P. G. Wodehouse - "Love Among the Chickens"

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. - "Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, v3"

Edgar Rice Burroughs - "Pellucidar"

George MacDonald - "Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Pathfinder

J >> James Fenimore Cooper >> The Pathfinder




"The Frenchers have three: one of which, they tell me, is a real
ship, such as are used on the ocean; another a brig; and a third
is a cutter, like the _Scud_ here, which they call the _Squirrel_,
in their own tongue, however; and which seems to have a natural
hatred of our own pretty boat, for Jasper seldom goes out that the
_Squirrel_ is not at his heels."

"And is Jasper one to run from a Frenchman, though he appears in
the shape of a squirrel, and that, too, on the water?"

"Of what use would valor be without the means of turning it to
account? Jasper is a brave boy, as all on this frontier know; but
he has no gun except a little howitzer, and then his crew consists
only of two men besides himself, and a boy. I was with him in
one of his trampooses, and the youngster was risky enough, for
he brought us so near the enemy that rifles began to talk; but
the Frenchers carry cannon and ports, and never show their faces
outside of Frontenac, without having some twenty men, besides
their _Squirrel_, in their cutter. No, no; this _Scud_ was built
for flying, and the major says he will not put her in a fighting
humor by giving her men and arms, lest she should take him at his
word, and get her wings clipped. I know little of these things,
for my gifts are not at all in that way; but I see the reason of
the thing --I see its reason, though Jasper does not."

"Ah! Here is my uncle, none the worse for his swim, coming to look
at this inland sea."

Sure enough, Cap, who had announced his approach by a couple of
lusty hems, now made his appearance on the bastion, where, after
nodding to his niece and her companion, he made a deliberate survey
of the expanse of water before him. In order to effect this at
his ease, the mariner mounted on one of the old iron guns, folded
his arms across his breast, and balanced his body, as if he felt
the motion of a vessel. To complete the picture, he had a short
pipe in his mouth.

"Well, Master Cap," asked the Pathfinder innocently, for he did
not detect the expression of contempt that was gradually settling
on the features of the other; "is it not a beautiful sheet, and
fit to be named a sea?"

"This, then, is what you call your lake?" demanded Cap, sweeping
the northern horizon with his pipe. "I say, is this really your
lake?"

"Sartain; and, if the judgment of one who has lived on the shores
of many others can be taken, a very good lake it is."

"Just as I expected. A pond in dimensions, and a scuttle-butt in
taste. It is all in vain to travel inland, in the hope of seeing
anything either full-grown or useful. I knew it would turn out
just in this way."

"What is the matter with Ontario, Master Cap? It is large, and
fair to look at, and pleasant enough to drink, for those who can't
get at the water of the springs."

"Do you call this large?" asked Cap, again sweeping the air with the
pipe. "I will just ask you what there is large about it? Didn't
Jasper himself confess that it was only some twenty leagues from
shore to shore?"

"But, uncle," interposed Mabel, "no land is to be seen, except here
on our own coast. To me it looks exactly like the ocean."

"This bit of a pond look like the ocean! Well, Magnet, that from
a girl who has had real seamen in her family is downright nonsense.
What is there about it, pray, that has even the outline of a sea
on it?"

"Why, there is water -- water -- water -- nothing but water, for
miles on miles -- far as the eye can see."

"And isn't there water -- water -- water -- nothing but water for
miles on miles in your rivers, that you have been canoeing through,
too? -- Ay, and 'as far as the eye can see,' in the bargain?"

"Yes, uncle, but the rivers have their banks, and there are trees
along them, and they are narrow."

"And isn't this a bank where we stand? Don't these soldiers call
this the bank of the lake? And aren't there trees in thousands?
And aren't twenty leagues narrow enough of all conscience? Who
the devil ever heard of the banks of the ocean, unless it might be
the banks that are under water?"

"But, uncle, we cannot see across this lake, as we can see across
a river."

"There you are out, Magnet. Aren't the Amazon and Oronoco and La
Plata rivers, and can you see across them? Hark'e Pathfinder, I
very much doubt if this stripe of water here be even a lake; for to
me it appears to be only a river. You are by no means particular
about your geography, I find, up here in the woods."

"There _you_ are out, Master Cap. There is a river, and a noble
one too, at each end of it; but this is old Ontario before you;
and, though it is not my gift to live on a lake, to my judgment
there are few better than this."

"And, uncle, if we stood on the beach at Rockaway, what more should
we see than we now behold? There is a shore on one side, or banks
there, and trees too, as well as those which are here."

"This is perverseness, Magnet, and young girls should steer clear
of anything like obstinacy. In the first place, the ocean has
coasts, but no banks, except the Grand Banks, as I tell you, which
are out of sight of land; and you will not pretend that this bank
is out of sight of land, or even under water?"

As Mabel could not very plausibly set up this extravagant opinion,
Cap pursued the subject, his countenance beginning to discover
the triumph of a successful disputant.

"And then them trees bear no comparison to these trees. The coasts
of the ocean have farms and cities and country-seats, and, in some
parts of the world, castles and monasteries and lighthouses -- ay,
ay -- lighthouses, in particular, on them; not one of all which
things is to be seen here. No, no, Master Pathfinder; I never heard
of an ocean that hadn't more or less lighthouses on it; whereas,
hereaway there is not even a beacon."

"There is what is better, there is what is better; a forest and
noble trees, a fit temple of God."

"Ay, your forest may do for a lake; but of what use would an
ocean be if the earth all around it were forest? Ships would be
unnecessary, as timber might be floated in rafts, and there would
be an end of trade, and what would a world be without trade? I am
of that philosopher's opinion who says human nature was invented
for the purposes of trade. Magnet, I am astonished that you should
think this water even looks like sea-water! Now, I daresay that
there isn't such a thing as a whale in all your lake, Master
Pathfinder?"

"I never heard of one, I will confess; but I am no judge of animals
that live in the water, unless it be the fishes of the rivers and
the brooks."

"Nor a grampus, nor a porpoise even? not so much as a poor devil
of a shark?"

"I will not take it on myself to say there is either. My gifts
are not in that way, I tell you, Master Cap."

"Nor herring, nor albatross, nor flying-fish?" continued Cap, who
kept his eye fastened on the guide, in order to see how far he
might venture. "No such thing as a fish that can fly, I daresay?"

"A fish that can fly! Master Cap, Master Cap, do not think, because
we are mere borderers, that we have no idees of natur', and what she
has been pleased to do. I know there are squirrels that can fly -- "

"A squirrel fly! -- The devil, Master Pathfinder! Do you suppose
that you have got a boy on his first v'y'ge up here among you?"

"I know nothing of your v'y'ges, Master Cap, though I suppose them
to have been many; for as for what belongs to natur' in the woods,
what I have seen I may tell, and not fear the face of man."

"And do you wish me to understand that you have seen a squirrel
fly?"

"If you wish to understand the power of God, Master Cap, you will
do well to believe that, and many other things of a like natur',
for you may be quite sartain it is true."

"And yet, Pathfinder," said Mabel, looking so prettily and sweetly
even while she played with the guide's infirmity, that he forgave
her in his heart, "you, who speak so reverently of the power of
the Deity, appear to doubt that a fish can fly."

"I have not said it, I have not said it; and if Master Cap is ready
to testify to the fact, unlikely as it seems, I am willing to try
to think it true. I think it every man's duty to believe in the
power of God, however difficult it may be."

"And why isn't my fish as likely to have wings as your squirrel?"
demanded Cap, with more logic than was his wont. "That fishes do
and can fly is as true as it is reasonable."

"Nay, that is the only difficulty in believing the story," rejoined
the guide. "It seems unreasonable to give an animal that lives in
the water wings, which seemingly can be of no use to it."

"And do you suppose that the fishes are such asses as to fly about
under water, when they are once fairly fitted out with wings?"

"Nay, I know nothing of the matter; but that fish should fly in
the air seems more contrary to natur' still, than that they should
fly in their own element -- that in which they were born and brought
up, as one might say."

"So much for contracted ideas, Magnet. The fish fly out of water
to run away from their enemies in the water; and there you see not
only the fact, but the reason for it."

"Then I suppose it must be true," said the guide quietly. "How
long are their flights?"

"Not quite as far as those of pigeons, perhaps; but far enough to
make an offing. As for those squirrels of yours, we'll say no more
about them, friend Pathfinder, as I suppose they were mentioned
just as a make-weight to the fish, in favor of the woods. But
what is this thing anchored here under the hill?"

"That is the cutter of Jasper, uncle," said Mabel hurriedly; "and
a very pretty vessel I think it is. Its name, too, is the _Scud_."

"Ay, it will do well enough for a lake, perhaps, but it's no great
affair. The lad has got a standing bowsprit, and who ever saw a
cutter with a standing bowsprit before?"

"But may there not be some good reason for it, on a lake like this,
uncle?"

"Sure enough -- I must remember this is not the ocean, though it
does look so much like it."

"Ah, uncle! Then Ontario does look like the ocean, after all?"

"In your eyes, I mean, and those of Pathfinder; not in the least in
mine, Magnet. Now you might set me down out yonder, in the middle
of this bit of a pond, and that, too, in the darkest night that
ever fell from the heavens, and in the smallest canoe, and I could
tell you it was only a lake. For that matter, the _Dorothy_" (the
name of his vessel) "would find it out as quick as I could myself.
I do not believe that brig would make more than a couple of short
stretches, at the most, before she would perceive the difference
between Ontario and the old Atlantic. I once took her down into
one of the large South American bays, and she behaved herself as
awkwardly as a booby would in a church with the congregation in a
hurry. And Jasper sails that boat? I must have a cruise with the
lad, Magnet, before I quit you, just for the name of the thing. It
would never do to say I got in sight of this pond, and went away
without taking a trip on it."

"Well well, you needn't wait long for that," returned Pathfinder;
"for the Sergeant is about to embark with a party to relieve a post
among the Thousand Islands; and as I heard him say he intended that
Mabel should go along, you can join the company too."

"Is this true, Magnet?"

"I believe it is," returned the girl, a flush so imperceptible as
to escape the observation of her companions glowing on her cheeks;
"though I have had so little opportunity to talk with my dear
father that I am not quite certain. Here he comes, however, and
you can inquire of himself."

Notwithstanding his humble rank, there was something in the mien
and character of Sergeant Dunham that commanded respect: of a tall,
imposing figure, grave and saturnine disposition, and accurate and
precise in his acts and manner of thinking, even Cap, dogmatical
and supercilious as he usually was with landsmen, did not presume
to take the same liberties with the old soldier as he did with his
other friends. It was often remarked that Sergeant Dunham received
more true respect from Duncan of Lundie, the Scotch laird who
commanded the post, than most of the subalterns; for experience
and tried services were of quite as much value in the eyes of the
veteran major as birth and money. While the Sergeant never even
hoped to rise any higher, he so far respected himself and his
present station as always to act in a way to command attention;
and the habit of mixing so much with inferiors, whose passions
and dispositions he felt it necessary to restrain by distance and
dignity, had so far colored his whole deportment, that few were
altogether free from its influence. While the captains treated him
kindly and as an old comrade, the lieutenants seldom ventured to
dissent from his military opinions; and the ensigns, it was remarked,
actually manifested a species of respect that amounted to something
very like deference. It is no wonder, then, that the announcement
of Mabel put a sudden termination to the singular dialogue we have
just related, though it had been often observed that the Pathfinder
was the only man on that frontier, beneath the condition of a
gentleman, who presumed to treat the Sergeant at all as an equal,
or even with the cordial familiarity of a friend.

"Good morrow, brother Cap," said the Sergeant giving the military
salute, as he walked, in a grave, stately manner, on the bastion.
"My morning duty has made me seem forgetful of you and Mabel; but
we have now an hour or two to spare, and to get acquainted. Do
you not perceive, brother, a strong likeness on the girl to her we
have so long lost?"

"Mabel is the image of her mother, Sergeant, as I have always said,
with a little of your firmer figure; though, for that matter, the
Caps were never wanting in spring and activity."

Mabel cast a timid glance at the stern, rigid countenance of her
father, of whom she had ever thought, as the warm-hearted dwell on
the affection of their absent parents; and, as she saw that the
muscles of his face were working, notwithstanding the stiffness
and method of his manner, her very heart yearned to throw herself
on his bosom and to weep at will. But he was so much colder in
externals, so much more formal and distant than she had expected
to find him, that she would not have dared to hazard the freedom,
even had they been alone.

"You have taken a long and troublesome journey, brother, on my
account; and we will try to make you comfortable while you stay
among us."

"I hear you are likely to receive orders to lift your anchor,
Sergeant, and to shift your berth into a part of the world where
they say there are a thousand islands."

"Pathfinder, this is some of your forgetfulness?"

"Nay, nay, Sergeant, I forgot nothing; but it did not seem to me
necessary to hide your intentions so very closely from your own
flesh and blood."

"All military movements ought to be made with as little conversation
as possible," returned the Sergeant, tapping the guide's shoulder
in a friendly, but reproachful manner. "You have passed too much
of your life in front of the French not to know the value of silence.
But no matter; the thing must soon be known, and there is no great
use in trying now to conceal it. We shall embark a relief party
shortly for a post on the lake, though I do not say it is for the
Thousand Islands, and I may have to go with it; in which case I
intend to take Mabel to make my broth for me; and I hope, brother,
you will not despise a soldier's fare for a month or so."

"That will depend on the manner of marching. I have no love for
woods and swamps."

"We shall sail in the _Scud_; and, indeed, the whole service, which
is no stranger to us, is likely enough to please one accustomed to
the water."

"Ay, to salt-water if you will, but not to lake-water. If you
have no person to handle that bit of a cutter for you, I have no
objection to ship for the v'y'ge, notwithstanding; though I shall
look on the whole affair as so much time thrown away, for I consider
it an imposition to call sailing about this pond going to sea."

"Jasper is every way able to manage the _Scud_, brother Cap; and in
that light I cannot say that we have need of your services, though
we shall be glad of your company. You cannot return to the settlement
until a party is sent in, and that is not likely to happen until
after my return. Well, Pathfinder, this is the first time I ever
knew men on the trail of the Mingos and you not at their head."

"To be honest with you, Sergeant," returned the guide, not without
a little awkwardness of manner, and a perceptible difference in
the hue of a face that had become so uniformly red by exposure,
"I have not felt that it was my gift this morning. In the first
place, I very well know that the soldiers of the 55th are not the
lads to overtake Iroquois in the woods; and the knaves did not
wait to be surrounded when they knew that Jasper had reached the
garrison. Then a man may take a little rest after a summer of hard
work, and no impeachment of his goodwill. Besides, the Sarpent
is out with them; and if the miscreants are to be found at all,
you may trust to his inmity and sight: the first being stronger,
and the last nearly, if not quite as good as my own. He loves
the skulking vagabonds as little as myself; and, for that matter,
I may say that my own feelings towards a Mingo are not much more
than the gifts of a Delaware grafted on a Christian stock. No, no,
I thought I would leave the honor this time, if honor there is to
be, to the young ensign that commands, who, if he don't lose his
scalp, may boast of his campaign in his letters to his mother when
he gets in. I thought I would play idler once in my life."

"And no one has a better right, if long and faithful service entitles
a man to a furlough," returned the Sergeant kindly. "Mabel will
think none the worse of you for preferring her company to the trail
of the savages; and, I daresay, will be happy to give you a part
of her breakfast if you are inclined to eat. You must not think,
girl, however, that the Pathfinder is in the habit of letting
prowlers around the fort beat a retreat without hearing the crack
of his rifle."

"If I thought she did, Sergeant, though not much given to showy and
parade evolutions, I would shoulder Killdeer and quit the garrison
before her pretty eyes had time to frown. No, no; Mabel knows me
better, though we are but new acquaintances, for there has been no
want of Mingos to enliven the short march we have already made in
company."

"It would need a great deal of testimony, Pathfinder, to make
me think ill of you in any way, and more than all in the way you
mention," returned Mabel, coloring with the sincere earnestness
with which she endeavored to remove any suspicion to the contrary
from his mind. "Both father and daughter, I believe, owe you their
lives, and believe me, that neither will ever forget it."

"Thank you, Mabel, thank you with all my heart. But I will not
take advantage of your ignorance neither, girl, and therefore shall
say, I do not think the Mingos would have hurt a hair of your head,
had they succeeded by their devilries and contrivances in getting
you into their hands. My scalp, and Jasper's, and Master Cap's
there, and the Sarpent's too, would sartainly have been smoked;
but as for the Sergeant's daughter, I do not think they would have
hurt a hair of her head."

"And why should I suppose that enemies, known to spare neither women
nor children, would have shown more mercy to me than to another?
I feel, Pathfinder, that I owe you my life."

"I say nay, Mabel; they wouldn't have had the heart to hurt you.
No, not even a fiery Mingo devil would have had the heart to hurt
a hair of your head. Bad as I suspect the vampires to be, I do
not suspect them of anything so wicked as that. They might have
wished you, nay, forced you to become the wife of one of their chiefs,
and that would be torment enough to a Christian young woman; but
beyond that I do not think even the Mingos themselves would have
gone."

"Well, then, I shall owe my escape from this great misfortune to
you," said Mabel, taking his hard hand into her own frankly and
cordially, and certainly in a way to delight the honest guide.
"To me it would be a lighter evil to be killed than to become the
wife of an Indian."

"That is her gift, Sergeant," exclaimed Pathfinder, turning to his
old comrade with gratification written on every lineament of his
honest countenance, "and it will have its way. I tell the Sarpent
that no Christianizing will ever make even a Delaware a white man;
nor any whooping and yelling convert a pale-face into a red-skin.
That is the gift of a young woman born of Christian parents, and
it ought to be maintained."

"You are right, Pathfinder; and so far as Mabel Dunham is concerned,
it _shall_ be maintained. But it is time to break your fasts; and
if you will follow me, brother Cap, I will show you how we poor
soldiers live here on a distant frontier."



CHAPTER IX.

Now, my co-mates and partners in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam.
_As You Like It._


Sergeant Dunham made no empty vaunt when he gave the promise
conveyed in the closing words of the last chapter. Notwithstanding
the remote frontier position of the post they who lived at it
enjoyed a table that, in many respects, kings and princes might
have envied. At the Period of our tale, and, indeed, for half a
century later, the whole of that vast region which has been called
the West, or the new countries since the war of the revolution,
lay a comparatively unpeopled desert, teeming with all the living
productions of nature that properly belonged to the climate, man
and the domestic animals excepted. The few Indians that roamed
its forests then could produce no visible effects on the abundance
of the game; and the scattered garrisons, or occasional hunters,
that here and there were to be met with on that vast surface, had
no other influence than the bee on the buckwheat field, or the
humming-bird on the flower.

The marvels that have descended to our own times, in the way of
tradition, concerning the quantities of beasts, birds, and fishes
that were then to be met with, on the shores of the great lakes in
particular, are known to be sustained by the experience of living
men, else might we hesitate about relating them; but having been
eye-witnesses of some of these prodigies, our office shall be
discharged with the confidence that certainty can impart. Oswego
was particularly well placed to keep the larder of an epicure
amply supplied. Fish of various sorts abounded in its river, and
the sportsman had only to cast his line to haul in a bass or some
other member of the finny tribe, which then peopled the waters, as
the air above the swamps of this fruitful latitude are known to be
filled with insects. Among others was the salmon of the lakes, a
variety of that well-known species, that is scarcely inferior to
the delicious salmon of northern Europe. Of the different migratory
birds that frequent forests and waters, there was the same affluence,
hundreds of acres of geese and ducks being often seen at a time in
the great bays that indent the shores of the lake. Deer, bears,
rabbits, and squirrels, with divers other quadrupeds, among which
was sometimes included the elk, or moose, helped to complete the
sum of the natural supplies on which all the posts depended, more
or less, to relieve the unavoidable privations of their remote
frontier positions.

In a place where viands that would elsewhere be deemed great luxuries
were so abundant, no one was excluded from their enjoyment. The
meanest individual at Oswego habitually feasted on game that would
have formed the boast of a Parisian table; and it was no more
than a healthful commentary on the caprices of taste, and of the
waywardness of human desires, that the very diet which in other
scenes would have been deemed the subject of envy and repinings got
to pall on the appetite. The coarse and regular food of the army,
which it became necessary to husband on account of the difficulty
of transportation, rose in the estimation of the common soldier;
and at any time he would cheerfully desert his venison, and ducks,
and pigeons, and salmon, to banquet on the sweets of pickled pork,
stringy turnips, and half-cooked cabbage.

The table of Sergeant Dunham, as a matter of course, partook
of the abundance and luxuries of the frontier, as well as of its
privations. A delicious broiled salmon smoked on a homely platter,
hot venison steaks sent up their appetizing odors, and several
dishes of cold meats, all of which were composed of game, had been
set before the guests, in honor of the newly arrived visitors, and
in vindication of the old soldier's hospitality.

"You do not seem to be on short allowance in this quarter of the
world, Sergeant," said Cap, after he had got fairly initiated into
the mysteries of the different dishes; "your salmon might satisfy
a Scotsman."