The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 7, 1902, Page 10

t the duties were. r, “one of the e be- hold her may hold him ter meeting bring of my W meadow love of disputatio v bouts which Ruiing E it their business to ng Eiders were will- at. The pas- wn to enjoy ctor. When home be- up the have s the rise. They could mot hely practiced practiced onk and to St I_were Regis ermon with heads ew England Con- s catholicity Cath- e, churchmen re- d that I things were put for before war tribes. T clothed me rial gown and blood th down he story. o comme 2 ten in other an- There was for us to ride ng our legs, r view on each rd its basin , as day, and so we were & light warned us to ca A voic mong t ut of the wilder- es and ringing rd is upon me, and blow the trumpet sound an alarm in the tribes of the t your doors, and after them!” said Skene- al ng the aborigir a2 man clouded phrase mind God had hidden h no one. The volce emong too. T could see echo still went off side, maybe the other.” ver show himseif?" Skenedonk said. “He goes settlements. I have often seen when 1 was hunting on = these grounds. He came to our camp, He loves to sleep outdoors better than in o cabin “Why does he shout at us like a us that Indians are on the zht have thought we were on the rselves rank without be- n their glooms. The na forests had a nameless might have been called h invitations his nake clear what this in- produced thoughts dit- se that men were con. e rugged northwest. self,” said Skenedonk, as we moved farther from the invistble voice, “that he under a vow. DLut no- body told me t & “Why do you think so?” “He plants orchards in every fine open spot; or clears the land for planting where he thhmks the soil is right.” THE SUNDAY CALL. “Don’t other men plant orchards? “No. They have not time, or seed. y plant bread. He does nothing but nt orchards.” . iave a great many.” not for himself. The apples one who may pass by when y pe. He wants to give apples verybody. Animals often nibble the , or break down his young trees. It long for them to grow. But he on planting.” If other men have no seeds to plant, how does he get them?” He malkes journeys to the old settle- vhere many orchards have grown and the seeds from cider-pre: He carries théem from Pennsylvania o his back, in leather bags, a bag for each kind of seed.” “Doesn’t he ever sell them?” , “Not often. Johnny Appieseed cares hing for money or galn. I be- e he is_ under a Vow of poverty. No one laughs at him. The tribes on ese grounds would not hurt a hair of his read, not only because God has touched im, but because he plants apples. 1 have his apples myself."” ohnny Appueseed!” I repeated, and kenedonk hastened to tell me: He has another name, but I forget it. He is called Johnny Appieseed.” e slim and scarcely perceptible tun- , among trees, piled with fallen logs d newly sprung growths, let us into a clearing as suddenly as a stream s its lake. We could not see even the I cow iracks. A cabin shedding light from its hearth surprised us in the midst of stumps. he door stood wide. A woman walked ack and forth over a puncheon floor, Dogs rushed to meet us, 1 ng of children could be heard n, gun In hand, stepped to his door, a sentinel. He lowered its muz- p d made welcome, and helped us our horses under shelter with his It was not often we had a woman's ndiwork in corn bread and game to feed ourselves upon, or a bed covered with homespun Sheefs. ( I slept as the children e rang in the clearing: The spirit of the Lord is upon me, and he hath anointed me to blow the trumpet in the wilderness, and sound an alarm in the forest: for behold the tribes of the heathen are round about your doors, and a devauring fame followeth after them!"” ery sleeper in the cabin sat upright tirred. We said in whispered chorus: Johnny Appleseed!” A tapping, light and regular, on the window, followed. Th man was on the floor in a breath. I heard the mother groping among the children and whisper- ing: “Don’t wake the baby!" The fire had died upon the hearth and they lighted no candle. When Johnny Appleseed gave his warning cry in the clearing, and h cautious tap on - the indow, and was instantly gone to other clearings and other windows, it meant that the Ind A ¥ Skenedonk and I, used to the night alarm and boots and saddle in a hurry, put ourselves in readiness to help the family. I groped for clothing, and shoved small legs and arms into it. The little creatures, obedient and silent, made no whimper at being roused out of dreams, but keenly lent themselves to the march. We brought the horses and put ths woman and children upon them. The very dogs understood and slunk around our legs without giving mouth. The ecabin door was shut after us without noise, closing in what the family called home: a few pots and pans; patchwork quilts; a spinning-wheel; some benches; perhaps a child’s store of acorn cups and broken yellow ware in a log corner. In a few hours it might be smoking a heap of slept until a Ve or Carrrroror= ROIT L Ty TAIN TG BY JKR CEHAFII ashes; and the world offered mo other place so dear. What we suffer for is en- riched by our suffering untill it becomes priceless. 8o far on the frontier was this capin that no community blockhouse stood near enough to give its inmates shelter. They were obliged to go with us to Fort Ste- phenson. Skenedonk pioneered the all-night strug- gle on an obscure trail; and he went astray sometimes, through blackness of woods that roofed out the stars. We fioundered In swales sponging full of dead leaves, and drew' back, scratching our- selves on low-hung foliage. By dawn the way became easier and the danger greater. Then we paused and lifted our rifles if a twig broke near by, or a fox barked, or wind rushed among leaves as a patter of moccasins might come. Skenedonk and I, sure of the northern Indians, were making a venture in the West. We knew nothing of Te- cumseh’s swift red warriors, except that scarcely a year had passed since his al- lies had tomahawked women and children of the garrison on the sand beach at Chi- cago. Without Kindling any fire, we stopped once that day to eat, and by good luck and following the river reached that Lower Sandusky, which was called Fort Steghenson, about mighttall. The place was merely a high stockade with blockhouses at the angles and a gate opening toward the river. Within, besides the garrison of 160 men, were various refugees, driven, like our family, to the fort. And there, coming heartily from the commandant’s quarter8 to receive me, was George Croghan, still a boy in aj pearance, though intrusted with this dan- gerous post. His long face had darkened like mine. We looked each other over with the quick and critical scrutiny of men who have not met since boyhood, and laughed as we grasped hands. ‘‘You are as welcome to the inside of this bearpen,” said Major Croghan, ‘“as you made me to the.outside of the one in the wilderness.” “I hope you'll not give me such another tramp after shelter for the night as I gave you,” I sald. “The best in Fort Stephenson is yours. But your rest depends on the enemy. A runner has just come in from the gen- eral warning me Proctor and Tecumseh are turning their attention this way. I'm ordered to evacuate, for the post 15 con- sidered too weak to hold.” “How soon do you march?” “I don’t march’at all. I stay here. I'm going to djsobey orders,” “1f you'fe going to disobey orders, you have good reason for doing 8. “I have. It was too late to retreat. I'm fidnz to fight. I hear, Lazarre, you now how to handle Indians in ‘the French way.” “My dear Croghan, you insinuate the American way may be better.” “It is, on the Western border. It may not be on the northern.” ‘‘Then you would not have adyised my attempting the Indians here?” “I shouldn’t have discouraged it. When I got the secret order, I said: ‘Bring the French—bring the missionaries—bring arcything that will cut the comb of Te- cumseh!™ ““The missionaries and the French like being classed with—anything,” I said. “We're Americans ~ here,” = Croghan laughed. “The dauphin may have to fight in the ditch with the rest of us.” “The Dauphin 1s an American, too, and used to scars, as you know. Can you' give me any news from Green Bay in the Wis- consin country?” “I' was' ordered to Green'Bay last year PERRY A7 TIE, to gec If a=ything could be done with old Fort Edward Augustus.” “Does my Holland court-lady live there?”’ 3 “Not now,” he answered soberly. “She's dead.” “That's bad,” I sald, thinking of lost opportunities, “Is pretty Annabel de coming back from France ¥Not now, she’s marrie “That’s worse,” he sighed. “I was very silly about her when I was a boy. We had our supper in his quarters, and he busied himself until Jate in the night with preparations for defense. The whole place was full of cheer and plenty of game, and swarmed like a little fair witn moving figures. A camp-fire was built at dark in the center of the parade ground, heaped logs sending their glow as far as the dark pickets. Heads of families drew toward it while the women were putting their children to bed; and soldiers off Guty lounged there, the front of the body in light, the ‘back in darkness. Cool forest night air flowed over the stockade, swaying smoke this way and that. As the fire was stirred, and smoke turned to flame, it showed more and more distinctly what dimness had screened. A man rose up on the other side of it, clothed in a coffee sack, in which holes were cut for his head and arms. His hat was a tin kettle with the handle sticking out behind like a stiff queue. Indifferent to his grotesqueness, he took it off and put it on the ground be- side him, standing ready to command at- tention, He was a small, dark, wiry man, bare- footed and bare-legged, whose ' black cyes sparkled and whose scanty hair and beard hung down over his shoulders and breast. Some pokes of leather, much scratched, hung bulging from the rope Which girded his coffee sack. From one ©of these he took a few unbound leaves, the fragment of a book, spread them open, and began to read in a chanting, prophetic key, something about the love of the Lord and the mysteries of the an- els. His listeners kept their eyes on im, giving an indulgent ear to spiritual messages that made less demand on them than the violent earthly ones to which they were accustomed, haumont ever ing the leaves he bag and took his The others, future mysterles, refugees put in. to Kkill critters, ed him theré first. And he done it. & pasture for o'd, THE BATTLE OF THE TrIArE.S) WRLCEL SEVED ZAZARRE" roxoxgs my THE S rocrrapE FTIROOIL Al ZEIIS TII G, Pl GEFORGE GIBFS. “It’'s Johnny Appleseed,” a man at my side told me, as if the name explained anything he might do. ‘When Johnny Appleseed finished read- ut them back in his ettle to the well for He then brought some meal from the cookhouse and made mush in his hat. to move out; TULLERIEY- began to talk about present danger, when he stood.up from his labor to inquire: ““Is there plenty in the fort for the chil- dren to eat?"”’ ‘“‘Plenty, Johnny, plenty,” several voices assured him. “I can go without supper if the children haven't enough.” ‘“Eat your supper, Johnn{. han will give you more if you want it,” said a_soldier. Major Crog- exclaimed somewhere east in the hills. All the bates ‘he can find he swaps young trees for, and they go off with him leading them, but he never comes into the set- tlements on horseback.” “Does he always go barefoot?” I asked. ‘“‘Sometimes he makes bark sandals. It you give him a pair of shoes he’ll give them away to the first person that can wear them and needs them. Hunters wrap dried leaves around their leggins to keep the rattlesnakes out, but Johnny never protects himself at all.” “No wonder,” spoke a soldier. “Any snake’d be discouraged at them shanks. A .seven-year rattler'd break his fang on Tarm Johnry came out of the cookhouse with an {ron poker and heated it in the coals. All the men around the fire walited, un- derstanding what he was about to do, but my own breath drew with a hiss through my teeth as he laid the red hot iron first’ on one long cut and then an- Having other in his travel-worn feet. cauterized himself effectually, and turned the poker, he took his place in perfect serenity, without any show pain, prepared to accommodate himself to the company. Some bo; the occasion tion. savages i knife. the likelihood of a night attack. “Tippecance w: the morning,” said a soldfer. Ppleseed. No other man could say as much. ‘“Angels were there. The wilderness and fellowship. aside and answered: ‘“ “‘White robes were red in the sheltered campfires. awake with the bigness of sat down near Johnny Ap- pleseed and gave him their frank atten- Each boy had his hair cut straight around below the ears, where his mother had" measured it with an inverted bowl and freshly trimmed him for lite in the ort, and perhaps for the discomfture o turning thelr minds from e Came. under tha. scalning Open-mouthed or stern-jawed, ac- cording to temperament, the young pio- neers listened 'to stories about Tecumseh, and surmises on the enemy’s march, and fought at 4 o'clock in “I was there,” spoke out Johnny Ap- locked at him as he stood on his cauter- ized feet, stretching his arms, lean and “And we'll glve you jerked Britisher, if sun-cured, upward in the firelight. you'll wait for it,”” said another. ‘‘Johnny never eats meat,” one of the “He thinks it's sinful All the things in the woods likes him. Once he got into a hol- ler log to sleep and some squirrels warn- they settled I don’t al- In rain and dark- ness I heard them speak and say, ‘He hath cast the lot for them, and His hand hath divided it unto them by line; they shall possess it forever; from generation to- generation shall they dwell therein. the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert low he'd pick a flea off his own hide for shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.’ fear he'd break its legs so It couldn’t hop around and make a living."” The wilderness prophet sat down quiet- ly to his meal without appearing to no- tice what was said about him, and when he had eaten carried his hat into the cookhouse, where dogs could not get at one of them.’ There hax his remaining porridge. “Now he’ll save that for his break- fast,” remarked another refugee. “There’s nothing he hates like waste.” ““Talking about squirrels, the man at my side, “I belleve he has broke-down horses F “‘Say, Johnny, what does an angel look like?” piped up one of the boys, quite in Johnny Appleseed turned his rapt vision iven unto every I laid me down in geace to sleep, and the Lord made me to dwell in safety. The campfires burned lace, and they who ‘were to possess the land watched by the I looked down from my hign lace, from my shelter of leaves and my og that the Lord gave me for a bed, and saw the red campfires blink in the dark= ness. “Then was I aware that the heathen crept betwixt me and the camp, sur- rounding s a cloud that lies upon the sround. The rain fell upon us all, and thére was not so much sound as the rust- ling of grasshoppers in tail grass. I sai they will surp he camp and slay the sleepers, not wing that theéy who were to possess the land watched every man with his weapon. But when I would Fave sounded mpet of warning [ heard a rifle d lians rose up screcching and ru e red fires. “Then a'sorcerer leaped upon my high place, rattling many deer hoofs and call- ing aloud that his brethren might hear his voice. Light he promised them for themselv kness for the camp, - and he sang houting and s war song, rattl er Also the In- dians and it was like a_gis 2 ast, belng shot with many mu saw for the fire by the men longer shone the darkness, hed and trampled camp, and no m through candles so that the Ind.ans might see by them to_shoot. The sorcerer danced and shouted, the deer heofs rattled, and on this side and that men fought knee to knee and breast to breast. I saw through the wet dawn, and they who had crept around the camp as a cloud arose as grasshoppers and fled to the swamp. “Then did the sorcerer sit upon his Leels. and I beheld that he had but one eye, and he covered it from the light. “But the men In the camp shouted with a mighty shouting. And after their shous ing I heard again the voices of angels eaying: ‘He hath cast the lot for them, and His: hand hath divided it unto them by line; they shall possess it forever: from generation to generation shall they dwell therein. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose!" ™ The speaker sat down, and one of the mer remarked “So that's the way the battle of Tip- pecanoe looked to Johnny Appleseed.” Butd the smallest boy thoughtfully in- quired: “‘Say, Johnny, haven’t the Indians any angels?” “You'll wish: they was with th, if they ever geét you by the hair, ed ore of the 'men. Solaiers began moving thefr single can- non, a six-pounder, from one blockhouse to another. AIl the men jumped up to help, as at the raising of a home, and put themselyes ifn the way so ardently that they had to be ordered back. When everybody but ourselves had left the starlit open place, Johnny Appleseed lay down and stretched his heels to the blaze. A soldier added another log, and kicked into the flame those fallen away. Though it was the end of July, Lake Erie cooled the inland forests. Sentinels were posted In the block- d on the camp; and houses. Quiet settl 1 sat turning ma things in my mind besides the impending battle. Napoleon Bonaparte had made a disastrous cam. paign in Russia. If I were yet in Franc if the Marquis du Plessy had lived; if I Lad not gone to Mittau; if the self I might have been, that always haunts us, stood ready to take advantage of the turn— Yet the thing which cannot be under- 5tood by men reared under old govern- ments had befallen me. I must have drawn the wildness into my blood. Its possibilities held me. If I had stayed in France at twenty I should have been a Frenchman. The following years made me an American. The passion that binds you to a Iand is no more to be explain than the fact that many women are beau- tiful, whi only one is vitally interest The wilderness mystic was sitting up looking at me. .1 see two people in you,” he said. 1 Only two?"’ Two separate men.” What are their nam angels laugh- Their names I cannot see.” Vell, suppose we call them Louis and is eyes sparkled. “You are a white man “By that I mean with many vile sin: “I hadn’t an equal chance with other men. I lost nine years.” “Mebby,” hazarded Johnny Appleseed cautiously, “you are the one appointed to open and read what is sealed.” “If ‘you mean to interpret what you read, I'm afraid I am not the one. Where did you get those leaves? ~From a book that T divided up to dis- tribute among people.” Doesn’t that destroy the sense?” No. I carry ages In their order from cabin to cabi He came around the fire with the light- ness of an Indian, and gave me own fragment to examine. It proved to be from the writings of one Emanuel Swe- denborg. With a smile which seemed to lessen the size of his face and concentrate its expression to a shining point, Johnny Appleseed slid his leather bags along the rope girdle, and searched them, one after the other. I thought he wanted me to notice his apple seeds, and inquired how many kinds he carried. So he showed them in handfuls, brown and glistening, or gummed with the sweet blood of cider. These produced pippins: these produced russets; these produced luscious harvest apples, that fell in Au- gust bursting with juicy ripeness. Then he showed me another bagful which were not apple seeds at all, but neutral colored specks moving with fluid swiftness as he poured them from palm to palm. “Do you know what this 137" I told him I didn’t. “It's dogfennel seed.” < I laughed and asked him what kind of apples it bore. Johnny Appleseed smiled at me again. It's a flow. I'm spreading it over the whole of Ohio and Indiana! It'll come up like the stars for abundance and fill the land with rankness, and fever and ague will flee away!” .But how about the rankness?” “‘Fever and ague will flee away,” he re- Peated, continuing his search through the bags. He next brought out a parcel wrapped up carefully in doeskin to protect it from the apple seeds, and turned foolish in the face as bits of ribbon and calico fell out upon his knees. “This isn’t the one,” he said, bundling #t up and thrusting it back again. “The little girls, they like to dress their doll- bables, so I carry patches for the little he pronounced. 0U are not stained girls. Here's what I was looking for.” It was another doeskin parcel, bound lengthwise and crosswise by = thongs. These Johnny Appleseed reverently loosened, bringing forth a small book with wooden covers fastened by a padlock. IIL. ‘“Where did you get this?” I heard my- self asking, a strange voice sounding far down the throat. “From an Indian,” the mystic told me quietly. “He said it wasebad medicine to him. He never had any luck in hunting after it fell to his share, so he was giag to_give it to me."” Where did he get 1t7” “His tribe took it from some prison, they killed.” e I was running blindly around in a eir cle to find relief from the news he deat me, when the absurdity of such news overtook me. I stood and laughed. “Who were the prisoners?* don’t know,” answered Johnny Ap- Ppleseed. “How do you know the Indians killed them?” “The one that gave me this books told me so.” ‘‘There are plenty of padlocked books in the world,” I said jauntily. “At least there must be more than one. How long ago did it happen?” “Not very long ago, I think; for the book was clean.” “Give it to me,” I sald, as If I cursed him. “It's & sacred book,” he answered, hesi- tating. “Maybe it's sacred. Let me see.” “There may be holy mysteries In it, to be read only of him who has the key,” “I have a key!" I took it out of the snuffbox. Johnny Appleseed fixed his rapt eyes on the little object in my fingers. “Mebby you are the one appointed to open and read what is sealed!” “No, I'm not! How could my key fit a padlocked book that belonged to prison- ers killed by the Indians?” He heid it out to me and I took hold ot the padlock. It was a small steel padlock, and the hole looked dangerously the size of my key. “1 can’t do it!" I said. !Let me try,” said Johnny Appleseed. “No! You might break my Key ia a strange padlock. Hold it still, Johnny, Please don’t shake it.”" “I'm not shaking it, Johnny Appleseed