Stories of American Life and Adventure | Page 7

women became as brave as soldiers.
In very early times there were some families of people from Sweden
living not far from where Philadelphia now stands. One day the women
were all together boiling soap. It was the custom then to make soap at
home. Water was first poured through ashes to make lye. People put
this lye into a large kettle, and then threw into it waste pieces of meat
and bits of fat of all kinds. After boiling a long time, this mixture made
a kind of soft soap, which was the only soap the early settlers had. The
large kettle in which the soap was boiled was hung on a pole. This pole
was held up by two forked sticks driven into the ground. A fire was
kept burning under the kettle. Of course, this soap boiling took place
out of doors.
Some Indians, creeping through the woods, saw the women together
without any men. They thought it a good chance to kill them or make
them prisoners; but the women caught sight of the Indians, and ran
away to their little church. The churches in that day were often built so
they could be used for forts. The church to which these women ran was
one of this kind. But the women had no guns with them. They knew
that when they got into the church they would have nothing to fight
with. So two of them took hold of the ends of the pole on which the

kettle of boiling soap was hanging, and carried the kettle into the little
church with them.
The Indians tried to get into the church, but every time an Indian
climbed up to get in, a woman would just dip up a ladleful of boiling
soap, and dash it on him. This was a kind of fighting the Indians did not
like. They were not used to soap in any form. So, when an Indian was
scalded by the soap, he would run away in great pain, and not try it
again. The next Indian that came got some of the same hot medicine.
He also would have to go away to cool off, if he could.
[Illustration: Blowing a Conch Shell.]
While some of the women were watching the Indians, and fighting
them with hot soap, one of them took up a dinner horn and blew it. This
dinner horn was made of a great shell called a conch shell. The tip of a
conch shell was sawed off so as to make a hole in it. By blowing into
this hole, a very loud noise could be made. Such horns were used in
that day to call people to dinner, and to call the neighbors when there
was any danger. The woman blew the conch-shell horn, and kept on
blowing.
The men who were away in the woods heard the sound of the horn.
They knew that something was wrong, because the horn was blowing
when it was not dinner time. Either a house was on fire or the Indians
had come. The men took up their guns and hurried toward the little
church. When the Indians saw the men coming, they ran away.
There was a woman in Massachusetts named Bradley. She had once
been a prisoner among the Indians. She lived in a blockhouse which
had a high fence of posts set up close together all round it to keep the
Indians out. Such a fence was called a stockade. One day Mrs. Bradley
was boiling soap. The gate of the stockade had been left open a little
way. Suddenly she saw an Indian, with war paint on his face and his
tomahawk in his hand, rushing in at the gate. The Indian thought it
would be an easy thing to kill Mrs. Bradley. But the woman was too
quick for him. She dashed a ladle of boiling soap upon him before he
could run away. The soap was so hot that the Indian was killed by it.

The Indians came once more to take Mrs. Bradley. This time, not
having any soap, she got a gun and shot the foremost one dead. The rest
ran away.
In King Philip's War the Indians tried to take the town of Hadley. The
men of the town fought hard, but the Indians were getting the best of
the battle. A little cannon had been sent from Boston. It reached Hadley
while the battle was going on. As all the men were busy fighting, the
women loaded the cannon themselves. First they put in powder, and
then small shot and nails. When the cannon was loaded, the women
took it to the men, who pointed it into the thickest of the crowd of
Indians, and fired it. A hail-storm of