Harper's Young People, June 21, 1881 An Illustrated Weekly

THE FAIR MESSENGER.

BY BENSON J. LOSSING.

On a warm, hazy day in January, 1849, I was at Orangeburg, South Carolina, eighty miles west of Charleston. My purpose was to visit the battle-ground of Eutaw Springs, on the right bank of the Santee River, forty miles distant. I hired a horse and gig for the journey. The steed was fleet, and the road was level and smooth most of the way. It lay through cultivated fields and dark pine forests, and across dry swamps wherein the Spanish moss hung like trailing banners from the live-oak and cypress trees.

At sunset I had travelled thirty miles. I lodged at the house of a planter not far from Vance's Ferry, on the Santee, where I passed the evening with an intelligent and venerable woman (Mrs. Buxton) eighty-four years of age. She was a maiden of seventeen when the armies of Greene and Rawdon made lively times in the region of the Upper Santee, Catawba, Saluda, and Broad rivers. She knew Marion, and Sumter, and Horry, and other less famous partisans, who were frequently at her father's home, on the verge of a swamp not far from the High Hills of Santee.

"We were Whigs," she said, "but the Tories were so thick and cruel around us, when Rawdon was at Camden, that father had to pretend he was a King's man to save his life and property. Oh, those were terrible times, when one was not sure on going to bed that the house would not be burned before morning."

"Did you witness any exciting scenes yourself?" I inquired.

"Yes, many. One in particular so stirred my young blood that I actually resolved to put on brother Ben's clothes, take our old fowling-piece, join the Swamp Fox, as the British called Marion, and fight for freedom to call my soul my own."

"What was the event?" I asked.

"You have read, maybe," said Mrs. Buxton, "how Lord Rawdon, after chasing General Greene far toward the Saluda, suddenly turned back, abandoned Fort Ninety-Six, and retreated toward Charleston. Well, Greene sent Harry Lee, with his light-horse, to get in front of Rawdon before he should reach the ferry on the Congaree at Granby. He was anxious to call Marion and Sumter to the same point to help Lee. Sumter was then encamped a dozen miles south of our home."

The venerable woman's dark brown eyes sparkled with emotion as she proceeded with the story. She said her cousin, on Greene's staff at the time, told her that when the General called for a volunteer messenger to carry a letter to Sumter, not one of the soldiers offered to undertake the perilous task, for the way was swarming with Tories. Greene was perplexed. Brave and pretty Emily Geiger, the young daughter of a German planter in Fairfield District, had just arrived at head-quarters with important information for the General. She rode a spirited horse with the ease and grace of a dragoon. Emily saw the hesitation of the soldiers, and Greene's anxiety. Earnestly but modestly she said to the General, "May I carry the letter?"

Greene was astonished. He was unwilling to expose her to the dangers which he knew awaited a messenger, for the Tories were vigilant.

"They won't hurt a young girl, I am sure; and I know the way," said Emily.

Greene's want was great, and he accepted the proffer of important service, but with many misgivings. Fearing Emily might lose the letter on the way, he informed her of its contents, that she might deliver the message orally. She mounted her fleet horse, and with the General's blessing, and cheered by the admiring officers, she rode off on a brisk gallop. She crossed the Wateree River at the Camden ferry, and pressed on toward the High Hills of Santee.

Emily was riding at a rapid pace through an open, dry swamp, at noonday, when one of three Tory scouts, who were on the watch, seized her bridle and bade her halt. With perfect composure and firm voice she demanded by what authority she was arrested. The young man was confounded by the appearance and manner of his prisoner. They had observed a woman riding in apparent haste from the direction of Greene's army toward the camp of Sumter, and suspected her errand. She proved to be a young maiden as fair as a lily, with mild blue eyes, and a profusion of brown hair. The young scout, smitten with her beauty and air of innocence, released his hold upon the bridle, when an older companion, made of sterner stuff, seized the reins, and led the horse to an unoccupied house on the edge of the swamp, and bade her dismount. The younger scout gallantly assisted her to alight, and she was taken into the house. With proper delicacy, the scouts sent for Mrs. Buxton's mother, living a mile distant, to search Emily's person.

"I went with mother," said Mrs. Buxton, "to see a woman prisoner. The door of the house was guarded by the younger scout, who was Peter Simons, son of a neighbor two miles away--and a right gallant young fellow he was. After the war he married my sister, and that youngster who took your horse when you alighted is their grand-child."

"Then you saw the young prisoner?" I said.

"Yes, and I helped mother search her. We were amazed when we saw, instead of a brazen-faced middle-aged woman, as we supposed a spy must be, a sweet young girl about my own age, looking as innocent as a pigeon. Our sympathies were with her, but mother performed her duty faithfully. We found nothing on her person or in her manner that would afford an excuse for a suspicion that she was a spy. She was released by the scouts, who offered her many apologies for detaining her. She had been too smart for them. While alone in the house, guarded by Peter Simons, she had eaten up Greene's letter, piece by piece. So secured from detection, she willingly submitted to our search, and told us frankly who she was.

"'My name is Geiger--Emily Geiger,' she said. 'My father is a planter near Winnsborough, in Fairfield, and I am on my way to visit friends below.'

"Wasn't she smart?" said the old lady. "She was going to 'visit friends below'--Sumter and his men; our friends likewise, for that matter. When the scouts dismissed her we took her to our house, gave her some refreshments, and urged her to stay with us until morning. But she could not be persuaded, saying the two armies were so near it might soon become impossible to reach her friends. Peter Simons had accompanied us home, and offered to escort Emily to her friends as a protector. She declined his offer, and rode away, bearing our silent blessings. We saw no more of her until some time after the war."

"Did she reach Sumter's camp in safety?" I inquired.

"Yes, and delivered Greene's message almost word for word as he had written it."

Sumter and Marion joined forces, and hurried to Friday's Ferry, at Granby. Rawdon, baffled, did not attempt to cross the Congaree, but fled before the pursuing Americans toward Orangeburg, on the Edisto.

"You say you saw no more of Emily Geiger until some time after the war," I remarked. "What was her fate?"

"A happy one. She had married a rich young planter on the Congaree named Thurwitz. They had been on a visit at her father's house in Fairfield, and went out of their way to visit the scene of her exploit in 1781. They crossed the Wateree at Camden, as she had done before, visited the house in which she had been searched, and drove to our home to thank my mother for her kindness on that occasion. They had with them their sweet little baby, a few months old. Peter Simons was then my sister's husband, and at our house Emily stood face to face with her jailer of an hour. She freely told her story, and owned that she was much startled when Peter seized her bridle, but controlled her feelings. She told us of her dinner on Greene's letter, and thought how silly the young scout was in leaving her alone in the house while he guarded the door on the outside. Peter wasn't much of a Tory, and we all rejoiced that a kind Providence had protected Emily from detection.

"The ways of God are mysterious," said the venerable matron, laying her hand on my knee. "Peter's son married Emily's daughter--the sweet little baby she brought to our house--and their son owns a plantation a few miles from here."

HOW TOM JONES LOST HIS PROMOTION.

BY MRS. FRANK McCARTHY.

Tom Jones began to wheeze and sneeze last spring, and pretty soon a cough set in that alarmed his mamma, and she was just making up her mind to send for the family physician, when Tom was seized one morning with a fit of coughing which ended in a prolonged, unmistakable whoop. No Indian on the war-path ever seemed better satisfied with a whoop than Mrs. Jones did with this one of Tom's.

"Why, Tommy's got the whooping-cough!" she exclaimed, joyfully, to her husband.

"Does a legacy usually come with it?" said Mr. Jones.

"Well, it's a comfort to know it isn't anything settling on his lungs," replied Mrs. Jones. "He's got to have whooping-cough some time, and it's a good time to have it now, when the warm weather is coming. Now we needn't wait for vacation to go to the country."

"You are in luck, Tom," said Mr. Jones. "You can take a long legal holiday, and need not play hookey any more."

"Catch me taking a holiday till the rest of the boys do, and you'll catch a weasel asleep: Joe Brown ain't going to get ahead of me," said Tom, whose father knew he never "played hookey."

"But, my son, you don't want to give away the whooping-cough? It's something nice to keep; you mustn't be too generous with it."

"There's nothing stingy about me," said Tom, who, in truth, was a whole-souled little fellow, always sharing what he had with his playmates. "If it's a good time to have it, why can't I go and give it to the whole class?"

"There's a prejudice against people being too generous," said Mr. Jones; and patting Tom's head, he went off to business.

Tom gathered up his books, but his mamma explained to him that he couldn't go to school with whooping-cough.

"How long does this thing last?" said Tom, impatiently.

"Oh, quite a while," said Mrs. Jones, cheerfully--"two or three months, perhaps."

"Two or three months," echoed Tom, with dismay. "Why, Joe Brown'll be away ahead of me by that time, and I sha'n't be promoted!"