the logs of 
 the hastily-built house were tumbled on their 
 
EAST AND WEST. 223 
 
 bodies, and fire was set to the whole. It was 
 to see this fire that poor Ransom had come, 
 and to know that his succor was too late. 
 
 For himself the good fellow had now to pro 
 vide. He did not dare to draw near to the 
 smoking mass. An occasional outburst of 
 flame might have made him a mark only too 
 good for some Indian scout, perhaps still 
 watching the carnage. Yet he did not care to 
 return without more tidings. Coolly trusting 
 himself to the Providence in which, without 
 ever speaking of it, he always did rely, and 
 upon a certain destiny of his own, on which, 
 like all great leaders, he relied always, and of 
 which he did speak sometimes, he wrapped 
 himself in his blanket, pulled down upon him 
 self the corn-stalks of a great mass, which 
 were now all that was left of young Putnam s 
 harvest, and slept the sleep of the righteous 
 until morning. 
 
 When he waked, he thought, as well he 
 might, that he was in the cornfield at Miss 
 Sarah s, as he fondly called the whole estab 
 lishment which he had left the night before. 
 But a sickening smell in the air, and, as soon as 
 
224 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 he stood erect, a puff of smoke in the sky, re 
 minded him of the horrible surprise of the last 
 evening. He walked round the ruin, to learn 
 little more than he had guessed before. A 
 howling dog welcomed some one who spoke 
 kindly to him, and followed Ransom in his 
 explorations. But it was clear that the blow 
 had been sudden and severe that there was 
 no poor wretch who had escaped. In fact, 
 the boy, named Stacy, who was taken prisoner 
 by the Indians, was the only survivor of this 
 horrible massacre. And he was already far 
 away with his captors. 
 
 With a story so sad as this, Ransom had to 
 return to Miss Sarah and her friends. And 
 with the certainty of such dangers their winter 
 began. 
 
CHAPTER XY. 
 
 WE must go back to Lieutenant Henry 
 Curwen. He was learning, as these 
 months went by, that the service of his country 
 was not always to bring him nearer to the girl he 
 loved. That first sad day, when he made sure 
 that no one in Marietta had heard of any Tit- 
 comb party, or expected them, he had come 
 back, in poor enough spirits, to his pack- 
 saddles, his homesick friend Clendenin, to 
 Count Zapoly, and to General Harmar s hospi 
 tality. 
 
 After dinner, General Harmar showed to 
 him the orders which he had brought. In sub 
 stance, they directed Harmar to withdraw all 
 the efficient force that he could from Fort 
 Harmar and thus to strengthen the new post 
 at Fort Washington. He was at the same time 
 left to his own discretion as to a movement in 
 force against the Shawnees. General Knox 
 still hoped, and the President hoped, that the 
 
 225 
 
226 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 Indian chiefs would see the folly of war with 
 the United States, and that before the arrival 
 of the dispatches they might be peacefully en 
 gaged in the easy business of hoeing their sum 
 mer crops of corn. But General Harmarsaid, 
 what Curwen had already learned in substance 
 at Marietta, that they were more insolent than 
 ever. His own wish had been to do all but 
 dismantle the fort in which he was, and to 
 make arrangements for a campaign. Now that 
 he had full permission, he should do this 
 immediately. 
 
 " So if you gentlemen have seen all you want 
 of the Campus Martius," he said in conclu 
 sion, "you need not take a comb, nor a 
 biscuit, nor a cartridge from your boat. You 
 may go on board at gun fire to-morrow morn 
 ing, and work your way down to Fort Wash 
 ington, and tell them to look out for me, and 
 to be sure that I do not pass them in the 
 night." And at his own little joke he laughed 
 heartily. 
 
 Curwen joined ruefully in the laugh ; Zapoly 
 joined more heartily, without the slightest 
 understanding of what the joke was. Such is 
 
EAST AND WEST. 227 
 
 the necessity, alas ! of those who are forced to 
 converse in languages that they do not under 
 stand. To poor Harry, who had come by a zig 
 zag route more than a thousand miles to see 
 the woman he loved, it was a wretched blow 
 which fell in the announcement that he was to 
 go two hundred miles more directly away from 
 the only hope he had of seeing her. But he 
 knew too well the place of a young officer- 
 indeed, he was governed too much by the feel 
 ing of respect to a man in every way his 
 superior, to venture on any vigorous protest. 
 All he could say was that he would go as soon 
 as the general thought best, but that he had 
 carelessly made some arrangements in the new 
 city, and that he must send his servant over to 
 cancel them. So unused was he to life in 
 camps that he was amazed when the good- 
 natured general replied : 
 
 "Cancel them? Don t think of cancelling 
 them. We are not so hard pressed as that. 
 Oh, no, lieutenant ; a day more or less is 
 nothing I mean a day of your arrival for, to 
 tell the truth, I shall not break up here for a 
 fortnight or more, and as Bob Kidd said when 
 
228 EAST AND AVEST. 
 
 they hanged him, there will be no fun until I 
 come. Oh, no, my dear young friend, we are 
 in no such hurry as that. Only, as your boat 
 is all ready, and I have nothing half so swift 
 as she, I thought you had better take my com 
 mands yonder Wednesday, Friday, when yon 
 will only take care I do not pass you on a 
 flood some day. I can tell you that, when 
 there is a freshet, a fleet of arks makes speed 
 which would have frightened Shem and 
 Japhet." 
 
 And he laughed good-naturedly again. 
 Harry Cur wen was half frightened at his own 
 success. He did not dare presume upon it. 
 He said modestly that he would take care that 
 no one passed him on the way, and retired 
 early to the room which had been assigned to 
 him and Zapoly. Here he summoned Clen- 
 denin, and gave him his orders for the next 
 day. 
 
 And the next day he and Clendenin crossed 
 to the new town again, and then, in a canoe, 
 worked their way up to see those Boyntons 
 from Newbury, who, it was thought, might 
 know something of the Titcombs. But they, 
 
EAST AND WEST. 229 
 
 while they knew people of that name in New- 
 bury, had not had tidings of their removal. In 
 a similar fruitless search the next day was 
 spent. And on the fourth day, from mere 
 pride, the young officer had to give up this 
 inquiry, which he could not explain either to 
 Harmar, to Zapoly, or to Clendenin ; and as 
 soon as his awkward squad was released from 
 the school of the soldier in the morning, he 
 ordered them on board the barge, and took up 
 the voyage, now so odious to him, to the fort 
 newly established, where we now see the city 
 of Cincinnati. 
 
 And now he was to spend months there, on 
 duties wholly new to him, among compan 
 ions every one of whom would have been a 
 study, were the young man one of the critical 
 or speculative kind. Kentucky militiamen 
 came in from time to time. At least, they 
 succeeded in eating Uncle Sam s rations, 
 though the officers on Uncle Sam s regular 
 line looked very doubtfully on their perform 
 ances. Queerly enough, these men had none 
 of the skill of the rifle for which the ideal 
 Kentuckian was even then famous. Zapoly, 
 
230 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 who watched their manual of arms, declared 
 they did not know one end of the gun from 
 the other. 
 
 The famous pack-saddles, to the construc 
 tion of which Curwen had given so much time 
 in Pennsylvania, proved to be absurdly large, 
 when the Indian horses were brought in upon 
 which they were to be used. " They are big 
 enough for elephants," said the officer who re 
 ceived them, and poor Curwen had to stand 
 chaff untold, because he had carelessly re 
 vealed his own share in their manufacture. 
 He brought his own Yankee skill to bear, how 
 ever, in the plans for reconstructing them, and 
 was author of an ingenious method of refill 
 ing them, which made them useful with the 
 little "tackles" which were to carry them. 
 Indeed, everybody, except the poor martinet, 
 Zapoly, put his hand to forty things a day. 
 " I clean my boots, I wash my shirts, I sew on 
 my buttons, I drill my men, I scold them, I 
 praise them, I pack biscuits, I approve bills 
 for hay, I fish for catfish, I salt pork, I hoop 
 casks, I write dispatches, I sit on court-martial 
 I do everything which becomes a man, from 
 
EAST AND WEST. 231 
 
 Swaggering around as if I were a commander 
 to concealing the hole in my hat by an extra 
 large cockade." Thus wrote Curwen to young 
 Crowninshield, a college friend whom he left 
 at home. 
 
 At last, even the fastidious Harmar agreed 
 that they were ready to march. High time, it 
 seemed to Harry, to Zapoly, and most of the 
 young officers. Women came in daily to the 
 fort with their children, from cabins not thirty 
 miles away, frightened by tales of other cabins 
 burned and other women murdered. From 
 beyond this line of settlements, or of places 
 proposed as settlements, more serious rumors 
 came of such a concentration of Indian forces 
 as had not been made for years. In all such 
 rumors there \vas the certainty behind that the 
 English troops from Canada supplied powder, 
 lead, flints, and guns to the savages. There 
 was no hope that they would not be equipped 
 quite as well as Harmar s own forces. Why 
 he would wait for a dozen more recruits, or for 
 a few more pack-saddles, was a problem which 
 the younger officers could not solve. And all 
 were delighted indeed, when lie at last per- 
 
232 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 mitted two or three companies of his Kentucky 
 recruits to march northward up the valley and 
 feel the force which was said to be gathering. 
 
 For Harry Curwen himself, he had not much 
 enthusiasm about the enterprise which fol 
 lowed. To leave barrack and fort ! yes, that 
 was what they all longed for. The weather 
 was delightful, the autumn just coming on, 
 and the ride through forests and across prairies 
 was all that one could wish. But he knew all 
 the deficiencies in men and equipment ; an aide 
 does. He knew everything which had been 
 done wrong, and it was hard for him to think 
 that, of a sudden, on some day of battle, every 
 thing would go right. With the privates, and 
 even with Zapoly, it was different. The count, 
 as they all called Zapoly, had amused himself 
 by shooting, and sometimes by fishing. He 
 was delighted at last to have an opportunity 
 to exercise his own profession. 
 
 To lounge along about ten or fifteen miles a 
 day, in weather generally perfect this was 
 the regular movement of the first three weeks 
 of the campaign. If the woods left only a 
 beaten trail talk was difficult, but often the 
 
EAST AND WEST. 233 
 
 prairies opened, so that the officers could chat 
 together, side by side, as the horses walked 
 slowly on. Most of the command was on foot, 
 and it was impossible to exceed their rate in a 
 day s march. At night there was but little fuss 
 about an encampment. The whole force was 
 hardly fifteen hundred men, most of whom 
 were used to frontier life. A few tents were 
 set up for headquarters, if it were convenient. 
 For the rest, there was always wood enough 
 for a camp-fire, and the men slept in their 
 blankets, under trees or in the open air as 
 might happen. 
 
 Zapoly, the count, was delighted. His dream 
 had accomplished itself as he had no right to 
 hope it would. He attached himself to every 
 scouting party, though it were sent out for the 
 most insignificant purpose. The rough and 
 simple Kentuckians were amused by his elab 
 orate artificial arrangements for the campaign, 
 and by the very limited range of his vocabulary. 
 But once and again General Harmar found him 
 of use in interpreting with the French coureurs 
 au bois, of whom more than one was with the 
 party, who were really much better acquainted 
 
234 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 with the homes and trails of the enemy than 
 were any of his Kentuckians. The Ohio set 
 tlers had none of them been in the territory 
 more than three years, and Harmar himself 
 knew it as well as they did, which means that 
 he did not know it at all. 
 
 Coming back from one of these expeditions 
 on a rainy afternoon, Zapoly reported that 
 the war was assuming gigantic proportions. 
 "Dudder day wot you call him hier we 
 did burn cinquante wot you call him fifty 
 corns wot you call him cobs corn aujourd - 
 hui to-day we burn deux cents wot you 
 call him doo hunder." 
 
 The truth was that the business of the expe 
 dition was to destroy the villages of the Shaw- 
 nees inside or eastward of the line of the two 
 Miamis. Some treaty or agreement or general 
 theory that it would be best to push all the 
 Indians west of that line governed the policy 
 of the new-born nation. Now, the territory 
 involved is two-thirds, more or less, of the 
 present State of Ohio. It includes some of the 
 most remarkable farming lands in the world. 
 There are bottom lands there which have 
 
EAST AND WEST. 235 
 
 yielded unparalleled crops of Indian corn from 
 that day to this, in the century which has 
 elapsed, without a spadeful of manure. " Mad 
 Anthony," who knew Pennsylvania farming, 
 when he saw the country and its Indian corn- 
 iields, said that he had never seen such fields 
 of corn in his life. It was not, then, very 
 wonderful that the Indians who were in posses 
 sion did not abdicate very quickly, when some 
 body somewhere said that it would be desirable 
 that they should. And this expedition, on 
 which our friends were engaged, was intended 
 to convince them, by the destruction of their 
 crops, lodges, and villages, that it would be 
 for their best interest to do so. 
 
 As Zapoly made his bilingual announcement 
 of victory, he opened his haversack, in which 
 he had brought what he called les articles de 
 luxe, which every day he collected for the mu 
 seums of the curious in Europe. A queer set 
 he had by this time now a horn spoon, now a 
 cunningly carved shell from the Ohio, now a 
 wampum belt, with other matters of native 
 art. This time he held up a necklace of shells 
 and showed it to Curwen. "Voila 3 mon ami 
 
236 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 regardez it is new, it is sehr wunderlich 
 mon ami, voila! Dem shells, mon ami, regar 
 dez sont des coquilles maritimes what you 
 call them ? Shells of the marine ? de 1 ocean 
 ocean, mon ami, ils ne sont pas des coquilles 
 de la riviere. No, no, not shells from de 
 brook de la Belle Riviere Ohio." 
 
 Sure enough, to any one s eye, the necklace 
 was of seashells. To Curwen, however, it had 
 quite another interest. It was clearly the 
 work of civilized artificers. And the moment 
 that he took it in his hand he recognized the 
 workmanship. He eagerly showed the clasp 
 to Zapoly, and told him in French, which he 
 now spoke sufficiently well, that not many 
 months before he had had that necklace in 
 his hand. In truth, it was made from South 
 American shells, by some Dutch workman in 
 Paramaribo. It had been bought by one of the 
 Salem captains, and given by his wife to Sarah 
 Parris as a present. She had worn it one even 
 ing at a dance, and the clasp had broken. 
 Harry Curwen had put it in his pocket, and 
 had carried it the next day to the jeweler, who 
 Jiad mended it. All this he rapidly explained 
 
EAST AND WEST. 237 
 
 to the other, and confirmed what he said by 
 opening the clasp, and showing on a little 
 smooth place the letters, " S. P. from J. L." 
 
 "Now what devil brought it to this wilder 
 ness ? " said the young man, more eagerly ex 
 cited than Zapoly had ever seen him. 
 
 Of course, there was no answer. The scouts 
 had found two wretched cabins of bark from 
 which the inmates had fled. They had ap 
 parently not so much as known that a war was 
 in progress. Clearly they had not hurried 
 themselves in the harvesting of their corn, most 
 of which was in the field. A few bushels, as 
 Zapoly had said, were piled not husked by the 
 cabin. These the scouts had taken for the use 
 of the army. While the men were packing it, 
 he, as his wont was, had been hunting for 
 curiosities. It never occurred to the accom 
 plished nobleman that he was doing what a 
 man would be hanged for, should such 
 a man be found rifling his mother s castle 
 on the Danube in her absence. Under a 
 pile of leaves, which seemed to him not 
 normal, he had found quite a "cache" of 
 domestic implements, and under these, neatly 
 
238 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 wrapped in cornhusks, was the necklace in 
 question. How under the heavens had it come 
 there? This question, in one and another 
 form, spoken aloud or only whispered to him 
 self, accompanied Harry Curwen for days. 
 
 But, the very next night, events occurred, 
 which prevented Harry himself from going to 
 the place where Zapoly had found these relics, 
 to see if he could not meet the Indians who had 
 left them there. Col. Trotter had been ordered 
 out with a large reconnoitring party, and had 
 marched but a few miles when his advance 
 overtook and killed two of the Indians. By 
 one of their shots one of his own men was 
 wounded. For some reason or other, the whole_ 
 party at once returned, as reconnoitring parties 
 will ; Col. Gordon, a Kentucky officer, was dis 
 gusted and marched off the same men to re 
 cover the lost laurels. The men went unwill 
 ingly enough, and from the number of strag 
 glers who came back, it was clear to Harry and 
 his friend that they had no stomach for the 
 hght. But Harmar would not let these two 
 accompany the expedition, telling them that he 
 should have more work for them at home. 
 
EAST AND WEST. 239 
 
 Sure enough, indeed, before the next evening, 
 the whole body of the Kentuckians came run 
 ning back into camp ; and when Gordon him 
 self appeared, dejected and angry, it seemed 
 that all the thirty regulars that he had with 
 him, had been cut to pieces. When, weeks 
 after, a muster of the militiamen took place, it 
 proved that they had all found their way back 
 to Fort Washington. All this showed that war 
 had begun ; and, indeed, they were approach 
 ing what well might be called villages, and 
 passing along by the magnificent cornfields 
 such as have been described. Everything 
 that could be of use was burned, but the 
 scouts brought in such accounts of the gather 
 ing of the clans, as might have been brought 
 in had a great army of Napoleon s been ad 
 vancing. 
 
 And Harmar himself was affected by reports 
 so terrible. He came as far as what he 
 chose to call the capital of the Miami towns 
 and burned that ; he destroyed some twenty 
 thousand bushels of corn, he thought, and 
 then ordered a retreat. If he had not ordered 
 it, the greater part of his men would have 
 
240 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 gone back without orders. But this was not 
 the end. After two or three days of this ex 
 citing, disgusting, provoking work, when they 
 were eight miles back on their way to Fort 
 Washington, it seemed to Harmar that he 
 must recover some reputation if he could ; 
 and he therefore ordered, from his very best 
 force, parties, amounting to four hundred men, 
 to go back to the ruins of the town, thinking 
 to find there the savages assembled around 
 what there was left. With this party were 
 Zapoly and Curwen. They marched about 
 midnight, having been divided into different 
 parties in the hope of entrapping a consider 
 able number of the Indians together. This 
 scientific plan was, unfortunately, all unfit for 
 the woods, and the result was, in brief, that 
 every division had to fight the enemy alone, 
 and the end of it was a virtual massacre. For 
 some two hundred men were killed and 
 wounded, or carried into captivity, by the 
 Indians. On the extreme right wing had been 
 Harry and Clendenin with Zapoly. 
 
 This is no place to describe the miserable 
 carnage which followed. Little does the tra- 
 
EAST AND WEST. 241 
 
 veller of to day, who takes a cnp of coffee at 
 Fort Wayne or changes a train there, under 
 stand or, indeed, remember of the intricacies 
 of what happened there a century ago. 
 Enough that each wing of the little company, 
 finding little opposition, pushed too far. The 
 centre, unsupported, met the whole force of 
 the savages. The troops at last broke and 
 fled several miles. It was not until the St. 
 Joseph River parted pursuers and pursued, 
 that the whites made a rally. Thus was it 
 that when Curwen and a few men, who had 
 been detached on the extreme right, returned, 
 they found no Major Wyllys to report to. 
 The army had fled, and between Curwen and 
 his command were the triumphant savages. 
 
 Thus cut off from his own general, and from 
 any possibility of rendering assistance, Harry 
 saw that he must find his way back to the 
 Ohio, if he could, by his own resources. 
 Zapoly, brave enough, was utterly confused. 
 He was no woodsman, and, as Harry said 
 afterward, did not know his right hand from 
 his left. Clendenin had the instincts of a 
 Western scout, and useful these proved in the 
 
242 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 days which followed ; but he knew nothing of 
 the country in which he was, and was even 
 confused, in ways which Harry could not un 
 derstand, by the vegetation, the flow of the 
 streams, and everything which ought to teach 
 the way, but which varied strangely from 
 what the boy was used to in the valley of the 
 Alleghany Mountains. Poor Harry Curwen 
 had to exercise his own "horse sense" if he 
 were to get home at all, and in that country he 
 had two difficulties. A heavy mist or cloud, 
 which seemed like smoke almost, hung over 
 the whole sky for days, and made it difficult 
 to see where was the sun in the heavens. If 
 it did not rain, there was fog or smoke, so 
 thick that one could not make out north or 
 south unless he had a compass. 
 
 The boy was wholly unused to the prairies, 
 and was worse off than he would have been 
 at sea. He was equally unused to Western 
 forests, and while he had some knack as a 
 woodsman in New Hampshire or Maine, he 
 did not know the indications which surrounded 
 him in Ohio. By some wretched misfortune, 
 they had all gone out from camp in the morn- 
 
EAST AND WEST. 24B 
 
 ing without the ordinary pocket compass, 
 which every surveyor carried in those days. 
 And now they had to work home to the Ohio 
 by such indications as nature and nature s 
 God would give them. The traveller who flies 
 across at the rate of forty miles an hour, sleep 
 ing as he rides, perhaps, does not well or easily 
 imagine what the journey was. As the bird 
 flies, it is two hundred miles. As these poor 
 fellows had to march oh, how much more ! 
 
 His whole party was but six men. Of the 
 privates of the party, there was no man of the 
 type of which novelists have made their path 
 finders. One of them was one of the boat- 
 builders whom Harry Curwen had brought 
 with him. One of them was a wagoner from 
 Pennsylvania, who had been enlisted at Fort 
 Pitt when he was too drunk to know what he 
 was doing. One, who was called a Kentucky 
 militiaman, was, in fact, a Scotch gardener, who 
 had been exploring the West for new plants, 
 at the charge of some English botanists, had 
 found that his remittances did not follow him, 
 and had enlisted for better or for worse. 
 Zapoly, as has been said, was as ignorant of 
 
244 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 woodcraft as a child. Harry found himself, 
 in fact as in name, the leader of the party, with 
 absolutely no knowledge of the methods of 
 woodfaring life in that region, or of the con 
 dition of the country or of the climate. 
 
 All that he knew was that he must work to 
 the southeast with no compass. He knew that 
 the streams now near him flowed, for their 
 general course, north and northeast, and, so 
 far, he had a vague clew. But once and again 
 he had reason to distrust it. From day to 
 day, of course, he had every hope of a fair 
 sunrise or set, or break of the miserable fog 
 which surrounded him. But, to the day of 
 his death, he never did know whether he led 
 his party in the general direction they wanted 
 to take, or whether they went round and round 
 for the three or four days which first followed 
 their separation from Harmar s army. 
 
 It was not until three or four o clock one 
 afternoon that, with hardly any warning, fog 
 and smoke seemed to lift from above them, 
 and, to his dismay, Harry saw that the sun, 
 now quite low in the heavens, was just where 
 it ought not to be. 
 
EAST AND WEST. 245 
 
 That is to say, he was travelling northeast, 
 almost exactly away from it. 
 
 But to the day of his death young man, 
 man of affairs, or old man telling these stories 
 to his grandchildren Harry Curwen believed 
 that he had been led by an invisible hand. 
 
 If, as he had supposed, he had been all day 
 on this course, and this seemed most likely, 
 all prospect of rejoining the command was over. 
 His business was to strike the Ohio River as 
 best he might ; and, on the little evidence they 
 had as to the place where this sunshine found 
 them, he determined, and determined rightly, 
 that he must change his course over the prairie 
 at once, fix a route as directly southeast as 
 streams and swamps would permit, and, if he 
 could, strike the great river before it made the 
 bend westward, in which it passes Fort Wash 
 ington. 
 
 He knew, and every man of his party knew, 
 that they were no match for any considerable 
 band of the Shawnees whom they might en 
 counter. The savages would be flushed with 
 the news of the victory which they had won, 
 and, with the mere handful of powder which 
 
246 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 Harry could rely upon in all the horns of all 
 his party, there could not be long fighting. 
 His business was to move as quietly as he 
 could, and as quickly as he could, and to strike 
 the Ohio. 
 
 He knew, also, that, on this course, if he 
 could hold to it, he should, with every march, 
 come nearer to regions which the Indians were 
 abandoning, and also, which for him meant a 
 great deal, he should be coming closer to the 
 Essex County settlement of Marietta. 
 
 In such a party, at such a time, there is no 
 need of a formal command, far less of expla 
 nation why a change of movement is ordered. 
 Every man knew at once that they had lost 
 their way and now had found it. And the 
 whole party was as glad as Curwen could wish 
 them, to make a long march even after the sun 
 went down, and it was midnight before they 
 made a bivouac before a watercourse. Even 
 then they ate their venison without more cook 
 ing than it had already. For no man was fool 
 enough to risk the light of a fire. 
 
 But with the gray of the morning, as soon as 
 one could see anything, Clendenin was on his 
 
EAST AND WEST. 247 
 
 feet. Indeed, for such a purpose as this, he 
 was their best woodsman. He felt the danger 
 they were in by travelling after nightfall, 
 though he accepted the necessity. He now 
 worked back on their track to see whether 
 they had passed any other trails, and he found 
 as he feared, within a mile, the evident trail of 
 another party crossing their own, not quite at 
 right angles. The boy was acting without or 
 ders, and knew he was, but he knew that 
 Curwen had confidence in him, and with the 
 promptness of a frontiersman, he worked 
 "against the trail," as he would have called 
 it that is to say, he did not follow the party 
 who had made it, but went back to see where 
 they had come from. He pressed on as rapidly 
 as he could, for he knew he would be missed as 
 soon as the others were awake. His curiosity 
 was rewarded, when, not a half mile from 
 theii own camp, as he could guess, but per 
 haps a mile and a half by the way he had come, 
 he saw a little skin lodge, evidently the work 
 of Indians. He approached as close as he 
 dared, and watched as long as he dared, for 
 signs of motion. Just as he supposed he must 
 
248 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 return, with no knowledge of the strength of 
 the party, some one came out from the lodge. 
 To his surprise it was a young woman. She 
 looked around her, went to a stagnant creek 
 before her, and filled a gourd with water, and 
 then called the others. Only two women fol 
 lowed her at first, but, in a minute after, 
 another. It was quite clear to Clendenin that 
 these were the whole party. He did not mean 
 to be frightened by a woman, and he now 
 broke from his lair in the tall dry grass, and 
 rushed upon them, showing them that he had 
 a gun. He was too quick for them to escape. 
 They cried aloud, one of them fell upon her 
 knees, with some notion of the custom of the 
 white people ; but the youngest advanced fear 
 lessly to meet him. She said : 
 
 "Good Indians! Me no Indian; Cumber 
 land! Cumberland!" 
 
 The boy looked at her with amazement, cried 
 out " Rachel, Rachel ! " and kissed her. 
 
 To the white woman, if so she may be called, 
 who was as black as the smoke of the lodge 
 and the sun of July, August, September, and 
 October could make her Clendenin s eager 
 
EAST AND WEST. 249 
 
 kiss and scream of recognition brought back a 
 set of emotions which had been dead for years. 
 She had not schooled herself to the deaf and 
 dumb, blind and numb, stolidness of the life of 
 a Shawnee squaw. Bather, she had been 
 schooled to it by the years which had passed 
 over her, since she was taken from her father s 
 home. The boy had dreamed of her all this 
 time. And she, no, not once in a month had 
 she thought of him ; but now, with his em 
 brace and scream of delight, his eager volume 
 of questioning, of which she understood noth 
 ing, the girl changed in one instant. 
 
 Twenty times in the first year of her captiv 
 ity had she tried to escape. Twenty times had 
 the child been caught in the attempt and 
 cruelly punished. And now, for months, not 
 to say for years, the poor thing, who was fast 
 ceasing to be more than a thing, had neither 
 looked backward nor forward. She had not 
 looked up to God. She had asked no 
 question, and made no struggle. Literally, 
 she had hewed wood and drawn water. The 
 night and morning when Sarah Parris and Mary 
 Titcomb had been thrown upon her hospitality 
 
250 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 had, for the moment, broken the paralysis 
 which was on her heart, soul, mind, and even 
 body. But she could see that they had no 
 suspicion that she was other than the savages 
 around her. If she thought of escape with 
 them it was with that dead feeling that nobody 
 cared whether she lived or died nay, with the 
 certainty that she herself did not care. It is 
 hard to describe such numbness impossible, 
 of course, to tell the feelings of a thing, hardly 
 of a person, who does not feel. And now, this 
 young fellow caresses her and kisses her. 
 
 She could see nothing in him of the little 
 boy whom she had so often dressed when he 
 was a baby. But, just as he had known her, 
 not by her person, not by her voice, she recog 
 nized in him, not his boy voice, but his fath 
 er s. The electric spark flashed across, and 
 she was herself again. 
 
 But they could not understand each other s 
 words any better than she and Sarah Parris 
 had understood each other. And the assist 
 ance which she rendered from this moment, not 
 only to her brother, but to Curwen, Zapoly, 
 and the other three, was not the assistance of 
 
EAST AKD WEST. 251 
 
 a white woman, but of a well trained savage. 
 It was she who indicated to Clendenin that 
 they must not be encumbered by hags No. 1, 
 No. 2, and No. 3, who were wondering, and 
 even now planning flight. It was she who 
 brought the withes with which these hags were 
 tied to young maples, one hand behind each, 
 and one hand free, with a convenient gourd of 
 water not far from each. It was she who led 
 Clendenin to the creek and made him walk 
 some hundred yards in it to lose his trail, and 
 then leave it by the most careful device, that 
 the trail might not be found. She discovered 
 from him, he hardly knew how, where on the 
 same creek Curwen s party were encamped. 
 And, by the time when they were all awake, 
 not two hours from the time Clendenin had 
 left them, she and he relieved the anxiety of 
 his commander by appearing on the side of the 
 creek to which they had not crossed. From 
 this moment she was the guide, so absolutely 
 needed, for the lost party. 
 
 The condition, easy enough to describe, was 
 difficult enough to handle. Curwen s party 
 had three horses for six men. The horses, 
 
EAST AND WEST. 
 
 therefore, were hardly a help in matter of 
 time, but they were a convenience in fording 
 creeks, and in carrying such provision as they 
 needed to carry from one camp to the next. 
 Curwen disliked to fire a single unnecessary 
 shot, and to carry a haunch of venisonfor 
 a day even was better than to risk exposure 
 by firing a rifle. Kachel Clendenin explained, 
 by counting fingers and by signs of the sun s 
 passage, that they were still two days from the 
 Muskingum, where they would strike the old 
 war-trail from what we call Sandusky to the 
 Ohio. They could not understand what she 
 meant, but they did see that her object was to 
 cover these two days march as promptly as 
 might be. Her own masters had gone off on 
 the war-path to the south only the afternoon 
 before. Had Curwen not crossed their trail at 
 night, he would have seen it, and it would 
 have confused him. Rachel knew their object. 
 It was a settlement a few Kentuckians had 
 made on the north side of the Ohio. But with 
 her broken English, and with every gesture of 
 dissent, she warned Curwen and her brother 
 against any attempt to follow them. The best 
 
EAST AND WEST. 253 
 
 her party could do was to reach the Muskin- 
 gum trail, still well to the east of them. Her 
 own lords had but just returned from it, and 
 before her own escape and Curwen s perfectly 
 visible track was discovered, all must be be 
 yond pursuit. She hardly gave them time to 
 fasten the packs on their horses before she led 
 them on their way. 
 
 Curwen would gladly have put her upon his 
 own horse, but she refused absolutely, with 
 the only approach to cheerfulness which 
 showed itself in all her dogged movement and 
 eloquence of action. She would not keep 
 them back that was clear enough. 
 
 But so soon as they were clear of the buck 
 eyes and maples and in the broad trail of the 
 open prairie, Curwen called her to walk by 
 his side. It was clear that not only her party 
 but other parties had recently come this way, 
 and to Cur wen s horror she told, as well as by 
 gesture she could, the story of what may be 
 called their campaign. He was fascinated by 
 the easy gestures by which she made clear to 
 him things where neither he nor she had avail 
 able words ; and, as the day went on, tins sign 
 
254 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 language became more and more easy to him. 
 It was only too certain that the Indians were 
 "on the war-path." In one cabin, two men 
 had been killed, in another three. She was 
 most careful to say that they did not encumber 
 themselves with prisoners. When Harry 
 asked with uneasiness what would become of 
 the women whom Clendenin had tied, Rachel 
 Clendenin expressed the only terror which she 
 showed all that day. It was certain that one, 
 at least, of the men of the party would appear 
 again at the lodge before nightfall. Her fear, 
 indeed, was that he would come sooner. She 
 had this reason for unwillingness to make any 
 delay. At the fords, where naturally there 
 was a little delay for the better management, 
 she drove horses and men across with a certain 
 passion. It was clear that she resolved that 
 daylight of that day should put the largest 
 possible distance between them and her com-, 
 panions of yesterday. Even when night came 
 she would not permit a halt. It was within: 
 an hour of midnight when the relentless Fury > 
 as Zapoly called her, in a queer pity for the 
 tender feet of men who could not keep up with 
 
EAST AND WEST. 255 
 
 her savage energy, acquiesced in the bivouac, 
 which, against her purpose, Harry insisted on 
 making. 
 
 But, before any semblance of daybreak, they 
 were on the alert again. " She be not one 
 Fury," poor Zapoly said this time, "she be, 
 wot you call him, one Fate mid one wip, 
 go, go, go, ever to go." But he went like the 
 rest of them, and it was well that he did. 
 
 By moonlight they left their lair, which was 
 nothing more. Daylight showed that she had 
 been quite right in her geography. As the sun 
 arose they came into a trail still larger than 
 this that they had been following. Curwen 
 learned afterward that this was the great war- 
 trail, which led northward to the lakes. He 
 knew where it would lead him if he followed 
 it south. For, so long as the course of the 
 Muskingum served it, it followed the valley 
 of the river. 
 
 "Go, go, always go:" stopping not for a 
 moment for a stick which had worked its way 
 through the count s dainty boot hardly a 
 moment for a pack which had turned on a 
 pony s back, "Go, go, always go," She made 
 
256 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 them drink as they crossed the rivers, and 
 what they ate they must eat as they marched. 
 
 And as the evening gathered in, Harry 
 Cur wen had reason to bless her for the rage 
 with which she had driven them to this speed. 
 For now the dull Scotchman himself, who 
 was, if possible, a worse woodman than 
 Zapoly, began to recognize signs which showed 
 that men had been here before. Once and 
 again a sapling had been recently cut off, and 
 this by a steel axe or hatchet. At last the path 
 was marked distinctly by woodmen s blazes, 
 which they all understood. No one needed 
 urging now. The foot-men fairly ran, Rachel 
 Clendenin with her brother leading the file. 
 As she came out of the forest into what was 
 evidently a partly opened clearing, she sprung 
 upon the trunk of a large buckeye which had 
 fallen, and, with an instant gesture, com 
 manded the silence of the rest. Curwen, who 
 was the next of the party, sprang from his 
 horse and stood in an instant by her side. 
 
 They could see the settler s cabin ; the thick 
 smoke from the chimney marked the house. 
 But the girl .pointed to what no one could 
 
EAST AND WEST. 257 
 
 have failed to see, two giant Indian forms, 
 one at each side of the little window of the 
 cabin, evidently watching it to prevent escape. 
 What was at the door they could not see. 
 Zapoly raised his rifle, but Rachel flung it 
 down, and she was right. All the men in 
 succession sprang from the fallen log. Two of 
 the party, with more spirit than could have 
 been expected, rushed toward the window. 
 As they did so they drew shots from different 
 quarters, for the little clearing was watched 
 from more points than the fallen buckeye. 
 None the less did Clendenin lead, and Curwen 
 follow. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 the door, when they could see it, 
 one of the savages was swinging a toma 
 hawk. The wood gave way as he did so, and 
 instantly a puff of smoke from within followed 
 the blow. The besieged party had fired. No 
 one seemed to be hurt by the shot. Curxven 
 could see all this as he ran. It seemed as if 
 his feet were tied. He leaped from ridge to 
 ridge of the ploughed land, Clendenin still 
 txvo or three steps in front of him. The three 
 Indians shouted in scorn, as the shot passed 
 them, but were not prepared for the sally 
 which followed. The cabin door flew open, 
 and before the savages really knew it, two 
 large men sprang from the house and grappled 
 with the two nearest. All four went over 
 together. The fifth man, a tall Shawnee, 
 without an instant s pause, raised his toma 
 hawk, aimed a blow at the head of one of the 
 whites and then, before he could deliver it, 
 
 258 
 
EAST AND WEST. 259 
 
 fell back dead, with his weapon in his hand. 
 All this Harry Curwen saw as he ran, perhaps 
 fifty paces. It seemed as though those paces 
 would never be taken. 
 
 He could see the knives of the wrestling 
 men flash in the air. He could see Clendenin 
 fling himself upon the first group. Then, as 
 he closed with the second, it was clear that 
 his help was not needed there. A cry within 
 reminded him of the two men at the window. 
 He pushed at the door. It was bolted against 
 him. 
 
 But a woman s voice cried out, "Bullskin, 
 you know me. Open this door, and I kill 
 you!" 
 
 " We are friends, friends," gasped Curwen. 
 "Do not fire. The redskins are all down." 
 
 The door flew open. "Harry! is it you?" 
 And Sarah Parris dropped the useless rifle 
 from her hand. 
 
 To him it was almost of course that it 
 should be she. For all these many days, his 
 terror had been the agonized question, where 
 was she in the midst of these horrors. For 
 her it was as if he had fallen from the sky. 
 
260 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 But there was not an instant for curiosity. 
 He seized her gun, and turned to the group 
 behind him. But here, his help was not 
 needed. The boldness of the sally had suc 
 ceeded. One of the Indians had been stabbed 
 to the heart by Silas Ransom in the first blow 
 which he gave. The other had fallen heavily 
 against an untrimmed stump, and had been for 
 the moment stunned by the blow. Cephas Tit- 
 comb had both his hands around the man s 
 neck, and both his thumbs squeezed tight 
 upon his windpipe. Clendenin s fall upon the 
 two had, perhaps, discomposed Titcomb at 
 first, as much as the other. But Clendenin 
 was wiry and quick, and before Curwen could 
 come into the fray, he and Titcomb had 
 pinioned the fallen warrior. At the moment, 
 no one knew that .one and another musket- 
 ball struck here and there around them,, but, 
 after it was over, Titcomb found a stream of 
 blood running down his leg, and knew for 
 the first time that a shot had grazed his side, 
 cutting open his hunting-shirt, and, as he said, 
 "lettin down my braces." No one stopped 
 yet even to speak, except in a word. Led by 
 
EAST AND WEST. 261 
 
 Curwen, all rushed to the other end of the 
 house. But they only met the Scotchman, 
 with Zapoly and Rachel Clendenin ; the others 
 had kept themselves sheltered in the wood. 
 Rachel herself was the only person who 
 showed any strategy ; it was she who had led 
 them around to that side of the cabin where 
 they would be under cover. 
 
 Harry Curwen had no experience for the oc 
 casion. Strange to say, Cephas Titcomb, the 
 Newbury ship-builder, was the old soldier 
 now, who directed the reloading of the empty 
 guns, who stationed each man at the right 
 point, at the same time taking care that the 
 prisoners were dragged into the shelter of the 
 cabin. The skulking soldiers condescended to 
 appear, after all firing was over. And it was 
 clear enough, after five minutes, that the out 
 lying Indian scouts had abandoned their posts 
 and fled. 
 
 A rapid council was held as to the pursuit 
 of the disappointed red men. There were but 
 three of them, or at most four. Of the whites 
 of both parties there were eight, besides the 
 two Titcomb boys. The party surprised in 
 
262 EAST AND WEST; 
 
 the cabin were the Titcomb family, with Sarah 
 Parris and Silas. Only four or rive shots had 
 been delivered by the Indians watching there. 
 Rachel Clendenin had been studying their 
 trail for hours. She was sure that there never 
 were but eight of them. Two of them were 
 here, bound hand and foot ; two of them 
 lay dead in front of the house ; and one 
 behind. Should the victors follow the fugi 
 tives and save the neighborhood from further 
 danger ? 
 
 Zapoly offered some unintelligible advice. 
 Harry Curwen was confused from some doubt 
 as to his duty as a soldier. But, as has been 
 said, he was no longer the commander. 
 Cephas Titcomb took the word. 
 
 44 No, boy, let well enough alone. We d 
 better thank the Almighty that you come here 
 jest when ye did, and not one minute later. 
 Et was the bullet that struck Bull skin when 
 his axe was raised et was that that settled 
 this fight. And I think, sir, so fur as I 
 understand, that et was you that fired that 
 shot for a bird on the wing." 
 
 He turned to Zapoly and he was right. 
 
EAST AND WEST. 263 
 
 His prompt and exact marksmanship had 
 turned the fortune of the day. 
 
 Then, in a rapid consultation, the arrange 
 ments for the night were perfected. Cephas 
 Titcomb the younger, and his brother, were 
 sent to warn the settlers below. For Cephas 
 Titcomb s wound, his wife and Zapoly and the 
 Scotch gardener took care. For himself he 
 ridiculed the fuss they made, and said if they 
 would let him alone, he should do well enough. 
 But they were right and he was wrong, and 
 Zapoly dressed the wound with a skill of a 
 surgeon. Harry could not yet have more than 
 a word with Sarah Parris. The horses were 
 to be cared for, the dead were to be dragged 
 away and hidden, and the captives were to be 
 secured. It was easy enough to make pro 
 vision, on the great mows of prairie hay, for 
 better beds than the fugitives had known since 
 their day of battle and defeat. When such 
 care for the men was over, Cur wen saw, well- 
 pleased, that Zapoly had engaged Mrs. Titcomb 
 in a bi-hngual, not to say polyglot, conversa 
 tion. And then, and not till then, he begged 
 the girl he worshipped to come out from the 
 
264 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 cabin with him, with some shawl thrown over 
 her head and shoulders, and they walked to 
 gether in the open air, under the light of the 
 clear moon. 
 
 " Sarah," he said at once, "my own child, 
 if I dared to say so, T have been riding day 
 and night in terror, and think with what 
 reason. Do not tell me that God Almighty 
 did not send me here." 
 
 No, she did not tell him so. She could say 
 nothing. Nor, indeed, was he dissatisfied with 
 her silence. Words are but poor things some 
 times, not very good things at the best. He 
 was with her. If he dared, and he would dare 
 soon, he could put his arm around her waist. 
 Meanwhile, why should he speak, or she? 
 Last night if any one had told him she was 
 alive he would have been happy. 
 
 Actually, they walked without a word to the 
 landing on the river-side, where Silas Ransom s 
 boat was still moored. He led her on board 
 the boat, and made her sit on the gunwale. 
 
 And then, he did not say what he had 
 thought he should say if God ever gave him 
 sight of her again. He said : 
 
EAST AND WEST. 265 
 
 "How many of those old arks I passed as I 
 came down the river." 
 
 "You passed ours," said Sarah. And then 
 the humor of his missing her came across 
 even the tragedy of the night, and, perhaps 
 for the first time, she smiled. " I know when 
 you passed us., I am ashamed to say that I 
 waved my handkerchief to you. And I wish 
 I could say you replied." 
 
 "Think of it," he said, "and that I did not 
 dream of what I was doing." Then he told, 
 almost passionately now, of his successive 
 visits to Marietta, and how General Putnam 
 would say " Whitcomb " instead of "Tit- 
 comb," and that he had to leave when he had 
 no answer to the question of questions. 
 
 But for all this neither of them cared. It 
 was all a pretence. He was talking that they 
 need not be still. And of a sudden he broke 
 off: 
 
 "Why do I talk this stuff to you? You 
 know what I want to say to you. I want to 
 say to you that, morning, noon, and night, 
 since that day you wrote me last, my one 
 thought has been to come nearer to you, and 
 
266 EAST AND WEST. 
 
 to deserve to come. There has really not 
 been one hour, dear Sarah, but the thought of 
 you has made me a better man, and if before 
 then I ever forgot to say my prayers, it has 
 not been so since. For always, and I will not 
 say how often, I have begged God to take care 
 of you, since you would not let me. Sarah, I 
 have remembered you every minute, and that 
 is the reason I am here. God Almighty has 
 
 heard my prayers " 
 
 " And mine," said she. And Harry Curwen 
 hardly cared that she should say more. 
 
 Late at night they walked up together to 
 the cabin door. Silas Ransom was sitting 
 there, looking up at the moon in his wistful 
 way. 
 
 " Silas," said the happy young man, "you 
 must take some time to tell me how you built 
 Miss Sarah s cabin. She says you did ; I have 
 felt so glad all the summer that she would 
 have you to look after her." 
 
 Silas was on his feet already. " Told ye uh 
 should find her, sir. Ought to uv waited for 
 
EAST AND WEST. 267 
 
 me fore she went told her so. Got here first 
 sose tev it ready for her. Et s all right now 
 you ve come. Sh ought to uv waited for me 
 in Salem told her so. Uh knew uh should 
 find her. Got here fust, n ad it all ready when 
 she cum." 
 
 THE END. 
 
4 8 2 8 
 
YB 73885