There were some in Stockbridge
who well remembered the alarm, "The Indians are coming," that summer
Sunday, when the Schaghticokes came down on the infant settlement, one
and thirty years before. There was scarcely wilder terror then, but
one point of difference sadly illustrated the distinction between a
foreign invasion and a civil war. Then all the people were in the same
fright, but now the panic was confined to the well-to-do families and
those conscious of being considered friendly to the courts. The poorer
people looked on their agitation with indifference, while some even
jeered at it.
The afternoon wore away, however, and the expected mob failed to make
its appearance, whereupon the people gradually took heart again. Those
who had put their furniture into carts unloaded it, and those who had
buried their silver in their cellars dug it up to use on the tea
table. Nevertheless, along about dusk, a good many men living in
Stockbridge, who had been down to Great Barrington all day, came home
drunk and flushed with victory and these, with the aid of some of the
same kidney in the village, kept up a lively racket all the evening,
varied with petty outrages which Perez thought best to ignore, knowing
too well the precarious tenure of his authority, to endanger it by
overstrictness.
Pages:
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315