CHAPTER XIX 



"THE PIONEERS" 



(Abridged) 



44C)EE, Cousin Bess! See, Duke, the pigeon-roosts 

 O of the South have broken up ! They are grow- 

 ing more thick every instant. Here is a flock 

 that the eye cannot see the end of. There is food 

 enough in it to keep the army of Xerxes for a month, 

 and feathers enough to, make beds for the whole coun- 

 try. Xerxes, Mr. Edward, was a Grecian king, who — 

 no, he was a Turk, or a Persian, who w^anted to con- 

 quer Greece, just the same as these rascals will over- 

 run our wheat fields, when they come back in the fall. 

 Away! Away! Bess, I long to pepper them." 



"If the heavens were alive with pigeons, the whole 

 village seemed equally in motion, with men, women 

 and children. Every species of fire-arms, from the 

 French ducking-gun with a barrel near six feet in 

 length, to the common horseman's pistol, was to be 

 seen in the hands of the men and boys ; while bows 

 and arrows, some made of the simple stick of watn it 

 sapling, and others in the rude imitation of the ancient 

 cross-bows, were carried by many of the latter. 



"The houses and signs of life apparent in the vil- 

 lage, drove the alarmed birds from the direct line of 

 their flight, toward the mountains, along the sides and 

 near the bases of which they were glancing in dense 



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