Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 189: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BoRDER WARFARE 171 The boy stammered, “Hit — hit wuz a sizable gobbler! from the looks o’ the tail.” 66 Eh P 33 ‘Nothin’ — much. Jes’ a-jawin’ ’bout that-thur ole turkey-cock. Wanter go to sleep now, don’t ye?” “No; | want you to talk to me. What place is this?” “Waxhaw meetin’-house.”’ “How did I get here?”’ “Injun buck toted ye — pick-a-back.”’ A portentous pause. The burden of it was intolerable. At length, a whisper. It went through the boy like a knife. “What was the wind-up at the creek ?”’ He winced. His ears crimsoned. He screwed his toes into the “puncheons,” and shot a furtive glance at the rows of prone figures around him. He ducked down and put his lips to Tom’s ear. "The creek was a plumb butcher-pen. More’n a hun- d’ed o’ Buford’s men’s massacreed. The rest was tuk. You- all killed five o’ them Black Dragoons; en’ wounded a right smart —”’ A shaking scream! It came from a neighbor bundle. “En both my legs 1s in Waxhaw Creek — FER NOTHIN’ !”’ In its accusing anguish it was the cry of a lost soul. For many a long year afterward did Tom shrink from the memory of that cry. Freckle-face tiptoed away. And Tom knew not that he had talked with the Coming Man! The mighty soldier, the rugged hero, the spotless Chief Executive of the American People was to be wrought from this little Scotch-Irish boy. Only women might dare come near the wounded Amer- icans. Barring the surgeon, the man who had offered suc- cor would have paid for that act of humanity with his life. Oh, wiser than serpents, gentler than doves, those scant- skirted, barefooted women who labored day and night in that hideous hospital. By and by Tom knew their names: “Gaston’s gals,” CORNICLMOO® SS (E(©) im