Willie Caldwell - Donald McElroy, Scotch Irishman

The confused, doubtful struggle was presently over and not only was I alive and fully conscious, but could even move my mangled arm, and stand upon my feet. The hilt of my knife stuck straight upward in the long fur upon the creature's breast, and I pulled it out, wiped it upon the grass, and sheathed it, thinking I would not use it again, but keep it for remembrance.

Again I was struck by the thickness and beauty of the panther's skin, and wished to have it for my mother's chair. It was my custom to carry a leathern thong in the outer pouch of my game bag; one end of it I now fastened about the beast's body, the other about my own, and so dragged the carcass after me across the level field. Slow and painful was my progress, for my lacerated shoulder and arm smarted maddeningly, and every few yards I was forced to drop upon the ground to rest.

The full moon was two hours high, when, at last, I came to the barn yard stile, on which my father leaned, scanning the fields anxiously.

"Well, son, I'm glad you've come," said my father, "your mother is half dead with anxiety."

I showed my trophy and told my story.

"You did a foolish thing, Don, when you stole the cub, but your mother need have, I think, little further anxiety about you; you are as able to take care of yourself as any seasoned woodsman."

The glow of pride my father's words gave me changed to a feeling of remorse when I saw my mother's blanched face and trembling hands. She would not consent to let me tame the cub. "Our lives were already close enough to savagery," she said, "with Indians and wild beasts likely to fall upon us at any moment; we do not want the sweet peace of our home broken by any savage sight or sound." She kept the skin, though, used it on her winter rocking chair, and prized it highly. Indeed I have more than once overheard her tell how she came by it.

The second incident of my youth most vividly stamped upon my memory happened just ten months after I killed the panther.

The occasion was the last Indian raid into our valley. Fortunately we had two days' warning, and in that time the women and children were gathered within the recently completed stockade around the church, with provisions enough for a week's siege. Meanwhile the men took their rifles and marched to the mountain pass through which the Indians were expected to enter the valley, hoping to turn the savages back with a bloody lesson such as would last them a while, and insure us some more years of peace.

Much exalted in my own opinion by my recent exploit with the panther, I begged to go with the men, and took it somewhat sullenly that I should be left behind with the rest of the youths, under the captaincy of the parson, to guard a church full of women and children. About half an hour before sunset on the second day I was descending the hill behind the church to the spring, a piggin in either hand, and my ever present rifle under my arm, when I saw on the crest of the opposite hill a file of Indians, their painted bodies and feather crested heads standing out against the glowing sky, as distinctly as a picture on a white leaf. Back I flew to the church, with the alarm hot on my lips, and found that Parson Craig had assembled all within for evening worship. In an instant, Bible and Psalm book laid aside, the doors of the church were barricaded, and we youths, each with rifle or musket loaded and primed, stood close about our parson, awaiting orders.

"Lads," he said, in tones that rang as they did when he preached one of his famous sermons of warning to sinners, and dropping in a Scotch word here and there, as he was apt to when excited, "keep cool and fire carefully when ye ha'e taken good aim. We ha'e nae bullets to spare and each ain maun hold himself responsible for half a dozen savages. Remember, lads, ye are fightin' for your maithers, your sisters, your kirk an' your hames, for a' that true men hauld dear, and if ye maun gie your verra lives to save these dearer things count not the price, but pay like brave men, and like brothers o' that dear Christ wha gladly gi'ed His life a sacrifice for us a'. Fear not death, my lads – 'tis but the beginning of life, but fear for your maithers' and your sisters' torture and dishonor."

Hardly had the brave pastor spoken the last word, when the stockade was surrounded by whooping red skins, brandishing tomahawks and war clubs, and yelling to each other unintelligible words of command or exhortation. In another instant they were flying a shower of arrows and bullets over the top of the stockade, and several savage faces appeared above the wall.

A second, third and fourth attempt to scale the stockade was made. For a while, however, I could render little assistance in checking our enemies from without, for I was engaged in a hand to hand death grapple with one of the three Indians who at the first rush succeeded in getting within our enclosure. Never, before or since, had I so mighty a wrestle for my life, and but for my superior height, and the strength of my strong arms, my reader would have been spared this personal narrative.

The next half hour – it seems thrice as long – stays in my mind as an idea of what Hell might well be like. Row after row of hideous, paint streaked, savage faces rose about our wall; the crack of rifles, the whizz of arrows, the yell of the red demons, the shrieks of the wounded, the groans of the dying, mingled in a hideous clamor, and above all rose the wailing of frightened children, and the moans of terrified women. The one harmonious note amidst this frightful discord was the ringing, cheerful tone of Parson Craig's voice, as he encouraged his lads between the quickly succeeding shots of his own musket.

Again and again I fired my good rifle, and whenever a savage face fell backward from the top of the stockade, I experienced a heart bound of fierce joy. Not until there was almost complete silence about us and not a living Indian in sight, did we boys cease the almost mechanical action of loading and firing, and turn to look about us.

The ground both within and without the enclosure, was strewn with dead and dying Indians, half a score of them at least, and some of the lads were carrying our own injured, six in all, into the church, where tender hands waited to dress their wounds. Presently I discovered clotted blood upon my sleeve, and realized for the first time that a bullet had pierced my leathern shirt and the flesh of my left arm between shoulder and elbow.

Next day the militiamen joined us, and we learned that the Indians had evaded them by seeking another pass higher up the range; also that they had devastated all the valley, except our end of it. We had stopped effectually the war party detailed against us, and had saved our homes and crops, as well as the lives of our women and children. The valley rang with praise of "the fighting lads," and my father's face beamed with pride and tenderness as he shook my hand.

"I shall call you boy no longer, Donald," he said; "you have nobly earned your majority; my advice is always at your service, sir, but no longer I give you commands." I think I never had a promotion or an honor that so pleasured me; and doubtless my father was shrewd enough to know that by thus expressing his pride and confidence in me, he was fixing upon me a sense of uplifting responsibility, as one from whom only noble deeds were expected, which would prove a restraint stronger than any which the most respected authority could impose – an obligation to right and duty neither to be shirked, nor forgotten.

The mellow glow of September lay upon green hills and purple mountains, sleeping in serene content against a tender sky. Over quiet woods, and gliding river, bordered with ribbons of rich meadows, brooded a sweet peace, as if nature, after a busy and fruitful season, took her well earned rest in mood of conscious thankfulness. The very grapes, hanging in heavy amber clusters below the sloping roof of the low-eaved porch on which I sat, suggested fruition and content, as if they had stored all the sweetness possible within their bursting skins, and now rested thankfully upon their strong stems.