Part 10

At last the stockings were all hung on a line extending along two sides of the room, and Mrs. Livingston and Aunt Elise locked the room, and being very tired, went to bed. The next morning, bright and early, there was a great pattering of bare feet and a flitting of night-gowns down the staircase, past the evergreen trees in the hall, and a little host of twelve children stood at that door, trying to get in; but it was all of no use, and they had to march back to bed again.

As for Otis Grey, he was a real Boston boy, full of the spirit of a Liberty Rebel. He dressed himself slyly, slipped down on the great stair-rail, so as to make no noise, opened softly the hall-door, went outside, climbed up, and looked into the room. When he peeped, he was so frightened at the long line of fat stockings that he made haste down, and never said a word to anybody, except my grandmother (Lorinda Grey, his sister); and they two kept the secret.

Breakfast time came, and not a child of the dozen had heard a word from Santa Claus that morning.

Mrs. Livingston said a very long grace, and after that she said to the children: "I have disappointed you this morning, but you will all have your stockings as soon as a little company I have invited to spend the day with you, is come."

"Bless me!" whispered Otis Grey to his sister, "are all them stockings a-coming?"

"Otis," said Mrs. Livingston, "you may leave the table."

Otis obeyed silently, and lost his Christmas breakfast for the time. Mrs. Livingston had strict laws in her house, and punishment always followed disobedience.

The morning was long to the children, but it was a busy time in the winter kitchen, and even the summer kitchen was alive with cookery; and at just mid-day Philip cried out "Company's come, grandma!"

A dozen or more of the stocking-owners were at the door. In they trooped, bright and laughing and happy. Before they were fairly inside, more came, and more, and still more, until full sixty boys and girls were gathered up and down the great hall and parlors. Mixie Brownson came on the last sled-load. Now Mrs. Livingston did not know, even by name, more than one-half of the young folks she had undertaken to make happy that day; but that made no manner of difference, and the children had not the least idea that Santa Claus had their stockings all hung up in this room, until suddenly the doors were opened, and there was the great hickory-wood fire, and the sunlight streaming in, and the stockings, fat and bulging, hanging in rows. Some were red, and some were blue, and some were white, and some were mixed. Grand old Mrs. Livingston stood within the room, her white curls shining and her stiff brocade trailing.

"Come in, children," she said, and in they trooped, silent with awe and wonder at the sight they saw. The lady arranged them side by side, in lines, on the two sides of the room where the stockings were not, and then she said:

"Santa Claus, come forth!"

In yonder corner there began a motion in the branches of the evergreen tree, and such a Santa Claus as crept forth was never seen before. He was bulgy with furs from crown to foot, but he made a low curve over toward Mrs. Livingston, and then nodded his head about the lines of children.

"Good day to you, this Christmas," he said.

"Wish you Merry Christmas, Santa Claus," said Philip, with a bow.

"Here's business," said Santa Claus. "Stockings, let me see. Whoever owns the stocking that I take down from the line, will step forward and take it."

Every single one of the children knew his or her own property, at a glance. Santa Claus had a busy time of it handing down stockings, and a few minutes later he escaped without notice, and was seen no more that year, in Fort Safety.

After the stockings came dinner, and such a dinner as it was! Whatever there was not, I remember that it was told to me that there was great abundance of English plum-pudding. After dinner came games and more happiness, and after the last game, came time to go home. The sweet clear afternoon suddenly became dark with clouds, and it began to snow soon after the first load set off. One or two followed, and by the time the last one was ready to start, Mrs. Livingston looked forth and said "not another child should leave her roof that night in such a blinding storm."

Eight little hands clapped their new mittens together in token of joy, but poor little Mixie Brownson began to cry. She had never in her life been away from the brown house.

Tea was served, and Mixie was comforted for a short time. After that came games again, until all were weary with play; and Otis Grey begged Mrs. Livingston for a story.

Mixie was tearful still, and she crept shyly to the lady's side and sobbed forth: "I wish you was my grandma and would take me in your lap."

Mrs. Livingston stooped and kissed Mixie's cheek, then lifted her on her knees and began to tell the children a story. It must have been a very pretty picture that the old, blowing snowstorm looked in upon that night, in this very room: twenty or more children seated around the fire-circle, with stately Mrs. Livingston and pretty Aunt Elise in their midst.

Whilst all this was going on within, outside a band of Indians, led by a white man, was approaching Fort Safety to burn it down.

Step by step, the savages crept nearer and nearer, until they were standing in the very light that streamed out from the Christmas windows.

The white man who led them was in the service of the English, and knew every step of the way, and just who lived in the great house.

He ordered them to stand back while he looked in. Creeping closer and closer, he climbed, as Otis Grey had done, and put his face to the window-pane. He saw Mrs. Livingston and Miss Elise, and the great circle of eager, interested faces, all looking at the story-teller, and he wiped his eyes in order to get one more good look, for he could not believe the story they told to him: that his own poor little Mixie was in there, sitting in proud Mrs. Livingston's lap, looking happier than he had ever seen her. He stayed so long, peering in, that the savages grew impatient. One or two of their chief men crept up and put their swarthy faces beside his own.

It so happened that at that moment Aunt Elise glanced toward the window. She did not scream, she uttered no word; but she fell from her chair to the floor.

Mixie's father, for it was he who led the savages, saw what was happening within, and ordered the Indians to march away and leave the big house unhurt. They grunted and grumbled, and refused to go until they had been told that the little girl on the lady's knee was his little girl.

"He not going to burn his own papoose," explained the Indian chief to his red men; and then the evil band went groping away through the storm.

The story to the children was not finished that night, for on the floor lay pretty Aunt Elise, as white as white could be; and it was a long time before she was able to speak. As soon as she could sit up, she wished to get out into the open air.

Mrs. Livingston went with her, and when she was told what had been seen at the window, they together examined the freshly fallen snow and found traces of moccasined feet.

With fear and trembling, the two ladies entered the house. Not a word of what had been seen was spoken to servant or child. Aunt Elise from an upper window kept watch during the time that Mrs. Livingston returned thanks to God for the happy day the children had passed, and asked His love and protecting care during the silent hours of sleep.

Then the sleepy, happy throng climbed the wide staircase to the rooms above, went to bed and slept until morning.

Not a red face approached Fort Safety that night. The two ladies, letting the Christmas fires go down, kept watch from the windows until the day dawned.

"I'm so glad," exclaimed Carl, "that my fine, old, greatest of grandmothers thought of having that good time at Christmas."

"Dear me!" sighed Bessie, "if she hadn't, we wouldn't have this nice home to-day."

"Mamma," said Dot, "let's have a good stocking-time next Christmas; just like that one, all but the Indians."

"O, mamma, _will you_?" cried Bessie, jumping with glee.

"Where _would_ we get the soldiers' children, though," questioned Carl.

"Lots of 'em in Russia and Turkey, if we only lived there," observed Bessie. "But there's _always_ plenty of children that _want_ a good time and never get it, just as much as the soldiers' children did. Will you, mamma?"

"When Christmas comes again, I will try to make just as many little folks happy as I can," said Mrs. Livingston.

"And we'll begin _now_," said Carl, "so as to be all ready. I shall saw all summer, so as to make lots of pretty brackets and things."

"And I s'pose I shall have to dress about five hundred dolls to go 'round," sighed Bessie, "there are so many children now-a-days."

A DAY AND A NIGHT IN THE OLD PORTER HOUSE.

Monday morning, July 5th, 1779, was oppressively warm and sultry in the Naugatuck Valley. Great Hill, that rises so grandly to the northward of Union City, and at whose base the red house still nestles that was built either by Daniel Porter or his son Thomas before or as early as 1735, was bathed in the full sunlight, for it was past eight of the clock. Up the hill had just passed a herd of cows owned by Mr. Thomas Porter and driven by his son Ethel, a lad of fourteen, and Ethel's sister Polly, aged twelve years.

"It's awful hot to-day!" said Ethel, as he threw himself on the grass at the hill-top--the cows having been duly cared for.

"You'd better not lose time lying here," said Polly. "There's altogether too much going on uptown to-day, and there's lots to do before we go up to celebrate."

"One thing at a time," replied Ethel, "and this is my time to rest. I never knew a hill to grow so much in one night before."

"Well! you can rest, but I'm going to find out what that fellow is riding his poor horse so fast for this hot morning--somebody must be dying! Just see that line of dust a mile away!" and Polly started down Great Hill to meet the rider.

The horseman stayed his horse at Fulling Mill Brook to give him a drink, and Polly reached the brook just at the instant the horse buried his nose in the cool stream.

"Do you live near here?" questioned the rider.

"My father, Mr. Thomas Porter, keeps the inn yonder," said Polly.

"I can't stop," said the horseman, "though I've ridden from New Haven without breakfast, and I must get up to the Center; but you tell your father the _British_ are landing at West Haven. They have more that forty vessels! The new president was on the tower of the College when I came by, watching with his spy-glass, and he shouted down that he could see them, landing."

At that instant, Ethel reached the brook. "What's going on?" he questioned.

"You're a likely looking boy--you'll do!" said the horseman, with a glance at Ethel, cutting off at the same instant the draught his horse was enjoying, by a sudden pull at the bridle lines. "You go tell the news! Get out the militia! Don't lose a minute."

"What news? What for?" asked Ethel, but the rider was flying onward.

"A pretty time we'll have celebrating to-day," said Polly, to herself, dipping the corner of her apron into the brook and wiping her heated face with it, as she hurried to the house. Meanwhile, her brother was running and shouting after the man who had ridden off in such haste.

As Polly entered the house the big brick oven stood wide open, and it was filled to the door with a roaring fire. On the long table stood loaves of bread almost ready for the oven. Her sister Sybil was putting apple pies on the same table. Sybil was a beautiful girl of twenty years, much admired and greatly beloved in the region.

"What is Ethel about so long this morning, that I have his work to do, I wonder!" exclaimed Mr. Thomas Porter, as he lifted himself from the capacious fire-place in which he had been piling birch-wood under the crane--from which hung in a row three big iron pots.

"It is a pretty hot morning, and the sun is powerful on the hill, father," said Mrs. Mehitable Porter in reply--not seeing Polly, who stood panting and glowing with all the importance of having great news to tell.

"Father," cried Polly, "where is Truman and the men? Send 'em! send 'em everywhere!"

"What's the matter? what's the matter, child?" exclaimed Mr. Porter, while his wife and Sybil stood in alarm.

At that instant Ethel sprang in, crying out, "The militia! The militia! They want the militia."

"What for, and _who_ wants the men?" asked his father.

"I don't know. He didn't stop to tell. He said: 'Get out the militia! Don't lose a minute!' and then rode on."

"Father, _I know_," said Polly. "He told _me_. The British ships, more than forty of them, are landing soldiers at New Haven. President Stiles saw them at daybreak from the college tower with his spy-glass."

Before Polly had ceased to speak, Ethel was off. Within the next ten minutes six horses had set forth from the Porter house--each rider for a special destination.

"I'll give the alarm to the Hopkinses," cried back Polly from her pony, as she disappeared in the direction of Hopkins Hill.

"And I'll stir up Deacon Gideon and all the Hotchkisses from the Captain over and down," said ten-year-old Stephen, as he mounted.

"You'd better make sure that Sergeant Calkins and Roswell hear the news. Tell Captain Terrell to get out his Ring-bone company, and don't forget Captain John and Abraham Lewis, Lieutenant Beebe, and all the rest. It isn't much use to go over the river--not much help _we'd_ get, however much the British might, on that side," advised Mr. Porter, as the fourth messenger departed.

When the last courier had set forth, leaving only Mr. and Mrs. Porter, Sybil and two servants in the house, Mr. Porter said to his wife: "I believe, mother, that I'll go up town and see what I can do for Colonel Baldwin and Phineas." Major Phineas Porter was his brother, who six months earlier had married Melicent, daughter of Colonel Baldwin and widow of Isaac Booth Lewis (the lady whose name has been chosen for the Waterbury, Connecticut, Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution).

After Mr. Porter's departure Mrs. Porter said to Sybil, "You remember how it was two years ago at the Danbury alarm, how we were left without a crumb in the house and fairly went hungry to bed. I think I'd better stir up a few extra loaves of rye bread and make some more cake. You'd better call up Phyllis and Nancy and tell them to let the washing go and help me."

Phyllis and Nancy were filled with astonishment and awe at the command to leave the washing and bake, for, during their twenty years' service in the house, nothing had ever been allowed to stay the progress of Monday's washing.

Before mid-day another messenger came tearing up the New Haven road and demanded a fresh horse in order to continue the journey to arouse help and demand haste. He brought the half-past nine news from New Haven that fifteen hundred men were marching from West Haven Green to the bridge, that women and children were escaping to the northward and westward with all the treasure that they could carry, or bury on the way, because every horse in the town had been taken for the defence.

He had not finished his story, when from the northward the hastily equipped militia came hurrying down the road. It was reported that messengers had been posted from Waterbury Centre to Westbury and to Northbury; to West Farms and to Farmingbury--all parts of ancient Waterbury--and soon The City, as it was called in 1779, now Union City, would be filled with militiamen.

The messenger from New Haven grew impatient for the fresh horse he had asked for. While he waited on the porch, Cato, son of Phyllis, whose duty it was to make ready his steed, sought Mrs. Porter in the kitchen.

"Where that New Haven fellow," he asked, "get Massa's horse. He say he come from New Haven, and he got the horse Ethel went away on."

"Are you sure, Cato?"

"Sure's I know Cato," said the boy, "and the horse he knew me--be a fool if he didn't."

Mrs. Porter immediately summoned the rider to her presence and learned from him that about four miles down the road his pony had given out under haste and heat; that he had met a boy who, pitying its condition, had offered an exchange of animals, provided the courier would promise to leave his pony at the Porter Inn and get a fresh horse there.

"Just like Ethel!" said Polly. "He'll dally all day now, while that horse gets rested and fed, or else he'll go on foot. I wonder if I couldn't catch him!"

"Polly," said Mrs. Porter, "don't you leave this house to-day without my permission."

Poor Mrs. Porter! Truman, her eldest son, had gone. He was sixteen and had been a "trained" soldier for more than six months; that, the mother expected; but Ethel, only fourteen, and full of daring and boyish zeal! Stephen also, the youngest, and the baby, being but ten years old--he had not yet returned from "stirring up the Hotchkisses." Had he followed Captain Gideon?

"Ethel is too far ahead," sighed Polly. "I couldn't catch him now, even if mother would let me; but here comes Uncle Phineas in his regimentals, and Aunt Melicent and Polly and little Melicent, and O! what a crowd! I can't see for the dust! It's better than the celebration. It's so _real_, so 'strue as you live and breathe and everything."

Polly ran to the front door. At that day it opened upon a porch that extended across the house front. This porch was supported by a line of white pillars, and a rail along its front had rings inserted in it to which a horseman could, after dismounting beneath its shelter, secure his steed. Long ago, this porch was removed and the house itself was taken from the roadside on the plain below, because of a great freshet, and removed to its present location. The history of that porch, of the men and women who dismounted beneath its shelter, or who, footsore and weary, mounted its steps, would be the history of the country for more than a century, for the men of Waterbury were in every enterprise in which the colonies were engaged; but this is the record of a single day in its eventful life, and we must return to the porch, where Polly is welcoming Mrs. Melicent Porter with the words: "Mother will be so glad you have come, Aunt Melicent, for Ethel has gone off to New Haven and he's miles ahead of catching, and Stephen hasn't got back yet from 'rousing the Alarm company. Mother wouldn't _say_ a word, but she has got her mouth fixed and I know she's afraid he's gone, too. I don't know what father will do when he finds it out."

"You go, now," said Mrs. Porter, "and tell your mother that your father staid to go to the mill. He will not be here for some time."

While Polly went to the kitchen with the message, Mrs. Melicent alighted from her horse and, assisting her little daughter Melicent from the saddle, said: "You are heavier to-day, Milly, than you were when I threw you to the bank from my horse when it was floating down the river. I couldn't do it now."

The instant Major Porter had set little Polly Lewis on the porch Mrs. Porter was beside him, begging that he would look for Ethel and care for the boy if he found him. The promise was given, and looking well despite the uncommon heat, the Major, in all the glory of his military equipment, set forth.

From that moment all was noise and call and confusion without. Men went by singly, in groups, in squads, in companies, mounted and on foot. It is a matter of public record that twelve militia companies, with their respective captains, went from Waterbury alone to assist New Haven in the day of its peril. It is no marvel that they set off with speed, for the horrors of the Danbury burning was yet fresh in memory.

In the long kitchen, as the heated hours went by, the brick oven was fired again and again until the very stones of the chimney expanded with glowing heat, and the last swallow forsook its ancient nest in despair. The sun was in the west when Mr. Porter, with a bag of wheat on one side of the saddle and a bag of rye on the other, appeared at the kitchen entrance and summoned help to unload, but his accustomed helpers were gone. Even Cato, the reliable, was missing. Phyllis and Nancy received the wheat and the rye.

"Mother," said Mr. Porter, "I had to do the grinding myself--couldn't find a man to do it, and I knew it couldn't be done here to-day, water's too low. Where are the boys?" he questioned, as he entered and looked around. When informed, his sole ejaculation was, "I ought to have known that boys always have gone and always will go after soldiers."

"Don't worry, mother," he added to his wife, as she stood looking wistfully down the road.

There were tears in her eyes as she said: "Not a boy left."

"Why yes, mother, here comes Stephen and Stiles Hotchkiss up the road. My! how tired and hot the boys and the horses do look!" exclaimed Polly.

Stephen waited for no reprimand. He forestalled it by saying: "Captain Hotchkiss let Stiles and me go far enough to _see_ the British troops--way off, ever so far--but we saw 'em, we did, didn't we, Stiles?"

"Come! come!" said Mr. Porter, while the lad's mother stood with her hand on his head. "Stephen, tell us all about it!"

"Captain Hotchkiss said he was a boy once, and if we'd promise him to go home the minute he told us to, he'd take us along. Well! we kept meeting folks running away from New Haven, with everything on 'em but their heads. One woman was lugging a lot of salt pork, 'because she couldn't bear to have the Britishers eat it all up;' and another woman was carrying away a lot of candles hanging by a string, and the sun had melted the last drop of tallow, leaving the wicks dangling against the tallow on her dress, but she didn't know it; and mother, would you believe it--Mr. Timothy Atwater told Captain Hotchkiss that he met a woman whom he knew hurrying out of town with a cat in her arms. When he asked her where her children were, she said, 'Why, at home I suppose.' 'Well,' said Mr. Atwater, 'hadn't you better leave the cat and go back and get them?' And she said, 'Perhaps she had,' and went back for 'em."

"What became of the cat?" asked Mrs. Melicent Porter.

"Why, Aunt Melicent, how nice!" cried Stephen, running back to the porch and returning with a cat in his arms.

"I've fetched her to you. I _knew_ you loved cats so! Here she is, black as ink, and she stuck to the saddle every step of the way like a true soldier's cat. I was afraid she'd run away when I took her off the saddle, and I hid her. You know mother don't like cats around under her feet."

In a minute pussy was on the floor, and the last drop of milk in the house was set before her by little Polly Lewis. Little Melicent cooed softly to her, while Stephen and Stiles went on with their story,--from which it was learned that the boys had gone within a mile of Hotchkisstown (now Westville), where, from a height, they had a view of the British troops. The lads were filled with admiration of the marching, "as though it was all one motion," of the "mingling colors of the uniforms worn, as the bright red of the English Foot Guards blended with the graver hues of the dress worn by the German mercenaries," and of "the waving line of glittering bayonets."

"We didn't see," said Stephen, "but just one flash of musketry, because Stiles's father said we must start that instant for home, and he told Stiles to stay here until morning, and we haven't had a mouthful to eat since breakfast, and its been the hottest day that ever was, and I'm tired to death."

"And the cows are on the hill and nobody here to fetch them down," sighed Mr. Porter.