by Van Reid
“And the elders of Hallowell granted the Wawenocks land to pitch their tents on the southern banks of the Bombahook.”
“It may have been the very same stream from which Father saved his future in-law,” suggested Lavilda.
“It may. It may,” said Louella. “But the Wawenocks were granted the land, and they were granted the protection of the town, and there were scarce a hundred of their tribe remaining.
“But if the neighboring tribes could not attack the Wawenocks outright without making war also upon the town of Hallowell, there were other ways to avenge their dead, and one muggy August night a terrible storm was conjured up-a storm that could be heard at the center of the European settlement itself, though it never so much as turned a. weathercock there-and the Bombahook rose up in flood and swept every last Wawenock into the Kennebec, and since the days of the Judges there never was a tribe so completely abolished from the face of the earth in one terrible blow.
“It was not many summers later before nature had reclaimed the washed-out banks of the Bombahook, and near its uppermost reaches, where hard wood would expect to take hold, there grew up a long rank of pines. One of the elders, who had been present at that first meeting with the Wawenocks, went out and walked one day among the young trees, and when he came back in the evening he claimed to have counted them to the exact number of people who were lost in that terrible flood. And that elder was the first to see the unearthly smoke rising from the tallest of the pines, so that they were reminded of what Assinomo had said. ‘Even as water flows in the Bombahook, we shall surely smoke the pipe of peace.’”
Daniel and Charlotte were quite charmed by the story, and Louella might have been telling it to a roomful of children, her sweet, aged voice was so animated and her eyes were filled with such daydream and illusion.
“Those trees did grow with unnatural speed”-she ended her tale—“and people let them be, for they began to think that the trees were the Indians themselves, come back to fulfill their vow.”
36. The Battle of the Smoking Pine
As Eagleton had predicted, the day was bright and clear, so that folk squinted against the glare of the snow and the south-facing eaves began to drip. Snowbirds flitted and called in the bushes.
As the hour before noon approached, Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump were more secure about the approaching contest, having attended services at their respective denominations. Had they compared the messages they received that morning, however, they could not have been blamed if they derived some measure of ambiguity from their collective lessons. Ephram, for example, had heard from the Baptist preacher sentiments regarding the Golden Rule, while Eagleton had listened attentively as the Methodist minister fixed a hard eye upon his congregation and proclaimed the wisdom of God’s vengeance. Thump’s guidance had been the strangest, since the Episcopalian service had been upon Job, 39:25-“He smelleth the battle afar off.…”
But men will find comfort where they may, and the Moosepathians considered themselves properly encouraged for the task ahead. The younger boys met them upon the appointed ground, before the hotel, arriving in three or four distinct groups. There were nigh onto fourteen of the little chaps, for tidings of their newly acquired leadership had encouraged enlistments and their ranks had grown accordingly.
The Dash-It-All Boys had not been sighted that morning, and it was supposed by the Moosepathians that their counterparts had gone further afield in quest of worship.
“They did seem a little troubled about the snowball fight,” said Thump, who hoped that Durwood, Waverley, and Brink had slept well despite this concern.
“Where is this encounter to take place?” wondered Eagleton.
“They’ll be coming to the field at the corner of Winthrop and Pleasant,” said one of the boys-Brian by name. He was a game little fellow, with the look of hazard in his eye.
“Let me go!” came a voice from the steps of the hotel. “Let me go, I tell you! How am I to look to the troops if you’ve hold of my arm like an old nanny?” The members of the club were startled to see Colonel Barkoddel struggling through the front door of the hotel and tussling with the manager.
“But, Colonel,” the manager was saying, “the steps are slippery, and the road is far from clear.”
“The devil!” declared the old man, and he waved a stick about him, so that the manager must suffer harm or put some distance between them, of which choice he split the difference by contracting two or three blows before retreating. “Come up here and get me!” shouted the fellow to Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump, and they managed three or four steps before Eagleton slipped into Ephram, who fell against Thump, and they finished where they began, though in less order. “The devil!” shouted the colonel, and they were surprised to find him standing with them at the bottom of the steps when they regained their feet.
A horse and sleigh pulled up before them, and Colonel Barkoddel took occupation of this, his stick waving erratically above him as he let the throws be tucked over his knees. Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump wondered if they were supposed to join him till he used his stick to keep them at bay, shouting, “To the field! Onward!” And though he kept the driver to a slow pace, the men and their troop of seven- and eight-year-old boys were hardly able to keep up with him. “We must be there to choose the ground!” the old man called back at them. “No dallying now!”
The day was glorious, and the Moosepathians were sorry to be so out of breath when they met folk coming home from church; they raised their hats but were able to express their greetings only with the simplest of grunts. The boys, on the other hand, seemed to gather energy with every yard, shouting and whooping with excitement, not the least because the colonel exhorted them to do so. They were laughing uproariously by the time they reached the chosen field, but their laughter died at the sight of several older fellows manning the snowy ramparts of a fort that had been constructed halfway across the meadow.
“Look!” shouted one of the older boys from the fort wall. “It’s a bunch of old men!”
Colonel Barkoddel couldn’t be expected to hear the details of this taunt, but he caught the tenor of it and shook his stick at the opposing ranks.
Those ranks were gaining force at every moment; figures hurried from the neighboring woods or the adjacent streets to fill the garrison, and one of these boys stood in plain sight, like Hector upon the wall of Troy.
“We are outnumbered as well as outweighed,” observed the colonel.
The Moosepathians were aware of this discrepancy and a little concerned about it.
“Should we leave our hats?” wondered Eagleton, who well remembered yesterday’s imperiled headgear.
“The devil, you say, sir!” roared the colonel. “Wear your hats and draw fire, I say!”
Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump flinched at the old man’s colorful locutions.
“Colonel,” suggested Ephram, “with the young fellows about-”
“What!”
Ephram looked to his friends for help.
“What Ephram is trying to say, Colonel,” attempted Eagleton, “is that a certain intemperance of speech-”
Thump stepped forward and cleared his throat. “If you wouldn’t swear in front of the boys, Colonel,” he said quietly.
“Very good, Thump,” whispered Eagleton.
“Bravo, my friend,” said Ephram quietly.
“What?” shouted the colonel. He glanced about with a wild eye but was somewhat abashed as he took in the boys. “Yes, of course!” he added. “Where is my glass?” He glared at the men and boys, then realized that he had possession of the requested item and produced from the folds of the throws about him a telescope that he put to one eye and applied to the snowbank beyond.
They watched as Colonel Barkoddel took in the terrain, and they could hear him grumble and growl to himself. The sun gave a blinding glint from the end of the spyglass as he veered it from one side to the other, and when he lowered the piece, he seemed satisfied.
“Ah!” he voc
alized. “There’s the fatal mistake, I tell you. They have the high ground, but I warrant there isn’t much to stand on atop that bank, and a well-placed hit or two will likely knock some of those defenders from their place.” He looked down at his small army, which had grown by two or three boys since they arrived. “What are you doing?” he declared. “Arm yourselves, gentlemen! The hour is at hand! Fill every pocket, and occupy every crook and elbow!”
At this command the younger troop fell into a flurry of action, and ammunition was gathered and packed accordingly. The edge of the field took on the pockmarked look of a bombarded course, and the small figures in their dark winter coats shouted encouragement to one another or called the discovery of a particularly fine patch of damp snow.
A clamor of taunts came from the snowbank, and one of the taller boys, impatient for battle, let fly with a missile that nearly covered the distance between the forces.
“Let them wear themselves out,” said the colonel, with a gleeful laugh.
Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump watched the proceedings, feeling very much the fifth, six, and seventh wheels. “How are we to dispose of ourselves?” wondered Eagleton aloud.
“You’re each to take a column across,”said the old man, and he explained to them the plan that he had devised.
“What are they doing now?” wondered Waverley.
Harold, the unofficial leader of the older boys, stood at the rampart and considered the smaller troop on either side of the field’s southern angle. “They’re getting ready for something,” he said, shielding his eyes against the glare. It had been an even choice, it seemed now; they occupied the high ground, it was true, but they also faced the sun.
“Something is good,” said Durwood. “I believe something indicates that things will be commencing forthwith.”
Brink took off his hat and peered over the bank. “They are gathering, and in good order, by the way. And there, I am pleased to inform you, are the members of the Muskrat Lodge.”
“Badgertail Club,” corrected Durwood.
“Beaverwood Society,” suggested Waverley.
“At any rate, our friends are taking the field,” said Brink. “Unarmed, I might add, if appearances are to be believed.” his hat of Waverley was encouraged by this report to look for himself. He took and peered over the wall. “How are we for ammunition?” he asked.
Harold indicated the several pyramids of snowballs that lined the tops of the ramparts. The older boys had not revealed the extent of their numbers or the presence of the three men, but there were at least twenty of them lying in wait, and a great deal of snickering rose from behind the fort walls. The boys were amused as well.
“Who is the codger with the stick?” wondered Brink.
“Some local hero of the late war, I shouldn’t wonder,” suggested Waverley. “He is a little magnificent, don’t you think?”
“I’m just glad he’s not coming with them,”said Durwood.
“Or even by himself,”said Brink. “He reminds me of my grandfather, who would like to catch up with me someday.”
There was then a cry rising from the opposite field, and all heads behind the rampart lifted in anticipation.
“‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,’” quoted Waverley.
“It’s our breach,” contended Brink.
“It is, isn’t it.”
The huzzahs and roars from the oncoming horde grew louder.
“They are coming on swiftly, for little fellows,”said Durwood.
Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump had learned quite a lot about cheering the home team while observing Portland’s baseball team on the Eastern Promenade with Mister Walton, but exhortations to “knock him down at first” and “kill the umpire” had never seemed very sporting (and certainly had never fallen from the lips of their chairman) and besides seemed not entirely relevant to the present circumstance. Unenlightened as to the proper words for the present occasion, they met the challenge with irregular outbursts that sounded rather like the shouts of men who are being pinched from behind.
They each led a column of about five boys-Eagleton along the left lank, Thump along the right, and Ephram up the middle, with seconds in-command being a Peter, a John, and an Alvin respectively. The young boy named Brian, who himself had some fame as a pitcher, jogged along the middle column and was to be held aside as something of a sharpshooter. (A headhunter, the colonel had dubbed him.)
The attacking army was not halfway across the field of play before missiles began to land among them, and as these were not the softest snow younger boys had their commands, and they did not attempt to return fire balls that had ever been thrown, there were shouts of dismay; but the from a position that would certainly not honor their weaker arms. They could hear the colonel and his driver shouting from the street.
Thump lost his hat almost immediately but did not venture back for it. “Forward!” he cried, and slowing his pace only slightly as he gave out this call, he was nearly run over by his own boys.
The snowballs came thick and heavy, and Eagleton was astonished, when he looked up Gust before losing his own hat), to see a small horde of older boys manning the walls. a second projectile burst upon his head and dazed him somewhat. He did not stumble, however, but plowed along through the deep snow to their intended confrontation.
Ephram was holding his hat to his head and felt three or four hathating snowballs thunk upon his worsening headgear; at one instance half a dozen of these projectiles collided with his chest and his jaw, and he performed a backward somersault that was much admired by his troops as they rushed by. Shaking his dazed head, he clambered to his feet and found himself bringing up the rear of his column. He had longer strides than his boys, but they had youthful energy on their side and besides did not sink so far into the snow; the result was that he found it difficult to regain his position in the van. Alvin took one look back at his leader, waved him on, then was nearly knocked onto his back by a rain of snowballs.
Thump and Eagleton meanwhile had reached the point where the next course of their plan came into play. Their columns formed up in the face of a blistering fusillade, and with the fire of battle hot in their veins, the small boys poured forth a return volley that did everything the colonel had predicted: a good three-quarters of the rampart’s defenders were knocked loose of their moorings and disappeared behind the snowbank.
Brian was the first in fact to mark a casualty, by picking Harold Marsh from his position.
A few leaps brought Thump and Eagleton to the foot of the ramparts, where they handed their boys onto the walls (Thump accidentally threw the first one completely over the side), and here the third part of the colonel’s plan took effect.
The older boys-not to mention Durwood, Waverley, and Brink could not have imagined that they had been stocking ammunition for the employ of their enemies, but that is how it fell out, for the younger boys began to make good use of the admittedly depleted pyramids of snowballs that awaited them upon the walls of the fort, and with so many of the larger fellows on their backs or just recovering their feet in the precincts of the snowy garrison, it was not unlike shooting the proverbial fish in the barrel. (The younger boy who had been thrown over the side managed somehow to use the force of his trajectory to roll himself out of harm’s immediate way.)
Durwood, Waverley, and Brink were shocked at this turn of fortune, and it was no doubt their own fresh arms that kept it from turning altogether. Several of the younger boys were knocked from the walls, and Eagleton, Thump, and Ephram (who had caught up with them) ran about catching the fellows with extraordinary precision.
In the confusion the attacking force hardly noticed how tall were the three boys who led a foray out and around the palisade. Suddenly the younger boys and their leaders were forced to retreat-not south toward the street, but northwest, in the direction of a line of trees. Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump had never lifted their feet so quickly or so high. Snowballs-quickly formed and less compacted-sped past their ea
rs and burst upon their backs, and there was a great roar from the older boys.
“To the pines!” shouted one of the younger fellows, and the retreat lost some of its haphazard quality as it formed toward a single goal.
Durwood, Waverley, and Brink exhorted their troops forward at first but then cautioned them to slow their pursuit long enough to rearm themselves. The older boys quickly had their arms and pockets loaded with white spheres, and they pressed doggedly on, following the tracks of the younger boys.
The sound of a stream became apparent as they reached the edge of a pine wood. Their quarry fled among the trees. “No surrender!” cried the older boys. “No quarter!”
Ephram thought his lungs would burst, and he was the first to stumble to a halt; Eagleton and Thump quickly backtracked to their friend.
“Eagleton?” said Ephram between breaths.
“Yes, my friend?” said Eagleton.
“Thump?”
“I am here,” said Thump.
“I believe that I will stand this ground and do my best to slow the pursuit so that our boys can make it safely home.”
“Good heavens, Ephram!” declared Eagleton.
Thump could hardly speak, he was so moved. He cleared his throat and did manage to mumble, “Where you stand, there stand I as well.”
“And I!” agreed Eagleton.
They realized then that Brian and John and several others of the younger troop had backtracked themselves to see what was up, but when the plan was explained, Brian first and then the others refused to budge and were willing to take their lumps rather than leave their leaders behind. The truth was, they were exhilarated with their temporary victory and had faith that the Moosepath League would lead them forth successfully.