Ben Ch 1

BLOSSOMING Maytime had come again to old Ohio. Birds were singing, bees humming, squirrels frisking among the hickory and other trees that shaded a certain frontier village of that "Buckeye State." Merry voices of children, just dismissed from school, echoed the welcome everyone had for spring.

Not all of these happy youngsters hurried home. Several of the boys paused at a wagon shop on their way to watch a skilled workman there making a wheel. It was real fun to see him put the hub in the vise, shape and set the spoke and felloes. Then, if they had not bothered him too much, the kind-hearted wagon-maker would let the boys have the best sport of all-rolling the new wheel off to the blacksmith and watching him set the iron tire.

On this day, however, something else happened. A little girl came running to the shop and said excitedly, "Oh, Mr. Woodbury, guess what? Aunt Liza has a baby boy!"

"Well, well, Nancy," returned the wagon-maker; "that is good news."

"Yes, and there's something else you'd like to hear," said the little girl. "Uncle Shad says they are going to name him for you, 'cause you taught him how to make wagons."

"That is a pleasant surprise, Nancy; thank you for coming over to tell me." Then, turning to the eager boys, he added, "This wheel just can't be finished today. Sorry to disappoint you, but I'll let you roll two of them tomorrow. I must go over and have a glimpse at my little namesake, Benjamin. That sounds like a big name for a tiny baby, but I guess he can carry it."

With this he straightened up his work bench a bit, and while the boys scampered off to their homes, he and Nancy walked to the cottage where a baby boy had come to bring joy and sunshine to a young father and mother.

Little Ben had a healthy, happy childhood in his Ohio home. Of course he could remember almost nothing about it; for when he was about five years old he was taken by his parents to another home by the Mississippi River. Nor did he learn, until he was older, why they had given up their home where he was born in 1837, and made the long journey to a new one.

It had all come about, as his parents told their questioning son, because some Mormon missionaries had come into the Ohio village, and converted a number of the people there to the gospel. Ben's father and mother, his four grandparents, with some of his uncles and aunts and their neighbors, had been baptized into the new church. Others had made fun of them, and had caused trouble for them because they had accepted what they believed was the truth; so they decided to gather with other folks of their faith in the city of Nauvoo, in western Illinois.

Little Ben did recall how his mother cried when she left some of the friends who had come with her from Vermont. He remembered, too, the big covered wagon his father, with the good help of Mr. Woodbury, had made. He was all excitement when they hitched "Mack," their black horse, and his brown mate to one of these "homes on wheels," then drove away with their relatives and friends along the road that led towards the west. Nor did he ever forget Bones, their dog, who barked for joy because he was being taken along with his little master.

Another thing that Ben kept in vivid memory was the bump, bump, bump, of the wagon when they had to travel over corduroy roads. You see, in those long ago days, there were no such pavements as those over which we glide today in rubber-tired automobiles. The wagon roads of that time were mainly along Indian trails. Sometimes where the ground was a bit too miry, the men would lay small logs or poles across the road, and over these the wagons would go bumpety, bump until they got to smoother ground. Ben could understand better after this bumpy ride why they needed stout, well-ironed wheels.

Ohio with its great groves of hickory, walnut, maple and other choice trees, was gradually left behind. Then came the more open country of Indiana, and finally the green prairies of Illinois, stretching as far as the eye could see.

"My, what a sweep of good corn land!" exclaimed one of the men. "No trees to, chop down and bum up just to get a few acres on which to raise a crop."

Yes, Sam," responded Ben's father; "but I'm wondering what we're going to do for good timber to build homes and make wagons."

"And where's the maple trees to give us syrup and sugar? This boy must have his sweets," added his mother, as she gave the lad a loving squeeze.

"Quit your frettin'," said Grandmother White. "We'll get along somehow; we always have."

Three weeks had passed-days of travel, nights of camping out under the stars-and then the journey ended. As they neared the "Father of Waters," the prairies of Illinois broke into rolling, wooded hills. Among these the little caravan wended its way until finally came glimpses of the Mississippi and then Nauvoo, the Beautiful, was before them.

There was the river, curving like a great silvery horseshoe round the lower part of the town. Across it were the green hills of Iowa. In the middle of it an island covered with woods. The city itself, patterned with streets running east and west, north and south, had already in 1842, when Ben first saw it, spread over much of the bottom land, and was extending eastward over the upland.

Of course this lad of five was interested in something besides a growing city. Just then he wanted a good dinner and a place to sleep. How his parents and grandparents solved the vexing problem of getting settled, he hardly knew; but they were not long in finding or building homes in Upper Nauvoo.

His father bought a roomy house on a large lot-just the place for a lively boy to romp about. Across the road was a large wagon-shop, of which this skilled workman was soon made foreman. Not many months had passed before another baby boy came to give added cheer to this new home. Ben was, of course, delighted with Paul, as his little brother was named.

His grandfather and grandmother, on the father's side, lived only a few blocks away. While Paul was a tiny baby, Ben often stayed with them, sleeping in the attic room. There, grandfather often told him a bedtime story to charm him off to dreamland.

"Just remember," he would usually begin, "that your great grandfather was an American soldier who helped win our war for freedom. He was born in Connecticut; and he was in the same regiment with Nathan Hale.

"Well, after the war was over, he moved from Connecticut into New York. That is where I was born. There were still plenty of Indians about when I was a boy, but they were not wild ones. Often they would come to our home to trade moccasins, buckskin shirts and other articles, they had made, for flour or sugar or whatever we had to swap with them. Once father got an Indian suit for me, all beaded and fringed, and an Indian bow and arrows. Wasn't I proud when I put it on? I looked like an Indian papoose for sure. Wish I had kept it for you, Ben, but somehow it got lost when I moved away from New York to Ohio."

"But why didn't you stay there where the Indians were?" asked the boy.

"I guess it was your grandmother's fault," he went on. "You see I found her the prettiest girl you ever saw, except your own mother up there in the Mohawk Valley; we decided to get married and have a home of our own. So we came on to Ohio, first by boat on the old Erie Canal, then by another boat over Lake Erie. Then we found a home on the shore of this great lake. It was in this home that your father was born. He used to be just your size, Ben, and he was always teasing me to tell him a story. But now you must go to sleep, and I promise to tell you more stories some other night."

Sometimes when her evening's work was done, Ben's grandmother would do the story telling. His eager ears never tired of hearing true tales of when she was a little girl, or when his father and grandfather were little boys. One of the favorites was about a blackberry pie. He always got a good laugh with that story.

“Well, one day," she would begin, "I told my four children that if they would go into the nearby woods and pick blackberries, I would make each of them a pie out of the berries they brought home. Of course, they were happy over the promise; so off they scampered with their little pails.

" 'Now be brisk, and get home by noon,' I warned them.

" 'We will, mother,' they shouted back, and soon they had disappeared among the trees.

"Shad, your father, would rather chase frisking squirrels than pick berries from thorny bushes. So he just wasted his time at play in spite of the warnings of little Chloe, his sister. The other children kept at their picking. About eleven o'clock, I guess, Shad's little stomach must have reminded him of dinner and the blackberry pie I had promised. Suddenly he went to work; but he soon, saw he couldn't fill his pail before noon. Then be decided to play a naughty trick. By the blackberry bushes were some pennyroyal leaves. And what do you think your father did?

"Well, he slyly filled his pail nearly full of these sweet- smelling leaves. Then he worked fast and soon he had the leaves covered with blackberries. His brothers and sisters could not imagine how he had filled his pail so quickly.

"When they all came home, I praised Shad for being such a good worker. And I made them each a pie out of the berries they had brought. Shad's was the biggest pie of all. When he cut into it, though, he got a surprise. It was full of blackberries mixed with pennyroyal leaves."

"That was a good joke on my Daddy," said little Ben. "Yes, and it taught him a good lesson," said his grandmother.

"Now, tell me another story," Ben coaxed. "Tomorrow night, laddie; you must say your prayer now, then shut your bright eyes and go to sleep."