Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1877-10-26
CHAPTER II,
1871

"Say ma! mayn't I go a-fshin
down to the Back Cove, with Joey
Gardner?"
Lincoln Parker's mother hung two
more of her boys shirts on the line
before she glanced up at the sum-
merry sky, and said:
"Why, my SOL, tits going to rain
Pm afraid. Besides there's no
good fishing in the Back Cove.
Better go down to the wharf"
"Oh, you can catch tom-cods off
the rocks, if you only have a long
pole. Say ma, mayn't II"
A few minutes later, Abraham
Lincoln Parker, with a luncheon
basket in his hand, was tugging
after lothian Swansdowne Gardner,
who was two years older than he,
and was accounted the most know
ing fisherman among all the village
lads. The two youngsters cut across
the fields, scaled the grassy ruins of
the old fort on the hill, and, with a
wild cheer of savage joy in freedom,
scampered down the hill which
slopes to the Back Cove.
The robins fed away from the
newly plowed ground as the boys ap-
preached; and squirrel that had
been scolding at them from the top
of Dave Sawyer's fence dropped his
tail and scudded away in alarm.
Squirrels and robins usually have a
wholesome dread of young people,
though neither Abe nor Joey was
their enemy. These boys had their
thoughts on tom Gods, and they
scarcely noticed the green and vel
vety turfts of moss that adorned the
pastue-knolls, or saw the pale petals
of the May-fowers that sent forth
their delicate odors from the very
edge of the lingering snow drifts
under the spruce trees.
"Young Dave" as he was called,
was plowing in the little patch which
his father had fenced in from the
pasture. Summer comes late in
Maine, and though this was warm
May, the time for planting had only
just begun. The air was full of life.
The peewit and the chickadee
were complaining in the bushes. The
water-spiders and pollywogs were
lively in the clear puddles that filled
the grassy hollows, and eye-brights
and yellow violets were blooming on
the swale which is still called ''The
Battery"
"Hullo, Dave! what's that?" asked
Joey, as Dawes plowshare turned up
a brown bowl from the earth. Dave
stopped his horses, picked up the
bowl, and turning it over in his
hands, said:
81 swan to man, boys, but that's
a human critters skull!"
GA skull!" cried both the boys at
once, with eyes agog with awe and
wonder.
Abe drew back little.
"Oh, it won't hurt ye," said Dave.
81 reckon this belonged to one of
them Revolutionary fellers that fit
here hundred years ago."
"Fought here, did they2' Grid JO-
ey, eagerly.
eyes, fit here, they did," said
Dave. and he seated himself on the
cross-beam of his plow and looked
thoughtfully at the brown relic.
"l've heerd my gran'ther Dunham
tell the story many and many a
time. He was into the last war, but
has father he was a Revolutionary
pensioner."
"What little skull for a manp'
remarked Joey. "Should think ii
must have been boy"
"Shouldn't wonder! shouldn't
wonder! and here you see is where
the British bullet left its mark.
Drefful good shot that" and Dave re,
garded the little round hole with
real admiration. "The feller that
put that there could knock over that
red squirrel yonder just as easy"
"What did they fight forG" de-
manded Abe. To him it seemed
wicked that people should fight and
kill each other, and this remnant OF
a cruel war should now be turned
up in the life aud beauty of spring.
"Wal! you'll hev to ask your ma
about that. She wuz a Perkins, and
some of her folks fit into the RevOlu-
tionary war. There WIZ old Capt
Joe Perkins, he wuz your gran'ther
Perkins gran'ther, or great-gran'
ther, 1 don't justly know which
But it was a great fight, anyway"
GA fight for Independence" said