d let freeze. They were as hard as cobble-stones,
and if a boy should be hit in the head by one of them, he could not tell
whether he was a Pequot or an Early Settler. It was considered as
unfair to use these ice-balls in open fight, as it is to use poisoned
ammunition in real war. But as the whites were protected by the fort,
and the Indians were treacherous by nature, it was decided that the
latter might use the hard missiles.

The Pequots used to come swarming up the hill, with hideous war-whoops,
attacking the fort on all sides with great noise and a shower of balls.
The garrison replied with yells of defiance and well-directed shots,
hurling back the invaders when they attempted to scale the walls.
The Settlers had the advantage of position, but they were sometimes
overpowered by numbers, and would often have had to surrender but for
the ringing of the school-bell. The Pequots were in great fear of the
school-bell.

I do not remember that the whites ever hauled down their flag and
surrendered voluntarily; but once or twice the fort was carried by
storm and the garrison were massacred to a boy, and thrown out of the
fortress, having been first scalped. To take a boy's cap was to scalp
him, and after that he was dead, if he played fair. There were a great
many hard hits given and taken, but always cheerfully, for it was in
the cause of our early history. The history of Greece and Rome was stuff
compared to this. And we had many boys in our school who could imitate
the Indian war whoop enough better than they could scan arma, virumque
cano.

XII. THE LONELY FARMHOUSE

The winter evenings of the farmer-boy in New England used not to be so
gay as to tire him of the pleasures of life before he became of age. A
remote farmhouse, standing a little off the road, banked up with sawdust
and earth to keep the frost out of the cellar, blockaded with snow,
and flying a blue flag of smoke from its chimney, looks like a besieged
fort. On cold and stormy winter nights, to the traveler wearily dragging
along in his creaking sleigh, the light from its windows suggests a
house of refuge and the cheer of a blazing fire. But it is no less a
fort, into which the family retire when the New England winter on the
hills really sets in.

The boy is an important part of the garrison. He is not only one of the
best means of communicating with the outer world, but he furnishes half
the entertainment and takes two thirds of the scoldi