carried the baby, and my father his sword and rifle and one of the little ones.  I took the three older children and set them on the feather bed that was bound to the back of the cow.  They clung to the bed-cord, their hair flying, as the old cow ran to keep up with us, for at first we were all running.  In a moment we could hear the voices of people coming behind.  One of the women was weeping loudly as she ran.  At the first cross-road we saw Arv Law and his family coming, in as great a hurry as we, Arv had a great pike-pole in his hand.  Its upper end rose twenty feet above his head.

“What ye goin’ t’ dew with thet?” my father asked him.

“Goin’ t’ run it through the fust Injun I see,” said he.  “I ’ve broke the lock o’ my gun.”

There was a crowd at Jerusalem Four Corners when we got there.  Every moment some family was arriving in a panic—­the men, like my father, with guns and babies and baskets.  The women, with the young, took refuge at once in the tavern, while the men surrounded it.  Inside the line were youths, some oddly armed with slings or clubs or cross-guns.  I had only the sword my father gave me and a mighty longing to use it.  Arv Law rested an end of his pike-pole and stood looking anxiously for “red devils” among the stumps of the farther clearing.  An old flint-lock, on the shoulder of a man beside him, had a barrel half as long as the pole.  David Church was equipped with axe and gun, that stood at rest on either side of him.

Evening came, and no sign of Indians.  While it was growing dusk I borrowed a pail of the innkeeper and milked the cow, and brought the pail, heaped with froth, to my mother, who passed brimming cups of milk among the children.  As night fell, we boys, more daring than our fathers, crept to the edge of the timber and set the big brush-heaps afire, and scurried back with the fear of redmen at our heels.  The men were now sitting in easy attitudes and had begun to talk.

“Don’t b’lieve there’s no Injuns comin’,” said Bill Foster.  “Ef they wus they ’d come.”

“‘Cordin’ t’ my observation,” said Arv Law, looking up at the sky, “Injuns mos’ gen’ally comes when they git ready.”

“An’ ‘t ain’t when yer ready t’ hev ’em, nuther,” said Lon Butterfield.

“B’lieve they come up ‘n’ peeked out o’ the bushes ‘n’ see Arv with thet air pike-pole, ‘n’ med up their minds they hed n’t better run up ag’in’ it,” said Bill Foster.  “Scairt ’em—­thet’s whut’s th’ matter.”

“Man ‘et meks light o’ this pole oughter hev t’ carry it,” said Arv, as he sat impassively resting it upon his knee.

“One things sure,” said Foster; “ef Arv sh’u’d cuff an Injun with thet air he ’ll squ’sh ’im.”

“Squ’sh ’im!” said Arv, with a look of disgust. “‘T ain’t med t’ squ’sh with, I cal’late t’ p’int it at ’em ‘n’ jab.”

And so, as the evening wore away and sleep hushed the timid, a better feeling came over us.  I sat by Rose Merriman on the steps, and we had no thought of Indians.  I was looking into her big hazel eyes, shining in the firelight, and thinking how beautiful she was.  And she, too, was looking into my eyes, while we whispered together, and the sly minx read my thoughts, I know, by the look of her.