Chapter 4

Daniel Boone and his brother picked out a good place in Ken-tuck-y to settle. Then they went home to North Car-o-li-na. They took with them such things as were cu-ri-ous and val-u-a-ble. These were the skins of animals they had killed, and no doubt some of the heads and tails.

Boone was restless. He had seen Kentucky and he did not wish to settle down to the life of North Carolina.

In two years Boone sold his farm in North Carolina and set out for Kentucky. He took with him his wife and children and two brothers. Some of their neighbors went with them. They trav-eled by pack train. All their goods were packed on horses.

When they reached the place on the Kentucky River that Boone had chosen for a home they built a fort of log houses. These cabins all stood round a square. The backs of the houses were outward. There was no door or window in the back of a house. The outer walls were thus shut up. They made the place a fort. The houses at the four corners were a little taller and stronger than the others. There were gates leading into the fort. These gates were kept shut at night.

In the evening the people danced and amused themselves in the square. Indians could not creep up and attack them.

When the men went out to feed the horses and cows they carried their guns. They walked softly and turned their eyes quickly from point to point to see if Indians were hiding near. They held their guns so they could shoot quickly.

The women and children had to stay very near the fort so they could run in if an Indian came in sight.

Daniel Boone had a daughter named Je-mi-ma. She was about fourteen years old. She had two friends named Frances and Betsey Cal-lo-way. Frances Galloway was about the same age as Jemima.

One summer afternoon these three girls went out of the fort. They went to the river and got into a canoe. It was not far from the fort. They felt safe. They laughed and talked and splashed the water with their paddles.

The cur-rent carried them slowly near the other shore. They could still see the fort. They did not think of danger.

Trees and bushes grew thick down to the edge of the river. Five strong Indians were hiding in the bushes.

One Indian crept care-ful-ly through the bushes. He made no more noise than a snake. When he got to the edge of the water he put out his long arm and caught hold of the rope that hung down from the canoe. In a moment he had turned the boat around and drawn it out of sight from the fort. The girls screamed when they saw the Indian. Their friends heard them but could not cross the river to help them. The girls had taken the only canoe.

Boone and Cal-lo-way were both gone from the fort. They got home too late to start that day. No sleep came to their eyes while they waited for light to travel by.

As soon as there was a glim-mer of light they and a party of their friends set out. It was in July and they could start early.

They crossed the river and easily found the Indians’ tracks where they started. The brush was broken down there.

The Indians were cun-ning. They did not keep close together after they set out. Each Indian walked by himself through the tall canes. Three of the Indians took the captives.

Boone and his friends tried in vain to follow them. Sometimes they would find a track but it would soon be lost in the thick canes.

Boone’s party gave up trying to find their path. They noticed which way the Indians were going. Then they walked as fast as they could the same way for thirty miles. They thought the Indians would grow careless about their tracks after traveling so far.

They turned so as to cross the path they thought the Indians had taken. They looked carefully at the ground and at the bushes to see if any one had gone by.

Before long they found the Indians’ tracks in a buffalo path. Buffaloes and other animals go often to lick salt from the rocks round salt springs. They beat down the brush and make great roads. These roads run to the salt springs. The hunters call them streets.

The Indians took one of these roads after they got far from the fort. They could travel more easily in it. They did not take pains to hide their tracks.

As fast as their feet could carry them, Boone and his friends traveled along the trail. When they had gone about ten miles they saw the Indians.

The Indians had stopped to rest and to eat. It was very warm and they had put off their moc-ca-sins and laid down their arms. They were kindling a fire to cook by.

In a moment the Indians saw the white men. Boone and Galloway were afraid the Indians would kill the girls.

Four of the white men shot at the Indians. Then all rushed at them.

The Indians ran away as fast as they could. They did not stop to pick up their guns or knives or hatchets. They had no time to put on their moccasins.

The poor worn-out girls were soon safe in their fathers’ arms.

Back to Boones-bor-ough they went, not minding their tired feet. When they got to the fort there was great joy to see them alive.

I do not believe they ever played in the water again.

DECATUR AND THE PIRATES.

Nearly a hundred years have passed since the ship “Phil-a-del-phi-a” was burned. But the brave sailors who did it will never be for-got-ten.

The people of Trip-o-li in Af-ri-ca were pirates. They took the ships of other nations at sea. They made slaves of their prisoners. The friends of these slaves sometimes sent money to buy their freedom. Some countries paid money to these pirates to let their ships go safe.

Our country had trouble with the pirates. This trouble brought on a war. Our ships were sent to fight against Trip-o-li.

One of the ships fighting against the pirates was called the “Phil-a-del-phi-a.” One day she was chasing a ship of Trip-o-li. The “Phil-a-del-phi-a” ran on the rocks. The sailors could not get her off. The pirates came and fought her as she lay on the rocks. They took her men prisoners. Then they went to work to get her off. After a long time they got her into deep water. They took her to Tripoli. Our ships could not go there after her, because there were so many great cannons on the shore near the ship.

The pirates got the “Philadelphia” ready to go to sea. They loaded her cannons. They meant to slip out past our ships of war. Then they would take a great many smaller American ships.

But the Americans laid a plan to burn the “Philadelphia.” It was a very dan-ger-ous thing to try to do. The pirates had ships of war near the “Philadelphia.” They had great guns on the shore. There was no way to do it in the day-time. It could only be done by stealing into the Bay of Tripoli at night.

The Americans had taken a little vessel from the pirates. She was of the kind that is called a ketch. She had sails. She also had long oars. When there was no wind to sail with, the sailors could row her with the oars.

This little ketch was sent one night to burn the “Philadelphia.” The captain of this boat was Ste-phen De-ca-tur. He was a young man, and very brave.

De-ca-tur made his men lie down, so that the pirates would not know how many men he had on his ketch. Only about ten men were in sight. The rest were lying hidden on the boat.

They came near to the “Philadelphia.” It was about ten o’clock at night. The pirates called to them. The pilot of the ketch told them that he was from Mal-ta. He told them that he had come to sell things to the people of Tripoli. He said that the ketch had lost her anchor. He asked them to let him tie her to the big ship till morning.

The pirates sent out a rope to them. But when the ketch came nearer, the pirates saw that they had been fooled. They cried out, “Americans, Americans!”

Then the Americans lying down took hold of the rope and pulled with all their might, and drew the ketch close to the ship. They were so close, that the ship’s cannons were over their heads. The pirates could not fire at them.

The men who had been lying still now rose up. There were eighty of them. In a minute they were scram-bling up the sides of the big ship. Some went in one way, some another. They did not shoot. They fought with swords and pikes, or short spears.

Soon they drove the pirates to one side of the ship. Then they could hear the pirates jumping over into the water. In a few minutes the pirates had all gone.

But the Americans could not stay long. They must burn the ship before the pirates on the shore should find out what they were doing.

They had brought a lot of kin-dling on the ketch. They built fires in all parts of the ship. The fire ran so fast, that some of the men had trouble to get off the ship.

When the Americans got back on the ketch, they could not untie the rope that held the ketch to the ship. The big ship was bursting into flames. The ketch would soon take fire.

They took swords and hacked the big rope in two. Then they pushed hard to get away from the fire. The ketch began to move. The sailors took the large oars and rowed. They were soon safe from the fire.

All this they had done without any noise. But, now that they had got away, they looked back. The fire was shooting up toward the sky. The men stopped rowing, and they gave three cheers. They were so glad, that they could not help it.

By this time the pirates on shore had waked up. They began to fire great cannon balls at the little ketch. One of the balls went through her sails. Ah! how the sailors rowed!

The whole sky was now lighted up by the fire. The pirates’ cannons were thundering. The cannon balls were splashing the water all round the ketch. But the Americans got away. At last they were safe in their own ships.

STORIES ABOUT JEFFERSON.

Thomas Jef-fer-son was one of the great men of the Revolution. He was not a soldier. He was not a great speaker. But he was a great thinker. And he was a great writer.

He wrote a paper that was the very beginning of the United States. It was a paper that said that we would be free from England, and be a coun-try by our-selves. We call that paper the Dec-la-ra-tion of In-de-pend-ence.

When he was a boy, Jef-fer-son was fond of boyish plays. But when he was tired of play, he took up a book. It pleased him to learn things. From the time when he was a boy he never sat down to rest without a book.

At school he learned what other boys did. But the dif-fer-ence between him and most other boys was this: he did not stop with knowing just what the other boys knew. Most boys want to learn what other boys learn. Most girls would like to know what their school-mates know. But Jef-fer-son wanted to know a great deal more.

As a young man, Jefferson knew Latin and Greek. He also knew French and Span-ish and I-tal-ian.

He did not talk to show off what he knew. He tried to learn what other people knew. When he talked to a wagon maker, he asked him about such things as a wagon maker knows most about. He would sometimes ask how a wagon maker would go to work to make a wheel.

When Jefferson talked to a learn-ed man, he asked him about those things that this man knew most about. When he talked with Indians, he got them to tell him about their lan-guage. That is the way he came to know so much about so many things. Whenever anybody told him anything worth while, he wrote it down as soon as he could.

One day Jefferson was trav-el-ing. He went on horse-back. That was a common way of trav-el-ing at that time. He stopped at a country tavern. At this tavern he talked with a stranger who was staying there.

After a while Jefferson rode away. Then the stranger said to the land-lord, “Who is that man? He knew so much about law, that I was sure he was a lawyer. But when we talked about med-i-cine, he knew so much about that, that I thought he must be a doctor. And after a while he seemed to know so much about re-li-gion, that I was sure he was a min-is-ter. Who is he?”

The stranger was very much surprised to hear that the man he had talked with was Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson was a very polite man. One day his grand-son was riding with him. They met a negro. The negro lifted his cap and bowed. Jefferson bowed to the negro. But his grand-son did not think it worth while to bow.

Then Jefferson said to his grand-son, “Do not let a poor negro be more of a gen-tle-man than you are.” In the Dec-la-ra-tion of In-de-pend-ence, Jefferson wrote these words: “All men are created equal.” He also said that the poor man had the same right as the rich man to live, and to be free, and to try to make himself happy.

A LONG JOURNEY.

A long time ago, when Thomas Jefferson was Pres-i-dent, most of the people in this country lived in the East. Nobody knew anything about the Far West. The only people that lived there were Indians. Many of these Indians had never seen a white man.

The Pres-i-dent sent men to travel into this wild part of the country. He told them to go up to the upper end of the Mis-sou-ri River. Then they were to go across the Rocky Mountains. They were to keep on till they got to the Pa-cif-ic O-cean. Then they were to come back again. They were to find out the best way to get through the mountains. And they were to find out what kind of people the Indians in that country were. They were also to tell about the animals.

There were two captains of this company. Their names were Lewis and Clark. There were forty-five men in the party.

They were gone two years and four months. For most of that time they did not see any white men but their own party. They did not hear a word from home for more than two years.

They got their food mostly by hunting. They killed a great many buf-fa-loes and elks and deer. They also shot wild geese and other large birds. Sometimes they had nothing but fish to eat. Sometimes they had to eat wolves. When they had no other meat, they were glad to buy dogs from the Indians and eat them. Sometimes they ate horses. They became fond of the meat of dogs and horses.

When they were very hungry, they had to live on roots if they could get them. Some of the Indians made a kind of bread out of roots. The white men bought this when they could not get meat. But there were days when they did not have anything to eat.

They were very friendly with the Indians. One day some of the men went to make a visit to an Indian village. The Indians gave them something to eat.

In the Indian wig-wam where they were, there was a head of a dead buffalo. When dinner was over, the Indians filled a bowl full of meat. They set this down in front of the head. Then they said to the head, “Eat that.”

The Indians believed, that, if they treated this buffalo head politely, the live buffaloes would come to their hunting ground. Then they would have plenty of meat. They think the spirit of the buffalo is a kind of a god. They are very careful to please this god.

CAPTAIN CLARK’S BURNING GLASS.

The Indians among whom Captain Clark and Captain Lewis traveled had many strange ways of doing things. They had nothing like our matches for making fire. One tribe of Indians had this way of lighting a fire. An Indian would lay down a dry stick. He would rub this stick with the end of another stick. After a while this rubbing would make something like saw-dust on the stick that was lying down. The Indian would keep on rubbing till the wood grew hot. Then the fine wood dust would smoke. Then it would burn. The Indian would put a little kin-dling wood on it. Soon he would have a large fire.

In that time the white people had not yet found out how to make matches. They lighted a fire by striking a piece of flint against a piece of steel. This would make a spark of fire. By letting this spark fall on something that would burn easily, they started a fire.

White men had another way of lighting a fire when the sun was shining. They used what was called a burning glass. This was a round piece of glass. It was thick in the middle, and thin at the edge. When you held up a burning glass in the sun, it drew the sun’s heat so as to make a little hot spot. If you put paper under this spot of hot sunshine, it would burn. Men could light the to-bac-co in their pipes with one of these glasses.

Captain Clark had something funny happen to him on account of his burning glass. He had walked ahead of the rest of his men. He sat down on a rock. There were some Indians on the other side of the river. They did not see the captain. Captain Clark saw a large bird called a crane flying over his head. He raised his gun and shot it.

The Indians on the other side of the river had never seen a white man in their lives. They had never heard a gun. They used bows and arrows.

They heard the sound of Clark’s gun. They looked up and saw the large bird falling from the sky. It fell close to where Captain Clark sat. Just as it fell they caught sight of Captain Clark sitting on the rocks. They thought they had seen him fall out of the sky. They thought that the sound of his gun was a sound like thunder that was made when he came down.

The Indians all ran away as fast as they could. They went into their wig-warns and closed them.

Captain Clark wished to be friendly with them. So he got a canoe and paddled to the other side of the river. He came to the Indian houses. He found the flaps which they use for doors shut. He opened one of them and went in. The Indians were sitting down, and they were all crying and trembling.

Among the Indians the sign of peace is to smoke to-geth-er. Captain Clark held out his pipe to them. That was to say, “I am your friend.” He shook hands with them and gave some of them presents. Then they were not so much afraid.

He wished to light his pipe for them to smoke. So he took out his burning glass. He held it in the sun. He held his pipe under it. The sunshine was drawn together into a bright little spot on the tobacco. Soon the pipe began to smoke.

Then he held out his pipe for the Indians to smoke with him. That is their way of making friends. But none of the Indians would touch the pipe. They thought that he had brought fire down from heaven to light his pipe. They were now sure that he fell down from the sky. They were more afraid of him than ever.

At last Captain Clark’s Indian man came. He told the other Indians that the white man did not come out of the sky. Then they smoked the pipe, and were not afraid.

QUICKSILVER BOB.

Robert Fulton was the man who set steam-boats to running on the rivers. Other men had made such boats before. But Fulton made the first good one.

When he was a boy, he lived in the town of Lan-cas-ter in Penn-syl-van-ia. Many guns were made in Lancaster. The men who made these guns put little pictures on them. That was to make them sell to the hunters who liked a gun with pictures. Little Robert Fulton could draw very well for a boy. He made some pretty little drawings. These the gun makers put on their guns.

Fulton went to the gun shops a great deal. He liked to see how things were made. He tried to make a small air gun for himself.

He was always trying to make things. He got some quick-sil-ver. He was trying to do something with it. But he would not tell what he wanted to do. So the gun-smiths called him Quick-sil-ver Bob.

He was so much in-ter-est-ed in such things, that he sometimes neg-lect-ed his lessons. He said that his head was so full of new notions, that he had not much room left for school learning.

One morning he came to school late.

“What makes you so late?” asked the teacher.

“I went to one of the shops to make myself a lead pencil,” said little Bob. “Here it is. It is the best one I ever had.”

The teacher tried it, and found it very good. Lead pencils in that day were made of a long piece of lead sharpened at the end.

Quick-sil-ver Bob was a very odd little boy. He said many cu-ri-ous things. Once the teacher punished him for not getting his lessons. He rapped Robert on the knuckles with a fer-ule. Robert did not like this any more than any other boy would.

“Sir,” said the boy, “I came here to have something beaten into my head, not into my knuckles.”

In that day people used to light candles and stand them in the window on the Fourth of July. These candles in every window lighted up the whole town. But one year candles were scarce and high. The city asked the people not to light up their windows on the Fourth.

Bob did not like to miss the fun of his Fourth of July. He went to work to make something like rockets or Roman candles. It was a very dan-ger-ous business for a boy.

“What are you doing, Bob?” some one asked him.

“The city does not want us to burn our candles on the Fourth,” he said. “I am going to shoot mine into the air.”

He used to go fishing with a boy named Chris Gumpf. The father of Chris went with them. They fished from a flat boat. The two boys had to push the boat to the fishing place with poles.

“I am tired of poling that boat,” said Robert to Chris one day when they came home.

So he set to work to think out a plan to move the boat in an easier way than by poles. He whittled out the model of a tiny paddle wheel. Then he went to work with Chris Gumpf, and they made a larger paddle wheel. This they set up in the fishing boat. The wheel was turned by the boys with a crank. They did not use the poles any more.

THE FIRST STEAMBOAT.

The first good steam-boat was built in New York. She was built by Robert Fulton. Her name was “Clermont.” When the people saw her, they laughed. They said that such a boat would never go. For thousands of years boat-men had made their boats go by using sails and oars. People had never seen any such boat as this. It seemed foolish to believe that a boat could be pushed along by steam.

The time came for Fulton to start his boat. A crowd of people were standing on the shore. The black smoke was coming out of the smoke-stack. The people were laughing at the boat. They were sure that it would not go. At last the boat’s wheels began to turn round. Then the boat began to move. There were no oars. There were no sails. But still the boat kept moving. Faster and faster she went. All the people now saw that she could go by steam. They did not laugh any more. They began to cheer.

The little steam-boat ran up to Al-ba-ny. The people who lived on the river did not know what to make of it. They had never heard of a steam-boat. They could not see what made the boat go.

There were many sailing vessels on the river. Fulton’s boat passed some of these in the night. The sailors were afraid when they saw the fire and smoke. The sound of the steam seemed dreadful to them. Some of them went down-stairs in their ships for fear. Some of them went ashore. Perhaps they thought it was a living animal that would eat them up.

But soon there were steam-boats on all the large rivers.

WASHINGTON IRVING AS A BOY.

The Revolution was about over. Americans were very happy. Their country was to be free.

At this time a little boy was born in New York. His family was named Ir-ving. What should this little boy be named?

His mother said, “Washington’s work is done. Let us name the baby Washington.” So he was called Washington Ir-ving.

When this baby grew to be a little boy, he was one day walking with his nurse. The nurse was a Scotch girl. She saw General Washington go into a shop. She led the little boy into the shop also.

The nurse said to General Washington, “Please, your Honor, here is a bairn that is named for you.”

“Bairn” is a Scotch word for child. Washington put his hand on the little boy’s head and gave him his blessing. When Irving became an author, he wrote a life of Washington.

Little Irving was a merry, playful boy. He was full of mischief.