rmly
welcomed at the great garrison, where they lived till spring. Polly
found a very nice child to play with. There had been a good harvest,
and the Indians were uncommonly peaceable. They had great log fires in
the wide fireplace in the east room; and for a winter in those times,
it was very comfortable. The flower-pot was deposited in a chink of
the great chimney. Polly had insisted upon bringing it with her; and
though "the tree" at that time was a slender little straight stick,
she had firm faith that spring time would give it leaves again. And
strange to say, she was not disappointed; for all the exposure had not
destroyed it. The first of June came, and they were still living in
the garrison-house, looking every day for a messenger to tell them the
ship was ready to go back. Some people on their way to one of the
eastern settlements, early in April, had told them there were no signs
of her sailing; and since then they had heard nothing. How dismayed
they were, early in June, to find the ship had sailed nearly two
months before! It seemed as if everything was against them; and they
could live no longer in the garrison. So the Brentons had a little log
house near by, and "the squire" worked every day in the great field
down towards the river. It must have been such a strange life for
them! and I suppose their thoughts often went back to the dear English
home. When Mistress Brenton looked from the small window in her log
house out over half-cleared fields, and saw the garrison-house, and
her husband working among the hills of corn with his gun close by,
every now and then looking anxiously about him, she would remember the
wide window, with its cushioned seat, in her own room at home, and the
sunny garden, with the flowers and bees, and the maids and men singing
and chattering in the distance, and the dear voice of grandmother
singing the old church hymns. It was a great change; but days much
more forlorn than these were yet to come.

The Indians came around the settlement in large numbers, and no one
dared to be out alone. At night the people waked in fear at the
slightest noise; and in the daytime it was after the same fashion.
News came of whole settlements having been murdered or made captives,
and some of their own neighbors disappeared finally; and then the
suspense was terrible. At last, one day Mrs. Brenton had gone up to
the garrison to see one of the women, who was ill, and most of the men
were in the fie