The Indians faithfully performed their part and the one who was given
especial charge over Sarah's horse (after the party landed on the
banks of the Hudson near Cornwall), although half-naked, as were the
other two, watched carefully her comfort. Their eyes were piercing,
their voices harsh and grating, yet Sarah's attendant showed a
deference; and gentle anxiety to please that many white men of to-day
might envy.
Sarah mounted on the second horse, sat upon beds and bedding with
many small articles around her and managed her horse with great
difficulty. The Indian marched close by her side, helped her on and
off her horse, and pointed out many things in the woods calculated
to interest her attention and draw her out in conversation. Not
infrequently he plucked an early flower as it sprang up by the
wayside, and calling her attention to it, tasted its leaves and then
presented it for acceptance.
They arrived on the bank of the stream, now the Otterkill, opposite
the spot which Christofer Denn had selected as the place of his
residence. Thus the journey in full twenty miles of pathless forest,
with occasional thick underwood, was performed in a single day.
They built a fire beneath a tree whose branches guarded them from
dampness. They put boughs of trees upon forked sticks driven into the
ground and laid the beds there to escape the snakes, and the
carpenters lay down and slept well till morning, but Sarah dreamed
and slept fitfully, while the Indians threw themselves on the ground
with their feet to the fire and slept all night. Whenever Sarah
roused herself to look about, "her Indian" made signs to her that all
was well and he was guarding her. The next day the carpenters built a
wigwam of split logs resting on end against a frame of poles 16 by 18
feet with a ditch about it to carry off rain. It had a slanting roof
with a hole three feet square in the peak for the escape of smoke,
the fireplace being below it.
The goods were first unpacked and plates set on the table for supper
the second evening of their arrival, when one of the Indians saw two
people at a distance, and going to reconnoiter, found Madam Denn and
her husband. They had been so overcome by the parting from Sarah and
the enormity of their conduct in sending her on such a perilous
adventure, that they had followed her on horseback up through New
Jersey as fast as they could, and arrived in time for the first meal
in the new wigwam. On seeing them at the door she fainted at their
feet.
It is only just to say that the friendship thus begun between Sarah
and the Indians continued to the end.
When the Indians were most hostile to others in the neighborhood the
family could always give a safe refuge to the many who sought a
shelter under their roof when night came.
WILLIAM BULL.
In 1716 William Bull entered on the scene. Born in Wolverhampton,
England, February, 1689, his youth was, however, passed in Dublin,
where his father moved when he was small.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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