I soon found myself in good health, so that I went home with the horse
very early in the morning.

The appearance of that sheet, I have ever considered as a forerunner of
the melancholy catastrophe that so soon afterwards happened to our family:
and my being caught in it I believe, was ominous of my preservation from
death at the time we were captured.



CHAPTER II.


Her Education.--Captivity.--Journey to Fort Pitt.--Mother's Farewell
Address.--Murder of her Family.--Preparation of the Scalps.--Indian
Precautions.--Arrival at Fort Pitt, &c.

My education had received as much attention from my parents, as their
situation in a new country would admit. I had been at school some, where I
learned to read in a book that was about half as large as a Bible; and in
the Bible I had read a little. I had also learned the Catechism, which I
used frequently to repeat to my parents, and every night, before I went to
bed, I was obliged to stand up before my mother and repeat some words that
I suppose was a prayer.

My reading, Catechism and prayers, I have long since forgotten; though for
a number of the first years that I lived with the Indians, I repeated the
prayers as often as I had an opportunity. After the revolutionary war, I
remembered the names of some of the letters when I saw them; but have
never read a word since I was taken prisoner. It is but a few years since