Big Brother: A Story of Indian War

by George Cary Eggleston

  CHAPTER V.

  SAM'S FORTRESS.

  Sam's companions kept perfectly still. Their reverence for Sam had grownwith every foot of their travels, and their confidence in his ability toget out of any difficulty, and ultimately to accomplish his purposes inthe face of any obstacle, was now quite unbounded. And so, when he toldthem it was impossible to reach the fort and that he wanted to think,they patiently awaited the results of his thinking, confident that hewould presently hit upon precisely the right thing to do.

  After a while he raised his head from his hands and said:

  "Come on, we must get clear away from here before morning;" but he saidnot a word about where he was going. His course was now nearlysouth-east, and just as the day was breaking he stopped and said:

  "There is the river at last. Now let's go to sleep."

  They obeyed him unquestioningly, though they had not the faintest ideawhere they were or what river it was which he had seen a little wayahead. When Sam waked it was nearly noon, and he ate a little of thepalmetto cabbage left in his pockets, while the others slept. His facewas very pale, however, and he sat very still until his companionsaroused themselves. Then he explained.

  "When I found that we could not get to Fort Glass, the question was,where should we go? Fort Stoddart is probably surrounded by Indians too,and so the only thing to do was to make our way down through the TensawCountry to Mobile; but that is about eighty or a hundred miles away, andthe fact is I am a little sick from my wound. My foot and leg are allswelled up, and I've been having a fever, so that I can't travel muchfurther. It seemed to me that the best thing to do, under thecircumstances, was to find a good hiding-place where it will be easy toget something to eat, and to stay there till I get better, or somethingturns up, and so I thought of the Alabama River as the very best place,because mussels and things of that kind are better than sweet potatoes,and here we are; now the next thing is to find a hiding-place, and Ithink I know where one is. It has a spring by it, too, which is a goodthing, for drinking this swamp and creek water will make us all sick. Iwas all through here on a camp-hunt once, and I remember a place on theother side of the river where two big hollow trees stand right togetheron top of a sort of bluff. About fifty yards further down the riverthere is a spring, just under the bluff. We must find the place if wecan, to-night, and to do it we must first get across the river. It's solow now we can easily wade it, I think, and Judie can be pushed acrosson a log."

  As soon as night fell the plan was put into execution. The river wasextremely low at the time, and Sam was confident that by choosing a wideplace for their crossing, they could wade the stream easily; but lestthere might be a channel too deep for that, he fastened four logstogether with grapevines, and putting Judie on this raft bade the twoboys tow it over, telling them that if they should find the water toodeep for wading at any point, they could easily support themselves byclinging to the logs. They had no difficulty, however, and were soon onthe east bank of the stream. Sam's task was a much harder one. Thecurrent was very rapid and the bottom too soft for the easy use of hiscrutch, while his strength was almost gone. His spirit sustained him,however, and after a while he reached the shore. When all were landed,the search began for the hiding-place Sam had described. It proved to bemore than a mile higher up the river, and when they found it, the daywas breaking. The trees were not hollow, as Sam had supposed. The riverbank in that place is in three terraces, and the two great trees stoodalmost alone on the second one of these. The sandy soil had beengradually washed out from under the great trunks, so that the treesproper began about fifteen feet from the ground, the space below beingoccupied by a great net-work of exposed roots, some of them a foot ortwo in thickness, and others varying in size all the way down to merethreads. The freshets which had washed the earth away from the roots,had piled a great mass of drift-wood against one side of them. Sam madea careful examination of the place, and then all went to work. The twoboys so disposed some of the drift-wood as to make a sort of coveredpassage from the edge of the bank to the two trees whose roots wereinterlaced with each other. Sam cut away some of the roots with hisjackknife so as to make an entrance, and once inside the circle of outerroots, he was not long in making a roomy hiding-place for the wholeparty, immediately under the great trees.

  JUDIE ON THE RAFT.]

  "We can enlarge our house with our knives whenever we choose," he said,"and if we stay here long enough, we must make Judie a room for herselfunder the other tree, with a passage leading from this into it."

  Sam said this to avoid saying something which would have alarmed anddistressed the others. In truth he knew himself to be really ill, andbelieved that he would be much worse before being any better. For thisreason he knew they must have more room than the present hiding-placeafforded, and it was his plan to cut another room under the other tree,with a very narrow passage between. "Then," thought he, "if the Indiansfind us here, as I am afraid they will, they will find only poor sickSam here in the outer room, and won't think of hunting further." Samthought he was going to die at any rate, and his only care now was tosave the lives of the others. He had made them gather some mussels atthe river, and some green corn in a neighboring field, and he now saidto the two boys, "These things must be cooked. It will not do for you toeat them raw any longer. They aren't wholesome that way, and so I'vebeen thinking of a plan for cooking them. The spring is down under thelower bluff, and a fire down there won't make much smoke above the upperbanks. We must make one out of drift-wood, but we mustn't use any pine.That smokes too much. The fire must be made in the daytime, because atnight it would be seen too far. You boys must do the cooking, while Ikeep a look-out for Indians, and if any come within sight you can bothget in here before they discover you, or if they do see you, they can'tfind you after you run away from the fire, and they will look for youout in the woods somewhere. Nobody would think of looking here. Now letme tell you how to cook the things. I was at a 'clam bake' in NewEngland once, and I know how to make these mussels and corn taste well.You must dig a sort of fireplace in the sand bank and build your fire inthere. When it burns away until you have a good bank of coals, you mustput down on them a layer of the corn, in the shuck, then a layer ofmussels, then a layer of corn, and finally cover them all up with coalsand hot ashes, and leave them there for an hour or two, when they willbe cooked beautifully."

  "But Mas' Sam," said Joe.

  "Well, what is it, Joe?"

  "How's we gwine to git de fire?"

  "Well, how do you think, Joe?"

  "I 'clare I dunno, Mas' Sam, 'thout you got some flints an' punk in yourpockets."

  "No, I have no flints and no punk, Joe, but I'm going to get you somefire when the sun gets straight overhead."

  "Is you gwine to git it from de sun, Mas' Sam?"

  "Yes."

  "What wid, Mas' Sam?"

  "With water, Joe."

  "Wid water, Mas' Sam! You'se foolin'. How you gwine to git fire widwater, _I'd_ like to know."

  "Well, wait and see. I'm not fooling."

  To tell the truth, Tom was quite as much at a loss as Joe was, to knowhow Sam could get fire with water; but his confidence in his "bigbrother," as he called Sam, was too perfect to admit of a doubt or aquestion. As for Judie, she would hardly have raised her eyebrows if Samhad burned water, or whittled it into dolls' heads before her eyes. Shebelieved in Sam absolutely, and supposed, as a matter of course, that heknew everything and could do anything he liked. But Joe was not yetsatisfied that water could be made to assist in the kindling of a fire.He said nothing more, however, but carefully watched all of Sam'spreparations.

  That young gentleman began by tearing a strip of cotton cloth from hisshirt, and picking it to pieces. He then gathered from the drift-wood anumber of dry sticks, and broke and split them up very fine.

  "We must have a few splinters of light-wood," he said; "but after thefire is once started, we mustn't put any more pine on."

  So saying, he split off a few splinters from a
piece of rich heart-pine,which Southern people call "light-wood," because the negroes use itinstead of lamps or candles.

  "Come now," said Sam, "its nearly noon, and I think I can get fire foryou. Go up on top of the drift-pile, Tom, and look out for Indians. Ifyou don't see any we can all go down to the spring together long enoughto start a fire. Then I must come back to Judie, and I'll keep alook-out for Indians while you and Joe get the corn on. When you get iton, come back here and wait until it has time to cook. Stop a minute,Tom. Let's understand each other. If the one on the look-out seesIndians, he must let the others know; but it won't do to holler. Let mesee. Can you whistle like a kildee, Tom?"

  "Yes, or like any other bird."

  "Can you, Joe?"

  "I reckon I _kin_, Mas' Sam," said Joe, who, to prove his powersstraightway gave a shrill kildee whistle, which nearly deafened themall.

  "There, that'll do, Joe. Well, let's understand then, that if anyone ofus sees Indians, he must whistle like a kildee. If the Indians hear itthey'll think nothing of it."

  Tom went to the look-out, and seeing no savages anywhere, returned, andthe whole party, little Judie excepted, proceeded to the spring. Samthen laid his sticks down in a pile, and taking out his watch removedthe crystal. This he filled with clear water from the spring, andholding it over the cotton ravellings, moved it up and down until thesunlight, passing through it, gathered itself into a small bright spoton the cotton. Joe, eager to see, thrust his head over Sam's shoulder,and directly between the glass and the sun.

  "Take your head away, Joe, or I'll have to draw the fire right throughit," said Sam, laughing.

  "Mercy, Mas' Sam, don't do dat. I'se 'feard o' your witches' ways,anyhow," said Joe, drawing back. The glass was again put in positionand the spot of bright sunlight reappeared. Presently a little cloud ofsmoke rose, and a moment afterwards, the cotton was fairly afire. It wasnot difficult now to get the light-wood and dry sticks to blazing, and agood fire was soon secured.

  "Now boys," said Sam, "I'll go back to the drift-pile and keep alook-out. If you hear the kildee call, run in as quickly as you can.When you get the corn and mussels on, and covered up, come back atonce."

  No Indians showing themselves anywhere in the neighborhood, the boys gottheir dinner on or rather _in_ the fire, and then returned to the rootcavern to await the completion of the cooking process. When they wereall safely stowed away in their places, Tom gave voice to the curiositywith which he was almost bursting.

  "Sam," he said, "how did you do that?"

  "How did I do what, Tom?"

  "How did you make the sun set the cotton on fire?"

  "I don't know whether I can make you understand it or not," said Sam,"but I'll try. You know light always goes in straight lines, if left toitself, don't you?"

  "No, I didn't know that!

  "Yes you did, only you never thought of it. If you want to keep lightout of your eyes, you always put your hand between them and the light,because you know the light goes straight and so will not go around yourhand."

  "Yes, that's true, and when I want to make a shadow anywhere, I putsomething right before the light."

  "Certainly. Well, the rays of the sun all come to us straight, and sideby side. They are pretty hot, but not hot enough to set fire to anythingthat way. But if you can gather a good many of these rays together andmake them all shine on one little spot, they will set fire to whateverthey fall on. Now a piece of glass or any other thing that you can seethrough easily,--that is, any _transparent_ thing, lets the sunlightthrough it, and if it is flat on both sides, it doesn't change thedirections of the rays. But if both sides are rounded out, or if oneside is rounded out and the other side is flat, it turns all the rays alittle, and brings them right together in a point not far from theglass. If the sides are hollowed _in_ instead of bulging out, the raysscatter, and if one side bulges out and the other bulges in, as they doin a watch crystal, one side scatters and the other side collects therays, and so it is the same as if the glass had been perfectly flat, oneside undoes the other's work. Now I have no glass which bulges out onboth sides, and none that bulges out on one side and is flat on theother, but my watch crystal bulges out on one side and in on the other.But when I filled it with water, the water being as clear as the glass,it made it flat on top and bulging underneath, and so it gathered thesun's rays together in the light spot you saw, and set fire to thecotton."

  "Yes, but why did you have to wait till noon?" asked Tom.

  "Because the glass must be held right across the rays of light, and as Icouldn't turn the crystal to either side without spilling the water, Ihad to use it at noon, when the sun was almost exactly overhead, and itsrays came nearly straight down. If I had had a glass rounded out on bothsides I could have got fire any time after the sun was well up in thesky. Now let me tell you what they call all these different kinds ofglasses. One that is flat on one side and bulges out on the other iscalled a _convex lens_; if it bulges out on both sides it is a _doubleconvex lens_; if it is hollowed in on one side and flat on the other itis a _concave lens_; if hollowed in on both sides we call it a _doubleconcave lens_; and when it is hollowed in on one side and bulged out onthe other, as any watch crystal does, it is a _concave convex lens_."

  "Where did you learn all that, Sam?" asked Tom.

  "I learned part of it with father's spectacles, and part out of a bookfather lent me when I asked him why I couldn't make the bright, hot spotwith a pair of near-sighted glasses that I found in one of mother's oldwork boxes. You see, when people begin to get old, their eyes flatten alittle, and so everything they look at seems to be shaved off. They seewell enough at a distance, but can't see small things close to them."

  "Is that the reason pa always looks over his spectacles when he looks atme?" asked Judie.

  "Yes, little woman. He can't see to read without his glasses, but hecan see you across the room without them, well enough. Well, to remedythis defect, old people wear spectacles with double convex lenses inthem. But near-sighted people have exactly the opposite trouble. Theycan't see things except by bringing them near their eyes, because theireyes are not flat enough, and so their spectacles are made with doubleconcave lenses. When I asked father about it, he gave me a book thatexplained it all, and that is where I learned the little I know aboutit."

  "The _little_! I'd like to know what you call a good deal," said Tom. "Inever saw anybody that knew half as much as you do."

  "That is only because we live in a new country, Tom, where there are novery well educated people, and because you don't know how much there isto learn in the world. If these Indians ever get quiet, I hope to learna good deal more every year than I know now. But it's time to see aboutour mussel bake. Run to the look-out, Tom, and then we can all go downand bring up the dinner."