E A Girl of Maine By GERTRUDE ROBINSON LISABETH made a vivid pic ture as she ran down the path between two straight rows of young orchard trees to the spring in the south meadow, swinging a large wooden pail in either hand. The noon sun made her brown hair bronze and brought out the deep flush of excitement in her face. She, was singing broken bits of the only gay song her Puritan ears had ever heard. Yet it is safe to say that Elisabeth's heart was the only light one in the village of Newichawannock, this twelfth of September, in the year of our Lord sixteen hundred and seventy-five. There had been rumors of an uprising among the Canibas and Sokosis tribes and even of attacks upon places so near as Falmouth and Saco. In fact, that very morning Captain Wincoln, with the fighting men of Newichawannock, had started forth to carry aid down the Presumpscot. Captain Wincoln was the Miles Standish of Maine, trusty, brave, vainglorious, and wont to require faith in his valor, and to exact confidence in his opinions. So it is small wonder that his parting words satisfied Elisabeth that there was no great danger; for the girl had never known anything of which she was afraid. "An' forsooth," he cried, "what is it but a forest fire and the words of a lying redskin who thought by them to get a supper an' a drink from Purchas' Well?" And Elisabeth, who had been sorry to see her father and, truth to tell, much more sorry to see her second cousin, Hadrach Wakely, go hunting Indians, felt mightily relieved. "They will likely enough come to no harm," she reasoned, "an' if Hadrach pleases the Captain, perhaps he'll come back Lieutenant in place of poor Jacob, whom the log crushed last winter." So a very gay little maid set her pails where the clear water from the spring could filter into them and smiled happily at the familiar landscape. To the south of the big meadow lay the cornfields. The stalks, swaying heavily beneath loads of filled out ears, parted enough to show hundreds of fat yellow pumpkins. Below the cornfields sloped a hill, and encircling the hill were the houses of Newichawannock. John Tosier, Elisabeth's father, had built his house upon the very summit of the hill, and had fortified it strongly, that it might serve as a fort if the French or Indians ever came down upon them from Canada. Yet, up to this time, these settlers in the south-western part of Maine had felt little fear of the Indians, either of the near or of the more barbarous northern tribes. Elisabeth was aroused from her dreamings by the sound of water dripping over the sides of her pails upon the stones of the shallow basin. She stooped to lift the pails. As she straightened up, her attention was drawn toward the cattle in the adjoining pasture. They were crowding together, and staring at the fence which separated the meadow and the pasture from the cornfield. "Old Whiteface is telling them how good green corn is," she thought. Then she noticed more carefully the attitudes of the cows. They were standing stiffly, with tails stretched straight out and heads raised. A swift intuition came to Elisabeth. She knew, as definitely as though she could see the skulking forms, that there were Indians hiding in the cornfield. Nevertheless Nevertheless she poured a little of the water from the pails, that she might not spill. any on her dress, and went slowly up the path with her burden, with out a change of color or a tremor of a muscle. Captain Wincoln used to say he would willingly give half of his army of sixteen men for one man with the nerve of Elisabeth Tosier. Before two hours had passed Elisabeth had warned every family in the village. White-faced women, carrying curious, clumsy weapons in one arm and sleeping babies in the other, a few tottering old men, and frightened children came silently through the woods on the north. side of the hill, up to "Tosier's fort." Elisabeth let them in through a little secret entrance at the north side of the house. A simple cupboard in the wall had an opening into a tunnel which ended, after a winding journey of some ten or twelve feet, in a tangle of wild blackberry vines. Nobody in Newichawannock had known of the existence of this entrance before this day. The big south door was already barred and chained. Elisabeth set the women at work closing the heavy shutters of the windows and fastening them with the iron bars her grandfather had brought from England. She had not dared close the shutters before the women arrived lest the Indians observe the act and know they were discovered. In each side of the upper part of the house were two windows, mere loopholes. Elisabeth selected seven women who seemed less nervous than the others and stationed one of them, with a rifle, at each window, save the one which commanded a view of the cornfield. This she took herself. Aside from the continued strange behavior of the cattle, nothing was to be seen all the afternoon. The women accepted Elisabeth's command meekly. Those stationed upon the projecting portion, which, after the manner of the early fortlike houses, ran around the four sides of the house, kept watch like trained soldiers. The women below got some supper and ate it, as Elisabeth ordered, though with such trembling and quaking that Mistress Tosier's sanded floor received an undue proportion of the savory porridge. The old men, however, sat rebelliously in a corner and refused to eat. They had expected to assume command. Elisabeth's aunt, who kept the house, climbed up the steps to the girl, and carried her some porridge. She was a frail, nervous woman whose abhorrence of dirt was only equalled by her dread of savages. She had sat for the last hour in the chimney-corner, sighing over her ruined floor and wringing her long hands until they were sore and red. Now she watched Elisabeth drink the porridge, wonderingly. Elisabeth made a wry face as she handed back the bowl. There was sugar She in the porridge and Elisabeth did not like sweetened things. The trembling aunt went down the steps to the lower part comforted. felt that there could be but little danger else Elisabeth would not mind so small a thing as sugar. At dusk, shadowy forms came. creeping up over the south meadow. At the same time flames shot out from Phillips Mill, half a mile down the river. The savages came on boldly. They knew there was not a fighting man left in the village. They did not know that the pluckiest girl in the Maine woods was made ready to outfight them. Elisabeth waited until the dark swarm of savages were within a few rods of the south side of the house. Then she fired. Her first shot hit the foremost, her second the hindmost, Indian. The redskins drew back, spread out, and began to encircle the house. Elisabeth had instructed the others what to do in such a case. Each woman, watching from her loophole, fired at the first groveling shadow she saw. The women below handed up loaded muskets and rifles as fast as they could: the women above fired continually. The house was stifling with smoke and sulphur. All the women but Elisabeth prayed. She had more faith in her wits than in her piety. After some time, nobody could tell just how long, the Indians retreated to the shelter of the barn. The besieged women, who, at first, had been nervous and frightened, were now calm and hopeful. They were beginning to see the results of Elisabeth's management. By comparing observations they judged that at the beginning of the fight there could. not have been more than fifty savages. There were many less now. An hour passed in quiet. After some time, however, a dark mass appeared to be moving up from the barn. It proved to be a cart, loaded with brush and timber. A short distance away, the Indians, who were pushing it from behind, set it afire: then came shoving it on with horrid screeches. A turn in the path, however, exposed those behind the cart to the firing from the two south windows. In the confusion, the cart was upset. The savages, maddened at this destruction of their plans, seized the blazing timbers and rushed at the door with them. Once under the shelter of the overhanging cornice, they were safe from the shots from above. The thundering blows from stout cudgels and sharp hatchets began to tell, even upon the staunch door. It strained at the hinges and one of the bars was already bending. It was plainly about to give way. Elisabeth rushed to the door and threw herself against it with all her might. Yet she knew well how powerless would be the combined exertions of every human being in the house against the force without. "Run," she cried, "to the tunnel. Close the slide after you and stay in the tunnel till you hear an uproar in the house. Then run to Bender's cave and don't stop to breathe until ⚫ you get there.” The first bar fell from the door just as the last form went through the opening in the wall. Elisabeth stopped pressing against the remaining bar when she saw the white. panel again in its place, beside the similar ones with which the room was ceiled. A second later the door fell in. Elisabeth stood, defiantly, to meet the inrushing horde. The Indians bound her hand and foot, tossed her one side, and proceeded to search the house. Their amazement at finding the house empty was sweet to Elisabeth. She sat and laughed, wild hysterical peals which echoed above the clamor of the plundering Indians. Elisabeth used to say, in after life, that that fit of insane laughter was the only thing of which she was really ashamed. Nevertheless, that very laughter saved her life. The savages listened to it fearfully. They retired to the farthest corner of the room and talked together in low tones. Elisabeth understood enough to know that they thought her a witch. They thought that she alone had rained down upon them that volley of shot which had wellnigh driven. them back in hopeless defeat. The idea was so amusing to her strained. sensibilities that she burst into another fit of shrill, discordant laugh ter. That settled the matter. The Indians departed down through the cornfields, as they had come, leaving, as a propitiatory offering, two childSaco. ren whom they had taken captive at The next day, at noon, Captain Wincoln came back, boiling with rage because the Indians had not done as he had predicted they would do. He had left two men stretched upon the meadow before Saco and had saved but a miserable handful of women and children. "An' forsooth, Elisabeth," he cried, when he heard the story of her generalship,-"you have done more with your band of white-handed women and babes than I with my army of sixteen men." And Elisabeth, since Hadrach Wakely agreed with the Captain, was well content. All Things are Thine By MABEL CORNELIA MATSON Thirsteth thy soul for beauty? Look upon God's marvelous world of light And shadow till thine eyes no more can bear The glory of that sight. Dost long for power? Lo, it is thine own,The might to rule thy life Wisely and well, to keep it pure and sweet, Unmoved by petty strife. Art hungering for love? This, too, is thine, In his unchanging heart of perfect love, |