Perhaps, perhaps — but if so, one must also remember that there is more to explaining a single human being than the ancient history of his region allows.
Ergo: Some observations less anthropological, less geographic, less distant from the true object of our study than the foregoing; by the same token, however, observations, now following, which are as wholly from outside the conscious life of the true object of our study as have been all foregoing observations.
2
Moving northward now, from the third, fourth, and fifth generations of families of Europeans who had settled in Boston, Newburyport, Salem, Gloucester, Charlestown, Cambridge, Belmont, Concord, and on and on — the small, yet crowded, cities and villages clustered close to the coast, bays and estuaries — all those seventeenth-century business communities with theological interests and connections, whose interests and connections, of a business as well as of a theological nature, had begun to jam harshly against one another by the end of the century. Second sons often went unemployed, and third sons came up landless, too. And there seemed to be an excess of ministers and schoolmasters. What to do? What to do? One of the nicest things about being an American in that century (or in the two centuries that followed, for that matter) was the liberal plenitude of land not yet populated by white people. This, of course, is an old story, well known. The second sons and their younger brothers pack up wife, ax, gun and bag of seed, and they head out for the back country, the far outback, the territory, the hinterland, the boonies.
Lemuel Stark, aet. twenty-four, out of Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1703, with his wife, Eliza, and son, Josiah, in a company of thirteen men and twelve women and seventeen children of various ages, went forth from Newburyport on 22 April to clear and establish residence upon certain lands near the headwaters of the Suncook River which had been properly surveyed and marked the previous year by a party of engineers sent out for the Newburyport Northern Regional Development Association.
There they met the resident Abenookis, who, innocently, the previous summer had traded forty freshly speared salmon and twelve maple-cured cougar skins for a knife and hand mirror offered by members of the surveying party. The leader of the Indians in 1703 was a tall (for an Abenooki), muscular man named Horse. His name had been given him by a wandering Cree from the far northwest, a man who enjoyed the luxury of having actually seen horses and so knew what they looked like, which of course the Abenooki did not. It was rumored among the Abenooki that sometimes the white people stood upon and even had sex with enormous, long-tailed, big-nosed beasts, but the Abenooki word for the animal was Kiyoosee-hi-yi-ho-yo (“enormous, long-tailed, big-nosed beast that gets screwed by the white man”). When the wandering Cree had told them, first, that the animal was called by his people a “horse,” and second, that the white people were in many ways dependent upon the “horse’s” good nature and great strength, and third, that the tall (for an Abenooki), muscular, big-nosed boy before him looked something like a horse, the boy’s family immediately changed his name from Water Lily to Horse. When later, after having passed many trials of strength and courage, he became the leader of the Abenookis residing in the Valley of the Suncook, Horse was very proud of his name, for among the Abenooki, while there were many who were named Water Lily, there was but one named Horse.
Horse, as noted above, was a physically gifted man, but he was also known to be shrewd and inventive, and among his people he was regarded as a driver of hard bargains. For instance, to their endless wonder and admiration, it was he who had succeeded in convincing the surveying party to give up the mirror and knife for a bunch of fish and furs. This is leading up to the moment, probably anticipated by now, when it can be announced that Horse was a proper match for the similarly gifted, shrewd, inventive and careful man Lemuel Stark. A classic confrontation.
It was atop Blue Job Mountain, supposedly, that the two finally met, at the end of a long chase, a foot race with a bloody dying for the loser that had begun at sunrise on the mist-blanketed bank of the Suncook. Lemuel had left the safety of the camp for an early morning leak in the bushes, and Horse, with three comrades, had surprised him at it. Lemuel ran, stuffing himself frantically back into his trousers. Horse gave chase. The others, as Abenooki are wont to do, melted back into the forest to await the outcome of the chase. If Horse lost and were slain by the white man, one of his three comrades would be able to take his place as leader of the Suncook Valley Abenooki. If, on the other hand, Horse either captured or killed the white man, all Abenookis would benefit alike, although obviously Horse would benefit the most. Even so, the Indians reasoned, it wasn’t a bad idea to melt into the forest and meet back at camp and sit around all day beneath the balsams, drinking fermented honey and waiting for the race results to come in.
Lemuel ran armed with his unloaded musket. Horse was armed with the knife and mirror he had obtained the previous summer by smart swapping. Lemuel had the advantage of height and probably good speed. Horse had the advantage of knowing the country, especially the Indian paths that followed the meandering shore of the river. Both men were in excellent physical condition. The race was a toss-up.
They ran along the river, following the narrow pathway through what is now called Center Barnstead. Here Lemuel stumbled and fell, skinning his knee. Horse, not believing his good luck, hesitated, just long enough for Lemuel to scramble to his feet and speed away southward, running slightly down-hill, to what’s now called Barnstead Parade. Lemuel was beginning to enjoy the race, was gaining slightly on his pursuer, and was probably reaching that point of exhaustion where lightheadedness and exhilaration replace fatigue and anxiety. Horse, on the other hand, having finally realized that he was alone in his pursuit of the white man, was beginning to understand the political implications of the chase. He had to catch the white man now. If he did not, he would be humiliated in front of his people and would lose his position of leadership, probably to someone named Water Lily. Horse had a fairly well developed sense of irony.
What the author would like to do here, but because of his respect for historical truth cannot, is to describe the awful death of Lemuel Stark, suggesting, through metaphor, symbol, and literal utterance, the effect of that death on Lemuel’s son, Josiah, who, under the understandably careful care of his mother, Eliza Stark, grew up (1) to hate “Injuns” (and all other non-Caucasian racial groups, whether minorities or not), (2) to resolve personal conflicts by the use of personal violence, and (3) to adore his mother, mainly because it was through her that he received first-person testimony as to the heroic stature of his lost and long-grieved-for father. Thus her testimony:
“Your father, my son, loved you. He loved you perhaps too well, and as it turned out, not wisely enough, thought that, of course, is not for me to judge, Heaven forgive me for presuming, I was not presuming, Father, it was a figure of speech, and it’s just that you, Josiah, and I, my son and I, Father, it’s just that we both have lived here so long, except for Thee and Thy everlasting comfort, that sometimes in our frailty we wonder and ask, Where has he gone, my husband and my son’s father, why did he not come back to us, why did he leave in the first place?… when of course, Father, we know all the answers to those questions, don’t we, Josiah? it’s not easy for us, the weak and fragile vessels of Thy everlasting love, to keep ourselves from crying out in the long night of our solitude, is it, Josiah, my son, my dear sweet boy, my beloved boy, you do so resemble your father, Josiah, his black hair, and his eyes, eyes the color of Irish peat, the clear white skin, the smile, the teeth, the tiny ears … thank Heaven I have you, my son, else my grief for your lost father would surely break me, I fear it, I’m ashamed for it, but I am a weak woman, my son, your mother is weak, son, but you shall be strong, I know it, as your father was strong, a tall, muscular, energetic man, who loved you, my son, oh, yes, he surely loved you, and if I say he did not love you wisely but too well, I say it only because his love for you, his