had grown selfish and solitary--each man for himself. We had forgotten, in
the strife for individual gain and preferment, the true meaning of that
fine old word "neighbor"--the husbandman, or _boer_, who is nigh, and to
whom in nature you first look for help and sympathy and friendship. It was
in this fortnight of common peril that we saw how truly we shared
everything, even life itself, and how good it was to work for as well as
to fight for one another--each for all, and all for each. Forty years have
gone by since that summer, yet still I seem to discover in the Mohawk
Valley the helpful traces of that fortnight's harvesting in common. The
poor _bauers_ and squatters from the bush came out then and did their
share of the work, and we went back with them into their forest clearings
and beaver-flies and helped them get in their small crops, in turn. And to
this day there is more brotherly feeling here between the needy and the
well-to-do than I know of anywhere else.

When the barns were filled, and the sweet-smelling stacks outside properly
built and thatched, the scythe was laid aside for the musket, the sickle
for the sword and pistol. All up the Valley the drums' rattle drowned the
drone of the locusts in the stubble. The women moulded bullets now and
filled powder-horns instead of making drinks for the hay-field. There was
no thought anywhere save of preparation for the march. Guns were cleaned,
flints replaced, new hickory ramrods whittled out, and the grindstones
threw off sparks under the pressure of swords and spear-heads. Even the
little children were at work rubbing goose-grease into the hard leather of
their elders' foot-gear, against the long tramp to Fort Stanwix.

By this time, the first of August, we knew more about the foe we were to
meet. The commander whom Enoch had heard called Sillinger was learned to
be one Colonel St. Leger, a British officer of distinction, which might
have been even greater if he had not embraced the Old-World military vice