The Frontiersmen

The Frontiersmen

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Craddock
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Title: The Frontiersmen
Author: Charles Egbert Craddock
Release Date: October 12, 2004 [eBook #13724]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE FRONTIERSMEN
by
CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK
Author of _A Spectre of Power_, _The Prophet of the Great Smoky
Mountains_, _In the Tennessee Mountains_, etc.
1904

CONTENTS
THE LINGUISTER
A VICTOR AT CHUNGKE
THE CAPTIVE OF THE ADA-WEHI
THE FATE OF THE CHEERA-TAGHE
THE BEWITCHED BALL-STICKS

THE VISIT OF THE TURBULENT GRANDFATHER
NOTES

THE LINGUISTER
The mental image of the world is of individual and varying compass. It
may be likened to one of those curious Chinese balls of quaintly carved
ivory, containing other balls, one within another, the proportions ever
dwindling with each successive inclosure, yet each a more minute
duplicate of the external sphere. This might seem the least world of
all,--the restricted limits of the quadrangle of this primitive
stockade,--but Peninnah Penelope Anne Mivane had known no other
than such as this. It was large enough for her, for a fairy-like face, very
fair, with golden brown hair, that seemed to have entangled the
sunshine, and lustrous brown eyes, looked out of an embrasure (locally
called "port-hole") of the blockhouse, more formidable than the swivel
gun once mounted there, commanding the entrance to the stockade gate.
Her aspect might have suggested that Titania herself had resorted to
military methods and was ensconced in primitive defenses. It was even
large enough for her name, which must have been conferred upon her,
as the wits of the Blue Lick Station jocularly averred, in the hope of
adding some size to her. It was large enough also for the drama of
battle and the tragedy of bloody death--both had befallen within its
limits.
There had been a night, glooming very dark in the past, an unwary
night when the row of log houses, all connected by the palisades from
one to the other, presenting a blank wall without, broken only by
loopholes for musketry, had been scaled by the crafty Cherokees,
swarming over the roofs, and attacking the English settlers through the
easy access of the unglazed windows and flimsy batten doors that
opened upon the quadrangle. Although finally beaten off, the Indians
had inflicted great loss. Her father had been one of the slain settlers
who thus paid penalty for the false sense of security, fostered by long
immunity. Even more troublous times came later,--the tumult of open
war was rife in all the land; the station was repeatedly attacked, and
although it held out stanchly, fear and suspense and grief filled the
stockade,--yet still there was space for Cupid to go swaggering hither
and thither within the guarded gates, and aim his arrows with his

old-time dainty skill, albeit his bow and quiver might seem somewhat
archaic in these days of powder and lead. For Peninnah Penelope Anne
Mivane spent much of her time in the moulding of bullets. Perhaps it
was appropriate, since both she and her young pioneer lover dealt so
largely in missiles, that it was thus the sentimental dart was sped. Lead
was precious in those days, but sundry bullets, that she had moulded,
Ralph Emsden never rammed down into the long barrel of his flintlock
rifle. Some question as to whether the balls had cooled, or perhaps
some mere meditative pause, had carried the bits of lead in her fingers
to her lips, as they sat together on the hearth and talked and worked in
the fire-lit dusk for their common defense. He was wont to watch,
lynx-eyed, the spot where these consecrated bullets were placed, and
afterward carried them in a separate buckskin bag over his heart, and
mentally called them his "kisses;" for the youths of those days were
even such fools as now, although in the lapse of time they have come to
pose successfully in the dignified guise of the "wise patriots of the
pioneer period." More than once when the station was attacked and the
women loaded the guns of the men to expedite the shooting, she kept
stanchly at his elbow throughout the thunderous conflict, and charged
and primed the alternate rifles which he fired.[1] Over the trigger, in
fact, the fateful word was spoken.
"Oh, Nan," he exclaimed, looking down at her while taking the weapon
from her hand in the vague