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Edited by Dorothy F. Whipple

Along the Old Abenaki Trail With a Noted Maine Author

ARUNDEL, By Kenneth L. Roberts Doubleday Doran. $2.50 618pp. Reviewed by CHARLES J. NICHOLS Portland Attorney[bold]

[image-Kenneth Roberts holding a dog at his Kennebunk Beach home in the garden]

Kenneth L. Roberts in the garden of his Kennebunk Beach home[bold]

The story begins with a vivid scene in an ancient hostelry in the township of Arundel, now know as Kennebunkport in this State. The characters in the scene, "Cap" Huff, Steven Nason, Sr., Steven Nason, Jr., a Frenchman later known as Guer-lac, Master Mallison, his daughter Mary, and a few Abenaki, play an important part throughout the entire narrative. Cap Huff, hilarious from imbibing liquors of the period, fol-lowing a heated argument with the Frenchman over the cause and re-sults of the French and Indian Wars, throws the latter out of the house into the mud. Guerlac departs in the darkness and soon Mallison and his daughter, Mary, approach the path where Guerlac with his Indians are lying in ambush. Mallison is killed and the daughter Mary is car-ried away to Quebec. It is Phoebe Marvin, a rollicking country lass, seeing the Frenchman snatch Mary, who spreads the alarm. Steven Nason, Jr., who has a child-hood affection for Mary, and who has at the age of twelve promised to marry her, determines to follow and recapture his future wife. His fa-ther, every ready to avenge a wrong, an experienced hunter, familiar with and a friend to the Abenaki Indians, tells his son that they will start to capture the stranger and bring back Mary. In hot pursuit, they followed Geur-lac and his Indians through Fal-mouth (now Portland), through Brunswick, Cushnoc and up the Ken-nebec, passed For Halifax where Guerlac and his party were over-taken and a fierce engagement took place. Steven Jr., received a deep gash from the hatchet of the French-man, while Guerlac himself was dis-figured by a slit ear. However, he continued on his journey to Quebec with Mary whom he passes off as his sister, while Steven Jr. and his father are forced to return to Arun-del. It was on this return trip, near Pownalborough, that the Nasons, father and son, first met Master Benedict Arnold who was sailing a schooner up the Kennebec and who tells them of the capture of Quebec by Wolfe. Their anxiety for Mary Mallison then increased and Steven Jr. vows that if even an opportunity comes, he will go to Quebec and bring back Mary. Nearly sixteen years of waiting when the news of the Boston Massacre reached Arundel, followed quickly by Lexington, Concord, Ticonderoga and Bunker Hill, and the call to arms came for all Sons of Liberty to go to Cambridge. In the meantime, the elder Nason had died after he had saved the Rev. Mr. Hook, a Tory, from drowning. Many from Arundel volunteered to fight for freedom from the oppres-sion of the Mother Country. Phoebe, being an expert sailor and "Master" of a sloop took the volunteers to Newburyport. On reaching Cambridge, Washing-ton and Arnold requested as many "Woodmen from Maine" as possible to go on the expedition through our State to capture Quebec; Cap Huff, Steven Nason, Noah Cluff, Jethro Fish, Asa Hutchings and James Dunn, all from Arundel, and Paul Higgins, the white man who had become a great sachem among the Indians on the Androscoggin. Phoebe Marvin sells her sloop, marries James Dunn, "the grave and handsome young man from Arundel" and joins the expedition. Approximately eleven hundred men under Col. Arnold set out by trans-ports for Gardinertown where it was necessary to wait until more bateaux were built, the soldiers being quar-tered at Fort Western in the present city of Augusta. During the last days of September, 1775, the army leaves Fort Western in four divisions. Two Indians, Eneas and Sabatis act-