Part 23 (1/2)
The book-agent read us another epitaph, copied in Vernon, Vt., which suggested a three-volume novel in the history which it gave of early Indian times. Our imaginations sank exhausted as we attempted to follow the heroine through all her matrimonial complications, I give it as it was dictated to me:
MRS. JEMIMA TUTE, SUCCESSIVELY RELICT OF MESSRS. WILLIAM PHIPS, CALEB HOWE, AND AMOS TUTE.
THE TWO FIRST WERE KILLED BY THE INDIANS, PHIPS, JULY 5, 1743; HOWE, JUNE 27, 1755.
WHEN HOWE WAS KILLED, SHE AND HER CHILDREN, THEN SEVEN IN NUMBER, WERE CARRIED INTO CAPTIVITY.
THE OLDEST DAUGHTER WENT TO FRANCE, AND WAS MARRIED TO A FRENCH GENTLEMAN. THE YOUNGEST WAS TORN FROM HER BREAST, AND PERISHED WITH HUNGER.
BY THE AID OF SOME BENEVOLENT GENTLEMEN, AND HER OWN PERSONAL HEROISM, SHE RECOVERED THE REST.
SHE DIED MARCH 7, 1805, HAVING Pa.s.sED THROUGH MORE VICISSITUDES AND ENDURED MORE HARDs.h.i.+PS THAN ANY OF HER CONTEMPORARIES.
”'No more can savage foe annoy, Nor aught her widespread fame destroy.'”
It was dark when we wandered back to the hotel, past the old manse built for the Reverend John Williams by his paris.h.i.+oners after his return from captivity. We were told that some one residing in the house of late had occasion to move a tall piece of furniture in one of the chambers, and discovered a door. Opening this, a secret staircase was found leading from the cellar to the attic. No one living had known of its existence, and many were the wild guesses made as to its object.
When we returned to the hotel we found that father and Mr. Stillman had not yet arrived. Miss Sartoris seemed very anxious, and feared that there might have been trouble in arresting the tramps. Winnie cheered us by suggesting the trout fis.h.i.+ng, which Mr. Stillman had reluctantly abandoned when we left Mt. Toby. It would be a good night for fis.h.i.+ng, the landlord said; perhaps they had remained for it, since the distance to Toby was too long to be comfortably made three times in one day.
After breakfast the next morning, as our travelers were still absent, Miss Sartoris and I unpacked our sketch-boxes and began to make a study of the street from the north end, just at the point where the French and Indians, ”swarming over the palisades on the drifted snow, surprised and sacked the sleeping town.”
Miss Prillwitz and Winnie, with their botanists' cans, followed a little brook that ran at the back of the hotel, and came back laden with blue German forget-me-nots. Father and Mr. Stillman arrived just before dinner, Mr. Stillman carrying in one hand a string of beautiful speckled trout, and in the other something which looked like a buffalo-robe. He looked very triumphant and happy, while father followed, carrying in a rather sheepish manner--what but the old soldering furnace! We greeted them with so much laughter and so many questions that it was some time before they could give an account of their adventures.
Arrived at the Mount Toby railroad station, they had found it deserted.
The men having evidently decided that it was not safe to await the recovery of the bear, had accordingly killed it, and secreted it in a cave at the foot of the mountain. The sheriff knew of this cave, and in examining it in search of the men, found the carca.s.s of the bear.
”And so,” exclaimed Mr. Stillman, exhibiting the skin, ”I secured my rug, after all, but we concluded that the meat looked rather tough, and we would not take it. I shall express this skin straight to a taxidermist that I know, and have it handsomely mounted.”
”But the men!” I asked; ”you don't mean to tell me that they escaped?”
”No,” replied father; ”but if you can't keep quiet I shall not be able to tell you how they were caught. It was this very ill-luck-bringing soldering outfit that did it. When we found that they had left, I suspected that they had taken the morning train for Canada at the Montague station, for no trains stopped at Toby; and in case they had done that, there was hardly a chance of our reaching the station and ascertaining the fact in time to telegraph and effect their arrest before they could leave the country. We had driven from Greenfield pretty rapidly, and our horses were tired; then we took a wrong turning, and got off into Leverett, or some other unhappy wilderness; but after a while we found a farmer who provided us with fresh beasts, and we reached the Montague station toward evening. It was shut up, and the station-master had gone home, but after another half-hour we found him.
Yes, our men had bought tickets for Montreal that morning. Then you should have seen our hurry to telegraph; but the station-master advised us to keep cool, and wait a little. 'They bought their tickets,' he said, 'but they didn't go there.' So that was a feint, I thought, to throw us off the track. But no; on their way from Toby they had decided that they would have a cup of coffee, and they had sat down behind a barn to make it on my soldering furnace, and as they were doubtless as tired of carrying the old thing as I was, they left it there. The wind blew the coals into the hay, and in a few minutes the barn was on fire.
Someone had seen them leave the yard, and before the train came along for which they were waiting, they were arrested as incendiaries, and taken to the Greenfield jail. As this was precisely where the sheriff wished to take them, there was nothing for him to do but to return and notify the authorities that the men would be wanted soon on more serious charges. And as the station-master informed us that there was some good trout-fis.h.i.+ng nearby, we decided to spend the night in Montague. So we let the sheriff and constable drive back to Greenfield without us, and telegraphed Mr. Armstrong that his birds were caught.”
”If they only turn out to be his birds!” said Winnie.
”I haf no doubtfuls of zat,” said Miss Prillwitz.
”But why did you bring back that wretched little furnace and iron?” I asked.
”Why, the curious part of it is that the farmer who drove us over this morning had found them in the ruins of his barn, and he brought them along, thinking that we might like them to help in identifying the rascals. I couldn't refuse his kindness, but I certainly shall not carry them away from this place. I don't believe in such nonsense, but the gypsy's prediction has come true so far, and they brought bad fortune to the gentlemen to whom I presented them.”
Mr. Armstrong, who had been telegraphed for, arrived with a police officer that night; and Miss Prillwitz, father, and Mr. Stillman were absent all the next morning making depositions to aid in the identification of the prisoners.
It was finally decided to remove them to New York to await trial on Mr.
Armstrong's charges. We set out that afternoon for Ashfield, our route leading us over beautiful hills, and affording us views of rare loveliness. Ashfield is a village loved by literary men as Deerfield is by artists. Deerfield nestles in a valley, while Ashfield lies on the breezy hill-top; George William Curtis is the centre of the coterie of rare minds who make Ashfield their summer home. Mr. Curtis gives a lecture here once a year for the benefit of the Sanderson Academy. At this time every manner of vehicle brings the country-people over the winding roads, which converge in Ashfield like the spokes of a wheel in their hub. We were not fortunate enough to light on this red-letter day, and we accordingly rested over night at the long low inn, and started early the next morning for uncle's home in Hawley. The distance was short, as the crow flies, but it seemed to be all up-hill. The last mile was through one of those gorges so common in this region, where the fissure between the hills is so narrow that the sun only looks in for two or three hours. Slowly climbing the long, green-vaulted stairway, the dusky tapestry was at length looped back for us, and the road, emerging from the wooded ravine, gleamed yellow-white between the gra.s.sy mounds. Crowning one of these knolls stood a long, white farm-house, spreading out wing after wing in hospitable effort to shelter the entire hill-top. Beside the road stood a post with a letter-box affixed, for the reception of the mail left by the daily stage. We pa.s.sed a huddle of old barns and out-buildings, among which I recognized a carpenter's shop, a carriage-shed, a sugar-house in convenient proximity to a grove of maples, a dairy through which ran the brook, keeping cool and solid the eighty pounds of b.u.t.ter which my cousins made each week, a cider-mill, and behind it an orchard of russet apple-trees, and a long row of bee-hives fronting the flower-garden.
Uncle expected us, and it was delightful to see the meeting between the two brothers, who had not seen each other in twelve years. There were plenty of airy bedrooms, hung with pure white dimity, and after our gypsy life it seemed very pleasant to find once more the comforts of a home. We spent several days at the Maples, attending service in the dear old-fas.h.i.+oned church with its high, square pews.
Aunt Prue had all of our travel-soiled clothing neatly washed, and refilled the emptied hampers and lunch-baskets with abundant supplies from the products of the farm and her own good cookery.
Uncle was a large, easy man, who dearly loved to tell a story to match his own ample proportions, only the twinkle in his eye redeeming him from the charge of deception. Aunt Prue's rigid conscience revolted at uncle's romances. ”Asahel Smith!” she would exclaim, ”how can you lie like that; and you a church-member?”