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Where the Negroes are masters an African port in the era
of the slave trade 1st Edition Randy J. Sparks. Digital
Instant Download
Author(s): Randy J. Sparks.
ISBN(s): 9780674727762, 0674727762
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 7.02 MB
Year: 2014
Language: english
Where the Negroes Are Masters
Where the Negroes Are Masters
An African Port in the Era of the Slave Trade

Randy J. Sparks

Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England

2014
 Copyright © 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data

Sparks, Randy J.
Where the Negroes are masters : an African port in the era of the slave trade /
Randy J. Sparks.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-674-72487-7 (alk. paper)
1. Anomabu (Ghana)—History—18th century. 2. Slave trade—Africa, West—History—
18th century. 3. Atlantic Ocean Region— Commerce—History—18th century. 4. Slave
trade—Economic aspects—Africa, West. 5. Africa, West—Economic conditions—
18th century. I. Title.
DT512.9.A56S63 2014
966.701—dc23 2013012275
For James L. Meadows III
 Contents

Introduction, 1

1. Annamaboe Joins the Atlantic World, 7

2. John Corrantee and Slave-Trade Diplomacy at Annamaboe, 35

3. Richard Brew and the World of an African-Atlantic Merchant, 68

4. The Process of Enslavement at Annamaboe, 122

5. Tracing the Trade: Annamaboe and the Rum Men, 163

6. A World in Motion: Annamaboe in the Atlantic Community, 186

7. Things Fall Apart: The End of the Eighteenth-Century

Atlantic World, 211

Conclusion, 240

Important Terms, Names, and Places, 247

Notes, 261
Acknowledgments, 299
Index, 301
“A Map of the Gold Coast from Issini to Alampi, by M. D’Anville. April 1729.” Thomas Astley, ed., A new general collection of
voyages and travels: consisting of the most esteemed relations, which have been hitherto published in any language; comprehending
everything remarkable in its kind, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America (London, 1745–1747), vol. 2 (A 1745 .N49 v.2). Library
Company of Philadelphia.
Map of eighteenth-century West Africa and some of the major European forts along the Gold
Coast. Map by Richard Campanella.
 The World is at present so over-stock’d with Books,
that ’tis almost impossible to bring any new thing to Light,
unless another new World were discovered; the Countries
and People in all Parts of the World, being already
described by various Authors. But ’twas an ancient
Saying among the Romans, That Africa always
produces something New; and to this Day
the Saying is very just.
—William Bosman (1705)

He is a good workman and does very well

to repair the forts, but is not fit to go
where the Negroes are Masters.
—Thomas Melville (1753)
 Introduction

The young Prince William stood at the ship’s prow, watching anxiously
as his hometown came into view. He was elaborately dressed in the latest
style befitting his station—his rich scarlet coat was trimmed in gold lace,
and its buttons, set with diamonds, flashed in the sun while the white
feather in his point d’Espagne hat fluttered in the breeze. He had been
away for many years, had seen many adventures, and had even been ru-
mored to have died abroad, so his homecoming was to be an especially
joyous one to his father, who waited impatiently on the shore, equally
anxious to see his beloved son once more.
The prince set sail in 1750 from London, where he had been the toast
of the town. He had been presented at court and attended a session of
Parliament when King George II addressed that assembly. He had been
invited everywhere, to grand entertainments like the lavish garden party
thrown by the Duke of Richmond at Richmond House in May 1749 to
celebrate the end of the War of the Austrian Succession. Everyone of
fashion attended that event, including the Duke of Cumberland (the son
of George II), the Duke of Modena, and Horace Walpole, while the king
and Princess Emily watched from their elegant barge docked at the ter-
race and other fine barges crowded the river. Handel wrote “Music for the
Royal Fireworks” for the occasion. A contemporary etching shows the
elaborate fireworks launched from barges in the river and fireworks wheels
spinning along the terrace. Walpole reported that all the ladies there

1
2 w here the negroes a re m asters

knew the prince’s romantic story, and many knew considerably more
since the tale had been richly embroidered in the telling. Society artist
Gabriel Mathias, the son of Huguenot refugees who administered the
king’s subsidies to the Royal Academy, painted the prince’s portrait,
showing him dressed in his rich silks and satins, and the popular Gen-
tleman’s Magazine reproduced it in mezzotint for its interested readers.
The emotional high point of the prince’s stay in London came when he
attended a performance of Oroonoko, the stage version of Aphra Behn’s
celebrated tale of an African prince enslaved in Surinam. Adapted for
the stage by Thomas Southerne, the play was among the most popular of
the day. It tells the story of an African prince named Oroonoko, who
has been kidnapped by the unscrupulous captain of a slave ship and
brought to Surinam, then under British control. In the play, one char-
acter is incredulous: “What, steal a prince out of his own country!
Impossible!” But the captain describes how he lured the prince and his
companions on board his ship, plied them with alcohol, clapped them in
chains when they were too intoxicated to resist, and sailed away with
them. The captain had planned to carry Oroonoko to England to put
him on display there, but the prince was too troublesome, so he sold him
into slavery instead. Oroonoko found a good master, helped save the
colony from an Indian attack, and then found his wife, Imoinda, who
had also been captured and sold into slavery. As the play reached its
emotional climax, where Oroonoko is forced to take Imoinda’s life, the
prince was overcome with emotion and fled from the theater. The audi-
ence watched the prince as intently as the actors on stage, and when he
ran from the theater in tears, there was not a dry eye in the house.
Why was the prince so moved by this implausible tale? Because in
many ways, the story mirrored his own. The prince was William Ansah
Sessarakoo, whose father, John Corrantee, was the chief caboceer, or
magistrate, of Annamaboe, the principal slave-trading depot on the
Gold Coast. In 1747 Corrantee decided to send his son to London to be
educated. He had previously sent another son to Paris, where he had
been proclaimed Prince de Corrantryn, and since the English and
French were vying for Corrantee’s support, he used his sons as his eyes
and ears in London and Paris. Corrantee entrusted his son to the cap-
tain of a British slave ship, who was to take William Ansah to London
 Introduction 3

after selling his slave cargo in Barbados. But rather than deliver William
Ansah safely to London, he sold him into slavery and reported that he
had died on the Middle Passage. The captain himself died a short time
later, and William Ansah’s fate was unknown to his father until several
years later, when an African sailor from Annamaboe saw William Ansah
in Barbados and reported that he was alive and well. The British, eager
to win Corrantee’s favor and restore the damage the loss of his son had
done to relations between them, rescued William Ansah and carried
him to London, where they treated him royally as the prince of Annama-
boe. After that stay in London, he returned to his home and to the warm
embrace of his father, who carried his son ashore through the rough surf
to the beach. Days of celebration followed in Annamaboe as John Cor-
rantee and the entire town rejoiced at William Ansah’s safe return.1
In order to fully understand how this African prince found himself on
board this English naval vessel, it is necessary to explain the rise of Annama-
boe as an important Atlantic port. Annamaboe, as it was known across the
early modern British Atlantic World, is located on the Gold Coast of West
Africa and known today as Anomabu, Ghana.2 Even a focus on a relatively
small port like Annamaboe reveals a vast and complex world in motion.
Almost no aspect of life in the town escaped the influence exerted by the
confluence of Africa, Europe, and the Americas—agriculture, settlement,
warfare, economic life, family relationships, goods, trade, and culture were
all impacted as Annamaboe and the Gold Coast were drawn into the
Atlantic World. Best known as a slave-trading port, it was actually much
more than that. It funneled a great variety of goods from Europe and the
Americas into the Gold Coast and farther into the interior, and it sent out
cargoes of goods and men that found their way around the Atlantic World.
By the 1750s the African Committee regarded Annamaboe as “the Key to
the Whole Trade of the Gold Coast,” and it was described in 1773 as “the
Mart for Trade” on the entire coast.3
The successful, capable, and wily merchants of Annamaboe were as
integral to Atlantic commerce as those of Liverpool, London, Cádiz,
Nantes, Charleston, New York, or Kingston. The residents of Annamaboe
were traders down to their fingertips. People and their cultural posses-
sions traveled the vast Atlantic World, and many of those travelers found
their way to Annamaboe—sailors, captains, soldiers, administrators, and
4 w here the negroes a re m asters

missionaries all converged on the town. Their cultural baggage varied

enormously, but they all contributed to the town’s social, cultural, and
economic life, and the town’s “history is the keyboard on which these
individual notes are sounded.” 4 This book listens to those individual
notes and seeks to understand the history of Annamaboe by focusing on
the people from Africa and from around the Atlantic World who lived,
worked, and traded there. The concept of Atlantic history has its detrac-
tors, and the Atlantic World has little meaning unless we can see it reflected
in the lives of individuals. Whenever possible, this study emphasizes the
lives of men and women whose collective experience shaped Annama-
boe’s position in the Atlantic World.
Since Annamaboe was the most important port on the Gold Coast in
the eighteenth century, the Royal African Company (RAC) (known after
1750 as the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa [CMTA]) maintained
a fort there for parts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the
seventeenth century, Annamaboe traded primarily in gold and grain, but
by the turn of the eighteenth century it was moving aggressively into the
rapidly expanding slave trade. The Fante first allowed the Dutch to estab-
lish a trade factory in their town, and then encouraged the English to
build a larger fort there. The fort looked impressive, but the Fante re-
mained in full control of their town and usually won out over the English
in the many disputes that arose between the two parties. The growth in
trade and the increasingly intimate relationships between the towns-
people and the Englishmen in the forts gradually influenced the town’s
economic and cultural life.
The RAC lost its monopoly on the African trade in 1698, and that
loss, combined with the continual troubles with the Fante, encouraged it
to abandon its fort in 1730. Annamaboe’s capable leaders traded with all
comers as they expanded their trade and influence during the early de-
cades of the eighteenth century. The Fante and Asante wars of expan-
sion brought a steady supply of slaves to Annamaboe, and European
powers, especially the French, began to negotiate with the town’s chief
caboceer, John Corrantee, to rebuild the town’s fort. Corrantee skillfully
played the French and British off each other before allowing the CMTA
to reestablish its presence in the town. The fort once again brought Brit-
ish administrators, soldiers, and traders to Annamaboe; they and the
 Introduction 5

Fante traded together, slept together, fought one another, and together
shaped a creolized society deeply embedded in the Atlantic World. One
of the British chiefs of the fort, Richard Brew, left the CMTA to establish
himself as an independent trader in Annamaboe. He became one of the
principal slave traders on the Gold Coast, integrated himself into the
local society, and became a well-known figure throughout the Atlantic
World. New England traders known as Rum Men were major players in
the Annamaboe trade after 1750, and it is possible to follow the export of
enslaved Africans from the inland markets, to Annamaboe, onto the ships,
and across the Atlantic to ports like Charleston where Gold Coast slaves
were in high demand.
Individuals from Annamaboe traveled the Atlantic World. Some of
them were the sons of the ruling elite who were sent to Britain or North
America to be educated. Others were the sons of African or mixed-race
women and British men who were sent by their fathers to Britain to be edu-
cated before they returned to the Gold Coast. Still others were Fante lin-
guists or sailors who found employment on the Eu ropean ships that
frequented their hometown. While these individuals left voluntarily,
many others were kidnapped by unscrupulous slavers and sold into slav-
ery in the Americas. In such cases, their families and their entire com-
munity fought to have them returned, and in a surprising number of
cases, they succeeded. The residents of Annamaboe were major players
in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World, eager to travel, to learn, and to
engage with their counterparts in Europe and America and as much ar-
chitects of that world as any of its other actors.
In the early nineteenth century, Annamaboe’s fortunes fell. In 1807
the Fante’s traditional enemy, the Asante, virtually destroyed Annama-
boe and, with the connivance of the British, enslaved and sold many of
the residents that survived the war. The following year the British abol-
ished the African slave trade on which the town’s economy relied. The
British forts like Annamaboe’s that had long sheltered and nurtured the
slave trade were turned against it. These were body blows from which
the town never recovered; its economy collapsed, its population shrank,
and it was no longer a major Atlantic port.
Despite Africa’s centrality to the early modern Atlantic World—far
more Africans moved across the Atlantic than Europeans during that
6 w here the negroes a re m asters

era—historians have paid less attention to the African Atlantic than to

other parts of the Atlantic World. This work is inspired in part by the
pathbreaking scholarship of John Thornton, who has done more than
any other historian to give Africans the attention they deserve as actors
in the Atlantic World. One frequently aimed criticism of the Atlantic
World paradigm is that it has largely been framed as a story of European
expansionism, the old wine of imperial history in a new bottle, often fo-
cused on the British North Atlantic. But that Euro-Atlantic worldview
has been under steady assault since Paul Gilroy first proposed the con-
cept of a “black Atlantic” where the Atlantic basin would be treated as a
single unit and where blacks would be “perceived as agents” as much as
whites.5 Much of the study of the black Atlantic has focused understand-
ably on the slave trade and its millions of victims, but less attention has
been paid to the African merchant elites who facilitated that trade and
were as essential to the Atlantic economy as the merchants of Liverpool,
Nantes, or Middelburg. A biographical approach can bring these mer-
chants into sharper focus, and allow us to reimagine how they negoti-
ated their complex role as mediators between Africa’s interior slave trade
and the European slavers and the crucial role that a town like Annama-
boe played in the Atlantic economy.
 1
Annamaboe Joins the Atlantic World

A nnamaboe was a relatively sleepy fishing village at the opening of

the eighteenth century, but within a short time it had become a
thriving Atlantic hub. It was the center of shipping and trade for the
Gold Coast and one of the largest exporters of enslaved Africans along
the West Coast of Africa. That remarkable transformation was driven by
Annamaboe’s entry into the Atlantic World and by its expansion within
the Fante confederacy. The Dutch established a trading lodge there in 1638,
but they were displaced by the English, who built a fort in the town in
1679. At that stage, Annamaboe was not an important port for the slave
trade but rather a convenient place for slave-trading ships to stock up
on provisions before embarking on the Middle Passage. The Asante
wars of expansion that began in the 1680s brought a steady flow of slaves
to the town and made it a major slave-trading port. Annamaboe’s links
to the rapidly expanding Atlantic commercial system transformed its
culture, economy, and society. The town’s capable leaders worked to
capitalize on those changes, and they quickly learned to exploit every
advantage presented to them. The English expected to monopolize
trade there, but they were forced to negotiate the terms of their relation-
ship with the Fante, who operated from a position of strength. The
English and Fante sometimes cooperated and compromised, but more
often they engaged in conflict and chicanery as each tested the other.
While the English chiefs and the caboceers sparred, the townspeople

7
8 w here the negroes a re m asters

and the soldiers in the fort worked out their own relationships with one
another.
Annamaboe was founded before the end of the fifteenth century as
the Fante moved from the interior down to the coast, but that date is
highly speculative. Its name, meaning “bird rocks,” derived from the
jagged stones that jutted out of the sea just off the beach and were consid-
ered sacred. The countryside was hilly and fertile, especially in the val-
leys. The coast was rocky and often dangerous to approach by sea due to
heavy currents and pounding surf. The history of the town comes into
sharper focus with the arrival of the Europeans, though even that early
history is somewhat murky. The Gold Coast got its name from the Por-
tuguese, who began inching their way down the African coast in the
1430s, and their rights to the region were recognized in 1455 by Pope
Nicholas V, who issued a papal bull declaring the “coast of Guinea . . .
the sovereign property” of Portugal. African resistance compelled the
Portuguese to rely on diplomacy rather than force. They sent peaceful
missions to the states of West Africa and even brought African princes to
study in Portugal. In 1482 they loaded a prefabricated castle onto their
ships and sailed to the coast of Guinea in search of a location to erect it.
They negotiated with a local ruler for a spot on the coast of modern
Ghana, where they unloaded their numbered stones and built the im-
posing medieval-style Castle of S. Jorge da Mina, usually called Elmina,
the first of what would become a string of European forts along the Gold
Coast. The very name of the castle indicates that the Portuguese were
primarily in search of gold, and it was the European lust for that pre-
cious metal more than for slaves that drove the fierce competition among
the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Danes, the English, the Brandenburgers,
and the French for forts there before the eighteenth century. From the
perspective of the Portuguese crown, the most important object at El-
mina was the giant arca com tres chaves (chest with three keys) which
held all the gold acquired by the fort and could be opened only by using
three separate keys in the hands of three separate individuals. During
the last twenty years of the fifteenth century, gold from Elmina nearly
doubled the crown’s total revenues and by 1506 made up about one-
quarter of the crown’s income.1
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keep watch over them, and many a day they had nothing to eat but
dry bread and black coffee, because they had not time to cook
more, and sometimes they had no breakfast at all because they
must be up by daybreak and march on, even if the rain poured
down, as it sometimes did, wetting them through and through.
What were such hardships when their country was in danger?
Then came the terrible, terrible battles, more awful than anything
you ever dreamed of. Men were shot down by the thousands, and
many who did not lose their lives had a leg shot off, or an arm so
crushed that it had to be cut off. Still they bravely struggled on. It
was for their beloved country they were fighting, and for it they
must be willing to suffer, or to die.
Then a hundred thousand more soldiers were called for, and then
another hundred thousand, and still the bloody war continued. For
four long years it lasted, and the whole world looked on, amazed at
such courage and endurance.

Then the men who had not been killed, or who had not died of
their sufferings came marching home again, many, alas, on crutches,
and many who knew that they were disabled for life. But they had
saved their country! And that was reward enough for their heroic
hearts. Though many a widow turned her sad face away when the
crowd welcomed the returning soldiers, for she knew that her loved
one was not with them, and many little children learned in time that
their dear fathers would never return to them.
War is such a terrible thing that it makes one’s heart ache to think
of it.
Then by and by the people said, “Our children must grow up
loving and honoring the heroic men who gave their lives for their
country.” So in villages and towns and cities monuments were built
in honor of the men who died fighting for their country. And one day
each year was set apart to keep fresh and green the memory of the
brave soldiers; and it has been named “Decoration Day,” because on
this day all the children, all over the land, are permitted to go to the
graves of the dead soldiers and place flowers upon them.
 THE TAXES OF MIDDLEBROOK
By Ray Stannard Baker

U
p above the pines on the edge to the east the sun was rising
and the air smelled of the woods, of the warm sand of the
roadsides, of the perfect May morning. Three men in the quaint garb
of pioneer foreigners came down the lane from the shoemaker’s
house and turned into the road. Before they had gone many paces
old Peter Walling stopped abruptly.
“There is a warning,” he said in Norwegian.
The eyes of the two others followed swiftly to his pointing. In the
midst of the sand a twig of willow had been stuck. The top was split,
and it held upward a bit of soiled paper. Old Peter seemed undecided
whether to touch the message or not, but Halstrom, the shoemaker,
plucked it from the stick, and scowled as he tried to make out its
meaning. Presently he handed it to his son.
“What does it say, Eric?” he asked.
The message was in English, printed with a lumberman’s coarse
pencil, and a rude attempt had been made to draw a skull and cross-
bones at the top of the paper. Eric read it slowly, translating into
Norwegian as he went along:

“Be Ware! All Norwegans and Sweeds are hereby

warned not to go to the Town Hall under penalty of
death.”

It was signed in big letters, “By Order of the Committee.”

Eric Halstrom looked up and laughed shortly. “Well,” he said, “it
means us,” and he tucked the message away with some care in his
pocket.
“We may need it,” he added.
The two older men were silent for a moment. Then Peter Walling
spoke faintly: “If there is going to be trouble—if there is danger—”
The old shoemaker straightened his bent shoulders and his eyes
flashed angrily. “Peter Walling, will you go or will you stay? I thought
we had settled this question once for all.”
“I’ll go, Jens—yes, yes, I’ll go,” answered Walling, hurriedly, but
his lips protested under his beard.
Halstrom turned without a word and hobbled down the road,
determination speaking from every nervous hitch of his twisted
frame. He was small and crippled, and in all his life he had never
been able to do the work of a strong man. But there was that in his
blue eyes which made him a leader in Thingvalla. He had cobbled in
the old country, and he had cobbled in this new Northwest among
the pines, and every peg he drove had clinched a thought. He was
not educated in English; he had emigrated too late for that, but he
had seen to it that his son made the best of the scant schooling of a
new land, and better still, he had taught him some of the wisdom
that comes to a cobbler who thinks.
Eric stood almost six feet tall. His hair was as yellow and curly as a
rope end, and his eyes were blue and steady. Although barely
twenty years old, he had learned by the hard knocks of a pioneer
country how to take care of himself, both with his big right arm and
with his tongue.
Over ten miles of sand-hills and corduroy, through vast forests of
pine as yet barely notched with the clearings of settlers, the three
men came at last in sight of the town hall, the shoemaker and his
son in front, and old Peter Walling behind, muttering his fears. The
town hall was a log shack, one story high, with a single large room.
As the three approached, they could see that the road was full of
men and teams. The men were moving about, and talking with the
boisterous pleasantry of backwoodsmen who do not often meet.
They had gathered this spring morning for the annual session of the
board of review—the board that was to make the final equalization
of the taxes on the property of the township. Eric looked anxiously
to see if there were any others present from the Thingvalla
settlement, or, indeed, any Scandinavians, but he could not see even
one.
“They are all afraid,” the shoemaker said, bitterly. “They have
come to a free country, and they don’t know how to be free.”
But the New Antrim settlement was out in force. Eric heard the
jolly voices of the young Irishmen, and he knew well that they were
spoiling for a fight. Thingvalla was in one corner of the township,
New Antrim was in the other, and between the settlements stretched
unbroken forests of pine and implacable bitterness. It was one of
those settlement differences so common in the backwoods, and the
more unfortunate for being unfounded. New Antrim was sure that
Thingvalla was trying to control the township, and Thingvalla was
equally sure that New Antrim was escaping its share of taxation. And
that was the condition on this bright May day, when the three from
Thingvalla came down with the warning in Eric’s pocket.
“They are too many!” muttered old Peter Walling, tremulously.
They saw Calvin Donohue and his men sporting in the sunshine.
Donohue was the man in the otter cap, immensely broad and
brawny of shoulders, long of arms and square of chin. He talked in a
big, jolly voice; from where they stood they could hear him laugh.
O’Rourke, Callahan and some of the younger men were trying
their strength on a huge iron soap-kettle that stood in front of the
blacksmith shop. They were testing their muscles to see which could
lift it from the ground with one hand. There were few who could do
it, but Calvin Donohue put it as high as his shoulder as if it were only
a feather. Others were pitching quoits with horseshoes, and one
group was watching a pulling contest between O’Rourke and Davy,
who were sitting, feet to feet on the ground, tugging on a crowbar.
 The shoemaker, who had been resting by the roadside, now rose,
and without a word set off down the hill toward the crowd, with his
chin thrown up and his eyes looking neither to the right nor to the
left.
The moment the men of New Antrim saw them, a gleeful shout
went up. Here was new sport for them. A powerful man in a
lumberman’s red jacket seized a heavy oak swingletree from the
blacksmith’s door, sprang out into the road, and shouted:
“Come on, boys, we’ve got ’em!”
Eric and his father did not stop, but old Peter Walling wavered,
then turned and ran back up the road as fast as his legs could carry
him. It was two against thirty, but the two stood their ground. While
they were exchanging challenges, a man opportunely stepped from
the doorway of the town hall and began to rap on the logs with a
stake, announcing that the board had been called to order.
At once there was a rush for the benches, and Eric and his father
reached the door without opposition.
The shoemaker made as if to enter, but Jim O’Rourke barred the
door with his arm.
“No Swedes admitted,” he said, gruffly.
The shoemaker, paying no attention to the order, again
endeavored to enter. He was thrown back violently, and if it had not
been for Eric, he would have fallen. The shoemaker tried to speak,
but his English was hopelessly confused and broken. Eric was white
to the lips, but he controlled himself.
“We are citizens of this township,” he said, “and we have a right in
this meeting.”
“Go wan!” was the answer. “We won’t have any foreigners here.”
“We are as much Americans as you are!” responded Eric, hotly.
“Be cool,” cautioned the shoemaker, in his native tongue.
 “I tell you, Jim O’Rourke,” continued Eric, more steadily, “there’s
no need of our quarrelling this way, and if you’d let us explain we’d
show you why we should all be friends—”
“Friends! Let me give you a friendly hint. You get out of here
double-quick.”
By nature the Scandinavian is peaceable. He hates fighting as
much as he loves his home; and yet, for being slow to wrath, he is
the more terrible when roused. Eric took one step forward and drove
up O’Rourke’s arm with a stinging blow that sent him spinning into
the room. Then he and his father entered. O’Rourke, recovering
himself, rushed upon Eric and dealt him a terrific blow in the breast.
The two men were just closing in a desperate encounter when
Caxton, the chairman, rose, ordering silence and preparing to
enforce his decree with a stout oak stake.
“What’s the trouble here?” he demanded, when quiet had been
restored.
“We are citizens of this township,” said Eric, panting, “and we have
a right to attend this meeting. This man tried to shut us out.”
Caxton paused a moment.
“Put out the Norsks!” roared a voice.
“No,” said Caxton. “They have a right to be here and to be heard
on the subject of their taxes.”
“Thank you!” said Eric, eagerly. “I want to explain—”
“You will be given a chance in due time,” was the answer, given so
coldly that it indicated the chairman’s position against them beyond
a doubt. There were many whispered threats, but Eric and his father
firmly stood their ground. The business of the board of review is to
hear the complaints of those who think they have been unfairly
taxed. Apparently there were to be few complaints at this meeting.
An old man who spoke with the unmistakable inflection of the
Irishman commended the assessment and praised the assessor. He
thought every one in the township had been satisfied. He was
pleased to know that this was so. As he sat down, a small, loosely
jointed man, with fiery red hair, rose from his chair.
He wore a diamond shirt-stud which, if genuine, would have
purchased every stitch of personal apparel in the room. He drawled
pleasantly in his talk. Every one knew him. His name was William P.
Ketchum, or more familiarly, Billy Ketchum. Eric’s eyes fastened hard
upon him and watched him as a catamount might watch a squirrel,
and with much the same motive.
Billy Ketchum was the representative of the great logging concern
of Miller, Knees & Dye, which owned all the pine lands in the
township, and, indeed, in nearly all the county. He complimented the
assessor in his softest manner, he complimented the board down
from Caxton to Severn, through Holt, and then he complimented
them up again from Severn to Caxton. He mentioned New Antrim
and brought in a deft reference to the shamrock and the old sod,
and then—he suddenly caught the eye of Eric Halstrom burning at
him above the heads of the crowd. For a single instant he seemed
trying to pull himself together, and then he went on with his pleasant
drawl:
“As representing the largest taxpayers in Middlebrook,” he said, “I
am deeply interested in its welfare. We pay our taxes gladly,
knowing that they have been honestly levied and that they will be
honestly collected—”
At this Eric Halstrom came shouldering nearer, with the shoemaker
close behind him.
“It’s not so!” Eric gasped, excitedly. “I tell you it’s not so. He’s the
man who’s caused all the trouble.”
“I was not aware,” put in Billy Ketchum, in his smoothest voice,
“that you allowed your meetings to be broken up by a brawling—”
His last words were drowned in shouts, and it was some moments
before Mr. Caxton, pounding on the table, could restore peace.
 Calvin Donohue whispered in the chairman’s ear, and Mr. Caxton
said aloud to Eric, “We’ll hear what you have to say right away.”
The shoemaker pushed Eric forward eagerly. The boy stood up
before the crowd, blushing and stammering. His big hands fumbled
in his pockets and his tongue refused to stir. He had not been
particularly afraid to face the assembled forces of New Antrim in the
road, but he was afraid to make a speech.
“I—I wanted to—explain about the taxes,” he stammered.
“So I suppose,” was Mr. Caxton’s cool reply.
Eric pulled a piece of chalk out of his pocket and looked round.
“I—I’ve got to have something to write on,” he said, at which the
New Antrimites shouted with laughter.
If it had not been for the wise old shoemaker at that moment, Eric
would have been lost, laughed to defeat. Nothing will floor a speaker
more quickly than the wit of an Irish audience. But the shoemaker
spoke in Norwegian. Eric turned quickly; he was only a step from the
door. There, outside in the sand, stood the old iron kettle. He
stooped, picked it up, and set it on a bench, which the shoemaker
had swung into place. It was all done so swiftly that New Antrim
forgot its fun in its astonishment.
And when Eric drew a big white square on the kettle with his
chalk, a voice rose hoarsely from the back of the room:
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!”
At that all the Irishmen laughed, and then sat still again, out of
respect, being “jiggered.”
Eric divided the white square into many smaller squares. In one
corner he drew a number of crosses; in the opposite corner he did
the same. One of these groups of crosses he labeled T.
“That is the Thingvalla settlement,” he said, “and this—is New
Antrim.”
 Then he swept his hand between the two and glanced at Billy
Ketchum. “And all this in here is the pine owned by Miller, Knees &
Dye.”
The shoemaker whispered in his ear, and he turned to the
chairman, and said in a sterner voice: “I want to show who is to
blame for all this trouble between the settlements.”
“We are not dealing with quarrels,” was the response. “We are
here to equalize taxes.”
“That’s it, that’s what I want to do. I want to show that the taxes
aren’t equal.”
Then he fumbled in his pocket and drew out a much-folded paper.
With this to support him, he forgot all about himself, and talked
rapidly and earnestly.
He told how he had figured up all the land owned by the
Scandinavians of Thingvalla, and all that owned by New Antrim, and
all that owned by the lumber company.
“Thingvalla has two thousand two hundred and forty acres in
farms; New Antrim has two thousand nine hundred and twenty
acres,” he explained, “while the lumber company has more than
twelve thousand acres of pine. Thingvalla is assessed at an average
of four dollars and sixty cents an acre; New Antrim is assessed at
four dollars and fifteen cents an acre—a little less, but not enough to
count. But here is this lumber company assessed for only one dollar
and ninety cents an acre—”
Here Billy Ketchum sprang excitedly to his feet. “But this is wild
land—not a foot of it is cultivated. I tell you such a comparison is
unfair—”
“Yes, but your pine is worth more to the acre than our farms with
all our crops and buildings on them.”
“I tell you—”
“I know!” broke in Eric, excitedly. “I tell you, I know! Look here—”
 He drew from his pocket a pack of little strips of paper, each with
a section map at the top, upon which different “forties” of land were
checked up in red and blue pencil.
He turned again to the table and marked out a square about
midway between the settlements.
“Here’s section ten, township forty, range twelve. Last fall I was
hired to go over this land with the company’s explorer, and estimate
the pine. We travelled together for two months, counted all the
trees, and estimated the number of feet of lumber they would make.
That pine as it stands is worth from four dollars to six dollars a
thousand feet, and some of the single forties have more than two
hundred thousand feet of timber on them. That makes a cash value
of from eight hundred dollars to twelve hundred dollars—or twenty
dollars to thirty dollars an acre—and that’s more than the best
improved farm in this county is worth—”
“I tell you—” roared little Billy Ketchum, wild with excitement.
“And you know it,” added Eric. “Here are these slips, which will
prove just what I say. They are the company’s own valuation of its
property. You can see for yourselves that our farms are assessed for
more than twice as much as this pine land, although it is worth five
or six times as much. And that will show you who is dodging taxes.
Billy Ketchum says that he represents the biggest taxpayers in the
township, and that he is well contented with the assessment. Of
course he is contented, but he is wrong about representing the
largest taxpayers. As the assessments now are, we represent the
biggest taxpayers—and we are not contented, for we pay ten times
the taxes that we should. All I ask is that the assessments be fair,
and Thingvalla and New Antrim will not quarrel.”
Billy Ketchum, purple of face, tried in vain to make himself heard,
but the Irishmen of New Antrim drowned him out of the discussion.
The explorer’s slips were passed back and forth and referred to the
diagram on the iron kettle, and for a few moments pandemonium
reigned.
 “What’s more,” shouted Eric, in the flush of victory, “I can prove
that Billy Ketchum is at the bottom of this quarrel!”
There was silence again.
“If it hadn’t been for him, we’d have been good friends to-day.
He’s kept us enemies so that we couldn’t get together and assess
the pine lands as they ought to be assessed.”
Ketchum sprang to his feet.
“It’s not so!” he shouted. “We’ve been perfectly fair to every one.
Why should I mix up in neighborhood quarrels?”
He poured out an impassioned speech, the drawl all gone, and the
words crowding so fast that he could hardly utter them plainly. He
called the Irishmen “Billy” and “Calvin” and “Pete” familiarly, and
spoke of their warm friendship, but somehow they did not rouse to
enthusiasm as he had expected. They were thinking.
Presently Eric made himself heard again.
“Who left that warning in the Thingvalla road last night?” he
asked, facing Ketchum.
“Who? How should I know?”
At this, New Antrim leaned forward to a man with curiosity. Eric
drew out the warning and told where he had found it. Then he
passed it gravely to Mr. Caxton.
“Billy Ketchum left that in the road,” said Eric. “He did it to keep us
away from the meeting. He tried to make us think that the New
Antrim settlement was against us. He had found out that I knew the
real value of those pine lands.”
Again Billy hopped up. “I dare him to prove it, Mr. Chairman! I
didn’t come here to be insulted. I tell you—I dare him to prove it!”
“Well, I will,” said Eric, coolly.
At that the shoemaker stepped round behind the table and picked
up a long, slender, paper-covered roll and handed it to Eric. Eric held
it up, and pointed to Ketchum’s name written upon it, for it was a
roll of maps. Ketchum rushed at Eric and tried to grasp his property,
but Eric brushed him aside.
Then he unrolled the manila covering of the maps a few inches
and held it up. One corner was torn off. He took the warning notice
from Mr. Caxton’s desk and held it in the place of this torn corner. It
fitted perfectly.
“My father happened to see this when he came in,” explained Eric.
“What more proof do you want?”
For a moment the room was still. Then the same deep voice which
had spoken once before burst out:
“I’ll be jiggered!”
Calvin Donohue turned to Billy Ketchum and said, none too
pleasantly:
“You get out! We can manage our own affairs!”
Callahan suggested taking him out triumphantly in the iron kettle,
but Billy disappeared with such haste they could not catch him.
Then the whole assembly took up seriously the problem of
assessments, and before the day was out, the township of
Middlebrook was equalized, and the taxes of the settlers, New
Antrim and Thingvalla alike, were cut down to their just proportions,
no more, no less, and the pine lands were assessed strictly in
accordance with Eric’s estimate slips.
 THE CURE OF FEAR
By Norman Duncan

L
ike many another snug little harbor on the northeast coast of
Newfoundland, Ruddy Cove is confronted by the sea and flanked
by a vast wilderness; so all the folk take their living from the sea, as
their forebears have done for generations.
It takes courage and a will for work to sweeten the hard life of
those parts, which otherwise would be filled with dread and an
intolerable weariness; and Donald North, of Ruddy Cove, was brave
enough till he was eight years old. But after that season he was so
timid that he shrank from the edge of the cliffs when the breakers
were beating the rocks below, and he trembled when the punt
heeled to a gust.
Now he was a fisherman’s son, and in the course of things must
himself be a paddle-punt fisherman; thus the mishap which gave
him that great fear of the sea cast a dark shadow over him.
“Billy,” he said to young Topsail, on the unfortunate day, “leave us
go sail my new fore-an’-after. I’ve rigged her out with a grand new
mizzens’l.”
“Sure, b’y!” said Billy. “Where to?”
“Uncle George’s wharf-head. ’Tis a place as good as any.”
Off Uncle George’s wharf-head the water was deep—deeper than
Donald could fathom at low tide—and it was cold, and covered a
rocky bottom, upon which a multitude of starfish and prickly sea-
eggs lay in clusters. It was green, smooth and clear, too; sight
carried straight down to where the purple-shelled mussels gripped
the rocks.
 The tide had fallen somewhat and was still on the ebb. Donald
found it a long reach from the wharf to the water. By and by, as the
water ran out of the harbor, the most he could do was to touch the
mast tip of the miniature ship with his fingers. Then a little gust of
wind crept round the corner of the wharf, rippling the water as it
came near. It caught the sails of the new fore-and-after, and the
little craft fell over on another tack and shot away.
“Here, you!” Donald cried. “Come back, will you?”
He reached for the mast. His fingers touched it, but the boat
escaped before they closed. He laughed, hitched nearer to the edge
of the wharf, and reached again. The wind had failed; the little boat
was tossing in the ripples, below and just beyond his grasp.
“I can’t cotch her!” he called to Billy Topsail, who was back near
the net-horse, looking for squids.
Billy looked up, and laughed to see Donald’s awkward position—to
see him hanging over the water, red-faced and straining. Donald
laughed, too. At once he lost his balance and fell forward.
This was in the days before he could swim, so he floundered
about in the water, beating it wildly, to bring himself to the surface.
When he came up, Billy Topsail was leaning over to catch him.
Donald lifted his arm. His fingers touched Billy’s, that was all—just
touched them. Then he sank; and when he came up again, and
again lifted his arm, there was half a foot of space between his hand
and Billy’s. Some measure of self-possession returned. He took a
long breath, and let himself sink. Down he went, weighted by his
heavy boots.
Those moments were full of the terror of which, later, he could not
rid himself. There seemed to be no end to the depth of the water in
that place. But when his feet touched bottom, he was still deliberate
in all that he did.
For a moment he let them rest on the rock. Then he gave himself
a strong upward push. It needed but little to bring him within reach
of Billy Topsail’s hand. He shot out of the water and caught that
hand. Soon afterward he was safe on the wharf.
“Sure, mum, I thought I was drownded that time!” he said to his
mother, that night. “When I were goin’ down the last time I thought
I’d never see you again.”
“But you wasn’t drownded, b’y,” said his mother, softly.
“But I might ha’ been,” said he.
There was the rub. He was haunted by what might have
happened. Soon he became a timid, shrinking lad, utterly lacking
confidence in the strength of his arms and his skill with an oar and a
sail; and after that came to pass, his life was hard. He was afraid to
go out to the fishing-grounds, where he must go every day with his
father to keep the head of the punt up to the wind, and he had a
great fear of the wind and the fog and the breakers.
But he was not a coward. On the contrary, although he was
circumspect in all his dealings with the sea, he never failed in his
duty.

In Ruddy Cove all the men put out their salmon-nets when the ice
breaks up and drifts away southward, for the spring run of salmon
then begins. These nets are laid in the sea, at right angles to the
rocks and extending out from them; they are set alongshore, it may
be a mile or two, from the narrow passage to the harbor. The outer
end is buoyed and anchored, and the other is lashed to an iron stake
which is driven deep into some crevice of the rock.
When belated icebergs hang offshore a watch must be kept on the
nets, lest they be torn away or ground to pulp by the ice.
“The wind’s haulin’ round a bit, b’y,” said Donald’s father, one day
in spring, when the lad was twelve years old. “I think ’twill freshen
and blow inshore afore night.”
“They’s a scattered pan of ice out there, father,” said Donald, “and
three small bergs.”
 “Iss, b’y, I knows,” said North. “’Tis that I’m afeared of. If the wind
changes a bit more, ’twill jam the ice agin the rocks. Does you think
the net is safe?”
It was quite evident that the net was in danger, but since Donald
had first shown signs of fearing the sea, Job North had not
compelled him to go out upon perilous undertakings. He had fallen
into the habit of leaving the boy to choose his own course, believing
that in time he would master himself.
“I think, zur,” said Donald, steadily, “the net should come in.”
“’Twould be wise,” said North. “Come, b’y, we’ll go fetch it.”
So they put forth in the punt. There was a fair, fresh wind, and
with this filling the little brown sail, they were soon driven out from
the quiet water of the harbor to the heaving sea itself. Great swells
rolled in from the open and broke furiously against the coast rocks.
The punt ran alongshore for two miles keeping well away from the
breakers. When at last she came to that point where Job North’s net
was set, Donald furled the sail and his father took up the oars.
“’Twill be a bit hard to land,” he said.
Therein lay the danger. There is no beach along that coast. The
rocks rise abruptly from the sea—here, sheer and towering; there,
low and broken.
When there is a sea running, the swells roll in and break against
these rocks; and when the breakers catch a punt, they are certain to
smash it to splinters.
The iron stake to which Job North’s net was lashed was fixed in a
low ledge, upon which some hardy shrubs had taken root. The
waves were casting themselves against the rocks below, breaking
with a great roar and flinging spray over the ledge.
“’Twill be a bit hard,” North said again.
But the salmon-fishers have a way of landing under such
conditions. When their nets are in danger they do not hesitate. The
man at the oars lets the boat drift with the breakers stern foremost
toward the rocks. His mate leaps from the stern seat to the ledge.
Then the other pulls the boat out of danger before the wave curls
and breaks. It is the only way.
But sometimes the man in the stem miscalculates—leaps too soon,
stumbles, leaps short. He falls back, and is almost inevitably
drowned. Sometimes, too, the current of the wave is too strong for
the man at the oars; his punt is swept in, pull as hard as he may,
and he is overwhelmed with her. Donald knew all this. He had lived
in dread of the time when he must first make that leap.
“The ice is comin’ in, b’y,” said North. “’Twill scrape these here
rocks, certain sure. Does you think you’re strong enough to take the
oars an’ let me go ashore?”
“No, zur,” said Donald.
“You never leaped afore, did you?”
“No, zur.”
“Will you try it now, b’y?” said North quietly.
“Iss, zur,” Donald said, faintly.
“Get ready, then,” said North.
With a stroke or two of the oars Job swung the stem of the boat
to the rocks. He kept her hanging in this position until the water fell
back and gathered in a new wave; then he lifted his oars. Donald
was crouched on the stern seat, waiting for the moment to rise and
spring.
The boat moved in, running on the crest of the wave which would
a moment later break against the rock. Donald stood up, and fixed
his eye on the ledge. He was afraid; all the strength and courage he
had seemed to desert him. The punt was now almost on a level with
the ledge. The wave was about to curl and fall. It was the precise
moment when he must leap—that instant, too, when the punt must
be pulled out of the grip of the breaker, if at all.
 He felt of a sudden that he must do this thing. Therefore why not
do it courageously? He leaped; but this new courage had not come
in time. He made the ledge, but he fell an inch short of a firm
footing. So for a moment he tottered, between falling forward and
falling back. Then he caught the branch of an overhanging shrub,
and with this saved himself. When he turned, Job had the punt in
safety; but he was breathing hard, as if the strain had been great.
“’Twas not so hard, was it, b’y?” said Job.
“No, zur,” said Donald.
Donald cast the net line loose from its mooring, and saw that it
was all clear. His father let the punt sweep in again. It is much easier
to leap from a solid rock than from a boat, so Donald jumped in
without difficulty. Then they rowed out to the buoy and hauled the
great, dripping net over the side.
It was well they went out, for before morning the ice had drifted
over the place where the net had been. More than that, Donald
North profited by his experience. He perceived that if perils must be
encountered, they are best met with a clear head and an unflinching
heart.
That night, when he thought it over, he was comforted.

In the gales and high seas of the summer following, and in the
blinding snowstorms and bitter cold of the winter, Donald North grew
in fine readiness to face peril at the call of duty. All that he had
gained was put to the test in the next spring, when the floating ice,
which drifts out of the north in the spring break-up, was driven by
the wind against the coast.
Job North, with Alexander Bludd and Bill Stevens, went out on the
ice to hunt seal, and the hunt led them ten miles offshore. In the
afternoon of that day the wind gave some sign of changing to the
west, and at dusk it was blowing half a gale offshore. When the
wind blows offshore it sweeps all this wandering ice out to sea, and
disperses the whole pack.
 “Go see if your father’s comin’, b’y,” said Donald’s mother. “I’m
gettin’ terrible nervous about the ice.”
Donald took his gaff—a long pole of the light, tough dogwood, two
inches thick and shod with iron—and set out. It was growing dark,
and the wind, rising still, was blowing in strong, cold gusts. It began
to snow while he was yet on the ice of the harbor, half a mile away
from the pans and clumpers which the wind of the day before had
crowded against the coast.
When he came to the “standing ice,”—the stationary rim of ice
which is frozen to the coast,—the wind was thickly charged with
snow. What with dusk and snow, he found it hard to keep to the
right way. But he was not afraid for himself; his only fear was that
the wind would sweep the ice-pack out to sea before his father
reached the “standing edge.” In that event, as he knew, Job North
would be doomed.
Donald went out on the standing edge. Beyond lay a widening gap
of water. The pack had already begun to move out.
There was no sign of Job North’s party. The lad ran up and down,
hallooing as he ran; but for a time there was no answer to his call.
Then it seemed to him he heard a despairing hail, sounding far to
the right, whence he had come. Night had almost fallen, and the
snow added to its depth; but as he ran back, Donald could still see
across the gap of water to that great pan of ice, which, of all the
pack, was nearest to the standing edge. He perceived that the gap
had considerably widened since he had first observed it.
“Is that you, father?” he called.
“Iss, Donald!” came an answering hail from directly opposite. “Is
there a small pan of ice on your side?”
Donald searched up and down the edge for a detached cake large
enough for his purpose. Near at hand he came upon a thin, small
pan, not more than six feet square.
“Haste, b’y!” cried his father.
 “They’s one here,” he called back, “but ’tis too small! Is there none
there?”
“No, b’y! Fetch that over!”
Here was a desperate need. If the lad was to meet it, he must act
instantly and fearlessly. He stepped out on the pan, and pushed off
with his gaff.
Using his gaff as a paddle—as these gaffs are constantly used in
ferrying by the Newfoundland fishermen—and helped by the wind,
he soon ferried himself to where Job North stood waiting with his
companions.
“’Tis too small,” said Stevens. “’Twill not hold two.”
North looked dubiously at the pan. Alexander Bludd shook his
head in despair.
“Get back while you can, b’y,” said North. “Quick! We’re driftin’
fast. The pan’s too small.”
“I think ’tis big enough for one man and me,” said Donald.
“Get aboard and try it, Alexander,” said Job.
Alexander Bludd stepped on. The pan tipped fearfully, and the
water ran over it; but when the weight of the man and the boy was
properly adjusted, it seemed capable of bearing them both across.
They pushed off.
When Alexander moved to put his gaff in the water the pan tipped
again. Donald came near losing his footing. He moved nearer the
edge, and the pan came to a level. They paddled with all their
strength, for the wind was blowing against them, and there was
need of haste if three passages were to be made. Meanwhile the
gap had grown so wide that the wind had turned the ripples into
waves, which washed over the pan as high as Donald’s ankles.
But they came safe across. Bludd stepped quickly ashore, and
Donald pushed off. With the wind in his favor, he was soon once
more at the other side.
 “Now, Bill,” said North, “your turn next.”
“I can’t do it, Job,” said Stevens. “Get aboard yourself. The lad
can’t come back again. We’re driftin’ out too fast. He’s your lad, an’
you’ve the right to—”
“Iss, I can come back,” said Donald. “Come on, Bill! Quick!”
Stevens was a lighter man than Alexander Bludd, but the passage
was wider, and still widening, for the pack had gathered speed.
When Stevens was safely landed, he looked back.
A vast white shadow was all that he could see. Job North’s figure
had been merged with the night.
“Donald, b’y,” he said, “you got to go back for your father, but I’m
fair feared you’ll never—”
“Give me a push, Bill,” said Donald.
Stevens caught the end of the gaff and pushed the lad out.
“Good-by, Donald!” he said.
When the pan touched the other side, Job North stepped aboard
without a word. He was a heavy man. With his great body on the
ice-cake, the problem of return was enormously increased, as
Donald had foreseen.
The pan was overweighted. Time and again it nearly shook itself
free of its bad load and rose to the surface.
North stood near the center, plying his gaff with difficulty, but
Donald was on the extreme edge. Moreover, the distance was twice
as great as it had been at the first, and the waves were running
high, and it was dark.
They made way slowly, and the pan often wavered beneath them;
but Donald was intent upon the thing he was doing, and he was not
afraid.
Then came the time—they were but ten yards off the standing
edge—when North struck his gaff too deep into the water. He lost
his balance, struggled desperately to regain it, failed—and fell off.
Before Donald was awake to the danger, the edge of the pan sank
under him, and he, too, toppled off.
Donald had learned to swim now. When he came to the surface,
his father was breast-high in the water, looking for him.
“Are you all right, Donald?” said his father.
“Iss, zur.”
“Can you reach the ice alone?”
“Iss, zur,” said Donald quietly.
Alexander Bludd and Bill Stevens helped them up on the standing
edge, and they were home by the kitchen fire in half an hour.
“’Twas bravely done, b’y,” said Job.
So Donald North learned that perils feared are much more terrible
than perils faced. He has a courage of the finest kind, in these days,
has young Donald.
 A CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE
By J. E. Chamberlin

H
aving lived all his fourteen years in New York City, making
occasional visits to his grandfather’s house in Connecticut,
Horace Mason had often sighed for an adventure, and lamented
because life in the eastern part of the country is so tame and
uninteresting. It had certainly never occurred to him that the chance
for a pretty thrilling adventure existed in the quiet country
neighborhood in which his grandfather lived.
About a week before Christmas Horace’s mother took him to his
grandfather’s farm for the holidays—he had seldom been there in
winter.
The weather became remarkably cold and rough, but Horace
found pleasure in walking about woods and pastures in rubber boots
and ulster, and noting how odd the familiar scenes looked when
covered with snow and ice, instead of dressed in green.
A tree was to be set up on Christmas Eve in the old homestead;
but Uncle John, on the afternoon of the twenty-third, brought in for
the celebration a rather scraggly little red cedar, brown rather than
green, which Horace deemed totally unfit for the dignity of a
Christmas celebration.
“Why didn’t you get a fir balsam, with a nice even top to it?”
Horace asked his uncle.
“Don’t grow around here.”
“But there are some over in the Big Swamp,” said Horace.
“Never noticed ’em,” said Uncle John.
 Horace said nothing to this, because he was aware that he had
often noticed things about the region, in the way of trees, plants and
birds, which were apparently quite unobserved by the residents.
“You won’t be offended if I go after one to-morrow, will you, Uncle
John?”
“Bless your heart, no!”
The next morning a blizzard raged. Horace, looking out, saw
nothing but the whirling fine snow; the wind rattled all the shutters
on the old house; it shook the building to its very foundations.
Horace thought it would be great fun to go out into this storm,
with ulster, high rubber boots, and cap over his ears, looking for a
Christmas tree in the Big Swamp. It did not occur to him that he
needed to get his mother’s permission for the expedition, and it
certainly did not occur to her that the boy would start out in such a
storm.
Shortly after breakfast he took an ax from the wood-shed, and
was gone. On the way he thought for a time that he must turn back
—the storm buffeted him so terribly, and the cold, in spite of his
warm coverings, was so intense. But he fought his way along, and at
last came to the borders of the swamp, a flat tract of perhaps a
hundred acres, lying in a hollow between hills.
In the spring this level expanse was mostly covered with water, up
through which grew many low red maples, some scattered firs and
cedars, and a jungle of alders. Horace had often wished that he
might explore the gloomy depths of this swamp, but in midsummer
mosquitoes and pools forbade. Now, with the ground and the pools
frozen, he had no doubt he could pass through the swamp from end
to end.
He left the wood road, and plowed through the deep snow along
the margin of the swamp, looking out for firs. But he could see
nothing more than a rod or two away. The storm did not diminish,
and all about him the snow seemed extraordinarily deep. He sank
into it up to his knees, and sometimes it was deeper still. He walked
thus a long way on the edge of the swamp woodland, not caring to
plunge into the swamp until he should have spied out a balsam.
At last he saw, through the cloud of snow, the tapering head of an
unmistakable fir balsam. He struck into the swamp after it, parting
the alder branches with the ax held with both hands before him, and
sinking two or three inches deeper into the snow.
The fir proved to be too irregular for a Christmas tree. Then,
through the snow, he saw another farther in the swamp. He
penetrated to that, and found one side of it lacking. Beyond were
other firs, and he fought his way deeper and deeper into the swamp.
He discovered now a circumstance that aided him somewhat in
working his way through the jungle. The matted alders seemed to
lean away in masses from the hummocks of earth upon which they
grew, in such a way as to make crooked arched-over passageways,
which, Horace thought, were curiously like the paths moles make
under matted grass. He had often amused himself in summer
digging out these mole-paths, and wondering why the crooked ways
were constructed.
These avenues through the alder thickets, away down in the
bottom of a swamp quite impenetrable without them, often came to
an abrupt end. Then Horace, floundering on hands and knees in the
deep snow, sometimes thrusting his foot down into a watery depth,
had to break his way with his ax through to another opening.
He found the seclusion somewhat interesting. Down here there
was no wind, and his clothing and his laborious exercise made him
warm—even uncomfortably so. He lay a few minutes on his back, in
a place where he could look up through an opening in the branches,
and marveled at the sight of the stormy maelstrom overhead.
The whirling snow looked black. For a moment the current of it
seemed flowing like a river all one way; then it appeared to turn, to
cross itself, and to twist about in a circle, from which it soon
disentangled itself, to resume its swift and steady march in one
direction.
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