Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1872-11-22
PAUGUS, THE PIGWACKET.
The big Indiani And All the Little In
dInnsi Their Exploits.
BY sAssAFnAs ROOT, ESQ.

There was an old farm somewhere In
New England, which was supposed to be
very lonesome and far away. The nearest
neighbor.house was half mile away. and
a forest intervened. In fact, not dwell
ing was in sight from the door of the
queer old red house that sheltered the
farmers family.
But lonesome places are not always tire
some to those who inhabit them. The
planets that have no neighbor-moons arc
so near the sun that they are often quite
comfortably warm and bright without
such external helps.
Well, speaking in Gods way, the old
farmhouse was pretty near the sun. For
the farmer aud his wife never shut sim
gle window of their hearts from the shi-
ming of that warm, sweet light, Gods
Love; and as they took care to have all
their children follow their example in this,
there was no chance for the dark, and
the cold, and the gloomy, and the lone
some to get foothold under the mossy
old roof.
Besides, there we're SO many things to
look after. There was more than a mile
of river, that bent round the farm like a
hugo ox.bow; and any boy who felt his
responsibilities rightly, and looked after
all the Dreams, and chubs, and suckers,
and horn-pouts, and pickerel, not to speak
of the CLAIMS and tortoises, nor of the
sand-martins that honey.combed the
banks, had small time for loneliness.
Then there was the modt, which in the
West we should call bayou, and which
had in its waters the very lilies which
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed
like unto, and whose exquisite perfume
would have made him despise all his
myrrh, aloes and cassia. At the lower
end of this moat there was a beaver-dam.
To be sure, it was two hundred years old,
and no real, actual beaver had lived there
in that time; but it was of great use to
the imagination, which could restore all
its beavers in less time than a beaver
could spat its tail And If the age of the
great gnawers had passed away, the king
dom of the lesser gnawers had come ; for
the musky fellows had built their mud.
domes everywhere along the marshy mar
gins of the moat.
1t took a good deal of boys time too,
to superintend the woodchucks in the
clover fields, and the squirrels that were
in the woods and in the walls and fences
If there had been q census bureau for
chippies, it would have taken about vol
ume, imagine, to record them all and
then, there were the reds and grays be-
sides.
There were dark, still depths of young
pine growth, where the sun never shone,
and where no boy ever heard sound ex-
cept the weird sough of the wind, or,
perhaps, queer fluttering which he
thought at first was the beating of his own
heart, but presently recognized as the
drumming of the partridge. Far within
these depths was spot where boy al
ways had to watch for fox, but where il
never did any good to watch, after all,
for none was ever seen But there was
the veritable garden, Notwithstanding;
and it was exciting to observe the fresh
tracks, and to know that Mr.. Reynard
had certainly entered that very hole, not
an hour since
Spring and fall, the moat and the river
were the haunt of half dozen sorts of
wild fowl, which, again, had to be looked
after, and then the smaller birds, from
the hair sparrows that nested in the lilac
bush under the window, to the oriole
that flashed back the sunshine of the
great elm, and the mavis that tantalized
everybody at corn planting by forever de-
claTing that they might ''pI0ie-t, ,-dnd-pLOao
ii, -dRd-hdrroD it and = hdrrOec-tt, and
mark Il = dnd-Hldrk-tt, ,-dnd-drop-it, and
dr0p-n, and -ttUer-it-aRd-k -kiDer-it, -dnd-PH
come-pul-it-ppi-P PH-cOme-p e-puR-it-upl"
Berriesl Let me see. Strawberries,
swamp blue-berries-dear, little, plump
fellows, blinking from the grass-shad-
plums, raspberries, blue-berries again of
larger growth-low blackberries, buckle
berries, which nobody UM call iohOrtle,
lastly, blackberries. Why should l have
overlooked the spiciest of all, the chiRks,
which elsewhere are cheeker6erries, and
sometimes sni1lter0reens
/ can't possibly remember all the things
that had TO be attended to in the woods.
But there were certainly ground-nuts,
which might have served the Indians for
potatoes, and there was sassafras, and
there was black birch, with delicious
twigs and buds, and no end of things use
full or pretty.
But when all material things were ex-
hausted, there was the air overhead, and
the dark; and the air and the dark were
full of stories; Indian stories, two hun
dred years kept, and improving rapidly
with age. There was deep hole upon a
certain little eminence. Over that hole
had been q real Indian fort" from
which, until an end was put to such
amusements, Paugus the Pigwacket had
sailed forth to scalp good women riding
to church behind their husbands, and to
carry off sheep and cattle. And down
toward the river was another similar cav
ity, which had been the cellar of
'white mans fort" built to defend people
from Paugus and his braves. The air
and the dark were very full of Paugus
the Pigwacket and his braves.
All these things made the life Of boy
anything but dull and sleepy expert
ence. And if now you add the fact that
there were dozen children at the old
farm m-house-Of its own, that is-and a
dozen uncles and aunts, to come from
everywhere with dozen children apiece,
to visit at the old place nearly all the
time-to say nothing of keeping q hotel
for ministers and agents
Well, l never could see how, under all
these circumstances, the old farm could
be called lonesome.
PAUGUs AND HIS BRAVES MAKE A FoRAY
UPON THE HERDS OF THE PALE'FACE.
"Now," said Molly, "Ill tell you what,
we must have some fun. We've got to
go after the COWS. But we'll have our
sports, too. Bring our lances, BillP"
Billy, three years younger, and com.
paratiyely weakly, almost worshiped
Molly, who was robust, daring, and so
ingenious that he never wanted for new
play.
The lances were brought. They very
closely resembled two old rake handles.
"We have bloody work before us to.
night" said Molly, with the air of Occur
de-Lion. "We are Pigwacketsl" he con-
tinued; land we are on the war pathp
Billy Immediately assumed the coun-
tenance of Mohawk.
"The palefaces have stolen our hunt
ing grounds, and driven away our game.
We must be revengedl Yonder by the
river, toward the setting sun, are the
herds of the usurperl"
Billy poised his lance, and pointed
eagerly in the direction of the usurper' 5
herds At the same time the bitterness
of at least threa injured pi0Wackets WAS