Layout 2
Crystal Spring
MEDFIELD, Massachusetts, has its Crystal Spring, where good Deacon Smith dipped water on a memorable day in 1675. The Indians had been growing uneasy and had been threatening vaguely. A council of Wampanoags and Narragansetts had been held on Noon Hill, and the light of their fire had been seen afar. Philip and Canonchet had upbraided their followers for allowing the white men to overrun their territory, and the voice of both tribes had been for war. Deacon Smith did not know that, when he arose in the frosty dawn and went to the spring for water for his cattle. On the way, however, he caught a glimpse of an Indian, crouched in the shadow of a tree. In a moment he saw another, lying flat in a thicket. "Truly, methinks this savors of dissembling," thought the deacon, and thereupon he began to dissemble, himself. If he were to shout with surprise or fear, or if he were to run to cover, the Indians would spring up with the cry, "We are discovered. Let us slay him before he carries a warning to the others."
So Deacon Smith sang; not a merry ballad, because he was a Puritan, and he knew no such trifles, but a solemn hymn of wrath and vengeance against the enemies of the Lord. He filled his bucket and stalked severely home with it, singing all the way; but directly that he had gained the shelter of his house he kissed his wife and his two children and hurried them to the back door. "Quick!" he whispered. "Don't lose a minute. The Indians are here. Through the woods to the garrison house. Tell them there is danger. God keep you."
"We will go with you," answered his wife, with composure.
"No. Unless they see me back at work they will know that we are trying to run away. I will be with you, soon;" and he added, as the door closed on them, "if not here, in the better world."
To keep the attention of the lurking foe and give time to his family to escape, he went to the water again, singing as before, and he was yet again on his way between the spring and the house when the clang of a bell in the distance gave note that the settlement had been alarmed and its people were gathering for defence. Almost at the first stroke upon the metal the song died from the deacon's lips, and he fell to the earth with an arrow in his thigh. The Indians dragged him to his house, intending to shut him in it and burn it over his head; for their rage was great when they found his wife and children gone, and Canonchet, realizing that he had been tricked, ordered him to be kept for the torture.
At that moment King Philip rode by, and, seeing the deacon wounded, on the earth, he asked:
"What is the white man doing here, alive, and wearing his scalp?"
Canonchet, scowling blackly, told how the captive had gone about his work, singing the worship songs, to throw the Indians off their guard; how his wife had reached the settlement and aroused its people, so that the raid was certain to fail, and how this offender was to be kept for signal punishment. Philip paused. "Take out the arrow," he commanded. "Bind the wound. Now let him go. Philip loves a brave man, whatever his nation. If he cannot walk, leave him at the spring. Now on with all, and kill the others of this lying, stealing race."
The fight was hot that day. Men on one side were battling for their lands and on the other for their homes. Clouds of smoke from burning houses hid the combatants from time to time, but the torches, knives, and arrows of the red man were of small avail against the murthering-pieces of the white. Ere long the Indians were in retreat, and as the men of Medfield swept on in pursuit they heard, from the hollow by Crystal Spring, the voice of Deacon Smith, a little shaky with weakness, yet full of vim, singing one of Cromwell's battle hymns: "Let God arise; let his enemies be scattered."
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