Page 10 - A Hero of Ticonderoga

breeze, shone the red cross of England. The old ranger gave the flag the
tribute of a military salute, while his heart swelled with pride at sight of the

banner for which he had fought, and which he had followed almost to
where it now waved, in the humiliation of Abercrombie’s defeat, and here

had seen it planted in Amherst’s triumphant advance.

In Seth Beeman’s breast it stirred no such thrill. It had no such associations

with deeds in which he had borne a part, and to him, as to many another of
his people, it was becoming a symbol of oppression rather than an object of

pride. To Nathan’s boyish eyes it was a most beautiful thing, without
meaning, but of beauty. His heart beat quick as the rattling drums and the
shrill notes of the fife summoned the garrison to parade.

The oxen went at a brisker pace on the unobstructed surface of the lake, and

the travellers soon came to a little creek not far up which was the clearing
that Seth Beeman had made during the previous summer. In the midst of it
stood the little log house that was henceforth to be their home, the shed for

the cattle, and a stack of wild hay, inconspicuous among log heaps almost
as large as they, looking anything but homelike with the smokeless

chimney and pathless approach. Nor, when entered, was the bare interior
much more cheerful.

A fire, presently blazing on the hearth, soon enlivened it. The floor was
neatly swept with a broom fashioned of hemlock twigs by Job’s ready

hands. The little stock of furniture was brought in. The pewter tableware
was ranged on the rough corner shelves. Ruth added here and there such
housewifely touches as only a woman can give. The change, wrought in so

brief a space, seemed a magical transformation. What two hours ago was
but a barren crib of rough, clay-chinked logs, was now a furnished

living-room, cozy with rude, homelike comfort.

Then the place was hanselled with its first regularly prepared dinner, the

first meal beneath its roof at which a woman had presided. Job, loath to
leave the most humanized habitation that he had seen for months, set forth

for his own lonely cabin. Except the unneighborly inmates of the Fort,
these were his nearest neighbors, and to them, for his old comrade’s sake,