The boy's book of battle-lyrics a collection of verses illustrating some notable events in the history of the United States of America, from the Colonial period to the outbreak of the Sectional War |
THE LONG-KNIFE SQUAW.
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The boy's book of battle-lyrics | ||
THE LONG-KNIFE SQUAW.
MRS. MERRILL'S DEFENCE.
The event which forms the subject of the ballad occurred in Nelson County, Kentucky, during the summer of 1787. About midnight, the approach of a hostile party was made known to John Merrill and his wife, by the barking of their house-dog. At first, Merrill supposed it to be some travellers seeking shelter, and opened the door. He received the fire of a half-dozen rifles, which broke an arm and a thigh. He fell, and his wife, at his call, closed the door. The Indians broke open the door, but Mrs. Merrill, who was a very large and powerful woman, killed four of them with an axe, and they gave that up. They next climbed the roof to effect an entrance by the broad chimney. There was a fire smouldering on the hearth, and on this Mrs. Merrill threw the feathers of the bed, which she had ripped open. The smoke caused two of the remaining three Indians to fall insensible. Braining these, she ran to the open door where the last surviving savage was entering. He was too close for her to strike, but she cut his cheek with the keen blade of the axe. He gave a yell of affright and despair, and fled, spreading a terrible story of the strength and courage of his female antagonist. A similar instance of female courage is that of Mrs. Dustan, in New England; but in the latter case the victims were asleep.
Ere my sinews lost their vigor, or my head received its snow.
And towards the shade of evening, in the forest lost my way.
I beheld the smoky lodges of a band of Shawanock.
And a supper which they gave me, by the camp-fire, on the ground.
With a thirsty ear I listened to the tales the old men told.
Led the shadows on their faces in a wild and devious maze.
Which was token he was foremost in the fight or in the chase.
Though his speech was marked by phrases that from Western hunters fell.
As his red pipe he replenished—“I could tell a tale,” said he.
But I knew a squaw among them, who surpassed them one and all.
Then I said—“Pray tell the story!” Quoth the other—“So I will.
From the sullen, broad Ohio, up Salt River took our way.
Precious plunder from the living, bleeding trophies from the slain.
Hidden by the sombre hemlocks, Merrill's low-roofed cabin stood.
With a door of heavy puncheons, made the axe's blow to bear.
And the smoke-wreaths, as we neared it, still were breaking in the breeze.
Till the darkness growing deeper told the summer moon had gone.
Till by chance a stone we loosened, which descended with a whirr.
Snuffed our presence in the valley, and, to warn his master, bayed.
But my hatchet's blow unerring was enough to quiet him.
‘Wife, that is some wearied hunter, who perchance has lost his way.
Bed of feathers for the stranger and a bait of cabin fare.’
While my comrades all stood ready, when the door should open wide.
When we poured a sudden volley, and he sank upon the floor.
But no fingers drew the trigger, and the bullet found no mark.
Lo! the woman Merrill closed it, and secured it with a bar.
Till at length a heavy sapling, fiercely driven, burst it in.
At the breach we had thus opened, entered in the foremost one.
By the weapon of a woman at the dead of night to fall.
Came a sound of skull-bone crashing, and he died there in his tracks.
One by one my slaughtered comrades sank and died upon the floor.
And with axe and blow so ready those surviving kept at bay.
Lest the woman should escape us in the darkness of the wood,
By the great, capacious chimney, where resistance would be vain;
Unopposed I'd find an entrance in the then unguarded door.
Never fox hath more of shrewdness than a woman held at bay.
And she tossed it in an instant on the embers fiery red.
Fell my two remaining comrades, to receive her axe's stroke.
When the woman came before me, like a wounded buck at bay.
Such a sight to shake my courage, I before had never seen.
And I never stopped my running till the dawn began to peep.
“Was she not a woman worthy leader of a tribe to be?”
We have many a hundred women that in need were stout as she.
In the forests of Ohio, scores of such are to be found—
They can fight as stern and fiercely as a pantheress for her young.”
You should send them forth to battle, while your men remained behind.
And the sabres of your horsemen flashed the lightning of their ire—
And the trampling of your legions shook the awed and trembling ground.
I was there with stout old Cornstalk, when you broke our power and pride.
When your forty kept four hundred baffled there from sun to sun.
Where continual flash kept lighting forest, river, swamp, and dell.
Save that midnight when the woman so upon my comrades dealt.
I would wed none save the equal of that daring long-knife squaw.”
The boy's book of battle-lyrics | ||