There was a little log meeting-house near Andrew’s home, and it was turned into a hospital for the wounded men.  Mrs. Jackson, with other kind-hearted women, did all she could for the poor fellows who lay there groaning and helpless.  Andrew carried food and water to them.  He had forgotten most of the lessons he learned at school, but here was something he would never forget.

[Footnote 4:  Tarleton (Tarl’ton).]

208.  Andrew’s hatred of the “red-coats";[5] Tarleton’s soldiers meet their match.—­From that time, when young Jackson went to the blacksmith’s shop to get a hoe or a spade mended, he was sure to come back with a rude spear, or with some other weapon, which he had hammered out to fight the “red-coats” with.

Tarleton said that no people in America hated the British so much as those who lived where Andrew Jackson did.  The reason was that no other British officer was so cruel as “Butcher Tarleton,” as he was called.  Once, however, his men met their match.  They were robbing a farm of its pigs and chickens and corn and hay.  When they got through carrying things off, they were going to burn down the farm-house; but one of the “red-coats,” in his haste, ran against a big hive of bees and upset it.  The bees were mad enough.  They swarmed down on the soldiers, got into their ears and eyes, and stung them so terribly that at last the robbers were glad to drop everything and run.  If Andrew could have seen that battle, he would have laughed till he cried.

[Illustration:  THE BEES BEAT THE “RED-COATS.”]

[Footnote 5:  Red-coats:  this nickname was given by the Americans to the British soldiers because they wore bright red coats.]

209.  Dangerous state of the country; the roving bands.—­Andrew knew that he and his mother lived in constant danger.  Part of the people in his state were in favor of the king, and part were for liberty.  Bands of armed men, belonging sometimes to one side, and sometimes to the other, went roving about the country.  When they met a farmer, they would stop him and ask, ‘Which side are you for?’ If he did not answer to suit them, the leader of the party would cry out, Hang him up!  In an instant one of the band would cut down a long piece of wild grapevine, twist it into a noose, and throw it over the man’s head; the next moment he would be dangling from the limb of a tree.  Sometimes the band would let him down again; sometimes they would ride on and leave him hanging there.

210.  Playing at battle; what Tarleton heard about himself.—­Even the children saw and heard so much of the war that was going on that they played at war, and fought battles with red and white corn,—­red for the British and white for the Americans.

At the battle of Cowpens[6] Colonel William Washington[7] fought on the American side, and Tarleton got badly whipped and had to run.  Not long afterward he happened to see some boys squatting on the ground, with a lot of corn instead of marbles.  They were playing the battle of Cowpens.  A red kernel stood for Tarleton, and a white one for Colonel Washington.  The boys shoved the corn this way and that; sometimes the red would win, sometimes the white.  At last the white kernel gained the victory, and the boys shouted, “Hurrah for Washington—­Tarleton runs!”