The Coming of the White Men: Stories of How Our Country Was Discovered

His name wasn't Sam and he wasn't their real uncle, but everybody else called him Uncle Sam, so Joe and Lucy followed their example.

He was tall and thin and had a sharp face. A funny little tuft of hair grew on his chin and when he was thinking deeply he was fond of stroking this tuft with his big bony hand.

His clothes always seemed to be old-fashioned. When the neighbors were speaking of him they would sometimes say, "How much he looks like the newspaper pictures of 'Uncle Sam.'"

"Whenever I meet him, he somehow makes me think of America," said Joe's father. "I never knew anyone who loved his country as dearly as he does. He is perfectly happy whenever he can get anyone to listen to stories of our great men and the things that happened here long ago."

It was for these reasons that people began calling him Uncle Sam before Joe and Lucy were born.

His real name was Ebenezer Wilkins, but the children had to stop and think before they could remember it. He lived in a cosy little cottage at the end of the village and kept house there all alone from one year's end to another.

Everybody loved him. His kind blue eyes looked tenderly upon each child in the place. If measles or chicken-pox shut a boy or girl away from playmates, Uncle Sam was sure to hear of it. Then, when his day's work was done and he had eaten his supper of bread and milk, he would visit the sick child and make him forget his troubles as he told stories of boys and girls who lived in the early days of the white people in America.

Joe and Lucy were twins. Somehow or other Uncle Sam had grown to love them more than any other children in the country round. When they were babies he used to dandle them on his knees. He taught them to take their first steps alone. He bought a book of "Mother Goose's Melodies" on purpose to learn the rhymes and afterwards repeat them to the listening babies.

Sometimes he even stayed home from church on Sunday mornings so as to take care of these twins and give their father and mother a chance to go away together.

"Twins are a great care, a great care," he would say slowly. But he would add with a twinkle in his eyes, "They are never too much of a care for Uncle Sam."

"He is better than any real uncle in the world," said Joe, as he and Lucy opened the gate leading into the old man's garden.

It was a summer evening and the sun was just setting. The rows of hollyhocks and marigolds looked prettier than ever in the sunset light.

"Uncle Sam loves bright things," said Lucy, looking at the flowers. "He is always finding something new to admire. That is why I like to walk in the woods with him."

"He shows me many things I should never see myself," answered Joe.

By this time the children had reached the door of the house, and stepped inside. They never stopped to knock; Uncle Sam would not have liked it.

"I've brought you some cookies, Uncle Sam," said Lucy, handing a covered dish to the old man. "Mother made them this morning. She put raisins in them because she knew you are fond of fruit cookies."

Uncle Sam was pleased when he lifted the napkin and looked at his present.

"I can make bread and cook meat and potatoes, but cake is beyond my skill. It takes women-folks to do such work." The old man laughed softly as he put the cookies away in the cupboard.

"It is a lovely evening. Won't you come out on the porch and tell us stories in the twilight?"

As Lucy spoke, she reached up and put her arms around Uncle Sam's neck. He was so tall he had to bend down to let her do so.

"I suppose you want me to tell you about Cinderella for the fiftieth time, or maybe you would rather hear about Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp?"

"No, Uncle Sam," said Joe before Lucy had a chance to answer. "We are getting too big for fairy stories. We have just begun to study geography at school. We like it better than anything we've ever had. So Lucy and I have been talking it over. We said we would ask you to tell us true stories now about America, and the Indians, and the brave white people who first dared to come here, you know, and all such things."

Uncle Sam fairly beamed with delight.

"I've been thinking of that very thing, children. I have been longing for the time when you would like to hear some of the history of this glorious country. You will like it, too. Why, it is better than any fairy stories that ever were told."

In five minutes more the old man was sitting in his big easy chair on the porch. Lucy was perched on one of the broad arms of the chair, and Joe on the other.

"We are all ready, so please begin," said Lucy, coaxingly.

"Very well. Shut your eyes for a minute so you cannot look at those rows of hollyhocks in front of you. I want you to see a different picture. You must take a peep at this country of ours before a white man ever set foot on it."

"All right; I am ready, for my eyes are shut tight," cried Joe with a laugh.

"Now, then. First you must notice the great forests that stretch over a large part of the land. Wild beasts are roaming about in the darkness of those woods. Wolves and foxes, bears and wildcats live a free and happy life, for the sound of a gun has never yet been heard.

"Turn your thoughts next to the great plains of the west. Thousands of buffaloes are wandering about. The herds are so vast that in some places the earth is fairly black with them.

"Here and there, over the country, stand the villages of the Red Men. They are usually built near the shores of streams or ponds so that fresh water may be plentiful.

"There are no stores, no factories, no churches, no roads, from one shore of America to the other.

"At first, it may seem strange to you that the Indians made no roads, for they were traveling a good deal of the time. They moved their homes whenever the game became scarce where they happened to be living. Besides that, they delighted in war and one tribe was continually taking some other one by surprise.

"They did not, however, go about in the way white people do. They journeyed on foot in single file and the narrow paths they trod through the forests can be seen to this day. Some of those paths are hundreds of years old. They are many miles in length. Such paths are called trails.

"I have traveled over one of the Indian trails. It was in the state of New York. It made me feel queer as I thought of the painted Red Men who so long ago made that path through the dark woods.

"The clothing and houses of these people were quite different in the different parts of this country. The games and festivals of one tribe were often unlike those of any other.

"Some Indians lived in tents covered with the skins of wild animals. Others had houses of birch bark. Then again, there were tribes who braided grasses into pretty mats with which they covered the framework of their houses.

"The food was also different. In the south, where the air is warm and pleasant almost all the year, the Red Men ate a great deal of fruit. Up here in the north they lived largely on the corn that the women planted and tended, while out on the great plains they ate quantities of buffalo meat."

Lucy's eyes opened wider and wider as the old man talked.

"I didn't need to close them at all," she said. "I can always see the pictures you paint with words. You make them so bright, Uncle Sam."