From Kingdom to Colony

by Mary Devereux

  CHAPTER III

  "Oh, Mary, there is Johnnie Strings!" exclaimed Dorothy, as they drewnear shore, where lay the rowboat, beached on the sand, with Leet, thefaithful old darkey, sitting close by, awaiting the pleasure of hisadored young mistress.

  Near him a little girl of seven was gathering pebbles, her heavy blondebraids touching the tawny sand whenever she stooped in her search. Andcrouched by his grandfather Leet was the boy Pashar, looking like ananimated inkspot upon the brightness all about. His white eyeballs andteeth showed sharply by contrast with their onyx-like settings, as hesat with his thick lips agape, literally drinking in the words of theredoubtable Johnnie Strings, a wiry, sharp-faced little man, whosegarments resembled the dry, faded tints of the autumn woods.

  Johnnie, with his pedler's pack, stored with a seemingly unlimitedvariety of wares, was a well-known and welcome visitor to everyhousewife in town. He lived when at home (which was rarely) in ahut-like abode up among the rocks of Skinner's Head; and the highwaybetween Boston and Gloucester was tramped by him many times during theyear.

  He owned a raw-boned nag of milk-white hue, and rejoicing in the nameof Lavinia Amelia; and these two, with a yellow cur, constituted theentire _menage_ of the Strings household.

  Johnnie, like Topsy, must have "just growed," for aught anyone everknew of a parent Strings. The one item of information possessed by hisacquaintances was that his name was not Johnnie Strings at all, but"Stand-fast-on-high Stringer,"--an indication that he must havereceived his baptism at Puritanical hands.

  Either "Stand-fast-on-high" became more unregenerate as his infancy wasleft behind, or else his associates had no great taste for Biblicalterms as applied to every-day use; for his real name had long sincebecome vulgarized to the common earthiness of "Johnnie," and "Stringer"had been reduced to "Strings."

  He now sat upon his pack--a smaller one than he usually carried--andwas saying to Leet, "Now that there be so cantankerous a lot o' thempesky King's soldiers 'bout us, there's no sayin' what day or nightthey won't overrun the hull country, from the Governor's house atSalem, clean over here to the sea; an' every man will be wise, thatowns cattle, to sleep with one eye an' ear open, an' a gun withinreach."

  "What are you saying, Johnnie Strings?" called out Dorothy, as she andMary came up. "Are you trying to frighten old Leet into fits?"

  The little pedler sprang to his feet and snatched off his batteredwreck of a hat, showing a scant lot of carroty hair, gathered tightlyinto a rusty black ribbon at the nape of his weather-beaten neck.

  "Only sayin' God's truth, sweet mistress," he answered, bowing andscraping with elaborate politeness. "I've just come from over Salemway; an' yesterday evenin' ye could scarcely see the ground for the redspots that covered it. There were three ship-loads came in yesterday,to add to the ungodly lot o' soldiers already there."

  Mary looked troubled, but Dorothy only laughed. And little 'Bitha,abandoning her search for shells and pebbles, pressed closely againsther cousin, looking up out of a pair of frightened eyes, blue asforget-me-nots, as she asked, "Does Johnnie say the soldiers are comingafter us, Dot?"

  Dorothy checked herself in what she was about to say, and bent toreassure the little one, putting an arm about her neck to draw thegolden head still closer to her.

  "What are they come down from Boston for, Johnnie?" Mary asked; "do youknow?"

  He cocked his head aslant, and resumed his hat, screwing up one eye ina fashion most impudent in any man but himself, as he looked at herwith a cunning leer. Then he said: "There's no harm to come from 'emyet. But soldiers be a lawless lot, if they get turned loose to lookafter we folk 'bout the coast here, as is like to be the case now. An'so I was just meanin' to hint to ye that 'twould be as well to stopnigher home, after this day."

  Old Leet, who had listened with a stolid face to all this, was nowpushing the boat into the water, while Pashar stood gaping at thepedler, until ordered gruffly by his grandsire to stand ready to holdthe craft.

  "Have you knowledge that they are coming down here?" inquired Mary,speaking more insistently than before.

  "We-l-l, yes, I have," he admitted with a drawl, and was about to addsomething more, when Dorothy, who had deposited 'Bitha in the boat, andwas now getting in to take her own place in the stern, said to him,"Come with us, Johnnie, and we'll take you home, as we pass quite closeto your"--hesitating a second--"your house."

  "No, thank ye, mistress," he replied, grinning proudly at the dignityshe had bestowed upon his humble abode. "I've that will take me up toDame Chine, at the Fountain Inn, an' I should be there this veryminute, an' not chatterin' here. But I was tired, an' when I camealong an' saw old Leet, sat down to rest a bit."

  "When are you intending to fetch that pink ribbon you promised me weeksago, and the lace for Aunt Lettice?" demanded Dorothy, as MaryBroughton stepped over the intervening seats, past Leet, at the oars,with small 'Bitha alongside him, and took her place beside her friend.

  "I've both in my pack, up at the hut; I'll bring 'em to the house thisweek, ye may depend on it," answered Johnnie, as Pashar pushed off theboat, springing nimbly in as the keel left the sand.

  "If you do not, I'll never buy another thing from you so long as Ilive," the girl called back, with a wilful toss of her head, as Leetpulled away with strong, rapid strokes.

  "'T is all wrong for two pretty ones like them to be roamin' 'round insuch fashion," said Johnnie to himself, as he stooped to take up hispack. Then suddenly, as if remembering something, he turned to theshore and called out, "Shall ye find Master John at home, think ye,Mistress Dorothy?"

  Her voice came back silvery clear over the distance of water lyingbetween them. "No; he is up at the Fountain Inn."

  "Ah, as I thought," the pedler muttered, with a meaning smile. "I'lljust be in the nick o' time."

  "What think you it all means, Mary?" Dorothy asked, the two sittingclose together in the boat.

  "What _all_ means?" echoed Mary, in an absent-minded way, her headturned toward the shore they were leaving, where on the higher land thefar-away windows of the Fountain Inn were showing like glimmering starsin the light of the setting sun.

  "Why," Dorothy explained, smiling at Mary's abstraction, "all thesesoldiers coming down here? And Johnnie acts and talks as if he couldtell something important, if he chose."

  "You know, Dot, we are like to have serious trouble,--perhaps a warwith the mother country."

  "And all because of a parcel of old tea!" exclaimed Dorothy, with greatscorn.

  Mary now turned her face in the direction the boat was going, andsmiled faintly. "The tea is really what has brought matters to ahead," she said. "But there is more in it than that alone, from whatI've heard my father say. And there is much about it that we girlscannot rightly understand, or talk about very wisely. Only, I hopethere will be no war. War is such a terrible thing," she added with ashudder, "and you know what Moll told us. I almost wish we had notgone to see her to-day."

  "I am not a bit sorry we went," said Dorothy, stoutly. "I am glad.What did she say,--something about a big black cloud full of lightningsand muttering thunder, coming from across the sea, to spread over theland and darken it? Was n't that it?"

  "Yes, and much more. Do you think she was asleep as she talked to us,Dot? She looked so strangely, and yet her eyes were wide open all thetime."

  "Tyntie does the same thing at times. She says it's 'trance.' ButAunt Penine always puts me out of the kitchen when Tyntie gets thatway, and so I don't know whether she talks or not. I mean to try andfind out, if I can, the next time Tyntie gets into such a state."

  "Nothing seems strange for Indians to do or to be," Mary said musingly;"but I never heard of such things amongst white people."

  "Oh, yes, you did," Dorothy answered quickly. "Whatever are youthinking of, not to remember about the witches? 'T is said they couldforetell to a certainty of future happenings. I wish I'd lived inthose days, although it could not have been pleasant to see folkshanged for
such knowledge. As for Moll Pitcher,--I guess she mighthave been treated as was old Mammie Redd."