Chapter 3

But Tom and the kettle were missing. At last he was found in the curled roots of an old oak, scratching the picture of an Indian on the rough surface of his treasured kettle, which he was persuaded to use for the new play. The fun went with zest until Susan was called into the house.

"There, dear," explained her mother, passing her an armful of woolen stuff, "you must take my needle and finish this seam, while I prepare these birds for a stew. This is the last of six shirts your father wished completed soon."

Susan seated herself by the fireside on a stool, which was merely a tree stump, for their furniture was of the roughest kind. Her mother quickly plucked the feathers from the wild fowl that had just been brought in and prepared them for the kettle that hung on the crane over the hearth fire.

"Oh, may we have that little one, Mother, for our camp?" begged Susan. "We want to make a stew out there in Tom's kettle."

Her mother consented and laid the bird aside, while Susan watched carefully to see just how the stew was made. When it began to boil, her mother picked up the sewing and told her to run and play again.

The children soon had a fire crackling and the fowl stewing. They sat delightedly about it, planning many fine uses for the little black kettle with its three short legs. Then Edward and Joseph started on a scouting trip, but returned later with eyes that told of something more real than play.

"We've found an Indian boy, a real one, Susan, lying on the ground as if he were sick."

"Then," replied Susan quickly, "take him some of our broth. I am sure it will help him. There it is, just as good as mother's," she exclaimed, as she gave a final taste and poured out a bowlful.

Some half dozen children followed the boys and soon circled about a frightened Indian lad stretched on the ground. In a trice, Susan had propped him up and was feeding him with the stew, which seemed to revive him. Soon he allowed the children to lead him back to their wigwam, where he dropped again to the ground. They brought him food from the house, and then to amuse him they showed their black kettle and pointed out the Indian Tom had scratched on its side. Though the lad said nothing, his fear was gone, and his eyes were wide with interest. Suddenly a shadow fell across the path, and the little Indian's face brightened. There stood a full-grown Indian of the Piscataqua tribe. It was Nonowit, though these children did not know him. The little fellow was his son, Assacon, who had lost his father on this hunting trip and had become exhausted for want of food.

Not only Nonowit, but other Indians began to arrive at the new settlement. White men landed on the shore with loads of woolen shirts and heavy coats like those sent on the English vessels; even iron kettles were lifted from their boats.

The next day, which was April 3rd, 1638, Wehanownowit, Sagamore of the Piscataquas, Pummadockyon, his son, and Aspamabough arrived with many of their tribe. The Squamscot Indians and others gathered together with the white men in their clearing by the river.

The questioning children begged of their fathers to know what it all meant. They were told that, as the men of the Plymouth colony had thought it just and kind to pay the Indians for the use of their lands, so Mr. Wheelright had urged the men of the New Hampshire settlement to do the same.

A deed was made out to the Indians, promising the land of a certain district for settlement by the white men, but reserving the privilege for the Indians to hunt and fish there. Payment was to be made in money as well as coats, shirts, and kettles. The white men signed their names, but the Indians could not write. The children then saw Wehanownowit with the point of a wild goose quill make his mark of a man holding a tomahawk. Pummadockyon drew a man with a bow and arrow, and Aspamabough, who also signed the deed, drew for his mark an arrow and bow. And thus a friendly feeling was established between the natives and the colonists at the time of this settlement, which grew to be the town of Exeter, named for the one in England.

When the coats, the shirts, and the kettles of varying sizes were shouldered, the Indians started homeward. The children then hurried back to their camp and soon found that their own play-kettle was gone. After many inquiries it was learned that in the confusion of things someone had caught it up and tossed it upon the pile of kettles offered to the Indians. The children were bitterly disappointed and sorely missed the loved plaything. Nor could another be spared from the limited home supply.

Weeks went by, and the children still played in their camp. One day, while all were gone on a play-search for food, Joseph was left on guard in a hollow tree with merely a peep-hole through which to watch. He heard the cracking of a twig; to his surprise, something moved cautiously through the bushes. It was a real Indian boy. He crept to the wigwam door, peeped in, and then thrust in his arm. Joseph could not tell whether it was to take or to leave something. As the lad turned, he proved to be Assacon. Before Joseph could scramble from the tree, the Indian was gone, frightened perhaps by the voices of the returning children. Together they hurried to the wigwam, and there in the center stood the little black kettle with the same picture that Tom had scratched upon it. Assacon had found it in his own camp. In some way he had secured it and, in appreciation of their goodness to him, had traveled some ten miles to return it.

WINNICUNNET.

In the days when no lines were drawn between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the General Court of Massachusetts had an eye open for a stretch of salt-marsh a few miles north of the Merrimac River, near the sea. The forests were so thick that feeding places for the cattle were difficult to find. Here on these marshes salt was added to the food, which in those days was considered a most valuable possession. For that reason it was agreed that three men from Newbury and Ipswich should build a house on the edge of the marsh.

So on an October day in 1638 they went in a shallop up the winding Winnicunnet River. Where Hampton now stands, they built of logs the Bound House, to make good the claim of Massachusetts to the marsh.

Soon others followed, and the little settlement of Winnicunnet grew up in the wilderness, miles from other neighbors, except the Indians who had pitched their wigwams in the vicinity. Their trails along the river and over the marshes to the sea were used by the white men in hunting and fishing.

In this same wilderness Elizabeth dwelt in a cabin of logs, yet not without playmates or playthings. Chewannick, an Indian boy who lived in a wigwam, came often to play with her, and the little black lamb that was born in the spring was given to Elizabeth for her very own. As soon as she found it was hers, she called Chewannick within the palisade to see the little black thing with legs like sticks.

"When it is old enough to be sheared," she explained, "I shall help to do that myself. Then my mother will help me to card its nice black wool, and we will spin it into long threads. I shall then weave a thick cloth, which will make me a warm winter cloak."

Chewannick stood with wide-open eyes understanding by Elizabeth's motions much of what she was telling him. Together they made the little creature a comfortable bed in the big yard outside the cabin.

It was most necessary to have the high fence built about the house to protect the garden from foxes and other prowling creatures, and to keep the wolves and the bears away from the cattle and sheep at night. Through the day, the gate stood open. The cows and sheep wandered off to the marsh grass, and the children came and went as they wished, but before the sun went down, every creature was driven home, and the children were safely inside when the gate was barred. When Elizabeth petted her little black lamb at night, she could hear the howl of the wolves through the woods and often the growl of a bear just outside the enclosure.

One day when the children were outside the palisade, Chewannick attempted to climb it. Elizabeth laughed and declared he could not do it. He then fastened a prop between the closely planted posts and tried again, but he could not spring with enough force to get over. Again and again on succeeding days he tried, determined at every failure to reach the top some day.

Late one afternoon as the cows came wandering in at their usual hour, the children watched the sheep huddle together. Elizabeth noticed that the little black lamb was not with them.

"And the sheep came from the woods, not the marsh," she added after her first word of surprise.

"Come, Chewannick, we must find my lamb!"

Unnoticed by her mother, who was busy in the yard, Elizabeth led the Indian boy over the well trodden path to the woods. Already the sun had dropped, but on and on the children went until they paused to listen. From the far-distance came a faint cry like that of a child.

"It is my precious, black woolly lamb!" cried Elizabeth, frantically. "It is in the thorn bushes!"

Farther still they pushed into the woods, hardly noticing how dark the shadows were growing. The cry seemed close at hand.

"Yes, here's my darling lamb!" Elizabeth tugged at the poor little thing, caught by its woolly fleece in the long sharp thorns of a bush.

"Help, Chewannick, pull hard!"

Great tufts of black wool were left on the bush, but the frightened little creature was freed at last.

The woods seemed very dark by that time, as they half pulled, half carried the lamb homeward. Darker still it grew. Howls could be heard in the distance. The children hurried on. Suddenly a wolf barked on their very trail. They were then within sight of the house, but with horror they saw that the gate was closed. The hastening wolf had caught the scent of the lamb. The children tried to shout, but they could make no sound.

Chewannick bounded ahead. With desperate force he sprang upon the fence, grasped the top, and fairly fell over the other side. He had the door unbarred for Elizabeth and the lamb, as the fiery eyes of the wolf could be seen but a few rods up the path. The gate was closed in time to shut the creature out, while Elizabeth's surprised mother caught up her little girl as if she feared the wolf might even then spring through the bolted door.

THE CRYSTAL HILLS.

Those who sailed the sea came always to these shores with accounts of the white and shining hills seen far back over the land. From other travelers were gathered wonderful tales of lakes stocked with delicate fish, fine forests rich in game, and fair valleys abounding in fruits, nuts, and vines.

The immediate needs of the settlements held most of the colonists close to their homes, but the spirit of adventure was too strong for Darby Field. It was soon reported among the few households of Exeter that he was going to explore the country to the North, an enterprise which was of great interest to them all. He hoped to find gold and precious stones added to all the other wonders. It was thought that a trip of a hundred miles might take him to the river of Canada, or perhaps to the Great Lakes.

Susan, Edward, Joseph, and all the other children stood about with wide-eyed wonder at the courage and daring that could carry one so far into an unknown wilderness. With two Indians as companions, and a pack strapped to his back, Darby Field waved his good-bye to the group of settlers and started off.

For some forty miles they traveled past lakes large and small, over Indian trails, and through pathless forests. From this time on they seemed to be tramping upward. Field felt sure that they had reached the lower slopes of the shining hills so often seen from the sea.

At last they climbed to a moss-grown level. Here they found an encampment of some two hundred Indians, who proved to be friendly. The travelers rested and looked about. Not far away appeared [A]"a rude heap of massive stones, piled upon one another a mile high, on which one might ascend from stone to stone, like a pair of winding stairs."

Darby Field was moved by the charm of that peak which seemed to be the highest of all. When he expressed a determination to climb to the top, the Indians, horrified at the thought, begged him for his life to refrain. It was, they assured him, Agiochook, the abode of the Great Spirit whom they could see in the clouds about the summit. His voice could be heard in the thunder of the storms from cliff to cliff. The winds were manifestations of His power. His gentleness was revealed through the sunset colors that lingered on the slopes. This sacred mountain had never been climbed by an Indian. Now they begged the white man not to risk his life.

In spite of this warning, Darby Field persisted in his plan. A group of Indians accompanied him to within eight miles of the top. There they waited for his return, for this daring act was of great concern to them. The two Indians who had followed Field from home took courage by his example and held to the party, which was undoubtedly the first that ever climbed our Mount Washington.

From the summit they saw waters to the westward, which they thought to be the great lake from which the Canada river flows. To the North, the country was said to be [A]"daunting terrible, full of rocky hills as thick as mole hills in a meadow, and clothed with infinite thick woods." Perhaps the outlook was too terrible for adventure, for after they had picked up clear shining stones which proved to be crystals, they descended the mountain and presented themselves safe to the waiting Indians. Then instead of continuing their explorations, they decided to return home.

After an absence of eighteen days, they reached home. On a cold night in June of 1642, the grown folk and children gathered about a blazing hearth to hear of the country that lay to the North.

The travelers reported a wonderful trip of at least a hundred miles from home. They felt sure that their discovery of the Great Lakes [A]"wanted but one day's journey of being finished," but for lack of sufficient provisions they had been obliged to return. The glistening stones were passed on to the wondering children, and Field announced that he had gone as far as the Crystal Hills,--the name at one time of the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

[Footnote A: Quoted from Jeremy Belknap's History of New Hampshire, Chapter I.]

THE DENMARK CATTLE.

The thread dropped from the spinning wheel as Elizabeth earnestly leaned forward in the firelight, that late afternoon of May in 1643.

"Uncle Richard, is there any school for boys--"

"Sh! here comes your father!" whispered her uncle.

Francis Norton, absorbed in thought, entered the large east room of Mason Manor house and wandered to the window, where he scanned the ocean distance for a sail. Elizabeth silently picked up her thread.

"Things have become serious, Richard," exclaimed Norton. "Since Mason's death, few supplies have come from England, as you know, and the amounts due the workers here have long been unpaid. I am here to manage the Mason affairs and consequently get the blame, yet my own interests are at stake. My boy must be educated--"

"Oh, I say, Father, six cows are missing!" It was a rugged, healthy boy who burst into the room. "They have wandered off somewhere, and now it's milking time. Shall I hunt them up?"

Norton continued his conversation, quite ignoring his son, who respectfully awaited his father's reply.

"There is a school at Cambridge, near Boston. The only one I know of in New England. A Charlestown minister, John Harvard, left eight hundred pounds for it a few years ago--"

"Don't lose those cows, Francis," interrupted his brother-in-law. "They are a valuable lot, a Denmark breed sent over by Mason, while I was a boy."

Jacob then caught a nod of assent from his father and cast a quick glance at his sister, Elizabeth, whose wheel was again whirring busily. She jumped to her feet.

"May I go too, father?" she cried.

He gave his consent absent-mindedly and then turned to the subject in question.

Meantime the girl and boy chased off together.

"I believe the cows have wandered through the woods to the salt-marsh," declared Elizabeth; so they turned in that direction, following a crooked path for a long time. At last a breaking of the bushes opened a way to the discovery of five of the cows. The children were pushing on for the sixth, when a distant shout was heard on the opposite shore of the marshy stream. There in the mud and mire stood a horse and rider. Each step plunged them deeper and brought them nearer to the stream.

"Is this the ford?" the stranger called.

Jacob at once saw he had mistaken a cow-path for a trail.

"Back, quick!" cried the frightened children. "You cannot cross there!"

The horse, about to plunge again, turned suddenly, while the children shouted the direction to the ford, much farther up the stream.

The last cow had by that time appeared. Driving the six ahead, Jacob and Elizabeth wondered together who the strange rider might be, and then turned their discussion to family affairs which kept the home atmosphere constantly clouded.

"Elizabeth, I must find some way to go to school," declared Jacob, "but I know father cannot send me now. They say all the furs, lumber, and fish that have been sent from here to England cannot cover the expense of these people. What can be done?"

"We must find a way, Jacob," replied Elizabeth thoughtfully, "for you to go to that Cambridge school called Harvard College. All boys ought to be educated." She gave no thought to herself, for in those days girls were taught only home interests.

Still deep in conversation, the children reached home to find that the same stranger, caught so dangerously on the marshes, had arrived at the Manor. He brought Francis Norton a written message, which had come by way of Boston from a newly-arrived English ship.

Norton, standing at the door while the rider waited, read the word and exclaimed--

"So we're to shift for ourselves! The owners of the Mason property can no longer be responsible for their New Hampshire estate."

Many settlers who had come for the purpose of furthering the interests of this estate were involved in this crisis. With no returns from England and back dues long unpaid, the situation seemed hard and serious. Some of the occupants claimed the land they lived upon; some the creatures they cared for; but the most daring of all was the plan of Francis Norton.

Jacob heard it first and hurried the astonishing news to Elizabeth, whom he found at the well.

"Beth, father is going to drive a hundred oxen to Boston, almost sixty miles! He is to sell them there! What is more, we are all to go with him!"

This crafty plan was actually carried out. It was a long, slow journey, but successfully made. The cattle sold in Boston at twenty pounds sterling a head, the current price of that day, which brought Norton a snug little sum. He did not return to Strawberry Bank, but established a home in Charlestown. He was then able to give Jacob an education.

THE CUT OF THE HAIR.

So many settlers had come to New Hampshire that, as early as 1641, the need of a government was felt, and therefore Massachusetts was asked to extend her law to this colony. It was then arranged for two deputies to represent New Hampshire life in the General Court of Massachusetts.

On a summer's day in 1649, at the boat-landing not far from the Great House, the power of this General Court was under discussion by Jonathan Low and Thomas Berry, as they threw their lines into the river and waited for the fish to bite.

"The Court can make a man do anything!" remarked Jonathan. Thomas seemed to doubt it.

"My father has told me," continued Jonathan, "that not more than four years ago Mr. Williams bought an African slave from Captain Smith. The General Court considered it wrong for a man to own a slave and made Mr. Williams give him up. Then they sent the black man home to Africa."

"Hush, here comes Mr. Williams now! Who is that with him?"

"That," replied Jonathan, "is Ambrose Gibbons. They are both magistrates."

Evidently the men were talking on the same subject that was interesting the boys, for, as Ambrose Gibbons stepped into his boat, he remarked emphatically, "The Court has the power to control this evil. Hugh Peters returned to England a few years ago and announced before Parliament that he had not seen a drunken man, nor heard a profane oath during the six years he had spent in the colonies. We can surely then control this ungodly habit that is threatening to corrupt us."

The boys were alert to find out what the evil might be.

"As magistrates," replied Williams, "we control undue pride and levity of behavior. We oblige the women to wear their sleeves to their wrists and close their gowns about their throats. Our men must now overcome this sinful habit of wearing the hair long."

Gibbons picked up his oars, remarking, "We will enforce the law after we have met the governor and deputies, as is planned." He pushed off his boat, and Williams walked thoughtfully away, while the boys agreed that the Court was a power.

For several days the matter remained in Jonathan's mind. He noticed as never before the trig little cuffs about his mother's wrists, and the narrow collar that enclosed her throat. He was so troubled by the long hair that swept his father's shoulders that, at last, one afternoon he talked the matter over with his mother as she sat by the open door. They both knew Roger Low to be a determined man and slow to accept new customs.

Little Mary was playing with her dolls under the spreading lilac bushes. She glanced at the two as they talked earnestly together and caught bits of the conversation, but continued with her play. After an early tea Jonathan and his mother wandered down by the river, while Roger Low, the father, weary with a hard day's work, settled himself in his big chair and soon dropped to sleep.

Little Mary had put her dolls to bed and, feeling much alone, snuggled close to her sleeping father. Looking at the long locks as they hung from his bent head, she recalled the afternoon's conversation.

"His hair is too long," she thought. "Jonathan says it is not right to wear long hair."

Stepping to the shelf she took down the scissors and quickly gave a delicious snip to her father's thick locks. Another snip-snap and more hair fell. The sleeping man roused a little, but finding only his little Mary playing about him, nodded off again. His head this time fell in a more favorable position for Mary to continue the clipping, which she did most thoroughly.

It was dark when her mother returned and passed her sleeping husband to put Mary to bed.

Just what happened in that home the next day I cannot tell you, but Roger Low appeared to the towns-people with closely cut hair, an astonishing example, just as the proclamation of the magistrates was announced.

It read as follows:

[A]"For as much as the wearing of long hair, after the manner of ruffians and barbarous Indians, has begun to invade New England, we, the magistrates do declare and manifest our dislike and detestation against the wearing of such long hair, as against a thing uncivil, and unmanly, whereby men do deform themselves and do corrupt good manners. We do, therefore, earnestly entreat all elders of this jurisdiction to manifest their zeal against it, that such as shall prove obstinate and will not reform themselves, may have God and man to witness against them."

[Footnote A: Adams, Annals of Portsmouth. Page 34.]

CYNTHIA'S BEAR