BROTHER SQUARE-TOES
Philadelphia
If you're off to Philadelphia in the morning,
You mustn't take my stories for a guide.
There's little left indeed of the city you will read of,
And all the folk I write about have died.
Now few will understand if you mention Talleyrand,
Or remember what his cunning and his skill did.
And the cabmen at the wharf do not know Count Zinnendorf,
Nor the Church in Philadelphia he builded.
It is gone, gone, gone with lost Atlantis
(Never say I didn't give you warning).
In Seventeen Ninety-three 'twas there for all to see,
But it's not in Philadelphia this morning,
If you're off to Philadelphia in the morning,
You mustn't go by everything I've said.
Bob Bicknell's Southern Stages have been laid aside for ages,
But the Limited will take you there instead.
Toby Hirte can't be seen at One Hundred and Eighteen,
North Second Street - no matter when you call;
And I fear you'll search in vain for the wash-house down the lane
Where Pharaoh played the fiddle at the ball.
It is gone, gone, gone with Thebes the Golden
(Never say I didn't give you warning).
In Seventeen Ninety-four 'twas a famous dancing-floor -
But it's not in Philadelphia this morning.
If you're off to Philadelphia in the morning,
You must telegraph for rooms at some Hotel.
You needn't try your luck at Epply's or the 'Buck,'
Though the Father of his Country liked them well.
It is not the slightest use to inquire for Adam Goos,
Or to ask where Pastor Meder has removed - so
You must treat as out-of-date the story I relate
Of the Church in Philadelphia he loved so.
He is gone, gone, gone with Martin Luther
(Never say I didn't give you warning).
In Seventeen Ninety-five he was (rest his soul!) alive,
But he's not in Philadelphia this morning.
If you're off to Philadelphia this morning,
And wish to prove the truth of what I say,
I pledge my word you'll find the pleasant land behind
Unaltered since Red Jacket rode that way.
Still the pine-woods scent the noon; still the cat-bird sings his tune;
Still Autumn sets the maple-forest blazing.
Still the grape-vine through the dusk flings her soul-compelling musk;
Still the fire-flies in the corn make night amazing.
They are there, there, there with Earth immortal
(Citizens, I give you friendly warning).
The things that truly last when men and times have passed,
They are all in Pennsylvania this morning!
Brother Square-Toes
It was almost the end of their visit to the seaside. They had turned
themselves out of doors while their trunks were being packed,
and strolled over the Downs towards the dull evening sea. The
tide was dead low under the chalk cliffs, and the little wrinkled
waves grieved along the sands up the coast to Newhaven and
down the coast to long, grey Brighton, whose smoke trailed out
across the Channel.
They walked to The Gap, where the cliff is only a few feet high.
A windlass for hoisting shingle from the beach below stands at the
edge of it. The Coastguard cottages are a little farther on, and an
old ship's figurehead of a Turk in a turban stared at them over the wall.
'This time tomorrow we shall be at home, thank goodness,'
said Una. 'I hate the sea!'
'I believe it's all right in the middle,' said Dan. 'The edges are
the sorrowful parts.'
Cordery, the coastguard, came out of the cottage, levelled his
telescope at some fishing-boats, shut it with a click and walked
away. He grew smaller and smaller along the edge of the cliff,
where neat piles of white chalk every few yards show the path
even on the darkest night.
'Where's Cordery going?'said Una.
'Half-way to Newhaven,'said Dan. 'Then he'll meet the
Newhaven coastguard and turn back. He says if coastguards were done
away with, smuggling would start up at once.'
A voice on the beach under the cliff began to sing:
'The moon she shined on Telscombe Tye -
On Telscombe Tye at night it was -
She saw the smugglers riding by,
A very pretty sight it was!'
Feet scrabbled on the flinty path. A dark, thin-faced man in
very neat brown clothes and broad-toed shoes came up, followed
by Puck.
'Three Dunkirk boats was standin' in!'
the man went on.
'Hssh!' said Puck. 'You'll shock these nice young people.'
'Oh! Shall I? Mille pardons!' He shrugged his shoulders almost
up to his ears - spread his hands abroad, and jabbered in French.
'No comprenny?' he said. 'I'll give it you in Low German.' And
he went off in another language, changing his voice and manner
so completely that they hardly knew him for the same person.
But his dark beady-brown eyes still twinkled merrily in his lean
face, and the children felt that they did not suit the straight, plain,
snuffy-brown coat, brown knee-breeches, and broad-brimmed
hat. His hair was tied 'in a short pigtail which danced wickedly
when he turned his head.
'Ha' done!' said Puck, laughing. 'Be one thing or t'other,
Pharaoh - French or English or German - no great odds which.'
'Oh, but it is, though,' said Una quickly. 'We haven't begun
German yet, and - and we're going back to our French next week.'
'Aren't you English?' said Dan. 'We heard you singing just now.'
'Aha! That was the Sussex side o' me. Dad he married a French
girl out o' Boulogne, and French she stayed till her dyin' day. She
was an Aurette, of course. We Lees mostly marry Aurettes.
Haven't you ever come across the saying:
'Aurettes and Lees,
Like as two peas.
What they can't smuggle,
They'll run over seas'?
'Then, are you a smuggler?' Una cried; and, 'Have you
smuggled much?'said Dan.
Mr Lee nodded solemnly.
'Mind you,' said he, 'I don't uphold smuggling for the generality
o' mankind - mostly they can't make a do of it - but I was
brought up to the trade, d'ye see, in a lawful line o' descent on' -
he waved across the Channel -'on both sides the water. 'Twas all
in the families, same as fiddling. The Aurettes used mostly to run
the stuff across from Boulogne, and we Lees landed it here and ran
it up to London Town, by the safest road.'
'Then where did you live?' said Una.
'You mustn't ever live too close to your business in our trade.
We kept our little fishing smack at Shoreham, but otherwise we
Lees was all honest cottager folk - at Warminghurst under Washington
- Bramber way - on the old Penn estate.'
'Ah!' said Puck, squatted by the windlass. 'I remember a piece
about the Lees at Warminghurst, I do:
'There was never a Lee to Warminghurst
That wasn't a gipsy last and first.
I reckon that's truth, Pharaoh.'
Pharaoh laughed. 'Admettin' that's true,' he said, 'my gipsy
blood must be wore pretty thin, for I've made and kept a worldly
fortune.'
'By smuggling?' Dan asked.
'No, in the tobacco trade.'
'You don't mean to say you gave up smuggling just to go and
be a tobacconist!' Dan looked so disappointed they all had to laugh.
'I'm sorry; but there's all sorts of tobacconists,' Pharaoh
replied. 'How far out, now, would you call that smack with the
patch on her foresail?' He pointed to the fishing-boats.
'A scant mile,' said Puck after a quick look.
'Just about. It's seven fathom under her - clean sand. That was
where Uncle Aurette used to sink his brandy kegs from
Boulogne, and we fished 'em up and rowed 'em into The Gap
here for the ponies to run inland. One thickish night in January of
'Ninety-three, Dad and Uncle Lot and me came over from
Shoreham in the smack, and we found Uncle Aurette and the
L'Estranges, my cousins, waiting for us in their lugger with New
Year's presents from Mother's folk in Boulogne. I remember
Aunt Cecile she'd sent me a fine new red knitted cap, which I put
on then and there, for the French was having their Revolution in
those days, and red caps was all the fashion. Uncle Aurette tells us
that they had cut off their King Louis' head, and, moreover, the
Brest forts had fired on an English man-o'-war. The news wasn't
a week old.
'"That means war again, when we was only just getting used
to the peace," says Dad. "Why can't King George's men and King
Louis' men do on their uniforms and fight it out over our heads?"
'"Me too, I wish that," says Uncle Aurette. "But they'll be
pressing better men than themselves to fight for 'em. The press-
gangs are out already on our side. You look out for yours. "
'"I'll have to bide ashore and grow cabbages for a while, after
I've run this cargo; but I do wish" - Dad says, going over the
lugger's side with our New Year presents under his arm and
young L'Estrange holding the lantern - "I just do wish that those
folk which make war so easy had to run one cargo a month all this
winter. It 'ud show 'em what honest work means."
'"Well, I've warned ye," says Uncle Aurette. "I'll be slipping
off now before your Revenue cutter comes. Give my love to
Sister and take care o' the kegs. It's thicking to southward."
'I remember him waving to us and young Stephen L'Estrange
blowing out the lantern. By the time we'd fished up the kegs the
fog came down so thick Dad judged it risky for me to row 'em
ashore, even though we could hear the ponies stamping on the
beach. So he and Uncle Lot took the dinghy and left me in the
smack playing on my fiddle to guide 'em back.
'Presently I heard guns. Two of 'em sounded mighty like
Uncle Aurette's three-pounders. He didn't go naked about the
seas after dark. Then come more, which I reckoned was Captain
Giddens in the Revenue cutter. He was open-handed with his
compliments, but he would lay his guns himself. I stopped fiddling
to listen, and I heard a whole skyful o' French up in the fog -
and a high bow come down on top o' the smack. I hadn't time to
call or think. I remember the smack heeling over, and me
standing on the gunwale pushing against the ship's side as if I
hoped to bear her off. Then the square of an open port, with a
lantern in it, slid by in front of my nose. I kicked back on our
gunwale as it went under and slipped through that port into the
French ship - me and my fiddle.'
'Gracious!' said Una. 'What an adventure!'
'Didn't anybody see you come in?' said Dan.
'There wasn't any one there. I'd made use of an orlop-deck port
- that's the next deck below the gun-deck, which by rights should
not have been open at all. The crew was standing by their guns up
above. I rolled on to a pile of dunnage in the dark and I went to
sleep. When I woke, men was talking all round me, telling each
other their names and sorrows just like Dad told me pressed men
used to talk in the last war. Pretty soon I made out they'd all been
hove aboard together by the press-gangs, and left to sort
'emselves. The ship she was the Embuscade, a thirty-six-gun
Republican frigate, Captain Jean Baptiste Bompard, two days out
of Le Havre, going to the United States with a Republican French
Ambassador of the name of Genet. They had been up all night
clearing for action on account of hearing guns in the fog. Uncle
Aurette and Captain Giddens must have been passing the time o'
day with each other off Newhaven, and the frigate had drifted
past 'em. She never knew she'd run down our smack. Seeing so
many aboard was total strangers to each other, I thought one
more mightn't be noticed; so I put Aunt Cecile's red cap on the
back of my head, and my hands in my pockets like the rest, and, as
we French say, I circulated till I found the galley.
'"What! Here's one of 'em that isn't sick!" says a cook. "Take
his breakfast to Citizen Bompard."
'I carried the tray to the cabin, but I didn't call this Bompard
"Citizen." Oh no! "Mon Capitaine" was my little word, same as
Uncle Aurette used to answer in King Louis' Navy. Bompard, he
liked it. He took me on for cabin servant, and after that no one
asked questions; and thus I got good victuals and light work all
the way across to America. He talked a heap of politics, and so did
his officers, and when this Ambassador Genet got rid of his
land-stomach and laid down the law after dinner, a rooks'
parliament was nothing compared to their cabin. I learned to
know most of the men which had worked the French Revolution,
through waiting at table and hearing talk about 'em. One of our
forecas'le six-pounders was called Danton and t'other Marat. I
used to play the fiddle between 'em, sitting on the capstan. Day in
and day out Bompard and Monsieur Genet talked o' what France
had done, and how the United States was going to join her to
finish off the English in this war. Monsieur Genet said he'd
justabout make the United States fight for France. He was a rude
common man. But I liked listening. I always helped drink any
healths that was proposed - specially Citizen Danton's who'd cut
off King Louis' head. An all-Englishman might have been
shocked - but that's where my French blood saved me.
'It didn't save me from getting a dose of ship's fever though, the
week before we put Monsieur Genet ashore at Charleston; and
what was left of me after bleeding and pills took the dumb horrors
from living 'tween decks. The surgeon, Karaguen his name was,
kept me down there to help him with his plasters - I was too weak
to wait on Bompard. I don't remember much of any account for
the next few weeks, till I smelled lilacs, and I looked out of the
port, and we was moored to a wharf-edge and there was a town o'
fine gardens and red-brick houses and all the green leaves o' God's
world waiting for me outside.
'"What's this?" I said to the sick-bay man - Old Pierre
Tiphaigne he was. "Philadelphia," says Pierre. "You've missed it
all. We're sailing next week. "
'I just turned round and cried for longing to be amongst
the laylocks.
'"If that's your trouble," says old Pierre, "you go straight
ashore. None'll hinder you. They're all gone mad on these coasts
- French and American together. 'Tisn't my notion o' war."
Pierre was an old King Louis man.
'My legs was pretty tottly, but I made shift to go on deck,
which it was like a fair. The frigate was crowded with fine
gentlemen and ladies pouring in and out. They sung and they
waved French flags, while Captain Bompard and his officers -
yes, and some of the men - speechified to all and sundry about
war with England. They shouted, "Down with England!" -
"Down with Washington!" - "Hurrah for France and the
Republic!" I couldn't make sense of it. I wanted to get out from
that crunch of swords and petticoats and sit in a field. One of the
gentlemen said to me, "Is that a genuine cap o' Liberty you're
wearing?" 'Twas Aunt Cecile's red one, and pretty near wore
out. "Oh yes!" I says, "straight from France." "I'll give you a
shilling for it," he says, and with that money in my hand and my
fiddle under my arm I squeezed past the entry-port and went
ashore. It was like a dream - meadows, trees, flowers, birds,
houses, and people all different! I sat me down in a meadow and
fiddled a bit, and then I went in and out the streets, looking and
smelling and touching, like a little dog at a fair. Fine folk was
setting on the white stone doorsteps of their houses, and a girl
threw me a handful of laylock sprays, and when I said "Merci"
without thinking, she said she loved the French. They all was the
fashion in the city. I saw more tricolour flags in Philadelphia than
ever I'd seen in Boulogne, and every one was shouting for war
with England. A crowd o' folk was cheering after our French
Ambassador - that same Monsieur Genet which we'd left at
Charleston. He was a-horseback behaving as if the place belonged
to him - and commanding all and sundry to fight the British. But
I'd heard that before. I got into a long straight street as wide as the
Broyle, where gentlemen was racing horses. I'm fond o' horses.
Nobody hindered 'em, and a man told me it was called Race
Street o' purpose for that. Then I followed some black niggers,
which I'd never seen close before; but I left them to run after a
great, proud, copper-faced man with feathers in his hair and a red
blanket trailing behind him. A man told me he was a real Red
Indian called Red Jacket, and I followed him into an alley-way off
Race Street by Second Street, where there was a fiddle playing.
I'm fond o' fiddling. The Indian stopped at a baker's shop -
Conrad Gerhard's it was - and bought some sugary cakes. Hearing
what the price was I was going to have some too, but the
Indian asked me in English if I was hungry. "Oh yes!" I says. I
must have looked a sore scrattel. He opens a door on to a staircase
and leads the way up. We walked into a dirty little room full of
flutes and fiddles and a fat man fiddling by the window, in a smell
of cheese and medicines fit to knock you down. I was knocked
down too, for the fat man jumped up and hit me a smack in the
face. I fell against an old spinet covered with pill-boxes and the
pills rolled about the floor. The Indian never moved an eyelid.
'"Pick up the pills! Pick up the pills!" the fat man screeches.
'I started picking 'em up - hundreds of 'em - meaning to run
out under the Indian's arm, but I came on giddy all over and I sat
down. The fat man went back to his fiddling.
'"Toby!" says the Indian after quite a while. "I brought the
boy to be fed, not hit."
'"What?" says Toby, "I thought it was Gert Schwankfelder."
He put down his fiddle and took a good look at me. "Himmel!"
he says. "I have hit the wrong boy. It is not the new boy. Why are
you not the new boy? Why are you not Gert Schwankfelder?"
'"I don't know," I said. "The gentleman in the pink blanket
brought me."
'Says the Indian, "He is hungry, Toby. Christians always feed
the hungry. So I bring him."
'"You should have said that first," said Toby. He pushed
plates at me and the Indian put bread and pork on them, and a
glass of Madeira wine. I told him I was off the French ship, which
I had joined on account of my mother being French. That was
true enough when you think of it, and besides I saw that the
French was all the fashion in Philadelphia. Toby and the Indian
whispered and I went on picking up the pills.
'"You like pills - eh?" says Toby.
'"No," I says. "I've seen our ship's doctor roll too many of
em.'
'"Ho!" he says, and he shoves two bottles at me. "What's
those?"
'"Calomel," I says. "And t'other's senna.
'"Right," he says. "One week have I tried to teach Gert
Schwankfelder the difference between them, yet he cannot tell.
You like to fiddle?" he says. He'd just seen my kit on the floor.
'"Oh yes!" says I,
'"Oho!" he says. "What note is this?" drawing his bow across.
'He meant it for A, so I told him it was.
'"My brother," he says to the Indian. "I think this is the hand
of Providence! I warned that Gert if he went to play upon the
wharves any more he would hear from me. Now look at this boy
and say what you think."
'The Indian looked me over whole minutes - there was a
musical clock on the wall and dolls came out and hopped while
the hour struck. He looked me over all the while they did it.
'"Good," he says at last. "This boy is good."
'"Good, then," says Toby. "Now I shall play my fiddle and
you shall sing your hymn, brother. Boy, go down to the bakery
and tell them you are young Gert Schwankfelder that was. The
horses are in Davy jones's locker. If you ask any questions you
shall hear from me."
'I left 'em singing hymns and I went down to old Conrad
Gerhard. He wasn't at all surprised when I told him I was young
Gert Schwankfelder that was. He knew Toby. His wife she
walked me into the back-yard without a word, and she washed
me and she cut my hair to the edge of a basin, and she put me to
bed, and oh! how I slept - how I slept in that little room behind the
oven looking on the flower garden! I didn't know Toby went to
the Embuscade that night and bought me off Dr Karaguen for
twelve dollars and a dozen bottles of Seneca Oil. Karaguen
wanted a new lace to his coat, and he reckoned I hadn't long to
live; so he put me down as "discharged sick."
'I like Toby,' said Una.
'Who was he?' said Puck.
'Apothecary Tobias Hirte,' Pharaoh replied. 'One Hundred
and Eighteen, Second Street - the famous Seneca Oil man, that
lived half of every year among the Indians. But let me tell my tale
my own way, same as his brown mare used to go to Lebanon.'
'Then why did he keep her in Davy Jones's locker?' Dan asked.
'That was his joke. He kept her under David Jones's hat shop in
the "Buck" tavern yard, and his Indian friends kept their ponies
there when they visited him. I looked after the horses when I
wasn't rolling pills on top of the old spinet, while he played his
fiddle and Red Jacket sang hymns. I liked it. I had good victuals,
light work, a suit o' clean clothes, a plenty music, and quiet,
smiling German folk all around that let me sit in their gardens.
My first Sunday, Toby took me to his church in Moravian Alley;
and that was in a garden too. The women wore long-eared caps
and handkerchiefs. They came in at one door and the men at
another, and there was a brass chandelier you could see your face
in, and a nigger-boy to blow the organ bellows. I carried Toby's
fiddle, and he played pretty much as he chose all against the organ
and the singing. He was the only one they let do it, for they was a
simple-minded folk. They used to wash each other's feet up in the
attic to keep 'emselves humble: which Lord knows they didn't need.'
'How very queer!' said Una.
Pharaoh's eyes twinkled. 'I've met many and seen much,' he
said; 'but I haven't yet found any better or quieter or forbearinger
people than the Brethren and Sistern of the Moravian Church in
Philadelphia. Nor will I ever forget my first Sunday - the service
was in English that week - with the smell of the flowers coming in
from Pastor Meder's garden where the big peach tree is, and me
looking at all the clean strangeness and thinking of 'tween decks
on the Embuscade only six days ago. Being a boy, it seemed to me
it had lasted for ever, and was going on for ever. But I didn't
know Toby then. As soon as the dancing clock struck midnight
that Sunday - I was lying under the spinet - I heard Toby's fiddle.
He'd just done his supper, which he always took late and heavy.
"Gert," says he, "get the horses. Liberty and Independence for
Ever! The flowers appear upon the earth, and the time of the
singing of birds is come. We are going to my country seat in
Lebanon."
'I rubbed my eyes, and fetched 'em out of the "Buck" stables.
Red Jacket was there saddling his, and when I'd packed the
saddle-bags we three rode up Race Street to the Ferry by starlight.
So we went travelling. It's a kindly, softly country there, back of
Philadelphia among the German towns, Lancaster way. Little
houses and bursting big barns, fat cattle, fat women, and all as
peaceful as Heaven might be if they farmed there. Toby sold
medicines out of his saddlebags, and gave the French war-news to
folk along the roads. Him and his long-hilted umberell was as
well known as the stage-coaches. He took orders for that famous
Seneca Oil which he had the secret of from Red Jacket's Indians,
and he slept in friends' farmhouses, but he would shut all the
windows; so Red Jacket and me slept outside. There's nothing to
hurt except snakes - and they slip away quick enough if you
thrash in the bushes.'
'I'd have liked that!' said Dan.
'I'd no fault to find with those days. In the cool o' the morning
the cat-bird sings. He's something to listen to. And there's a smell
of wild grape-vine growing in damp hollows which you drop
into, after long rides in the heat, which is beyond compare for
sweetness. So's the puffs out of the pine woods of afternoons.
Come sundown, the frogs strike up, and later on the fireflies
dance in the corn. Oh me, the fireflies in the corn! We were a week
or ten days on the road, tacking from one place to another - such
as Lancaster, Bethlehem-Ephrata - "thou Bethlehem-Ephrata."
No odds - I loved the going about. And so we jogged 'into dozy
little Lebanon by the Blue Mountains, where Toby had a cottage
and a garden of all fruits. He come north every year for this
wonderful Seneca Oil the Seneca Indians made for him. They'd
never sell to any one else, and he doctored 'em with von Swieten
pills, which they valued more than their own oil. He could do
what he chose with them, and, of course, he tried to make them
Moravians. The Senecas are a seemly, quiet people, and they'd
had trouble enough from white men - American and English -
during the wars, to keep 'em in that walk. They lived on a
Reservation by themselves away off by their lake. Toby took me
up there, and they treated me as if I was their own blood brother.
Red Jacket said the mark of my bare feet in the dust was just like an
Indian's and my style of walking was similar. I know I took to
their ways all over.'
'Maybe the gipsy drop in your blood helped you?' said Puck.
'Sometimes I think it did,' Pharaoh went on. 'Anyhow, Red
Jacket and Cornplanter, the other Seneca chief, they let me be
adopted into the tribe. It's only a compliment, of course, but
Toby was angry when I showed up with my face painted. They
gave me a side-name which means "Two Tongues," because,
d'ye see, I talked French and English.
'They had their own opinions (I've heard 'em) about the French
and the English, and the Americans. They'd suffered from all of
'em during the wars, and they only wished to be left alone. But
they thought a heap of the President of the United States. Cornplanter
had had dealings with him in some French wars out West
when General Washington was only a lad. His being President
afterwards made no odds to 'em. They always called him Big
Hand, for he was a large-fisted man, and he was all of their notion
of a white chief. Cornplanter 'ud sweep his blanket round him,
and after I'd filled his pipe he'd begin - "In the old days, long ago,
when braves were many and blankets were few, Big Hand said-"
If Red Jacket agreed to the say-so he'd trickle a little smoke out of
the corners of his mouth. If he didn't, he'd blow through his
nostrils. Then Cornplanter 'ud stop and Red Jacket 'ud take on.
Red Jacket was the better talker of the two. I've laid and listened to
'em for hours. Oh! they knew General Washington well. Cornplanter
used to meet him at Epply's - the great dancing-place in
the city before District Marshal William Nichols bought it. They
told me he was always glad to see 'em, and he'd hear 'em out to
the end if they had anything on their minds. They had a good deal
in those days. I came at it by degrees, after I was adopted into the
tribe. The talk up in Lebanon and everywhere else that summer
was about the French war with England and whether the United
States 'ud join in with France or make a peace treaty with
England. Toby wanted peace so as he could go about the Reservation
buying his oils. But most of the white men wished for war,
and they was angry because the President wouldn't give the sign
for it. The newspaper said men was burning Guy Fawkes images
of General Washington and yelling after him in the streets of
Philadelphia. You'd have been astonished what those two fine old
chiefs knew of the ins and outs of such matters. The little I've
learned of politics I picked up from Cornplanter and Red Jacket
on the Reservation. Toby used to read the Aurora newspaper. He
was what they call a "Democrat," though our Church is against
the Brethren concerning themselves with politics.'
'I hate politics, too,' said Una, and Pharaoh laughed.
'I might ha' guessed it,' he said. 'But here's something that isn't
politics. One hot evening late in August, Toby was reading the
newspaper on the stoop and Red Jacket was smoking under a
peach tree and I was fiddling. Of a sudden Toby drops his Aurora.
'"I am an oldish man, too fond of my own comforts," he says.
"I will go to the Church which is in Philadelphia. My brother,
lend me a spare pony. I must be there tomorrow night."
'"Good!" says Red Jacket, looking at the sun. "My brother
shall be there. I will ride with him and bring back the ponies.
'I went to pack the saddle-bags. Toby had cured me of asking
questions. He stopped my fiddling if I did. Besides, Indians don't
ask questions much and I wanted to be like 'em.
'When the horses were ready I jumped up.
'"Get off," says Toby. "Stay and mind the cottage till I come
back. The Lord has laid this on me, not on you. I wish He
hadn't."
'He powders off down the Lancaster road, and I sat on the
doorstep wondering after him. When I picked up the paper to
wrap his fiddle-strings in, I spelled out a piece about the yellow
fever being in Philadelphia so dreadful every one was running
away. I was scared, for I was fond of Toby. We never said much
to each other, but we fiddled together, and music's as good as
talking to them that understand.'
'Did Toby die of yellow fever?'Una asked.
'Not him! There's justice left in the world still. He went down
to the City and bled 'em well again in heaps. He sent back word
by Red Jacket that, if there was war or he died, I was to bring the
oils along to the City, but till then I was to go on working in the
garden and Red Jacket was to see me do it. Down at heart all
Indians reckon digging a squaw's business, and neither him nor
Cornplanter, when he relieved watch, was a hard task-Master.
We hired a nigger-boy to do our work, and a lazy grinning
runagate he was. When I found Toby didn't die the minute he
reached town, why, boylike, I took him off my mind and went
with my Indians again. Oh! those days up north at Canasedago,
running races and gambling with the Senecas, or bee-hunting 'in
the woods, or fishing in the lake.' Pharaoh sighed and looked
across the water. 'But it's best,' he went on suddenly, 'after the
first frosts. You roll out o' your blanket and find every leaf left
green over night turned red and yellow, not by trees at a time, but
hundreds and hundreds of miles of 'em, like sunsets splattered
upside down. On one of such days - the maples was flaming
scarlet and gold, and the sumach bushes were redder - Cornplanter
and Red Jacket came out in full war-dress, making the
very leaves look silly: feathered war-bonnets, yellow doeskin
leggings, fringed and tasselled, red horse-blankets, and their
bridles feathered and shelled and beaded no bounds. I thought it
was war against the British till I saw their faces weren't painted,
and they only carried wrist-whips. Then I hummed "Yankee
Doodle" at 'em. They told me they was going to visit Big Hand
and find out for sure whether he meant to join the French in
fighting the English or make a peace treaty with England. I
reckon those two would ha' gone out on the war-path at a nod
from Big Hand, but they knew well, if there was war 'twixt
England and the United States, their tribe 'ud catch it from both
parties same as in all the other wars. They asked me to come along
and hold the ponies. That puzzled me, because they always put
their ponies up at the "Buck" or Epply's when they went to see
General Washington in the city, and horse-holding is a nigger's
job. Besides, I wasn't exactly dressed for it.'
'D'you mean you were dressed like an Indian?'Dan demanded.
Pharaoh looked a little abashed. 'This didn't happen at
Lebanon,' he said, 'but a bit farther north, on the Reservation; and
at that particular moment of time, so far as blanket, hair-band,
moccasins, and sunburn went, there wasn't much odds 'twix' me
and a young Seneca buck. You may laugh'- he smoothed down
his long-skirted brown coat -'but I told you I took to their ways
all over. I said nothing, though I was bursting to let out the
war-whoop like the young men had taught me.'
'No, and you don't let out one here, either,' said Puck before
Dan could ask. 'Go on, Brother Square-toes.'
'We went on.' Pharaoh's narrow dark eyes gleamed and
danced. 'We went on - forty, fifty miles a day, for days on end -
we three braves. And how a great tall Indian a-horse-back can
carry his war-bonnet at a canter through thick timber without
brushing a feather beats me! My silly head was banged often
enough by low branches, but they slipped through like running
elk. We had evening hymn-singing every night after they'd
blown their pipe-smoke to the quarters of heaven. Where did we
go? I'll tell you, but don't blame me if you're no wiser. We took
the old war-trail from the end of the Lake along the East
Susquehanna through the Nantego country, right down to Fort
Shamokin on the Senachse river. We crossed the Juniata by Fort
Granville, got into Shippensberg over the hills by the Ochwick
trail, and then to Williams Ferry (it's a bad one). From Williams
Ferry, across the Shanedore, over the Blue Mountains, through
Ashby's Gap, and so south-east by south from there, till we found
the President at the back of his own plantations. I'd hate to be
trailed by Indians in earnest. They caught him like a partridge on a
stump. After we'd left our ponies, we scouted forward through a
woody piece, and, creeping slower and slower, at last if my
moccasins even slipped Red Jacket 'ud turn and frown. I heard
voices - Monsieur Genet's for choice - long before I saw anything,
and we pulled up at the edge of a clearing where some
niggers in grey-and-red liveries were holding horses, and half-a-
dozen gentlemen - but one was Genet - were talking among felled
timber. I fancy they'd come to see Genet a piece on his road, for
his portmantle was with him. I hid in between two logs as near to
the company as I be to that old windlass there. I didn't need
anybody to show me Big Hand. He stood up, very still, his legs a
little apart, listening to Genet, that French Ambassador, which
never had more manners than a Bosham tinker. Genet was as
good as ordering him to declare war on England at once. I had
heard that clack before on the Embuscade. He said he'd stir up the
whole United States to have war with England, whether Big
Hand liked it or not.
'Big Hand heard him out to the last end. I looked behind me,
and my two chiefs had vanished like smoke. Says Big Hand,
"That is very forcibly put, Monsieur Genet -"
'"Citizen - citizen!" the fellow spits in. "I, at least, am
a Republican!"
"Citizen Genet," he says, "you may be sure it will receive my
fullest consideration." This seemed to take Citizen Genet back a
piece. He rode off grumbling, and never gave his nigger a penny.
No gentleman!
'The others all assembled round Big Hand then, and, in their
way, they said pretty much what Genet had said. They put it to
him, here was France and England at war, in a manner of speaking,
right across the United States' stomach, and paying no
regards to any one. The French was searching American ships on
pretence they was helping England, but really for to steal the
goods. The English was doing the same, only t'other way round,
and besides searching, they was pressing American citizens into
their Navy to help them fight France, on pretence that those
Americans was lawful British subjects. His gentlemen put this
very clear to Big Hand. It didn't look to them, they said, as though
the United States trying to keep out of the fight was any advantage
to her, because she only catched it from both French and
English. They said that nine out of ten good Americans was crazy
to fight the English then and there. They wouldn't say whether
that was right or wrong; they only wanted Big Hand to turn it
over in his mind. He did - for a while. I saw Red Jacket and
Cornplanter watching him from the far side of the clearing, and
how they had slipped round there was another mystery. Then Big
Hand drew himself up, and he let his gentlemen have it.'
'Hit 'em?' Dan asked.
'No, nor yet was it what you might call swearing. He - he
blasted 'em with his natural speech. He asked them half-a-dozen
times over whether the United States had enough armed ships for
any shape or sort of war with any one. He asked 'em, if they
thought she had those ships, to give him those ships, and they
looked on the ground, as if they expected to find 'em there. He put
it to 'em whether, setting ships aside, their country - I reckon he
gave 'em good reasons - whether the United States was ready or
able to face a new big war; she having but so few years back
wound up one against England, and being all holds full of her
own troubles. As I said, the strong way he laid it all before 'em
blasted 'em, and when he'd done it was like a still in the woods
after a storm. A little man - but they all looked little - pipes up like
a young rook in a blowed-down nest, "Nevertheless, General, it
seems you will be compelled to fight England." Quick Big Hand
wheeled on him, "And is there anything in my past which makes
you think I am averse to fighting Great Britain?"
'Everybody laughed except him. "Oh, General, you mistake
us entirely!" they says. "I trust so," he says. "But I know my
duty. We must have peace with England."
'"At any price?" says the man with the rook's voice.
'"At any price," says he, word by word. "Our ships will be
searched - our citizens will be pressed, but -"
'"Then what about the Declaration of Independence?" says one.
'"Deal with facts, not fancies," says Big Hand. "The United
States are in no position to fight England."
'"But think of public opinion," another one starts up. "The
feeling in Philadelphia alone is at fever heat."
'He held up one of his big hands. "Gentlemen," he says - slow
he spoke, but his voice carried far - "I have to think of our
country. Let me assure you that the treaty with Great Britain will
be made though every city in the Union burn me in effigy."
'"At any price?" the actor-like chap keeps on croaking.
'"The treaty must be made on Great Britain's own terms.
What else can I do?"
'He turns his back on 'em and they looked at each other and
slinked off to the horses, leaving him alone: and then I saw he was
an old man. Then Red Jacket and Cornplanter rode down the
clearing from the far end as though they had just chanced along.
Back went Big Hand's shoulders, up went his head, and he
stepped forward one single pace with a great deep Hough! so
pleased he was. That was a statelified meeting to behold - three
big men, and two of 'em looking like jewelled images among the
spattle of gay-coloured leaves. I saw my chiefs' war-bonnets
sinking together, down and down. Then they made the sign
which no Indian makes outside of the Medicine Lodges - a sweep
of the right hand just clear of the dust and an inbend of the left
knee at the same time, and those proud eagle feathers almost
touched his boot-top.'
'What did it mean?' said Dan.
'Mean!' Pharaoh cried. 'Why it's what you - what we - it's the
Sachems' way of sprinkling the sacred corn-meal in front of - oh!
it's a piece of Indian compliment really, and it signifies that you
are a very big chief.
'Big Hand looked down on 'em. First he says quite softly, "My
brothers know it is not easy to be a chief." Then his voice grew.
"My children," says he, "what is in your minds?"
'Says Cornplanter, "We came to ask whether there will be war
with King George's men, but we have heard what our Father has
said to his chiefs. We will carry away that talk in our hearts to tell
to our people."
'"No," says Big Hand. "Leave all that talk behind - it was
between white men only - but take this message from me to your
people - 'There will be no war.'"
'His gentlemen were waiting, so they didn't delay him-, only
Cornplanter says, using his old side-name, "Big Hand, did you
see us among the timber just now?"
'"Surely," says he. "You taught me to look behind trees when
we were both young." And with that he cantered off.
'Neither of my chiefs spoke till we were back on our ponies
again and a half-hour along the home-trail. Then Cornplanter
says to Red Jacket, "We will have the Corn-dance this year. There
will be no war." And that was all there was to it.'
Pharaoh stood up as though he had finished.
'Yes,' said Puck, rising too. 'And what came out of it in the
long run?'
'Let me get at my story my own way,'was the answer. 'Look!
it's later than I thought. That Shoreham smack's thinking of her supper.'
The children looked across the darkening Channel. A smack
had hoisted a lantern and slowly moved west where Brighton pier
lights ran out in a twinkling line. When they turned round The
Gap was empty behind them.
'I expect they've packed our trunks by now,' said Dan. 'This
time tomorrow we'll be home.'
If -
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
