Page 49 - A Hero of Ticonderoga
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CHAPTER X
--REBELLION
One day Nathan was gathering ashes from the heaps where the log piles
had been burned and storing them in a rude shed. Close by this stood the
empty leach-tubs awaiting filling and the busy days and nights when the
potash-making should begin. It was hard, unpleasant work, irritating to
skin, eyes, and temper. It was natural a boy should linger a little as Nathan
did, when he emptied a basket, and quickly retreated with held breath out of
the dusty cloud. He looked longingly on the shining channel of the creek,
and wished he might follow it to the lake and fish in the cool shadows of
the shore. He wished that Job would chance to come through the woods,
but Job lately rarely came near them, for he was vexed with Ruth for
mating with this stranger, and the new master gave no welcome to any of
the friends of the old master. His hands were busy as his thoughts, when he
was startled by his stepfather’s voice close behind him.
"You lazy whelp, what you putterin’ ’bout? You spend half your time a
gawpin. You git them ashes housed afore noon or I’ll give ye a skinnin’, and
I’ll settle an old score at the same time," and Toombs switched a blue beech
rod he held in his big hand. After seeing the boy hurry nervously to this
impossible task, he went back to his chopping.
The shadows crept steadily toward the north till they marked noontime, and
still one gray ash heap confronted Nathan. As he stood with a full basket of
ashes poised on the edge of the ash bin, Toombs appeared, with his axe on
his shoulder and the beech in his hand. "You know what I told you, and
Silas Toombs doesn’t go back on his words; no, sir."
"I couldn’t do it. I tried, but I couldn’t get ’em all done!"
Silas strode toward him in a fury, when Nathan hurled the basket of ashes
full at his head, and dodging behind the shed was in rapid flight toward the
woods, when his assailant emerged from the choking, blinding cloud,
sputtering out mingled oaths and ashes. In a moment he caught the line of
