Harper's Round Table, July 16, 1895

HOW JACK LOCKETT WON HIS SPURS.

BY G. T. FERRIS.

A STORY OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR FOUNDED ON FACT.

The chips flew merrily under Jack Lockett's axe to the tune of his whistling, for he was chopping the night's supply of firewood, and the dark was shutting down apace on the cold January day. He had already made the horse and the cows snug in the barn, and his young appetite was sharp set for the supper which would be ready with the finish of his chores. He looked out on the dreary waters of the bay with the gleam of a dull twilight on them, and saw shining through the dusk a white sail skimming shoreward. "Some belated fisherman. Br-r-r, how cold it must be out there!" Jack said to himself, as he breathed on his frosted fingers and smote the wood with still harder strokes. This stalwart lad of fourteen, with his fearless blue eyes and tanned face, looked more than his years, for he lived in parlous times, which ripened men early. His father, Colonel Lockett, of the Connecticut line, was away with the army in winter-quarters at Valley Forge, and his young son had to shoulder a heavy burden. He could not yet carry a firelock in battle, perhaps, but he could toil patiently for his mother and sisters, with many a sigh that there was no beard to his chin, while his brave father faced cold and hunger in camp or the lead and steel of the redcoats in the field. When he had lugged in the last armful of fagots, and sat down at the smoking supper table, the common thought found vent on his lips.

"I feel as if I couldn't eat a thing, hungry as I am, mother, when I remember dear old daddy at Valley Forge. They say that General Washington himself has scant rations, and men die every day from hunger. What'll be the end of it all?"

"Perhaps the stories belie the truth" (there hadn't been a word from the absent soldier for months), said the mother, trying to keep back the tears. "But look--look, Jack, at the window!" with almost a shriek. "That face! What is it?"

The cold had begun to coat the glass with a crystal veil. Somebody stood out there, and by melting the frost with the breath, now looked in on them with shadowy features and gleaming eyes. Jack stared with open mouth at the apparition. Then, with a wild whoop, and a spring which almost upset the table, he yelled, "Why, don't you see it's daddy come home?" and executed a war-dance of joy to the door.

Colonel Lockett was almost eaten up by his wife and children before he was permitted to retaliate on the savory dishes of the supper table. He had been all day in an open boat on the water (the unsuspecting Jack had had a glimpse of him), and without food since daybreak.

"'Twas unsafe to cross the enemy's lines by land," he said, with a sigh of delicious contentment, sitting before the great blazing crackling hearth and looking into the loving faces of his young people and their mother. "To get through even as far as Sandy Hook was a narrow shave of capture. So, then, 'twas off uniform and on fisherman's suit, lent me by a kind heart, who also gave me a cast in his dory to the Great South Bay. Thence across Long Island to Glen Cove, and 'twas easy there to find a sail-boat to fetch me home over the Sound."

"And you didn't know of the British ship Tartar lying off the place here?" said Jack, with wonder and alarm.

"Not till too late. And having thus ventured, 'twould have been a coward's job to have gone back," answered the father, with a smile.

"But," said Mrs. Lockett, with a face as white as the snow without, "you're not in uniform. Should you be taken?" Even the youngest of the children knew what that meant, and they shuddered with the vision of him they loved standing with the fatal noose about his neck amidst the jeers of a brutal soldiery.

"Tut, tut, good wife," quoth the Colonel, gayly. "These be but soldiers' risks, and, trust me, the hemp you fear is not yet spun. And now away with grewsome thoughts. Tell me how you make matters here, for I've long been without news."

"Lackaday," said the wife, "'tis but a dull story. All the good-men away, and none but lads and grandfathers to till the fields and care for the women. The Cowboys and the Skinners[1] scour the country like wolves. What the one leaves the other takes. We've suffered with our neighbors, but bear it lightly, dear heart, for thought of you all in the thick of the trouble."

"No tongue can speak what the poor fellows endure," said the soldier. "Uniforms in rags, without blankets to keep 'em warm at night, scarcely one good meal a day, shoeless feet that drip blood a-walking post in the snow. His Excellency had me to dinner the night before I left camp. One tough smoked goose for eight, but 'twas washed down with the General's choice Madeira. Tears came to his brave patient eyes as he talked. 'Oh, for some brave heroic deed,' he said, 'some dashing stroke, something to shoot a thrill of cheer through these downcast spirits! 'Twould be better, methinks, than the coming of a great supply train.' Even his iron soul sometimes falters. And now, Jack, about the Tartar. Does she trouble the country overmuch? I made a long beat to 'scape the look-out."

The boy clinched his teeth. "'Tis a brazen jackanapes, that Captain Askew. His boat parties do as much mischief as the Cowboys. There's scarcely a ham left in the place from the Christmas killing. Only two days since I met him swaggering on the beach, and he threatened to impress me on the Tartar for a powder-monkey. There was a scowl on his red face. 'Look ye, you rebel spawn, they say your father calls himself a Colonel under Mr. Washington. Some day I shall come and take ye aboard to serve his Majesty, and introduce ye to his Majesty's faithful servant, the cat.'" The boy stopped, and then started as if something burned him. "Oh, daddy, think of what General Washington said! If we could only--"

The same thought leaped like an electric spark between them--brave father and gallant boy. No need of words. Eye flashed it to eye. To capture and destroy the _Tartar_--a small matter indeed in the sum of the struggle, but might it not be like a spark of flame in dead dry wood to kindle fire and hope?

Colonel Lockett lay quietly at home during a whole week. Scarcely a soul seemed to know of his coming. But Jack took long rides, to his mother's wonderment, by night and by day through the country. The secret talks between Jack and his father, the look of excitement that kept his face aglow--some mystery alarmed her. At last she learned with terror of the enterprise afloat to cut out the British ship, and she made the boy's father promise that Jack should not go with the boats.

"No! no!" he said to the agonized lad. "You are my faithful Lieutenant ashore, but must stay behind from the attack. Should aught happen to you, what will come to your mother and sisters when I am gone?" Poor Jack bit his lip in silence. 'Twas a hard strain on filial obedience, for his hot young blood had tingled with the thought of what was to come.

A large barn stood in a lonely place about three miles from the Lockett house. One night a passer-by would have fancied something strange going on there. Many a horse was hitched to the trees of the adjacent wood, lantern-lights twinkled through the crevices, and every few minutes little groups came up and slipped through the barn-door. When all had gathered, the tall form of Colonel Lockett arose in their midst, and the roll was called to see that none was there except those apprised.

"You know what you've come for, friends and neighbors," said he. "We are about to strike a gallant blow for the good cause. It's not too late for those to withdraw who fancy the hazard overbold. For half-armed countrymen to storm a royal ship seems heavy odds of failure. But courage on one side and panic on the other will right the scales. And there are no better weapons than yours for a hand-to-hand fight. A pitchfork with a short handle, a scythe set in a stick, make the best of boarding-pikes. We need no firelocks. The ship must be taken by surprise, and carried with a rush. The decks once swept and the hatches battened down, and she is ours. There is no moon, and the air and sky betoken a great snow-storm brewing. When that comes, whether to-morrow night or later, we attack." And so he gave them stirring words, saying that this feat would ring like the peal of a trumpet.

He proceeded to tell off the boat-crews, appoint the officer of each division, and give careful instructions.

"And now, old men and beardless boys, it rests with you to do what will set men's hearts thumping when 'tis known," was his parting, as each went his way fired with the thought of a gallant deed to be done.

The next night proved propitious. It was a thick, windless snow-storm, and the white smudge of flakes blinded eyesight better than the blackest black. An hour after midnight the four whale-boats which floated the expedition pushed off from the little cove. Jack had gone to the landing to say "good-by" to his father, his head buzzing with things that didn't get to his tongue, and, curiously enough, he had slipped a heavy hatchet under his coat.

"It's for you to be hero at home just now," was the Colonel's last word. "Two years hence, if the struggle still goes on, my brave lad shall have a chance to strike a blow."

Jack, whose conscience smote him sorely, mumbled something as his father's boat moved out into the storm with muffled oars. But as the last boat slid into deep water the boy gave a spring and landed in the stern, light as a feather. "'Sh! Not a word," said he, in a low voice. "I'm going if I have to swim."

The officer of the boat, an old farmer, who had seen service in the French and Indian wars, scratched his gray poll in grave doubt. "Waal, I like yer grit fust rate, and ye come by it naturally. I guess I'll hev to see ye through, ef it is agin the Kurnel's orders. But ye ha'nt no we'p'n?" Jack pulled out his hatchet, and the old chap laughed again to himself. "Blessed ef breed don't tell ary time, when it's a bull-pup."

The Tartar lay at anchor two miles off the point, and on such a blind night, with its smother of snow, it was easy to miss the goal. Orders had been strict that the boats should keep bunched together almost within oar's-length. True, the men of the crews knew their waters so well that they might have bragged they could smell their way to the frigate over that smooth black pitch like hounds on the scent. But cocksureness was tricky on such a night. They pulled with slow strokes, straining to catch a sound or a glimpse. It had begun to get intensely cold, and the spit of the snow stung their faces and stiffened their fingers. Jack's young blood was proof against rigor of frost, for his ears sang with a roaring music, as if a pair of sea-shells had been clapped against the sides of his skull. His veins beat like hammer-strokes. He thought he felt a new sensation. "Can it be I'm afraid?" he repeated to himself.

No, Jack, fear never comes that way. Fear strikes the coward to a lump of jelly. What you feel now quivering to your finger-tips is the thing which gives fire and mettle to every gallant heart, and nerves the muscles to greater strength. No fighter worth his salt ever failed of this galloping music in his veins on the eve of action. Whisper to that gray beard by your side whether he doesn't feel the same leap of pulse, though his sinews have got stiff at the plough-tail, and his blood sluggish with years since he smelt powder. And don't you remember, too, Jack, that you felt a little of the same sort of thing that time you "pitched in" and "licked" the hulking bully nearly twice your size, for insulting the "school-marm," till he bellowed like a calf?