The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief Part 9

For several days, Was.h.i.+ngton had been suffering much from fever, attended with a racking headache, which had obliged him to travel in a covered wagon. By the time they reached the great crossings of the Youghiogeny, his illness had so increased, that Dr. Craik, his good friend and physician, declared it would be almost certain death for him to travel further; at the same time advising him to stay where he was until his fever should somewhat abate its violence, when he could come up with Dunbar's rear division. His brother officers also, and even his old general, kindly urged him to give up all thought of going on for the present; while, to render his disappointment more bearable, some of them promised to keep him informed, by writing, of every thing noteworthy which should happen in the course of their march. Seeing then; was no help for it, he suffered himself to be left behind: but it was with a sad and heavy heart that, he saw them pa.s.s on without him; and when they had vanished, one by one, in the shadows of the neighboring wilds, and the gleaming of their arms could no longer be seen through the openings of the trees and bushes, he turned with a sigh, and said to the men whom Braddock had left to nurse and guard him, "I would not for five hundred pounds miss being at the taking of Fort Duquesne." Here he lay for ten days; his fever, no doubt, much aggravated by his impatience to rejoin his comrades, and the fear lest he should not be well in time to share with them the dangers and honors of the coming contest.

Meanwhile, Braddock pursued his slow and tedious march, and in a few days had pa.s.sed the Great Meadows, where young Was.h.i.+ngton, the year before, as you must well remember, had learned his first lessons in the rude art of war. A few miles beyond this, he came to a deserted Indian camp, on the top of a rocky hill, where, to judge from the number of wigwams, at least one hundred and seventy warriors must have lodged. The fires were still burning; which showed but too plainly that the stealthy foe was on the watch, and not far distant. Some of the trees hard by had been stripped of their bark; and on their white, sappy trunks were to be seen, in the rude picture-writing of the Indians, savage taunts and threats of vengeance meant for the English; while intermixed with these were bullying boasts and blackguard slang, written in the French language, as if to force on the notice of those who were to read them the fact, that there were white as well as red men lurking near.

It had almost slipped my mind to tell you, that Braddock, moved perhaps by the advice of Was.h.i.+ngton, had, before setting out from Fort c.u.mberland, employed a small party of Indians, with their sachem Yadi at their head, to serve as guides and spies during the campaign. A few days after pa.s.sing the deserted camp on the rock, four or five soldiers, straggling too far in the rear, were suddenly waylaid by the prowling foe, and all murdered and scalped on the spot.

To avenge the death of their comrades, a squad of regulars went out in quest of the enemy, and soon came in sight of a small party of Indians, who held up the boughs of trees before them, and stood their rifles on the ground, as a sign that they were friends. Not understanding this, however, and the distance being too great for them to make out who they were, the blundering regulars fired, and one of the party fell dead on the spot,--a youthful warrior, who proved to be the son of the sachem Yadi. When Braddock heard of this melancholy accident, he was deeply grieved. He forthwith sent for the bereaved father, and, to his praise be it ever recorded, endeavored, by kind words and liberal presents, to console him, and make some little amends for his heavy loss; and, as a still further token of his regard, he ordered the hapless youth to be buried with all the honors of war. The body, borne on a bier, was followed by the officers, two and two; while the soldiers, drawn up in two lines, with the grave between them, stood facing each other, with the points of their muskets turned downward, and their chins resting in the hollow of the breeches. When the body was lowered, they fired three volleys over the grave, and left the young warrior to his long sleep on the hillside, with his bright hatchet and trusty rifle beside him. All this was very soothing to the sorrow and gratifying to the fatherly pride of the old sachem, and made him ever after a loving friend and faithful ally of the English. I have told you this little story to show you, that this testy and obstinate old general, with all his faults, was far from being the hard, unfeeling man that he sometimes seemed; and also as a tribute that every historian should pay to the memory of one whose misfortune it has been to be blamed so much, and pitied so little.

By this time, Was.h.i.+ngton had so far regained his strength as to admit of his being borne along in a covered wagon; and, setting out accordingly, in five days came up with the advance division, where it lay encamped in a beautiful spot about two miles from the Monongahela, and fifteen miles from Fort Duquesne. Here he was joyfully welcomed by both officers and men, with whom his generosity, and frank, manly bearing, had made him a great favorite. Shortly after his arrival, Mr.

Gist and two Indian scouts, who had been sent out to reconnoitre or spy out the enemy, came back with the cheering tidings, that the re-enforcements had not yet come down from Canada, and that the garrison in the fort was at present too weak to stand a single hour's siege. But what gave him a little uneasiness was a lofty column of smoke, rising from a deep and densely wooded hollow, where they were quite sure the watchful enemy was lurking, and hatching some mischief for the English.

Now, the fort and the camp lay on the same side of the river; and the most direct route between them was by a narrow mountain pa.s.s, rising abruptly from the water's edge on the left, and, on the right, shut in by a steep and lofty hill, whose stony sides were overgrown with laurel and stunted cedars and pines. As it was altogether out of the question to drag their wagons and artillery along this pa.s.s, it was resolved to cross the river, first at a point just over against the camp, and then, moving down along the opposite bank, recross it at another point five miles below; at both of which places the fords were shallow, and the banks not high.

At last, the 9th of July, 1755,--a day ever to be remembered in American annals,--began to dawn. Long before its first red light had streaked the east, a hum in the camp told that the little army was, even at that hour, all astir, and big with the bustle of preparation.

Officers and men were in the highest hopes, and looked forward with confidence to the coming evening, when they were to plant their victorious banners on the ramparts of Fort Duquesne. Although they had marched thus far without serious molestation, yet Col. Was.h.i.+ngton's fears of an ambuscade were not a whit diminished; for he felt quite certain that they should never reach the French fort without an attempt being made to surprise, or drive them back. Full of these apprehensions, he went to Gen. Braddock, and, pointing out to him the danger hanging over them, urged him by all means to send out the Virginia rangers to scour the woods and thickets, front and flank, and beat up the enemy, should any chance to be lurking near with the design of drawing them into an ambuscade. No advice, as it afterwards turned out, could have been more timely: but, coming from a raw provincial colonel, Braddock cast it aside with angry impatience; and when the line of march was formed, as if to show in what light esteem he held it, he ordered the rangers to the rear, to guard the baggage.

Before daybreak, a large party of pioneers, or road-cutters, with a small guard of regulars, numbering in all about three hundred, had gone on before to open a pa.s.sage for the army through the woods, and make the fords more pa.s.sable by levelling the banks.

The midsummer sun was shooting its first beams, level and red, among the Alleghany hills, when the little army, having crossed the Monongahela at the upper ford, stood on its southern bank, forming in line of march. By order of their general, officers and men had scoured and polished their arms and accoutrements the night before; and now appeared in full uniform, as if some grand military parade were to be the programme of the day. The whole line was soon moving slowly forward, with fifes playing, drums beating, and colors flying; the regulars keeping step the while to the "Grenadier's March." In the clear and tranquil depths of the river, as they moved along its shady banks, could be seen, as in a mirror, the long array of leather-s.h.i.+rted rangers and red-coated regulars, with their sun-lit arms and prancing steeds, and bright banners that floated in the morning breeze. This brilliant spectacle, so well set off by the smiling river in front and the frowning woods beyond, formed a picture that ever lived in the memory of Was.h.i.+ngton; and in after-years he used often to say, that, as it then appeared to him, he thought he had never seen any thing so beautiful. In the enthusiasm of the moment, he forgot his late illness, the still enfeebled condition of his body,--all, save the glory of serving his country; and, mounting his horse, he joined his brother-aides in their attendance on their general, else far more fatal must have been the end of that b.l.o.o.d.y day.

XVI.

BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT.

In my account of this battle, as well as all the others that will come thundering in upon us from time to time in the course of our story, I have thought it would suit our purpose best to touch upon those facts only that are likeliest to leave the most lasting pictures of such events on your minds; using the while no more words than may actually be needed to give clearness and completeness to the same. And now, Daniel, my young Herodotus, and Ned, my young Hannibal, bring in another Christmas log, that we may have a more cheerful blaze; for our story will be doleful enough for the next half-hour, without these goblin shadows dodging and flitting about the room to make it more so.

At mid-day, Braddock's army came to the lower ford, where a halt was called to allow of a few minutes' rest. Far in front, across the river, the ringing of a hundred axes, followed at short intervals by the crash of falling trees, could be distinctly heard; telling that the pioneers were there, working might and main to clear a pa.s.sage for those behind. The road just opened, after leaving the ford, ran across a heavily wooded bottom that skirted the river; and thence, for a few hundred yards, up a rocky slope to the foot of a high range of hills, about a mile distant, where it entered a narrow, bushy defile, and went no further. The country, for miles and miles around, as far as the eye could reach, was thickly wooded, save the rocky slope just mentioned, and the neighboring ravines, which were overgrown with long, coa.r.s.e gra.s.s and whortleberry-bushes, so high as to sweep the horses' bellies; with here and there a few scattering trees of some size. It was the very place, of all others, that the wily Indian would be most likely to choose for his ambuscade.

By two o'clock, the whole army had regained the northern bank of the river. They were now within ten miles of Fort Duquesne, and a lucky end to their present campaign seemed near at hand. In a few minutes, artillery and baggage, foot and horse, regulars and rangers, formed into separate and distinct columns, stood ready to move as soon as the word should be given. Just at the moment, however, when they were listening to hear the order, "Forward, march!" drop from their general's lips, they were startled by a sudden and heavy firing among the hills, which put a sudden stop to the hundred axes, and told but too plainly that the road-cutters and their guard of regulars had been drawn into an ambuscade. Was.h.i.+ngton knew at once, and too well, that the evil he dreaded from the beginning, had, on the very eve of success, come upon them; and with it also came the painful reflection, that it would never have so befallen them, had the rangers been suffered to scour the woods, and beat up the enemy, as had been recommended by him but a few hours before. Braddock forthwith ordered two companies to hurry on to the relief of the pioneers; and, at his bidding, one of his aides spurred forward to learn further of the matter, and bring him word. The firing grew heavier and heavier, and seemed to be coming nearer and nearer. The lonely hills and woods around rang with the whoops and yells of the unseen savages. Not able to restrain his impatience till his aide came back, Braddock ordered his main division to come up at double-quick; and, taking with him his two remaining aides and a small guard of light-horse, galloped up to the scene of action. Here what was his rage and mortification to find his doughty regulars, of whom he had boasted so much, changed, as it were in the whistling of a bullet, into a mere disorderly rabble of red-coats,--confused, bewildered, to a degree that he could never have dreamed possible! Crowded and huddled together in the narrow road, he saw them dropping down under the Indian bullets, helpless as a herd of frightened deer beset by a band of unseen hunters.

By this time, the Indians, still hid from view by the gra.s.s and bushes, had stretched their lines along either side of the road, from the hollows among the hills to some distance down the rocky slope, and were pouring in a murderous fire upon the affrighted English; yelling and whooping the while like a legion of devils at some infernal frolic. Two bayonet charges had been made to drive them from their hiding-places, but in vain. The regulars, notwithstanding their officers' orders to the contrary, kept up a hurried but random firing, which had little or no effect upon the enemy, as nothing could be seen of him but the puffs of rifle-smoke that rose and hovered in little blue clouds over his place of ambush. The English, it is said, were less appalled by the whistling bullet; of the unseen savages than by their unearthly yells,--a sound that none of them had ever heard before, and many a poor fellow of them never heard again. The Indian war-whoop has been described as a sound so wild and terrible, that, when once heard in battle, it rings in the listener's ears for weeks thereafter, and is never forgotten even to his dying day.

But the English officers, on the contrary, behaved themselves with a gallantry that filled Was.h.i.+ngton with astonishment and admiration.

Heretofore he had seen them only in camp or on the line of march, where their habits of ease and self-indulgence had led him to doubt their having the courage and firmness to face, without shrinking, danger in such appalling forms. Unmindful of the bullets that whistled continually about their heads, they galloped up and down the broken and bleeding lines, in the vain endeavor to rally their men, and bring them again to something like order. Mounted on fine horses, and dressed in rich uniforms, they offered a tempting mark to the unseen rifles that were levelled at them from behind every tree and bush, and tuft of gra.s.s; and, ere the work of death was finished, many a gallant steed, with dangling reins and b.l.o.o.d.y saddle, dashed riderless about the field. And, as if this were not enough, many of them must needs fall victims to the unsoldierly conduct of their own men, who, forgetful of all discipline, and quite beside themselves with terror and bewilderment, loaded their pieces hurriedly, and fired them off at random, killing friends as well as foes. Nor did this most shameful part of the b.l.o.o.d.y scene end here: many of the Virginia rangers, who had already taken to the trees and bushes, and were doing good service by fighting the Indians in their own fas.h.i.+on, were shot down by the blundering regulars, who fired into the woods wherever they saw a puff of smoke, unable to distinguish whether it rose from a red or a white man's rifle. Upon these brave rangers the brunt of the battle fell; and indeed, had it not been for their firmness and presence of mind, their skill and address in the arts and strategems of Indian warfare, which enabled them for a time to hold the enemy in check, hardly a remnant of Braddock's fine army would have survived to behold the going-down of that summer's sun.

At the very commencement of the battle, a small party of warriors, cheered on by a French officer in a fancifully trimmed hunting-s.h.i.+rt, had leaped out from their covert into the road, with the view, it seemed, of cutting off those in front from the a.s.sistance of their comrades in the rear; but the regulars, who guarded the road-cutters, having discharged a well-aimed volley of musketry into their very faces, they had turned, and fled with even more haste than they had come, leaving behind them several of their number dead on the spot, and among these their das.h.i.+ng French leader. After that, they had taken care to keep close under cover of the gra.s.s and bushes. Now and then, however, a tall brave, grim and hideous with war-paint, with a yell of defiance would leap from his ambush, and, darting into the road, tomahawk and scalp a wounded officer just fallen; then vanish again as suddenly as if the earth had opened to swallow him up.

All this while, Col. Was.h.i.+ngton had borne himself with a firmness, courage, and presence of mind, that would have done honor to a forty-years' veteran. His two brother aides-de-camp having been wounded early in the engagement, the whole duty of carrying the general's orders had fallen on him; and n.o.bly did he that day discharge it. Although brave men were falling thick and fast on every side, yet he shrank from no exposure, however perilous, did his duty but lead him there. Mounted on horseback, his tall and stately form was to be seen in every part of the field, the mark of a hundred rifles, whose deadly muzzles were pointed at him whithersoever he went. Two horses were shot dead under him, and his coat was pierced with bullets; but he seemed to bear about him a charmed life, and went unharmed. His danger was so great, that his friend Dr. Craik, who watched his movements with anxious interest, looked every moment to see him fall headlong to the ground; and that he came off alive seemed to him a miracle. Was.h.i.+ngton himself, with that piety which ever marked his character, laid his deliverance from the perils of that fatal day to the overruling care of a kind and watchful Providence.

Although brought thus suddenly face to face with new and untried dangers, Braddock bore himself throughout the day like the valiant man that he really was. The bullets and yells of the invisible foe he scarcely noticed, as he galloped hither and thither about the field, giving his orders through a speaking-trumpet, whose brazen voice rose loud and hoa.r.s.e above the din of battle. Under the mistaken notion that a savage enemy, hid in a thicket, was to be dealt with as a civilized one in an open plain, he sought to recover his lost ground by forming his men into companies and battalions; which, however, he had no sooner done, than they were mowed down by the murderous fire from the ambush, that had never ceased. "My soldiers," said he, "would fight, could they but see their enemy; but it is vain to shoot at trees and bushes." Whereupon Was.h.i.+ngton urgently besought him to let his regulars fight the Indians in their own fas.h.i.+on, which would the better enable them to pick off the lurking foe with less danger to their own safety. But Braddock's only answer to this was a sneer; and some of his regulars, who were already acting upon the suggestion, he angrily ordered back into the ranks, calling them cowards, and even striking them with the flat of his sword. He then caused the colors of the two regiments to be advanced in different parts of the field, that the soldiers might rally around their separate standards. It was all in vain. In his excitement, he cheered, he entreated, he swore, he stormed: it was only a waste of breath; for the poor fellows were too disheartened and broken, too overcome by mortal fear, to rally again.

Col. Was.h.i.+ngton, seeing that the day was on the point of being lost, galloped down to the rear to see if nothing could be done with the artillery; but he found the gunners in a most disorderly plight, benumbed with terror, and utterly unable to manage their guns. What Was.h.i.+ngton did on this occasion, I had better tell you in the words of an old Pennsylvania soldier, who was there at the time, and survived the battle for half a hundred years or more; and used often, for the entertainment of your Uncle Juvinell and other little boys, to fight his battles over again as he sat smoking in his chimney corner.

"I saw Col. Was.h.i.+ngton," he would say, "spring from his panting horse, and seize a bra.s.s field-piece as if it had been a stick.

His look was terrible. He put his right hand on the muzzle, his left hand on the breech; he pulled with this, he pushed with that, and wheeled it round, as if it had been a plaything: it furrowed the ground like a ploughshare. He tore the sheet-lead from the touch-hole; then the powder-monkey rushed up with the fire, when the cannon went off, making the bark fly from the trees, and many an Indian send up his last yell and bite the dust."

This, however, gave the savages but a momentary check, as he could not follow it up; there being no one by ready and willing to lend him a helping hand. The Virginia rangers and other provincial troops, who had done the only good fighting of the day, were thinned out to one-fourth their number; and the few that remained were too weary and faint to hold out longer against such fearful odds. Between the well-aimed firing of the enemy and the random shooting of the regulars, the slaughter of the English officers had been frightful: out of the eighty-six who went into the battle, only twenty-four came off unhurt. Gen. Braddock had five horses killed under him. By this time, he had given up all hope of regaining the day; and, galling as it must have been to his proud spirit, was at last forced to think of retreating as their only chance of safety. Just as he was on the point, however, of giving orders to this effect, a bullet--said by some to have been a random shot from one of his own soldiers--pa.s.sed through his arm, and, lodging itself in his lungs, brought him to the ground, mortally wounded. His officers placed him in a tumbrel, or pioneer's cart, and bore him from the field, where, in his despair, he prayed them to leave him to die.

Seeing their leader fall, a fresh panic seized the army. And now followed a wild and disorderly rout, the like of which was never known before, and has never since been known, in our border-wars. The soldiers in front fell back on those in the centre; those in the centre fell back on those in the rear: till foot and horse, artillery and baggage, were jammed and jumbled together, making a scene of dismay and confusion it would be vain for me to attempt to describe.

To add wings to their speed, the Indians, with a long, loud yell of fiendish triumph, now rushed from their ambush, and, brandis.h.i.+ng aloft their murderous tomahawks, began to press hard on the heels of the terrified fugitives. The better to elude their savage pursuers, the regulars threw away their arms, the gunners abandoned their guns, and the teamsters cut their horses from the traces, and, mounting them, fled, never halting until they reached Col. Dunbar's camp,--a gallop of forty miles. A few fell under the tomahawk before the farther bank of the river could be gained. Here, luckily for the survivors, the Indians gave over the pursuit, in their eagerness to plunder the slain, and gather what else of booty might be found on the field.

Thus ended this b.l.o.o.d.y battle, or rather slaughter; for in truth it could be called nothing else. Of the sixteen hundred valiant men who had that morning, in all the bright array of gleaming arms and waving banners, marched along the banks of that beautiful river, nearly one-half, ere the sun went down, had fallen on Braddock's Hill. What made this disaster more shameful still was the weakness of the enemy's force, which did not exceed eight hundred, of whom only a fourth were French; and, of all this number, scarcely forty fell in the fight.

Col. Was.h.i.+ngton was now ordered to ride back with all speed to Dunbar's camp, to fetch horses, wagons, and hospital-stores for the relief of the wounded. Although still quite weak from his ten days'

fever, which indeed had left him with no more strength than should have sufficed for the fatigues of that trying day, yet he set out on the instant, and, taking with him a guard of grenadiers, travelled the livelong night. What with those terrible sights and sounds still ringing in his ears, and flas.h.i.+ng before his eyes; what with the thought of the many dead and dying that lay on the lonely hillside far behind, with their ghastly upturned faces, more ghastly still in the light of the moon; and what with the bitter, bitter reflection, that all this would never have been but for the pride and folly of a single man,--that ride through the dark and silent woods must have been a melancholy one indeed. He pushed on, without leaving the saddle, till late in the afternoon of the following day, when he reached Dunbar's camp; and gathering together, without loss of time, the necessaries for which he had been sent, started on his return that same night, scarcely allowing himself and men an hour for food and rest. Early next morning, he met the main division at Mr. Gist's plantation, whither they had dragged their shattered lines the evening before.

From thence they all went on together to the Great Meadows, where they arrived that same day, and halted.

For the four and twenty hours following the battle, Braddock had remained sad and silent; never speaking except to say, "Who would have thought it?" The second day, he seemed more cheerful; for he said, "We shall better know how to deal with them another time." He spoke in high praise of the skill and courage shown by the Virginia rangers and other provincial troops during the whole engagement. He now saw, but too late, and to his deep regret, that he had not given these rough and hardy men half the credit due them as good soldiers; and also that he had made a fatal mistake in underrating the strength, skill, and address of the enemy he had been sent there to subdue. To Was.h.i.+ngton he made a frank and manly apology for the contempt and impatience with which he had so often treated his prudent and well-timed counsel. As if wis.h.i.+ng to make still further amends for this, he bequeathed to him his faithful negro servant, Bishop, and his fine white charger, both of whom had helped to carry their wounded master from the field. On the fourth day after the battle, he died; having been kindly and tenderly cared for by Was.h.i.+ngton and his other surviving officers.

They dug him a grave by the roadside, not a stone's-throw from Fort Necessity, in the depths of that lonely wilderness; and there, before the summer morn had dawned, they buried him. In the absence of the chaplain, the funeral service was read by Was.h.i.+ngton, in a low and solemn voice, by the dim and flickering light of a torch. Fearing lest the enemy might be lurking near, and, spying out the spot, commit some outrage on his remains, they fired not a farewell shot over the grave of their unfortunate general,--that last tribute of respect to a departed soldier, and one he had himself paid, but a short time before, to a nameless Indian warrior. So there they laid him; and, to this day, the great highway leading from c.u.mberland to Pittsburg goes by the name of Braddock's Road.

I would, my dear children, have you dwell on these glimpses of a more manly and generous nature that brightened the closing hours of Braddock's life; because it is but Christian and just that we should be willing to honor virtue in whomsoever it may be found. With all his self-conceit and obstinacy, he had a kindly heart, and was a brave man; and had it been his lot to deal with a civilized enemy, instead of a savage one, he would, no doubt, have proved himself a skilful general. And we should not deal too harshly with the memory of a man, whose faults, however great they may have been, were more than atoned for by the inglorious death he died, and by "a name ever coupled with defeat."

XVII.

EXPLANATIONS.

Here, again, Uncle Juvinell paused in his story, and looked beamingly around on his little auditors. They were all sitting with their eyes bent earnestly on the burning logs, thinking deeply, no doubt, and looking as sober as tombstones in the light of a spring morning.

All on a sudden, Willie leaped from his chair, and gave a shrill Indian war-whoop, that threw the whole bevy into a terrible panic; making some of the smaller fry scream outright, and even Uncle Juvinell to blink a little. "There," said the youngster, "is something to ring in your ears for weeks hereafter, and never to be forgotten even to your dying day. I heard it the other night at the Indian circus, and have been practising it myself ever since. I fancy it must be a pretty fair sample of the genuine thing, or it wouldn't have scared you all up as it did." Whereupon Uncle Juvinell, frowning over his spectacles with his brows, and laughing behind them with his eyes, bade the young blood to pack himself into his chair again, and be civil; at the same time threatening to put him on a water-gruel diet, to bring his surplus spirits within reasonable bounds. Then all the little folks laughed, not so much at what their uncle had said, as to make believe they had not been frightened in the least; in which Willie, the cunning rogue, joined, that, under cover of the general merriment, he might snicker a little to himself at his own smartness.

"And now, my dear children," continued the good man, "hand me the notes you have written down, that I may see what it is you would have me explain."

"In five minutes' time after you began," said rattle-brained Willie, "I became so much interested in the story, that I quite forgot all about the notes, till it was too late to begin; but I was thinking all along, that I should like to understand more clearly the difference between a province and a colony, and"--

"Indeed, uncle," broke in Dannie, "you made every thing so clear and plain as you went along, that I, for one, didn't feel the need of writing down a single note."

"Then, Dannie," said his uncle, "that being the case, you can perhaps enlighten your cousin Willie as to the difference between a colony and a province."

Had his uncle called upon him to give the difference between Gog and Magog, Daniel would have made the venture. So he promptly answered,--

"A province is a country, and a colony is the people of it."

Uncle Juvinell would have laughed outright at this answer; but he knew it would mortify the young historian: so he only smiled, and said,--

"That will do pretty well, Dannie, as far as it goes; but it does not cover more than an acre of the ground. Now, a colony, you must know, Willie, is a settlement made by a country--called, in such cases, the mother-country--in some foreign region at a distance from it, but belonging to it; as, for example, the English colonies in America, which are separated from the mother-country, England, by the great Atlantic Ocean. A province, on the other hand, is a similar extent of foreign territory, belonging to a nation or a kingdom, either by conquest or purchase or settlement; and it may also be a division or district of the kingdom or nation itself. Thus, you see, a foreign region, settled and owned by the mother-country, may, with nearly equal propriety, be called either a colony or a province; while one that belongs to a nation or a kingdom by conquest or purchase is a province, and nothing else. Thus, for example, Canada is a province of Great Britain, won from the French by conquest, as you will learn to-morrow evening. From this you may see, that although a province may, yet a colony can no more exist within the boundaries of a mother-country, than can a man live at home and abroad at one and the same time."

The other children were then called on to produce their notes. Laura said, that, after she had written two or three, she found she was losing more than she was gaining; for, when she stopped to take down any item she wished to remember, she did not hear what came right after. Ellen chimed in with the same; and Ned said he was not yet out of his pot-hooks, and couldn't write; but that he was thinking all the time of getting Willie or Dannie to tell him all about it after they went to bed. So, what with this excuse, and that, and the other, not a single note was forthcoming, except a few that Master Charlie, the knowing young gentleman, had written on a very large slate, in letters quite of his own inventing, which he now laid before his uncle. To set off his penmans.h.i.+p to the best advantage, and couple the ornamental with the useful, he had drawn just above it a picture of Gen.

Braddock, mounted on his das.h.i.+ng white charger, and waving aloft a sword of monstrous length. One unacquainted with the subject, however, would sooner have taken it for a big baboon, geared up in a c.o.c.ked hat and high military boots, with a mowing-scythe in his hand, and astraddle of a rearing donkey heavily coated with feathers instead of hair. The old gentleman's spectacles seemed to twinkle as he ran his eye over the slate; and after making out two or three rather savage-looking _s_'s, as many long-legged _p_'s, a squat _h_ or two, a big bottle-bellied _b_, three or four gigantic _l_'s, a broken-backed _k_ or two, a high-shouldered _w_, a heavy-bottomed _d_, and a long slim-tailed _y_, it struck him, at length, that speech-belt, Long Knife, knapsack, Silver Heels, wigwam, and powder-monkey, were the items concerning which Master Charlie desired further enlightenment.

"For information touching these matters, my dear Charles," then said Uncle Juvinell, "I will pa.s.s you over to Willie and Dannie, who, I dare say, are quite as well posted up in matters of this kind, as your old uncle; for, if I mistake not, they have just been reading Catlin's book on the Indians, and Gulliver's Travels in Brobdignag."

"How is it," inquired Ellen, "that Was.h.i.+ngton, being the good man that he was, could have taken part in that wicked war between the French and English about a country that didn't belong to either of them, but to the poor Indians?"