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- was not alone owing to the newness of the country, but to the perils
investing it. Not only was it a wilderness abounding with wild beasts,
but the widely-scattered inhabitants were in continual dread of being,
at some unguarded moment, destroyed or made captive by the Canadian
savages, who, ever since the French war, had improved every opportunity
to make forays across the defenceless frontier.
His employer proving false to his contract in the matter of the land,
and there being no law in the country to force him to fulfil it,
Israel—who, however brave-hearted, and even much of a dare-devil upon a
pinch, seems nevertheless to have evinced, throughout many parts of his
career, a singular patience and mildness—was obliged to look round for
other means of livelihood than clearing out a farm for himself in the
wilderness. A party of royal surveyors were at this period surveying
the unsettled regions bordering the Connecticut river to its source. At
fifteen shillings per month, he engaged himself to this party as
assistant chain-bearer, little thinking that the day was to come when
he should clank the king’s chains in a dungeon, even as now he trailed
them a free ranger of the woods. It was midwinter; the land was
surveyed upon snow-shoes. At the close of the day, fires were kindled
with dry hemlock, a hut thrown up, and the party ate and slept.
Paid off at last, Israel bought a gun and ammunition, and turned
hunter. Deer, beaver, etc., were plenty. In two or three months he had
many skins to show. I suppose it never entered his mind that he was
thus qualifying himself for a marksman of men. But thus were tutored
those wonderful shots who did such execution at Bunker’s Hill; these,
the hunter-soldiers, whom Putnam bade wait till the white of the
enemy’s eye was seen.
With the result of his hunting he purchased a hundred acres of land,
further down the river, toward the more settled parts; built himself a
log hut, and in two summers, with his own hands, cleared thirty acres
for sowing. In the winter seasons he hunted and trapped. At the end of
the two years, he sold back his land—now much improved—to the original
owner, at an advance of fifty pounds. He conveyed his cash and furs to
Charlestown, on the Connecticut (sometimes called No. 4), where he
trafficked them away for Indian blankets, pigments, and other showy
articles adapted to the business of a trader among savages. It was now
winter again. Putting his goods on a hand-sled, he started towards
Canada, a peddler in the wilderness, stopping at wigwams instead of
cottages. One fancies that, had it been summer, Israel would have
travelled with a wheelbarrow, and so trundled his wares through the
primeval forests, with the same indifference as porters roll their
barrows over the flagging of streets. In this way was bred that
fearless self-reliance and independence which conducted our forefathers
to national freedom.
This Canadian trip proved highly successful. Selling his glittering
goods at a great advance, he received in exchange valuable peltries and
furs at a corresponding reduction. Returning to Charlestown, he
disposed of his return cargo again at a very fine profit. And now, with
a light heart and a heavy purse, he resolved to visit his sweetheart
and parents, of whom, for three years, he had had no tidings.
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