Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 Part 4

[Ill.u.s.tration: DECEMBER.]

THE MONTHS.--BY KATE GREENAWAY.

SUMAC HUNTING.

BY J. ESTEN COOKE.

Anybody visiting the valley of Virginia in the autumn will be sure to notice, after sunset, all along the slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains, little glimmering lights like stars. These are the fires in front of the small tents of the sumac hunters, who, after gathering sumac all day long, are laughing and talking with their wives and children as they eat their suppers before lying down to sleep.

Sumac is a very pretty plant or shrub which grows a few feet high only, and has beautiful blood-red leaves springing from a delicate shoot, or bough. The stalk is smooth, and the leaves are almond-shaped, only more pointed. On the top of the plant and its larger boughs grow bunches of red berries in the shape of grape bunches; and the leaves and berries are of such a deep, rich crimson in the late autumn that they sometimes make the slopes of the hills appear as if they were on fire. If any little girl would like to dress the vases on the parlor mantelpiece prettily, she could not do better than collect a handful of these delicate tendrils with their scarlet leaves, and use them as a background to the lovely little autumn flowers--late primroses, stars-of-Bethlehem, wild honeysuckles, and fringed ferns--which grow in the woods and fields at this time of the year.

But the honest country people who take so much pains about collecting sumac are not thinking about dressing vases with it. They gather it to sell, and are paid from one cent to a cent and a half a pound for it at the sumac mills. This may not seem much, but then the ocean is made up of drops, and with poor people a little money goes a long way. As little children can pull sumac just as well as grown people, a whole family may gather in a day several dollars' worth.

It is used for dyeing, and is said to be better for that purpose than anything else to color fair leather and certain other fabrics. Great quant.i.ties of it are employed in printing calicoes in rich patterns, and the dresses worn by ladies and girls often owe their bright colors to the leaves of the sumac. The way in which it is collected and prepared for use is very simple. As soon as the leaves turn red, which is toward the end of summer, the sumac hunters begin their work. They scatter through the fields, or along the sides of the mountain, and break off the twigs on which the leaves are growing; for these twigs do not make the leaves less valuable. Then, when they have collected an armful, they put it in a pile or into bags, and as night comes on the whole is taken to one spot, from which it is hauled home in wagons. Here it is laid on the floor of the barn or any out-house, in the shade, so that it may dry very gradually, and keep the juices which afford the coloring matter.

When this process of drying is gone through with, and the leaves are in a proper state, it is loaded on carts or wagons, in bags, and taken to the sumac mills, where it is weighed, and paid for by the owner of the mills at the rate, as I have said, of from one cent to a cent and a half a pound. The largest mills in Virginia, where the finest sumac grows--or at least a very fine article--are at Richmond; but at Winchester, in the lower part of the Shenandoah Valley, toward the Potomac, there is a big mill, where great quant.i.ties are purchased, and prepared for the use of the dyers. The leaves and small twigs are pounded and reduced to a fine dust, and then it is ready to be sent away. When it reaches the manufactories where it is to be used as a dye for leather, calico, etc., it is mixed with what are called _mordants_, certain substances that make it _bite in_, as the word means, and take fast hold of the material to be dyed; and then there is the pretty calico with its bright colors, which can not be washed out.

It is only of late years that much attention has been paid to it in Virginia. People thought more about raising corn and wheat than of gathering sumac; but in twenty years they have learned a great deal, and now begin to understand that "every little helps," and that if they can go with their wives and children and pull sumac, and then sell it, they can take their money and buy sugar and coffee, and perhaps some of the very calico for their little girls' dresses which the red leaves of the sumac make so pretty.

The children like the "camping out" on the mountain in the pleasant summer and fall nights very much. It is a sort of frolic, and it is a very good thing to mix up pleasure with work: it makes the work much easier. The tents are very simple little affairs--only a breadth of canvas stretched across a ridge-pole, like the "comb" of a house, held up by forked sticks set in the ground. In this are spread what in Virginia are called "pine tags," that is, the ta.s.sels, or needles, of the pine-trees, which are dry and brown, and by spreading a blanket or old comforter on these you have an excellent soft bed. In front of the tent a fire is built to cook by, and by means of forked sticks a pot can be hung above the fire for making soup, boiling meat, etc. By this fire, as I have told you, the sumac hunters gather in the evening, after work, and laugh and talk and sing, and eat their suppers; or perhaps some one of them can play the fiddle, and he strikes up a dancing tune, and the girls and boys dance on the gra.s.s, and laugh and enjoy themselves much more than if they were in fine drawing-rooms. After a while the long day's work makes them sleepy, and they lie down on the fresh pine tags in the tent, and go to sleep--to be up at daylight, and once more at work hunting and gathering their sumac.

OLD TIMES IN THE COLONIES.

BY CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN.

No. VIII.

THE BATTLE OF THE RANGERS.

When war broke out between France and England in 1755, the French and Indians came down from Canada and attacked the settlers of New England and New York, as they had done in previous wars, burning their dwellings, killing men and women, or carrying them to Canada as prisoners.

The French had a fort at Crown Point, on Lake Champlain, and another at Ticonderoga; while the English had Fort William Henry, at the southern end of Lake George, and Fort Edward, on the Hudson.

The English officers who had been sent over by the King to command the "Provincials," as the people of England called all who lived in America, thought that soldiers must march in the wilderness with just as much precision as along a hard beaten road, that they must move in platoons and columns, keeping step to the drum-beat. The French officers, on the other hand, adopted the plan of the Indians, marching in single file, each man carrying his provisions. They made quick movements, falling suddenly upon a settlement, with their Indian allies, making all the havoc possible, and before the settlers could gather to resist them, would be far on their way to Crown Point or Canada.

Robert Rogers, of New Hamps.h.i.+re, who was fighting the French, prevailed upon Lord Loudon, the English commander-in-chief, to allow him to form a battalion of troops, who should have the privilege of scouting the woods around Lake George and Lake Champlain, to discover the movements of the French and Indians, to fall upon them just as they were stealing upon the English, strike a blow, and be gone before the French would know what had happened. He would play their own game upon them.

Lord Loudon having given his consent, Major Rogers went to New Hamps.h.i.+re and enlisted his men. They were all young, strong, athletic.

They had tramped over the hills and mountains of that province, hunting bears, and had set their traps along the streams for beavers. They could pick their way through the forest on a cloudy day when there was no sun to guide them, and could tell in the darkest and cloudiest night which way was north by feeling the bark on the trees--for the bark is always more mossy on the northern than on the side exposed to the sun.

It was to be a service of hards.h.i.+p and privation. They would have to make long marches; to sleep on the ground; to endure great fatigue; brave the cold of winter, wrapping themselves in their blankets at night, and lying down with the snow for their bed.

Although the hards.h.i.+ps would be so great, Robert Rogers had no difficulty in obtaining all the men he wanted. The settlers had suffered so much from the enemy that they were eager to take their revenge. There was a fascination in the service. How stirring the thought of stealing through the woods, making roundabout marches, shooting a deer or bear, eating the nice steaks, lying down to sleep beneath the trees; up again in the morning, coming upon the French and Indians unawares, pouring in a volley, killing the savages or taking them prisoners, and returning in triumph!

Major Rogers chose as lieutenant the man who had knocked the Indians about, right and left, when called upon to run the gauntlet--John Stark, who could follow a trail as well as any Indian, who was always cool and collected, and as brave as a lion. The men were called Rangers. They wore green frocks, and besides their rifles each man had a long knife which he could use in a close fight. They wore boots and leather leggings, and each man carried his rations--bread and cold corned beef--in a bag.

The ice on Lake George was thick and strong in March, 1757, when the Rangers, seventy-four in number, with iron spurs on their feet, several days' rations in their bags, their blankets rolled upon their shoulders, marching in single file, with trailed arms, Major Rogers at the head, and John Stark in the rear, started from Fort William Henry.

They made their way over the gleaming ice for two days, but on the third day they left the lake, put on their snow-shoes, entered the woods, marched past Ticonderoga, and came out upon the western sh.o.r.e of Lake Champlain, discovered a party of French, with horses and sleds, on their way from Ticonderoga to Crown Point. Stark, with a part of the Rangers, made a dash and captured seven prisoners. He did not see another party of French around a point of land in season to capture them. They escaped to Ticonderoga, and gave the alarm.

Major Rogers knew that a large party of French and Indians would be sent out from Ticonderoga to intercept him, and at once started to return.

It was a rainy day. The snow was damp and heavy. "We will go to our last night's camp, and dry our guns," said Major Rogers.

They reached the camping-place, where the fires were still burning, dried their guns, put in new priming, and started once more, Rogers in front, Stark bringing up the rear.

It was two o'clock in the afternoon. Rogers descended a hill, crossed a brook, and was picking his way up another hill, when he found himself face to face with more than two hundred French and Indians, the nearest not twenty feet distant.

A volley. Lieutenant Kennedy and John Gardiner fall dead; a bullet glances from Rogers's skull, for a moment taking away his senses; the blood flows down his face, blinding him. Several other Rangers are wounded.

"Form here."

Lieutenant Stark issues the order, and the Rangers under his command take position on a little hill. The Rangers down in the valley fire a volley at the French, holding their ground till all the wounded can make their way back to Stark's position.

Rogers wipes the blood from his face, and issues his orders.

"You are to command the centre," he says to Stark.

He sends Sergeants Walker and Phillips with eight men to the rear, to give notice of any attempt of the enemy to crawl round and attack from that direction.

"Don't throw away your ammunition; keep cool; don't expose yourselves,"

are the orders, and each Ranger takes position behind a tree. They know that the enemy outnumber them three to one, that they have had the advantage of the first fire; but each Ranger prepares to fight to the bitter end.

Round through the woods steal a part of the French and Indians, making a wide circuit. Major Rogers reasoned correctly, and he posted the two sergeants in the right place. The eight Rangers pick off the French one by one, giving them such a warm reception that instead of rus.h.i.+ng on, they remain at a distance.

The other French, with a horde of Indians howling the war-whoop, begin the attack in front, the Indians springing from tree to tree, getting nearer and nearer. But the Rangers are on the watch, and many of the savages leap into the air and fall dead, or crawl away, leaving b.l.o.o.d.y trails upon the snow.

"If you will surrender, we will give you good quarter," shouts the French commander.

Major Rogers was faint from the loss of blood, and at the moment was faint-hearted. He feared that the Rangers would all be picked off before the fight would cease. It would be three hours to sunset. Could they hold out till then? He had no thought of surrendering, but would it not be best to retreat?

John Stark's blood is up.

"Retreat! No; that will be certain destruction. We can beat them here.

I'll shoot the first man that attempts to retreat."

It was bold language for him to use to his commander, but he knew that Rogers had been stunned by the bullet that had glanced from his skull, and was not quite himself.

The fight goes on, the Rangers taking sure aim, the French firing more wildly, but still one by one the Rangers drop. Captain Spikeman and Mr.

Baker are killed. A bullet strikes the lock of Stark's gun, and renders it useless. He sees a Frenchman fall at the instant, springs forward, seizes his gun, returns to his tree, and renews the fight.

A bullet tears through Rogers's wrist, and the blood spurts out in a stream. It must be stopped, or he will bleed to death. Rogers wears his back hair braided in a queue.