d flat on his back, than he bounded
up like a steel spring, and stood ready to try again.

He had a violent[3] temper, and when, as the boys said, "Andy got
mad all over," not many cared to face him. Once some of his playmates
secretly loaded an old gun almost up to the muzzle, and then dared
him to fire it. They wanted to see what he would say when it kicked
him over. Andrew fired the gun. It knocked him sprawling; he jumped
up with eyes blazing with anger, and shaking his fist, cried out,
"If one of you boys laughs, I'll kill him." He looked as though he
meant exactly what he said, and the boys thought that perhaps it would
be just as well to wait and laugh some other day.

[Illustration: ANDY AND THE GUN.]

[Footnote 1: Wrestling (res'ling).]

[Footnote 2: He settled in Union County, North Carolina, very near
the South Carolina line. See map in paragraph 140. Mecklenburg Court
House is in the next county west of Union County.]

[Footnote 3: Violent: fierce, furious.]

207. Tarleton's[4] attack on the Americans; how Andrew helped his
mother.--When Andrew was thirteen, he learned what war means. The
country was then fighting the battles of the Revolution. A British
officer named Tarleton came suddenly upon some American soldiers
near the place where young Jackson lived. Tarleton had so many men
that the Americans saw that it was useless to try to fight, and they
made no attempt to do so. The British should have taken them all
prisoners; but, instead of that, they attacked them furiously, and
hacked and hewed them with their swords. More than a hundred of our
men were left dead, and a still larger number were so horribly wounded
that they could not be moved any distance. Such an attack was not
war, for war means a fair, stand-up fight; it was murder: and when
the people in England heard what Tarleton had done, many cried Shame!

There was a little log meeting-house near Andrew's home, and it was
turned into a hospital for the wounded men. Mrs. Jackson, with other
kind-hearted women, did all she could for the poor fellows who lay
there groaning and helpless. Andrew carried food and water to them.
He had forgotten most of the lessons he learned at school, but here
was something he would never forget.

[Footnote 4: Tarleton (Tarl'ton).]

208. Andrew's hatred of the "red-coats";[5] Tarleton's soldiers meet
their match.--From that time, when young Jackson went to the
blacksmith's shop to get a hoe or a spade m