Graded Literature Readers: Fourth Book

Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz (1821 – ): An American author who married a Cuban gentleman. She has written many popular books for the young: among these are "The William Henry Letters," "William Henry and his Friends," "Polly Cologne," and "The Cat's Arabian Nights."

I

1. Nathaniel Bowen came over from England with his family in the bark "Jasper" more than two hundred years ago. The country was covered with woods then. Indians, buffaloes, deer, wolves, and foxes had it pretty much to themselves.

2. Mr. Bowen built a one-roomed hut in a clearing in the woods. Its walls and ceiling were made of logs; there were square holes for windows, with wooden shutters inside. One of the windows had four small panes of glass brought from England; the others were covered with oiled paper. At one end of the room was a large stone chimney; at the other a ladder ran up into the loft above. The hut was furnished with a bed, a great chest, a spinning wheel, a bench or two, and a few chairs.

3. There was one house besides Mr. Bowen's in the valley, and only one, and that belonged to a man named Moore. It stood nearly an eighth of a mile off.

Four miles off, at the Point, there were some dozen or twenty houses, a store, and a mill. There was no road to the Point; there was only a blind pathway through the woods. Those woods reached hundreds and hundreds of miles.

4. When Mr. Bowen had lived in this country a little more than a year, his wife died, leaving three children – Philip, not quite eleven years old; Nathaniel, six; and Polly, three. To take care of these children and to keep his house, he hired a young girl named Florinda Le Shore, who had come over from England as a servant in some family. This Florinda was born in France, but she had spent the greater part of her life in England. She was only fifteen years old – rather young to take the care of a family.

5. Florinda went to Mr. Bowen's house some time in November. On the 29th of December, as Mr. Bowen and Mr. Moore were saddling their horses to go to the store for provisions, word came that they must set out immediately for a place about fifteen miles off, called Dermott's Crossing, to consult with other settlers as to what should be done to defend themselves against the Indians; for there were reports that in some neighborhoods the Indians were doing mischief.

6. So the two men turned their horses' heads in the direction of Dermott's Crossing. It was woods most of the way, but they knew the general direction of the bridle path and thought they should make good time and be back by noon of the next day.

7. Florinda baked corn meal into thin cakes, and put the cakes and some slices of bacon into the saddlebags along with corn for the horse. The men were to return by way of the store and bring provisions.

8. Two days and two nights passed, and they had neither come nor sent any message. By that time there was not much left to eat in either house.

Florinda and the children slept both nights at Mrs. Moore's. Mr. Bowen had said it would be better for them to sleep there.

9. He did not fear any actual danger (the Indians in this neighborhood had never been troublesome at all); still, in case anything should happen, Mrs. Moore's house was much the safer of the two. It was built of heavy timbers, and its doors were of oak, studded with spikes.

10. The Indians never attacked a strong house like that, especially if it were guarded by a white man with firearms.

Mrs. Moore's brother was living with her – a young man named David Palmer, who could not walk then on account of having frozen his feet.

II

11. On the second morning Philip begged Florinda to let him take his hand sled and go to the store and get some meal and some bacon for themselves and Mrs. Moore. Florinda felt loāth to let him go. It was a long distance; there was snow in the woods and no track.

12. But Philip said that he wasn't afraid: the oldest boy ought to take care of the family.

And at last Florinda said he might go. Indeed, there seemed no other way; for, unless he did, they might all starve, especially if there should come on a heavy snowstorm.

13. Mrs. Moore had him start from her house, because she wanted to be sure he was well wrapped up. He left home in good spirits about nine o'clock in the morning on the thirty-first day of December, promising to be back before evening.

14. Florinda spent the day in spinning and in other work for the family. As soon as it began to grow dark, she barred the door and shut all the window shutters but one. She left that open so that Philip might see the firelight shining through.

The children began to cry because Philip was out all alone in the dark woods, and Florinda did everything she could to occupy their minds.

15. Nathaniel told afterward of her rolling up the cradle quilt into a baby for little Polly and pinning an apron on it; and of her setting him letters to copy on the bellows with chalk. He said she tied a strip of cloth round his head to keep the hair out of his eyes when he bent over to make the letters. He remembered her stopping her wheel very often to listen for Philip.

16. At last little Polly fell asleep and was placed on the bed. Nathaniel laid his head on Florinda's lap and dropped asleep there, and slept till she got up to put more wood on. It was then nearly twelve o'clock. He woke in a fright, and crying. He had been dreaming about wolves.

17. After a while Nathaniel climbed up and looked through a knot-hole in the door and told Florinda he saw a fire in the woods.

Florinda said she thought not, that maybe it was the moon rising; and kept on with her spinning.

18. By and by he looked again, and said he did see a fire and some Indians sitting down by it.

Florinda left her wheel then and looked through, and said yes, it was so.

19. She kept watch afterward and saw them put out the fire and go away into the woods toward the Point. She told Nathaniel of this, and then held him in her arms and sang songs, low, in a language he could not understand. By this time the night was far spent.

20. At the side of the hut, near the fireplace, there had been in the summer a hole or tunnel dug through to the outside under the logs. It was begun by a tame rabbit that belonged to Nathaniel. The rabbit burrowed out and got away.

21. The children at play dug the hole deeper and wider, and it came quite handy in getting in fire-wood. This passage was about four feet deep. They called it the back doorway. When winter came on, it was filled up with sand and moss.

22. Florinda thought it well to be prepared for anything which might happen; and, therefore, she spent the latter part of that night in taking the filling from the back doorway. The outer part was frozen hard and had to be thawed with hot water.

When this was done, she took the workbag out of her clothes box and put into it Mr. Bowen's papers and the teaspoons.

23. She said a great deal to Nathaniel about taking care of little Polly; told him that if any bad Indians came to the door, he must catch hold of her hand and run just as quickly as he could through the back doorway to Mrs. Moore's.

24. While she was talking to Nathaniel in the way I have said, they heard a step outside. It was then a little after daybreak.

Some one tapped at the door, and a strange voice said: "A friend; open, quick!"

25. She opened the door and found a white man standing there. This white man told her that unfriendly Indians were prowling about to rob, to kill, and to burn dwelling houses, and that several were known to be in that very neighborhood. The man was a messenger sent to warn people. He could not stop a moment.

III

26. As soon as the man had gone, Florinda double-barred the door, raked ashes over the fire, put on her things and the children's things, and got ready to go with them over to Mrs. Moore's. She made up several bundles, gave one to each of the children, and took one herself.

27. But, before starting, she opened the shutter a crack and looked out; and there she saw two Indians coming toward the door. She flung down her bundle, snatched the children's away from them, hung the workbag round Nathaniel's neck, whispering to him: "Run, run! you'll have time; I'll keep them out till you get away!" all the while pulling at the clothes chest.

28. He heard the Indians yell, and saw Florinda brace herself against the door with her feet on the chest.

"Run, run!" she kept saying. "Take care of little Polly! don't let go of little Polly!"

29. Nathaniel ran with little Polly; and on the way they met the young man, David Palmer, creeping along with his gun. He had got the news and had come to tell Florinda to hurry away. Just at that moment he heard the yells of the Indians and the sound of their clubs beating in the door.

30. He threw the gun down and went on just as fast as a man could in such a condition, and presently saw two Indians start from the house and run into the woods. He listened a moment and heard dogs barking; then crept round the corner of the house. The door had been cut away.

31. Florinda lay across the chest, dead, as he thought; and, indeed, she was almost gone. They had beaten her on the head with a hatchet or a club. One blow more and Florinda would never have breathed again.

David Palmer did everything he could do to make her show some signs of life; and was so intent upon this that he paid no attention to the barking of the dogs, and did not notice that it was growing louder and coming nearer every moment.

32. Happening to glance toward the door, he saw a man on horseback, riding very slowly toward the house, leading another horse with his right hand, and with his left drawing something heavy on a sled. The man on horseback was Mr. Moore. He was leading Mr. Bowen's horse with his right hand, and with the other he was dragging Mr. Bowen on Philip's hand sled.

33. Coming home from Dermott's Crossing, Mr. Bowen was taken sick and had to travel at a very slow pace. When they had almost reached home, they found Philip's sled among the bushes.

34. Philip himself had left the sled there. The day that he went to the Point, he had to wait for corn to be ground, which made him late in starting home. He heard a good many reports concerning the Indians, and thought that, instead of keeping in his own tracks, it would be safer to take a roundabout course back.

35. By doing this, he lost his way and wandered in the woods till almost twelve o'clock at night, when he came out upon a cleared place where there were several log huts. The people in one of these let him come in and sleep on the floor, and they gave him a good meal of meat and potatoes. He set out again between four and five in the morning, guided by a row of stars that those people pointed out to him.

36. A little after daybreak, being then about a quarter of a mile from home, in a hilly place, he thought he would leave his sled, as the load was so hard to draw, and run ahead and tell the folks about the Indians. So he pushed it under some bushes; and then, to mark the spot, he took one of his shoe strings and tied one of his mittens high up on the limb of a tree.

37. Just as he came to the brook, he heard some strange sounds, and climbed up into a hemlock tree, which overhung the brook, to hide and to look about. He lay along a branch listening, and presently saw Nathaniel, with the workbag around his neck, hurrying toward the brook, leading little Polly.

38. Philip was just going to call out, when he caught sight of three Indians standing behind some trees on the other side watching the two children. Little Polly was afraid to step on the ice. Philip moved a little to see better, and by doing this lost sight of them a moment; and, when he looked again, they were both gone.

39. He heard a crackling in the bushes and caught sight of little Polly's blanket flying through the woods, and knew then that those Indians had carried off Nathaniel and little Polly. Without stopping to consider, he jumped down and followed on, thinking, as he afterward said, to find out where they went and tell his father.

IV

40. Philip, by one way or another, kept on the trail of those Indians the whole day. Once it was by finding the stick that little Polly dropped; once it was by coming across a butcher knife the Indians had stolen from some house: and he had wit enough to break a limb or gash a tree now and then, so as to find his way back; also to take the bearings of the hills. When the Indians halted to rest, he had a chance to rest, too.

41. At last they stopped for the night in a sheltered valley where there were two or three wigwams. He watched them go into one of these, and then he could not think what to do next. The night was setting in bitter cold. The shoe he took the string from had come off in his running, and that foot was nearly frozen, and would have been quite if he had not tied some moss to the bottom of it with his pocket handkerchief. The hand that had no mitten was frozen. He had eaten nothing but a few boxberry plums and boxberry leaves.

42. It was too late to think of finding his way home that night. He lay down on the snow; and, as the Indians lifted the mats to pass in and out, he could see fires burning and smell meats cooking.

43. Then he began to feel sleepy, and after that knew nothing more till he woke inside a wigwam, and found two Indian women rubbing him with snow. They afterward gave him plenty to eat.

He did not see Nathaniel and little Polly; they were in another wigwam.

44. There were two Indians squatting on the floor, one of them quite old. Pretty soon another came in; and Philip knew he was one of those that carried off the children, because he had Florinda's workbag hanging around his neck. He thought, no doubt, from seeing it on Nathaniel's neck, that there was the place to wear it.

45. Philip suffered dreadful pain in his foot and hand, but shut his mouth tight for fear he might groan. He said afterward, when questioned about this part of his story, that he was not going to let them hear a white boy groan.

46. Now, the older one of those two squaws in the wigwam felt inclined to save Philip. So next morning, before light, when the Indians all had gone off hunting, she sent the other squaw out on some errand, and then told Philip, in broken English and by signs, that he must run away that very morning. She bound up his foot; she gave him a moccasin to wear on it; she gave him a bag of pounded corn and a few strips of meat.

47. Philip had found out that the Indians supposed him to be a captive escaped from another party; and he thought it would be better not to mention Nathaniel and little Polly, but to get home as quickly as he could and tell people where they were.

48. When the young squaw came in, the old one set her at work parching corn, with her back to the door; then made signs to Philip, and he crept out and ran. After running a few rods, he came unexpectedly upon a wigwam. There was a noise of some one pounding corn inside; and when that stopped he stopped, and when that went on he went on, and so crept by.

49. As soon as it began to grow light, he kept along without much trouble, partly by means of the signs on the trees. As he got farther on, there being fewer of these signs (because they had come so swiftly that part of the way), he took the wrong course – very luckily, as it proved; for by doing so he fell in with two men on horseback, and one of these carried him home.

50. Philip described the place where the children were, and that very night a party was sent out which captured the Indians and brought back Nathaniel and little Polly.

II. Lōath: unwilling. Prowl´ĭng: going stealthily or slyly.

IV. Wĭg´wạms̱: Indian houses made of poles covered with mats or bark. Squa̤ws̱: Indian women. Mŏc´cȧ sĭn: an Indian shoe made of deerskin, the sole and the upper part being in one piece. Căp´tĭve: a prisoner taken in war.

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888): One of the most popular of American writers of juvenile literature. She was the author of twenty-eight volumes, including, among others, "Little Women," "Little Men," "The Old-Fashioned Girl," and "Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag," from which the present story is taken.

I

1. "I'm so glad to-morrow is Christmas, because I'm going to have lots of presents."

"So am I glad, though I don't expect any presents but a pair of mittens."

"And so am I; but I shan't have any presents at all."

2. As the three little girls trudged home from school they said these things, and as Tilly spoke both the others looked at her with pity and some surprise, for she spoke cheerfully, and they wondered how she could be happy when she was so poor.

3. "Don't you wish you could find a purse full of money right here in the path?" said Kate, the child who was going to have "lots of presents."

"Oh, don't I, if I could keep it honestly!" and Tilly's eyes shone at the very thought.

4. "What would you buy?" asked Bessy, rubbing her cold hands, and longing for her mittens.

"I'd buy a pair of large, warm blankets, a load of wood, a shawl for mother, and a pair of shoes for me, and, if there were enough left, I'd give Bessy a new hat, and then she needn't wear Ben's old felt one," answered Tilly.

5. The girls laughed at that; but Bessy pulled the funny hat over her ears, and said she was much obliged, but she'd rather have candy.

6. "Let's look, and maybe we can find a purse. People are always going about with money at Christmas time, and some one may lose it here," said Kate.

So, as they went along the snowy road, they looked about them, half in earnest, half in fun. Suddenly Tilly sprang forward, exclaiming —

"I see it! I've found it!"

7. The others followed, but all stopped disappointed, for it wasn't a purse; it was only a little bird. It lay upon the snow with its wings spread and feebly fluttering, as if too weak to fly. Its little feet were benumbed with cold; its once bright eyes were dull with pain, and instead of a blithe song, it could only utter a faint chirp now and then, as if crying for help.

8. "Nothing but a stupid old robin; how provoking!" cried Kate, sitting down to rest.

"I shan't touch it. I found one once, and took care of it, and the ungrateful thing flew away the minute it was well," said Bessy, creeping under Kate's shawl and putting her hands under her chin to warm them.

9. "Poor little birdie! How pitiful he looks, and how glad he must be to see some one coming to help him! I'll take him up gently and carry him home to mother. Don't be frightened, dear, I'm your friend;" and Tilly knelt down in the snow, stretching her hand to the bird with the tenderest pity in her face.

10. Kate and Bessy laughed.

"Don't stop for that thing; it's getting late and cold; let's go on and look for the purse," they said, moving away.

"You wouldn't leave it to die," cried Tilly. "I'd rather have the bird than the money, so I shan't look any more. The purse wouldn't be mine, and I should only be tempted to keep it; but this poor thing will thank and love me, and I'm so glad I came in time."

11. Gently lifting the bird, Tilly felt its tiny, cold claws cling to her hand, and saw its dim eyes brighten as it nestled down with a grateful chirp.

"Now I have a Christmas present, after all," she said, smiling, as they walked on. "I always wanted a bird, and this one will be such a pretty pet for me."

12. "He'll fly away the first chance he gets, and die anyhow; so you'd better not waste your time over him," said Bessy.

"He can't pay you for taking care of him, and my mother says it isn't worth while to help folks that can't help us," added Kate.

13. "My mother says, 'Do as you'd be done by;' and I'm sure I'd like any one to help me if I was dying of cold and hunger. 'Love your neighbor as yourself,' is another of her sayings. This bird is my little neighbor, and I'll love him and care for him, as I often wish our rich neighbor would love and care for us," answered Tilly, breathing her warm breath over the benumbed bird, who looked up at her with confiding eyes, quick to feel and know a friend.

14. "What a funny girl you are," said Kate; "caring for that silly bird, and talking about loving your neighbor in that sober way. Mr. King doesn't care a bit for you, and never will, though he knows how poor you are; so I don't think your plan amounts to much."

15. "I believe it, though; and shall do my part, anyway. Good night. I hope you'll have a merry Christmas, and lots of pretty things," answered Tilly, as they parted.

II

16. Her eyes were full, and she felt so poor as she went on alone toward the little, old house where she lived. It would have been so pleasant to know that she was going to have some of the pretty things all children love to find in their full stockings on Christmas morning. And pleasanter still to have been able to give her mother something nice. So many comforts were needed, and there was no hope of getting them; for they could barely get food and fire.

17. "Never mind, birdie; we'll make the best of what we have and be merry in spite of everything. You shall have a happy Christmas, anyway; and I know God won't forget us, if every one else does."

She stopped a minute to wipe her eyes and lean her cheek against the bird's soft breast, finding great comfort in the little creature, though it could only love her, nothing more.

18. "See, mother, what a nice present I've found," she cried, going in with a cheery face that was like sunshine in a dark room.

"I'm glad of that, dearie; for I haven't been able to get my little girl anything but a rosy apple. Poor bird! Give it some of your warm bread and milk."

19. "Why, mother, what a big bowlful! I'm afraid you gave me all the milk," said Tilly, smiling over the nice, steaming supper that stood ready for her.

"I've had plenty, dear. Sit down and dry your wet feet, and put the bird in my basket on this warm flannel."

20. Tilly peeped into the closet and saw nothing there but dry bread.

"Mother's given me all the milk, and is going without her tea 'cause she knows I'm hungry. Now I'll surprise her, and she shall have a good supper, too. She is going to split wood, and I'll fix it while she's gone."

21. So Tilly put down the old teapot, carefully poured out a part of the milk, and from her pocket produced a great, plummy bun that one of the school children had given her and she had saved for her mother. A slice of the dry bread was nicely toasted, and the bit of butter set by for her put on it. When her mother came in, there was the table drawn up in a warm place, a hot cup of tea ready, and Tilly and birdie waiting for her.

22. Such a poor little supper, and yet such a happy one; for love, charity, and contentment were guests there, and that Christmas eve was a blither one than that up at the great house, where lights shone, fires blazed, a great tree glittered, and music sounded, as the children danced and played.