Read Ebook: Farthest North The Life and Explorations of Lieutenant James Booth Lockwood of the Greely Arctic Expedition by Lanman Charles

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Ebook has 153 lines and 7272 words, and 4 pages

"'Cause she asked me to, and couldn't do it alone," returned Joe, dodging the stick and disappearing from the scene at the very moment Martha Moulton encountered Uncle John.

"Your strong box is safe under nubbins in the garret, unless the house burns down, and now that you are up here, you had better stay," she added soothingly, as she hastened by him to reach the kitchen below.

Once there, she paused a second or two to take resolution regarding her next act. She knew full well that there was not one second to spare, and yet she stood looking, apparently, into the glowing embers on the hearth. She was flushed and excited, both by the unwonted toil and the coming events. Cobwebs from the rafters had fallen on her hair and homespun dress, and would readily have betrayed her late occupation to any discerning soldier of the king.

A smile broke suddenly over her fair face, displacing for a brief second every trace of care. "It's my old weapon, and I must use it," she said, making a stately courtesy to an imaginary guest, and straightway disappeared within an adjoining room. With buttoned door and dropped curtains the little woman made haste to array herself in her finest raiment. In five minutes she reappeared in the kitchen, a picture pleasant to look at. In all New England, there could not be a more beautiful little old lady than Martha Moulton was that day. Her hair was guiltless now of cobwebs, but haloed her face with fluffy little curls of silvery whiteness, above which, like a crown, was a little cap of dotted muslin, pure as snow. Her erect figure, not a particle of the hard-working-day in it now, carried well the folds of a sheeny, black silk gown, over which she had tied an apron as spotless as the cap.

As she fastened back her gown and hurried away the signs of the breakfast she had not eaten, the clear pink tints seemed to come out with added beauty of coloring in her cheeks, while her hair seemed fairer and whiter than at any moment in her three-score and eleven years.

Once more, Joe Devins looked in. As he caught a glimpse of the picture she made, he paused to cry out: "All dressed up to meet the robbers! My, how fine you do look! I wouldn't. I'd go and hide behind the nubbins. They'll be here in less than five minutes now," he cried, "and I'm going over the North Bridge to see what's going on there."

She threw a few sticks of hickory-wood on the embers and then drew out the little round stand, on which the family Bible was always lying. Recollecting that the British soldiers probably belonged to the Church of England, she hurried away to fetch Uncle John's "prayer book."

"They'll have respect to me, if they find me reading that, I know," she thought. Having drawn the round stand within sight of the well, and where she could also command a view of the staircase, she sat and waited for coming events.

Uncle John was keeping watch of the advancing troops from an upper window. "Martha," he called, "you'd better come up. They're close by, now." To tell the truth, Uncle John himself was a little afraid; that is to say, he hadn't quite courage enough to go down and, perhaps, encounter his own rheumatism and the king's soldiers on the same stairway, and yet, he felt that he must defend Martha as well as he could.

The rap of a musket, quick and ringing, on the front door, startled the little woman from her apparent devotions. She did not move at the call of anything so profane. It was the custom of the time to have the front door divided into two parts, the lower half and the upper half. The former was closed and made fast, the upper could be swung open at will.

The soldier getting no reply, and doubtless thinking that the house was deserted, leaped over the chained lower half of the door.

At the clang of his bayonet against the brass trimmings, Martha Moulton groaned in spirit, for, if there was any one thing that she deemed essential to her comfort in this life, it was to keep spotless, speckless and in every way unharmed, the great knocker on her front door.

"Good, sound English metal, too," she thought, "that an English soldier ought to know how to respect."

As she heard the tramp of coming feet she only bent the closer over the Book of Prayer that lay open on her knee. Not one word did she read or see; she was inwardly trembling and outwardly watching the well and the staircase. But now, above all other sounds, broke the noise of Uncle John's staff thrashing the upper step of the staircase, and the shrill, tremulous cry of the old man, defiant, doing his utmost for the defense of his castle.

The fingers that lay beneath the book tingled with desire to box the old man's ears, for the policy he was pursuing would be fatal to the treasure in garret and in well; but she was forced to silence and inactivity.

As the king's troops, Major Pitcairn at their head, reached the open door and saw the old lady, they paused. What could they do but look, for a moment, at the unexpected sight that met their view: a placid old lady in black silk and dotted muslin, with all the sweet solemnity of morning devotion hovering about the tidy apartment and seeming to centre at the round stand by which she sat,--this pretty woman, with pink and white face surmounted with fleecy little curls and crinkles and wisps of floating whiteness, who looked up to meet their gaze with such innocent, prayer-suffused eyes.

"Good morning, Mother," said Major Pitcairn, raising his hat.

"Good morning, gentlemen and soldiers," returned Martha Moulton. "You will pardon my not meeting you at the door, when you see that I was occupied in rendering service to the Lord of all." She reverently closed the book, laid it on the table, and arose, with a stately bearing, to demand their wishes.

"We're hungry, good woman," spoke the commander, "and your hearth is the only hospitable one we've seen since we left Boston. With your good leave I'll take a bit of this," and he stooped to lift up the Johnny-cake that had been all this while on the hearth.

"I wish I had something better to offer you," she said, making haste to fetch plates and knives from the corner-cupboard, and all the while she was keeping eye-guard over the well. "I'm afraid the Concorders haven't left much for you to-day," she added, with a soft sigh of regret, as though she really felt sorry that such brave men and good soldiers had fallen on hard times in the ancient town. At the moment she had brought forth bread and baked beans, and was putting them on the table, a voice rang into the room, causing every eye to turn toward Uncle John. He had gotten down the stairs without uttering one audible groan, and was standing, one step above the floor of the room, brandishing and whirling his staff about in a manner to cause even rheumatism to flee the place, while at the top of his voice he cried out:

Summoning Major Pitcairn by an offer of a dish of beans, she contrived to say, under cover of it:

"You see, sir, I couldn't go away and leave him; he is almost distracted with rheumatism, and this excitement to-day will kill him, I'm afraid."

Advancing toward the staircase with bold and soldierly front, Major Pitcairn said to Uncle John:

"Stand aside, old man, and we'll hold you harmless."

"I don't believe you will, you red-trimmed trooper, you," was the reply; and, with a dexterous swing of the wooden staff, he mowed off and down three military hats.

Before any one had time to speak, Martha Moulton, adroitly stooping, as though to recover Major Pitcairn's hat, which had rolled to her feet, swung the stairway-door into its place with a resounding bang, and followed up that achievement with a swift turn of two large wooden buttons, one high up, and the other low down, on the door.

"There!" she said, "he is safe out of mischief for a while, and your heads are safe as well. Pardon a poor old man, who does not know what he is about."

"He seems to know remarkably well," exclaimed an officer.

Meanwhile, behind the strong door, Uncle John's wrath knew no bounds. In his frantic endeavors to burst the fastenings of the wooden buttons, rheumatic cramps seized him and carried the day, leaving him out of the battle.

Meanwhile, a company of soldiers clustered about the door. The king's horses were fed within five feet of the great brass knocker, while, within the house, the beautiful little old woman, in her Sunday-best-raiment, tried to do the dismal honors of the day to the foes of her country. Watching her, one would have thought she was entertaining heroes returned from the achievement of valiant deeds, whereas, in her own heart, she knew full well that she was giving a little, to save much.

Nothing could exceed the seeming alacrity with which she fetched water from the well for the officers: and, when Major Pitcairn gallantly ordered his men to do the service, the little soul was in alarm; she was so afraid that "somehow, in some way or another, the blue stocking would get hitched on to the bucket." She knew that she must to its rescue, and so she bravely acknowledged herself to have taken a vow , to draw all the water that was taken from that well.

"A remnant of witchcraft!" remarked a soldier within hearing.

"Do I look like a witch?" she demanded.

"If you do," replied Major Pitcairn, "I admire New England witches, and never would condemn one to be hung, or burned, or--smothered."

Martha Moulton never wore so brilliant a color on her aged cheeks as at that moment. She felt bitter shame at the ruse she had attempted, but silver spoons were precious, and, to escape the smile that went around at Major Pitcairn's words, she was only too glad to go again to the well and dip slowly the high, over-hanging sweep into the cool, clear, dark depth below.

During this time the cold, frosty morning spent itself into the brilliant, shining noon.

You know what happened at Concord on that 19th of April in the year 1775. You have been told the story--how the men of Acton met and resisted the king's troops at the old North Bridge; how brave Captain Davis and minute-man Hosmer fell; how the sound of their falling struck down to the very heart of mother earth, and caused her to send forth her brave sons to cry "Liberty, or Death!"

And the rest of the story; the sixty or more barrels of flour that the king's troops found and struck the heads from, leaving the flour in condition to be gathered again at nightfall, the arms and powder that they destroyed, the houses they burned; all these, are they not recorded in every child's history in the land?

While these things were going on, for a brief while, at mid-day, Martha Moulton found her home deserted. She had not forgotten poor, suffering, irate Uncle John in the regions above, and so, the very minute she had the chance, she made a strong cup of catnip tea .

She turned the buttons, and, with a bit of trembling at her heart, such as she had not felt all day, she ventured up the stairs, bearing the steaming peace-offering before her.

Uncle John was writhing under the sharp thorns and twinges of his old enemy, and in no frame of mind to receive any overtures in the shape of catnip tea; nevertheless, he was watching, as well as he was able, the motions of the enemy. As she drew near, he cried out:

She obeyed his command to look, and the sight she then saw caused her to let fall the cup of catnip tea and rush down the stairs, wringing her hands as she went, and crying out:

"Oh, dear! what shall I do? The house will burn and the box up garret. Everything's lost!"

Major Pitcairn, at that moment, was on the green in front of her door, giving orders.

Forgetting the dignified part she intended to play; forgetting everything but the supreme danger that was hovering in mid-air over her home--the old house wherein she had been born, and the only home she had ever known--she rushed out upon the green, amid the troops and surrounded by cavalry, and made her way to Major Pitcairn.

"The court-house is on fire!" she cried, laying her hand upon the commander's arm.

He turned and looked at her. Major Pitcairn had recently learned that the task he had been set to do in the provincial towns that day was not an easy one; that, when hard pressed and trodden down, the despised rustics, in homespun dress, could sting even English soldiers; and thus it happened that, when he felt the touch of Mother Moulton's plump little old fingers on his military sleeve, he was not in the pleasant humor that he had been when the same hand had ministered to his hunger in the early morning.

"Run in the house, good mother. That is a wise woman," he advised.

Down in her heart, and as the very outcome of lip and brain she wanted to say, "You needn't 'mother' me, you murderous rascals!" but, remembering everything that was at stake, she crushed her wrath and buttoned it in as closely as she had Uncle John behind the door in the morning, and again, with swift gentleness, laid her hand on his arm.

He turned and looked at her. Vexed at her persistence, and extremely annoyed at intelligence that had just reached him from the North Bridge, he said, imperiously, "Get away! or you'll be trodden down by the horses!"

"I have no time to put out your fires," he said, carelessly, shaking loose from her hold and turning to meet a messenger with news.

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