Part 16

But the next week they got to a branch of the Wabash River. Then they found that the constant rains had raised the streams so that they had overflowed their banks; the whole country was under water three or four feet deep. This flooded country was called the "Drowned Lands": before Clark and his men had crossed them they were nearly drowned themselves.

166. Wading on to victory.--For about a week the Americans had to wade in ice-cold water, sometimes waist deep, sometimes nearly up to their chins. While wading, the men were obliged to hold their guns and powder-horns above their heads to keep them dry. Now and then a man would stub his toe against a root or a stone and would go sprawling headfirst into the water. When he came up, puffing and blowing from such a dive, he was lucky if he still had his gun. For two days no one could get anything to eat; but hungry, wet, and cold, they kept moving slowly on.

The last part of the march was the worst of all. They were now near the fort, but they still had to wade through a sheet of water four miles across. Clark took the lead and plunged in. The rest, shivering, followed. A few looked as though their strength and courage had given out. Clark saw this, and calling to Captain Bowman,--one of the bravest of his officers,--he ordered him to kill the first man who refused to go forward.

At last, with numbed hands and chattering teeth, all got across, but some of them were so weak and blue with cold that they could not take another step, but fell flat on their faces in the mud. These men were so nearly dead that no fire seemed to warm them. Clark ordered two strong men to lift each of these poor fellows up, hold him between them by the arms, and run him up and down until he began to get warm. By doing this he saved every one.

167. Clark takes the fort; what we got by his victory; his grave.--After a long and desperate fight Clark took Fort Vincennes and hoisted the Stars and Stripes over it in triumph. The British never got it back again. Most of the Indians were now glad to make peace, and to promise to behave themselves.

By Clark's victory the Americans got possession of the whole western wilderness up to Detroit. When the Revolutionary War came to an end, the British did not want to give us any part of America beyond the thirteen states on the Atlantic coast. But we said, The whole west, clear to the Mississippi, is ours; we fought for it; we took it; we hoisted our flag over its forts, and we mean to keep it. We did keep it.

There is a grass-grown grave in a burial-ground in Louisville, Kentucky, which has a small headstone marked with the letters G. R. C., and nothing more; that is the grave of General George Rogers Clark, the man who did more than any one else to get the west for us--or what was called the west a hundred years ago.

168. Summary.--During the Revolutionary War George Rogers Clark of Virginia, with a small number of men, captured Fort Kaskaskia in Illinois, and Fort Vincennes in Indiana. Clark drove out the British from that part of the country, and when peace was made, we kept the west--that is, the country as far as the Mississippi River--as part of the United States. Had it not been for him and his brave men, we might not have got it.

What did the British have in the west? Where were three of those forts? Who hired the Indians to fight? How did they fight? What did most of the people in England think about this? What is said of George the Third? What friend did Daniel Boone have in Virginia? What did Clark undertake to do? Tell how he went down the Ohio. Tell how he marched on Fort Kaskaskia. What happened when he got there? What did Clark say to the people in the fort? How was Fort Vincennes taken? What did the British do the next year? Tell about Francis Vigo. What did Clark and his men start to do? How far off was Fort Vincennes? Tell about the first part of the march. What lands did they come to? Tell how the men waded. How did Clark save the lives of some of the men? Did Clark take the fort? What did the Americans get possession of by this victory? What happened at the end of the Revolutionary War? What did we say? What is said of the grave at Louisville, Kentucky? What did Clark get for us?

GENERAL RUFUS PUTNAM (1738-1824).

169. What General Putnam did for Washington, and what the British said of Putnam's work.--When the British had possession of Boston in the time of the Revolution, Washington asked Rufus Putnam, who was a great builder of forts, to help him drive them out. Putnam set to work, one dark, stormy night, and built a fort on some high land overlooking Boston Harbor.

When the British commander woke up the next morning, he saw the American cannon pointed at his ships. He was so astonished that he could scarcely believe his eyes. "Why," said he, "the rebels have done more in one night than my whole army could have done in a week." Another officer, who had command of the British vessels, said, "If the Americans hold that fort, I cannot keep a ship in the harbor."

Well, we know what happened. Our men did hold that fort, and the British had to leave Boston. Next to General Washington, General Rufus Putnam was the man who made them go; for not many officers in the American army could build such a fort as he could.

170. General Putnam builds the Mayflower; goes down the Ohio River and makes the first settlement in Ohio.--After the war was over, General Putnam started with a company of people from New England, to make a settlement on the Ohio River. In the spring of 1788 he and his emigrants built a boat at a place just above Pittsburg. They named this boat the Mayflower, because they were Pilgrims going west to make their home there.

At that time there was not a white settler in what is now the state of Ohio. Most of that country was covered with thick woods. There were no roads through those woods, and there was not a steamboat or a railroad either in America or in the world. If you look on the map and follow down the Ohio River from Pittsburg, you will come to a place where the Muskingum joins the Ohio. At that place the Mayflower stopped, and the emigrants landed and began to build their settlement.

171. What the settlers named their town; the first Fourth of July celebration; what Washington said of the settlers.--During the Revolutionary War the beautiful Queen Mary of France was our firm friend, and she was very kind and helpful to Dr. Franklin when he went to France for us. A number of the emigrants had fought in the Revolution, and so it was decided to name the town Marietta, in honor of the queen.

When the Marietta settlers celebrated the Fourth of July, Major Denny, who commanded a fort just across the river, came to visit them. He said, "These people appear to be the happiest folks in the world." President Washington said that he knew many of them and that he believed they were just the kind of men to succeed. He was right; for these people, with those who came later to build the city of Cincinnati, were the ones who laid the foundation of the great and rich state of Ohio.

172. Fights with the Indians; how the settlers held their town; Indian Rock; the "Miami Slaughter House."--But the people of Marietta had hardly begun to feel at home in their little settlement before a terrible Indian war broke out. The village of Marietta had a high palisade built round it, and if a man ventured outside that palisade he went at the risk of his life; for the Indians were always hiding in the woods, ready to kill any white man they saw. When the settlers worked in the cornfield, they had to carry their guns as well as their hoes, and one man always stood on top of a high stump in the middle of the field, to keep a bright lookout.

There is a lofty rock on the Ohio River below Marietta, which is still called Indian Rock. It got its name because the Indians used to climb up to the top and watch for emigrants coming down the river in boats. When they saw a boat, they would fire a shower of bullets at it, and perhaps leave it full of dead and wounded men to drift down the river. In the western part of Ohio, on the Miami River, the Indians killed so many people that the settlers called that part of the country by the terrible name of the "Miami Slaughter House."

173. What General Wayne did.--But President Washington sent a man to Ohio who made the Indians beg for peace. This man was General Wayne; he had fought in the Revolution, and fought so furiously that he was called "Mad Anthony Wayne." The Indians said that he never slept, and named him "Black Snake," because that is the quickest and boldest snake there is in the woods, and in a fight with any other creature of his kind he is pretty sure to win the day. General Wayne won, and the Indians agreed to move off and give up a very large part of Ohio to the white settlers. After that there was not much trouble, and emigrants poured in by thousands.

174. Summary.--In 1788 General Rufus Putnam, with a company of emigrants, settled Marietta, Ohio. The town was named in honor of Queen Mary of France, who had helped us during the Revolution. It was the first town built in what is now the state of Ohio. After General Wayne conquered the Indians that part of the country rapidly increased in population.

What did General Rufus Putnam do for Washington? Where did General Putnam go in 1788? What is said of Ohio at that time? Where did the Mayflower stop? What is said of Queen Mary of France? What did the settlers name their town? What did Washington say about the settlers? What did these people do? What is said about the Indians? What about Indian Rock? What was the country on the Miami River called? What is said about General Wayne? What did the Indians call him? Why did they give him that name? What did the Indians agree to do? What happened after that?

ELI WHITNEY (1765-1825).

175. The name cut on a door.--Near Westboro', Massachusetts, there is an old farm-house which was built before the war of the Revolution. Close to the house is a small wooden building; on the door you can read a boy's name, just as he cut it with his pocket-knife more than a hundred years ago. Here is the door with the name. If the boy had added the date of his birth, he would have cut the figures 1765; but perhaps, just as he got to that point, his father appeared and said rather sharply: Eli, don't be cutting that door. No, sir, said Eli, with a start; and shutting his knife up with a snap, he hurried off to get the cows or to do his chores.

176. What Eli Whitney used to do in his father's little workshop; the fiddle.--Eli Whitney's father used that little wooden building as a kind of workshop, where he mended chairs and did many other small jobs. Eli liked to go to that workshop and make little things for himself, such as water-wheels and windmills; for it was as natural for him to use tools as it was to whistle.

Once when Eli's father was gone from home for several days, the boy was very busy all the while in the little shop. When Mr. Whitney came back he asked his housekeeper, "What has Eli been doing?" "Oh," she replied, "he has been making a fiddle." His father shook his head, and said that he was afraid Eli would never get on much in the world. But Eli's fiddle, though it was rough-looking, was well made. It had music in it, and the neighbors liked to hear it: somehow it seemed to say through all the tunes played on it, "Whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well."

177. Eli Whitney begins making nails; he goes to college.--When Eli was fifteen, he began making nails. We have machines to-day which will make more than a hundred nails a minute; but Eli made his, one by one, by pounding them out of a long, slender bar of red-hot iron. Whitney's hand-made nails were not handsome, but they were strong and tough, and as the Revolutionary War was then going on, he could sell all he could make.

After the war was over the demand for nails was not so good. Then Whitney threw down his hammer, and said, "I am going to college." He had no money; but he worked his way through Yale College, partly by teaching and partly by doing little jobs with his tools. A carpenter who saw him at work one day, noticed how neatly and skilfully he used his tools, and said, "There was one good mechanic spoiled when you went to college."