seventeen years before. After dinner-where, by Before our companions arrived, we rode on up the Houlton road seven miles, to Molunkus, where the Aroostook road comes into it, and where there is a spacious public house in the woods, called the "Molunkus House," kept by one Libbey, which looked as if it had its hall for dancing and for military drills. There was no other evidence of war but this huge shingle palace in this part of the world; but sometimes even this is filled with travellers. I looked off the piazza round the corner of the house up the Aroostook road, on which there was no clearing in sight; and there was a man just adventuring upon it this evening, in a rude, original, what you may call Aroostook, wagon-a mere seat, with a wagon swung under it, a few boys on it, and a dog asleep to watch them. He offered to carry a message for us to anybody in that country, cheerfully. I suspect, that if you should go to the end of the world, you would find somebody there going further, as if just starting for home at sundown, and having a last word before he drove off. Here, too, was a small trader, whom I did not see at first, who kept a store-but no great store, certainly-in a small box over the way, behind the Molunkus sign post. It looked like the balance-box of a patent hayscales. As for his house, we could only conjecture where that was; he may have been a boarder in the Molunkus House. I saw him standing in his shop-door-his shop so small, that, if a traveller should make demonstrations of entering in, he would have to go out by the back way, and confer with him through a window, about his goods in the cellar, or, more probably, bespoken, and yet on the way. I should have gone in, for I felt a real impulse to trade, if I had not stopped to consider what would become of him. The day before, we had walked into a shop, over against an inn where we stopped, the puny beginning of trade, which would grow at last into a firm copartnership, in the future town or city-indeed, it was already "Somebody & Co.," I forget who. The woman came forward from the penetralia of the attached house, for "Somebody & Co." was in the burning, and she sold us percussion-caps, canalès and smooth; and knew their prices and qualities, and which the hunters preferred. Here was a little of everything in a small compass to satisfy the wants and the ambition of the woods, a stock selected with what pains and care, and brought home in the wagon box, or a corner of the Houl. ton team; but there seemed to me, as usual, a preponderance of children's toys, dogs to bark, and cats to mew, and trumpets to blow, where natives there hardly are yet. As if a child, born into the Maine woods, among the pine canes and cedar berries, could not do without such a sugar-man, or skipping-jack, as the young Rothschild has. I think that there was not more than one house on the road to Molunkus, or for seven miles. At that place we got over the fence into a new field, planted with potatoes, where the logs were still burning between the hills; and, pulling up the vines, found good-sized potatoes, nearly ripe, growing like weeds, and turnips mixed with them. The mode of clearing and planting, is, to fell the trees, and burn once what will burn, then cut them up into suitable lengths, roll into heaps, and burn again; then, with a hoe, plant potatoes where you can come at the ground between the stumps and charred logs, for a first crop, the ashes sufficing for manure, and no hoeing being necessary the first year. In the fall, cut, roll, and burn again, and so on, till the land is cleared; EREWHILE, a maiden young and fair 1 knew, Its cherish'd plant was broken by the blast "T was sad to see her, when the storm was past And yet she strove to raise her drooping head, Though all her fairest flowers were crush'd and dead. She rose-but soon I saw her droop again Anon I stood beside her couch of pain: Stern Death his signet on her brow had press'd, And the life clock beat wildly in her breast; But calmer grew her soul while lingering there, "I am weary-let me sleep! And my tears must flow like rain. 11. On Life's bleak and barren hill, Sadly must I wander still! "T is a rugged way, and steep I am weary-let me sleep! 111. Father, hear thy humble child! In fainter echoes fell those tones again, "Sleep-welcome sleep"-and then her heart was still. Kind heaven had heard that weary maiden's prayer, And angels hover'd o'er the sleeper there. THE TRIUMPH OF INNOCENCE. BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR. (See the Engraving.) NOTWITHSTANDING the stern, savage traits, which | startled by the sudden appearance of another par make up almost wholly the composition of the Indian, where his habits have not been modified by civilization-even his virtues being of rigid and Spartan character-there was a marked difference in this respect between the various tribes who, more than a century ago, held possession of the inland forests of New-York and Pennsylvania. Those races who dwelt along the shores of Lake Ontario and beside the Northern rivers, were fierce, brave, and implacable in their hostility; while those to whom belonged the richer and warmer vales of the Delaware, were peaceful, kind, and marked, in some degree, by a natural refinement of sentiment, if the absence of rude and savage qualities of heart may be so termed. The difference in the character of their intercourse with the white settlers was equally marked: for, though when either tribe had dug up the hatchet of war, it was used with almost unsparing enmity, till the termination of the quarrel, the latter tribe exercised less barbarity towards their prisoners, and possessed less stoical endurance of suffering when themselves captured. They never, as an entire race, waged war against the settlers, but small parties of warriors, on the northern borders of their domain, frequently made inroads on the nearest settlements during the troubled times of the old French War. It was during one of these marauding excursions that the event occurred, which is so well depicted in the engraving-an event which will illustrate the softer qualities of the warriors of this tribe. A war-party of braves had been for some time harassing the few settlers who dwelt around the head waters of the Delaware; and their attacks finally became so frequent and dangerous, that all the men of the little colony joined together to drive this hostile band back into their own hunting-grounds. A large district of forest and mountain separated them from the more savage races of the Iroquois and Mohawks, who were then engaged in other quarters, and from whom, therefore, nothing was to be feared. Nearly two days had elasped since the men had been absent on the trail of their foes, when the remaining inhabitants of the settlement were ty of braves of the same tribe. There was no time to make any preparations for defence. The women fled with their children into the woods; many, however, who were not warned in time, fell victims to the relentless tomahawk. Among the dwellings, was one standing at some distance from the main colony, the inmates of which were first roused by the step of a savage on the threshold. The husband, James Caldwell, had been chosen leader of the band of defence, and his wife, left so completely unprotected, sprang from her seat at hearing the sound of a footstep, which might have been his, only to sink lifeless on the floor, under the fatal stroke of the first Indian who entered. In one corner of the room stood a cradle, in which lay Caldwell's only child-an infant of about a year old. The eager eye of the brave soon detected this, and, springing toward it, to complete the work of extermination, he sank on one knee to make the blow surer. But the child, pleased with the bright feathers and rattling ornaments of the Indian, stretched forth his little hand and smiled. His soft fingers closed around the hand extended to drag him forth, and a spirit in their touch spoke direct to the Indian's heart. In his bark-lodge, away in the camp of his tribe, there was a little tawny hand, which would clasp his own with the same soft touch, when he came home weary from the chase. He loved that child, for he hoped one day to see him a strong hunter, whose fame among the braves should be equal to his own. Should he kill the child before him, might not the Great Spirit take away his own boy? Innocence triumphed over the brutality of savage nature, and he held back a second tomahawk, which was raised to strike the smiling cherub. Taking it in his arms, he joined the band, who were soon lost to sight in the forest. Two or three years afterwards, James Caldwell regained his child, who was given up to him in a gay costume of wampum and feathers, with war-paint on his little brow, and who wept long and bitterly at parting with his red-skinned playmate, of the Delaware's lodge. |