and scarcely anything to their backs. They were good-natured, however, and ready to buy clothing if the Major would pay them their wages; but the Major had no money of his own to advance, and he had hard work getting any from the Government. He had to reason with his men, humor them, and fit them for service as well as he could. It was capital preparation for a kind of work which he had to do on a large scale afterward. The Governor, meanwhile, had been stirring up the governors of the other colonies, and had called the burgesses together. He could not make every one feel his own need of action; but he persuaded the burgesses to vote a sum of money, and thus was able to enlarge the military force to six companies. There was a proposition to put Washington in command of the entire force; but the young major was reluctant to assume such a charge, when he had had so little experience in handling troops. "I have too sincere a love for my country," he said, "to undertake that which may tend to the prejudice of it." Accordingly Joshua Fry, an English gentleman of education, was commissioned as colonel, and Washington was given the second place, with title of lieutenant-colonel. Fry now remained at Alexandria and Washington pushed forward to Wills Creek, with about a hundred and fifty men, intending to join Trent and complete the fort which he had begun. He reached Wills Creek with his ragged, half-drilled men on April 20, and soon received a very disagreeable piece of news. Suddenly Trent, for some reason, had left the fort which he was building, and his second in command having also absented himself, the next highest officer, Ensign Ward, was left in command of the company, which numbered forty-one men. there had appeared a multitude of canoes and other craft coming down the Alleghany. It was a large French force dispatched by the Governor of Canada to occupy the same point of land. Ward, of course, could do nothing. He was permitted to withdraw with his men, and the French at once pulled down the fort which Trent had begun, and set to work building another and larger one which they named Fort Duquesne. Here, after the wars of the next thirty years were over, the city of Pittsburg began to rise. The taking of the post by an armed force was like a declaration of war on the part of France. It was the beginning of the great seven years' war between France and England which ended in the fall of France in America, and led by swift steps to the independence of the colonies. By a strange coincidence, the nearest English force was under the command of a young Virginian officer of militia, only twenty-two years old, who was after ward to be the leader of the colonies in their war against England, and to have the aid of the very France which he was now fighting. Washington did not hesitate. He at once sent a messenger with the news to Governor Dinwiddie, and wrote letters to the governors of Maryland and Pennsylvania, urging them to send forward troops; for each colony acted independently of the others. Then he began work with such men and materials as he had, meaning to push through the woods to where Red Stone Creek empties into the Monongahela, about half-way to Fort Duquesne, and to build a fort there. It was a spot where Gist had already constructed a storehouse for the Ohio Company. By this plan, Washington would be keeping his men at work, and would have a road built for the use of the troops yet to come. At that point, moreover, there was water communication with Fort Duquesne. Washington built his road and marched his men until he reached a level piece of grassland, partially covered with bushes, that lay at the foot of Laurel Hill, a spur of the Alleghanies, and was called Great Meadows. It was a good place for a camp, and a good place should be attacked. for fighting if he His scouts had been out, and his Indian friends were on the watch for him. Word came that a LEATHERN CAMP-CHEST USED BY Washington at once made ready for the attack. There was a gully crossing the field, which he turned into an intrenchment. He also cut down the bushes; but he did not wait for the enemy. He feared they might surprise his camp; and getting word from the Indians that they had discovered, as they thought, the place where the French were hidden, he took forty men, and at ten o'clock at night, in the midst of a hard rain, set out to surprise the enemy. 66 "The path," he says, was hardly wide enough for one man; we often lost it, and could not find it again for fifteen or twenty minutes, and we often tumbled over each other in the dark." At sunrise, May 28, 1754, Washington reached the camp where his Indian friends were. They joined him, and the impetuous young soldier led his combined forces, Indian file, in a stealthy march through the woods to the rocky hollow where the Frenchmen lay concealed. As soon as the English came upon them, the Frenchmen sprang up and raised their guns. Washington, who was in front, gave his men the order to fire, and a sharp engagement followed. Ensign Jumonville, commanding the French party, and nine others were killed. On the English side, one man was killed and two or three wounded. Twenty-two prisoners were taken, and Washington marched back with them to the camp at Great Meadows. It turned out that Jumonville and his men were an advance party sent out from Fort Duquesne to reconnoiter. They had discovered Washington's force, and being fewer in number, had sent back to the fort for reënforcements. Meanwhile, they were in hiding when surprised by Washington, and had no chance to escape. The young Virginian lieutenant-colonel had every reason to believe that his force was to be attacked, and he acted promptly. He did not stop to parley with them, but answered their raised guns with an order to his men to fire. The first shot had been fired, and Washington was the man who had fired it. He knew well what would be the immediate consequence of his act; the French would come in force as soon as they heard the news, and he began at once to prepare for defense. He threw up earthworks and made a palisade, and named it Fort Necessity. It was a slight enough protection. He sent his prisoners to Winchester, and informed Governor Dinwiddie of what he had done. "Your Honor may depend," he says, "I will not be surprised, let them come at what hour they will; and this is as much as I can promise. But my best endeavors shall not be wanting to effect more. I doubt not, if you hear I am beaten, but you will hear at the same time that we have done our duty, in fighting as long as there was a shadow of hope." 66 The camp was now a lively place. The Indians, afraid of the French, began to flock to it, and the companies left behind at Wills Creek now came up; but Colonel Fry was dead, and Washington was in sole command, after all. Meanwhile, Captain Mackay came with a company from South Carolina. He was a captain of the regular army, and so could not serve under a colonial officer; but he was a man of sense and courtesy, and, by mutual consideration, he and Washington avoided any serious conflict of authority. But the volunteer and regular troops could not agree so well; the camp was becoming crowded, and Washington, anxious to carry out his plans, left Captain Mackay in command at Great Meadows, and moved his men thirteen miles further, to a place where Gist had formed a small settlement. It took two weeks to do this, for the men built a road as they went, and the way led through a mountain gorge. Of course this forward movement was made known to the French by their scouts, and Washington had his scouts out quite as far as Fort Duquesne itself. Soon reports came thick and fast, that the French post had been strongly reenforced and that a large body of men was preparing to descend upon the English. Washington sent for Captain Mackay and his company, and they arrived near the end of June. A council of war was held, and the situation studied. The place where they were was unsuited for defense, since hills surrounded it. The enemy's force was much greater than their own, and they were in no condition to make a successful resistance. The order to retreat was given. Washington, who had the courage to lead an attack, had also the patience, the self-control, and the cheerful spirit which are so necessary in a retreat. The horses were broken down and the men had to drag the heavy guns themselves. Washington loaded his own horse with public stores and went afoot. He would not even require the soldiers to carry his own baggage, as he might have done, but paid them for the labor. So, on July 2, they were back at Great Meadows. They did not mean to stay there, for though it was a good field for an open fight, it had no natural protection, and Fort Necessity was a hasty, flimsy affair. But the men were exhausted; they had been without sufficient provision for some time, and they were expecting supplies from below. They strengthened the fort as well as they could, but the French were only a few hours behind them. The very next morning they came in sight, nine hundred strong, not counting Indians. Now was the time for boldness; it was too late to retreat. Washington led his little army out before the fort as if to invite attack; if the Frenchmen came on, he might, in a fair fight, beat them; but they did not come on. They remained at the border of the woods in a position where they could cut off his retreat, and began firing from a distance. Washington, accordingly, withdrew his men behind the embankment. For nine hours the two forces faced each other, sending shots through the heavy rain and the mist which almost shut them out from each other's sight. There had been a heavy loss on both sides, but when night fell the English were in a desperate condition, half starved, their powder nearly gone, and their guns almost good for nothing. The French proposed a parley. Washington refused, thinking they meant to send an officer who would find out in what a deplorable condition they were. But when they proposed that he should send an officer to them, he consented and sent Jacob Van Braam, who was now a captain, and the only uninjured officer who understood French. the mountains for a year, and were to return the prisoners taken when Jumonville was killed. As a security for this last, two officers were to be left with the French as hostages. Washington accepted the terms, and the next morning began his march back to Wills Creek. From there he and Captain Mackay went to Williamsburg to report in person to the governor. Failure is sometimes quite as necessary to character as success. It must have been with a heavy heart that the young colonel turned back from Fort Necessity that 4th of July, 1754, his expedition broken up, his military ardor damped, his eye resting on the miserable men whom he was leading away from the bloody field of Great Meadows. He was only twenty-two years old. Twenty-one years after the day when he marshaled his men before Fort Necessity, he was to draw his sword at the head of an American army. (To be continued.) Van Braam came back, bringing with him in writing the terms upon which the French would accept a surrender. The terms were on the whole liberal. The English were to carry with them everything in their possession except their artillery, were to promise to build no more forts there or beyond THE NEW HAT AND MUFF. BY ELIZABETH L. GOUld. THERE was a small person who had a new muff And trimmed in the front with a beautiful bird And every one said, "What a good little maid, With her eyes on the ground, And no glances around! For pride is, of course, very wrong! 'Tis pleasant to find A child, with a mind From vanity utterly free.” "Now, though my new hat and my muff all can see, I am really as modest as modest can be, And unconscious," mused little Miss Belle, "But I certainly feel (Though my thoughts I conceal) I am looking exceedingly well." WONDERS OF THE ALPHABET. FIRST PAPER. BY HENRY ECKFORD. DID you ever stop to think how odd it is that the breath which comes out of the lungs, and the noises made by the air passing through the throat and over the inner opening of the nostrils and the teeth and lips can be changed from mere wind and sound into things the eyes can see? In other words, did you ever stop to think how curious it is that speech can be turned into writing,- and that the writing remains for long periods of years as long, in fact, as the ink and paper will last? Just reflect a moment. Open your mouth slowly and expel the breath, making the vowel sound "ah." Then write on a piece of paper "A H." There you have done something very easy, no doubt, and what any boy or girl can do! But there was a time, though you may have forgotten all about it, when you did not know enough to write A or H, or any other of the twenty-six letters. There are many grown-up men and women who never did and never will have your wonderful knowledge! Are you surprised that I call it wonderful? Well, is it not wonderful that you can take not only a sound meant for the ears, but a thought never spoken out loud at all, and put that thought on paper? And that you can then put the paper in a safe place so that, perhaps, your great-great-great-grandchildren, if you are lucky enough to have them, will understand what their great-great-great-grandfather or mother was thinking of, years and years before? Let us In Europe there are very many grown-up persons of the same white race as ourselves, who can not write their own names, and a few centuries ago the number was much greater, and among them were rich people who could have paid a schoolmaster to teach them. There are, I am sorry to say, many just as ignorant to-day among the poor whites of the United States. hope, when you are grown up, that schools will have been furnished for every white and black child and Indian in the land. But there are millions of people in other parts of the globe who can not write, because neither they nor their forefathers ever had such a system of writing, such an alphabet as civilized children are taught. They may be able to send a simple message by means of marks, but they have no alphabet, no true writing. Their minds, as far as writing is concerned, are about as ours were when we were little children. They have never imagined that the separate vowels and consonants that form an alphabet, could be thought of as so many long and short sounds (half-sounds we might call the consonants); nor that several letters combined could make a syllable like that "A H" you have put down, and so a part of speech could be fixed forever on a piece of paper. To a real savage who has not seen much of white men such a paper is a deep mystery; he calls it a "talking leaf" and thinks the person who wrote it and the person who receives it two dangerous wizards. He, too, can send a message, after a fashion, but not by means of queer little black scratches that do not look like anything he has seen-plant, mineral or beast, and which seem for that reason the work of magic. Curiously enough, he uses the same expression for the paper that we do. He calls it a leaf. And what is this but a leaf on which the words you are reading are printed? No chance resemblance is this, I assure you. When we come to talk of the beginnings of the art of writing among our ancestors you will see that the leaves of books and the leaves of plants were once the same. The savage can pronounce words well enough; he can say "bat," " "cat," ," "date," and so forth, but he can not write them down. If he be taught English by ear, as we were taught when infants, and then, knowing what we wanted, was asked to write down "bat," what do you think he would do? He would act like a bright-minded child who has never learned its letters. He would take a slate and draw a bat with as few lines as possible. Asked for a cat, he would draw pussy; asked for a date, he would draw a date-palm, or perhaps merely a date-leaf, to save trouble. That is the kind of writing savages have to use. Our wild redskins who, unlike the Cherokees, Senecas, and other civilized tribes, have had no schools, or have not been taught at the Carlisle Training School, in Pennsylvania, or the Hampton Institute, as some of the young Sioux and Apaches have been, must put up with this kind of writing. You can imagine how slow it is and how much room it takes up; but I am sure you can not imagine how very hard it is to read with certainty. Guesses play a large part in the reading of such records. As it is made up of so many drawings, or pictures, it is called picture-writing. Let us see how an Indian of North America goes to work to write. Suppose a wild Indian belonging to the great clan whose members call themselves the Turtles, First comes a turtle, and it is a very big turtle, because he thinks that he and his clan are very great personages indeed. Then he draws as many waving lines, to represent bows, as there are Indians in his party, and perhaps the same number of Indians with topknots; his lines bend forward to show in what direction the trail went. Following these, a rising sun stands for daybreak, and three lines under it mean that three days went by in going to the Bears. Next, he puts down as many funny little pyramids as there were Bear wigwams, and draws them upside down to show that they were destroyed. After that, he draws, as well as he can, a wee, wee bear, very small, in order to show his contempt for the Bears. Finally, he draws with the greatest care as many oxen and ponies as he has captured, because he is chiefly proud of this part of his exploit and wishes all the world of the woods to know what a great and successful robber he is. He does not tell that the Bear braves were away when he surprised the camp, and probably does not care to tell that part of the story. We may understand it from the absence of any sign for scalps. Had there been resistance and men slain The Such is the picture-writing of our wild North American Indians and of the savage races near them in rank. They have ways also of reminding themselves of past events. Have you ever noticed an absent-minded person make a knot in his handkerchief, or tie a bit of thread on his finger to remind him of something? The great and highly civilized nation of Peru, ruled by the Yncas,* and often called the Ynca Indians, was found to use knots tied in woolen strings as memorizers. only books in the royal libraries and treasuries of the Yncas were flimsy pieces of worsted-work! The woolen strings, made from the fleeces of llamas and alpacas, were dyed with different colors, and the knots were of several different kinds, so that the system was not easy to use, and special chiefs or historians were employed to make and read them. It was their duty to commit to memory the facts and figures to which the knots and the colors referred. Men were chosen who had great memories naturally, and constant practice * Often spelled Inca; pronounced In-cah. |