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diff --git a/33334-8.txt b/33334-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..44185d4 --- /dev/null +++ b/33334-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5930 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Only Woman in the Town, by Sarah J. Prichard + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Only Woman in the Town + And Other Tales of the American Revolution + +Author: Sarah J. Prichard + +Release Date: August 3, 2010 [EBook #33334] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ONLY WOMAN IN THE TOWN *** + + + + +Produced by Katherine Ward, Darleen Dove, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + The Only Woman in the Town + + And Other Tales of the American Revolution + + BY + SARAH J. PRICHARD + + Author of the History of Waterbury, 1674-1783 + + + PUBLISHED BY + MELICENT PORTER CHAPTER + Daughters of the American Revolution + Waterbury, Conn. + 1898 + + Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1898 + By the MELICENT PORTER CHAPTER + Daughters of the American Revolution, + In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington + + +[Illustration: THE OLD PORTER HOUSE. In it were sheltered and cared for +many soldiers in the War of the Revolution] + + + + +PREFACE + + +The celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of the United States at +the city of Philadelphia in 1876, and the exhibit there made of that +nation's wonderful growth and progress, gave a new and remarkable +impulse to the germs of patriotism in American life. The following +tales of the American Revolution--with the exception of the last--were +written twenty-two years ago, and are the outcome of an interest then +awakened. They all appeared in magazines and other publications of +that period, from which they have been gathered into this volume, in +the hope that thereby patriotism may grow stronger in the children of +to-day. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + The Only Woman in the Town 9 + A Windham Lamb in Boston Town 38 + How One Boy Helped the British Troops Out of Boston in 1776 47 + Pussy Dean's Beacon Fire 67 + David Bushnell and His American Turtle 75 + The Birthday of Our Nation 117 + The Overthrow of the Statue of King George 127 + Sleet and Snow 135 + Patty Rutter: The Quaker Doll who slept in Independence Hall 151 + Becca Blackstone's Turkeys at Valley Forge 159 + How Two Little Stockings Saved Fort Safety 169 + A Day and a Night in the Old Porter House 181 + + + + +THE ONLY WOMAN IN THE TOWN. + + +One hundred years and one ago, in Boston, at ten of the clock one +April night, a church steeple had been climbed and a lantern hung +out. + +At ten, the same night, in mid-river of the Charles, oarsmen two, with +passenger silent and grim, had seen the signal light out-swung, and +rowed with speed for the Charlestown shore. + +At eleven, the moon was risen, and the grim passenger, Paul Revere, +had ridden up the Neck, encountered a foe, who opposed his ride into +the country, and, after a brief delay, had gone on, leaving a British +officer lying in a clay pit. + +At midnight, a hundred ears had heard the flying horseman cry, "Up and +arm. The Regulars are coming out!" + +You know the story well. You have heard how the wild alarm ran from +voice to voice and echoed beneath every roof, until the men of +Lexington and Concord were stirred and aroused with patriotic fear for +the safety of the public stores that had been committed to their +keeping. + +You know how, long ere the chill April day began to dawn, they had +drawn, by horse power and by hand power, the cherished stores into +safe hiding-places in the depth of friendly forest-coverts. + +There is one thing about that day that you have _not_ heard and I will +tell you now. It is, how one little woman staid in the town of +Concord, whence all the women save her had fled. + +All the houses that were standing then, are very old-fashioned now, +but there was one dwelling-place on Concord Common that was +old-fashioned even then! It was the abode of Martha Moulton and "Uncle +John." Just who "Uncle John" was, is not known to the writer, but he +was probably Martha Moulton's uncle. The uncle, it appears by record, +was eighty-five years old; while the niece was _only_ three-score and +eleven. + +Once and again that morning, a friendly hand had pulled the +latch-string at Martha Moulton's kitchen entrance and offered to +convey herself and treasures away, but, to either proffer, she had +said: "No, I must stay until Uncle John gets the cricks out of his +back, if all the British soldiers in the land march into town." + +At last, came Joe Devins, a lad of fifteen years--Joe's two astonished +eyes peered for a moment into Martha Moulton's kitchen, and then eyes +and owner dashed into the room, to learn what the sight he there saw +could mean. + +"Whew! Mother Moulton, what are you doing?" + +"I'm getting Uncle John his breakfast to be sure, Joe," she answered. +"Have _you_ seen so many sights this morning that you don't know +breakfast, when you see it? Have a care there, for hot fat _will_ +burn," as she deftly poured the contents of a pan, fresh from the +fire, into a dish. + +Hungry Joe had been astir since the first drum had beat to arms at two +of the clock. He gave one glance at the boiling cream and the slices +of crisp pork swimming in it, as he gasped forth the words, "Getting +breakfast in Concord _this_ morning! _Mother Moulton_, you _must_ be +crazy." + +"So they tell me," she said, serenely. "There comes Uncle John!" she +added, as the clatter of a staff on the stone steps of the stairway +outrang, for an instant, the cries of hurrying and confusion that +filled the air of the street. + +"Don't you know, Mother Moulton," Joe went on to say, "that every +single woman and child have been carried off, where the Britishers +won't find 'em?" + +"I don't believe the king's troops have stirred out of Boston," she +replied, going to the door leading to the stone staircase, to open it +for Uncle John. + +"Don't believe it?" and Joe looked, as he echoed the words, as though +only a boy could feel sufficient disgust at such a want of common +sense, in full view of the fact, that Reuben Brown had just brought +the news that eight men had been killed by the king's Red Coats in +Lexington, which fact he made haste to impart. + +"I won't believe a word of it," she said, stoutly, "until I see the +soldiers coming." + +"Ah! Hear that!" cried Joe, tossing back his hair and swinging his +arms triumphantly at an airy foe. "You won't have to wait long. _That +signal_ is for the minute men. They are going to march out to meet the +Red Coats. Wish I was a minute man, this minute." + +Meanwhile, poor Uncle John was getting down the steps of the stairway, +with many a grimace and groan. As he touched the floor, Joe, his face +beaming with excitement and enthusiasm, sprang to place a chair for +him at the table, saying, "Good morning," at the same moment. + +"May be," groaned Uncle John, "youngsters _like you may_ think it is a +good morning, but _I don't_. Such a din and clatter as the fools have +kept up all night long. If I had the power" (and now the poor old man +fairly groaned with rage), "I'd make 'em quiet long enough to let an +old man get a wink of sleep, when the rheumatism lets go." + +"I'm real sorry for you," said Joe, "but you don't know the news. The +king's troops, from camp, in Boston, are marching right down here, to +carry off all our arms that they can find." + +"Are they?" was the sarcastic rejoinder. "It's the best news I've +heard in a long while. Wish they had my arms, this minute. They +wouldn't carry them a step further than they could help, I know. Run +and tell them that mine are ready, Joe." + +"But, Uncle John, wait until after breakfast, you'll want to use them +once more," said Martha Moulton, trying to help him into a chair that +Joe had placed on the white sanded floor. + +Meanwhile, Joe Devins had ears for all the sounds that penetrated the +kitchen from out of doors, and he had eyes for the slices of +well-browned pork and the golden-hued Johnny-cake lying before the +glowing coals on the broad hearth. + +As the little woman bent to take up the breakfast, Joe, intent on +doing some kindness for her in the way of saving treasures, asked, +"Sha'n't I help you, Mother Moulton?" + +"I reckon I am not so old that I can't lift a mite of corn-bread," she +replied with chilling severity. + +"Oh, I didn't mean to lift _that thing_," he made haste to explain, +"but to carry off things and hide 'em away, as everybody else has been +doing half the night. I know a first-rate place up in the woods. Used +to be a honey tree, you know, and it's just as hollow as anything. +Silver spoons and things would be just as safe in it--" but Joe's +words were interrupted by unusual tumult on the street and he ran off +to learn the news, intending to return and get the breakfast that had +been offered to him. + +Presently he rushed back to the house with cheeks aflame and eyes +ablaze with excitement. "They're coming!" he cried. "They're in sight +down by the rocks. They see 'em marching, the men on the hill do!" + +"You don't mean that it's really true that the soldiers are coming +here, _right into our town_!" cried Martha Moulton, rising in haste +and bringing together, with rapid flourishes to right and to left, +every fragment of silver on it. Divining her intent, Uncle John strove +to hold fast his individual spoon, but she twitched it without +ceremony out from his rheumatic old fingers, and ran next to the +parlor cupboard, wherein lay her movable treasures. + +"What in the world shall I do with them?" she cried, returning with +her apron well filled, and borne down by the weight thereof. + +"Give 'em to me," cried Joe. "Here's a basket. Drop 'em in, and I'll +run like a brush-fire through the town and across the old bridge, and +hide 'em as safe as a weasel's nap." + +Joe's fingers were creamy; his mouth was half filled with Johnny-cake, +and his pocket on the right bulged to its utmost capacity with the +same, as he held forth the basket; but the little woman was afraid to +trust him, as she had been afraid to trust her neighbors. + +"No! No!" she replied, to his repeated offers. "I know what I'll do. +You, Joe Devins, stay right where you are until I come back, and, +don't you even _look_ out of the window." + +"Dear, dear me!" she cried, flushed and anxious when she was out of +sight of Uncle John and Joe. "I _wish_ I'd given 'em to Colonel +Barrett when he was here before daylight, only, I _was_ afraid I +should never get sight of them again." + +She drew off one of her stockings, filled it, tied the opening at the +top with a string--plunged stocking and all into a pail full of water +and proceeded to pour the contents into the well. + +Just as the dark circle had closed over the blue stocking, Joe Devins' +face peered down the depths by her side, and his voice sounded out the +words: "O Mother Moulton, the British will search the wells the _very_ +first thing. Of course, they _expect_ to find things in wells!" + +"Why didn't you tell me before, Joe? but now it is too late." + +"I would, if I had known what you was going to do; they'd been a sight +safer in the honey tree." + +"Yes, and what a fool I've been--flung _my watch_ into the well with +the spoons!" + +"Well, well! Don't stand there, looking!" as she hovered over the high +curb, with her hand on the bucket. "Everybody will know, if you do." + +"Martha! Martha!" shrieked Uncle John's quavering voice from the house +door. + +"Bless my heart!" she exclaimed, hurrying back over the stones. + +"What's the matter with your heart?" questioned Joe. + +"Nothing. I was thinking of Uncle John's money," she answered. + +"Has he got money?" cried Joe. "I thought he was poor, and you took +care of him because you were so good!" + +Not one word that Joe uttered did the little woman hear. She was +already by Uncle John's side and asking him for the key to his strong +box. + +Uncle John's rheumatism was terribly exasperating. "No, I won't give +it to you!" he cried, "and nobody shall have it as long as I am above +ground." + +"Then the soldiers will carry it off," she said. + +"Let 'em!" was his reply, grasping his staff firmly with both hands +and gleaming defiance out of his wide, pale eyes. "_You_ won't get the +key, even if they do." + +At this instant, a voice at the doorway shouted the words, "Hide, hide +away somewhere, Mother Moulton, for the Red Coats are in sight this +minute!" + +She heard the warning, and giving one glance at Uncle John, which look +was answered by another "No, you won't have it," she grasped Joe +Devins by the collar of his jacket and thrust him before her up the +staircase so quickly that the boy had no chance to speak, until she +released her hold, on the second floor, at the entrance to Uncle +John's room. + +The idea of being taken a prisoner in such a manner, and by a woman, +too, was too much for the lad's endurance. "Let me go!" he cried, the +instant he could recover his breath. "I won't hide away in your +garret, like a woman, I won't. I want to see the militia and the +minute men fight the troops, I do." + +"Help me first, Joe. Here, quick now! Let's get this box out and up +garret. We'll hide it under the corn and it'll be safe," she coaxed. + +The box was under Uncle John's bed. + +"What's in the old thing anyhow?" questioned Joe, pulling with all his +strength at it. + +The box, or chest, was painted red, and was bound about by massive +iron bands. + +"I've never seen the inside of it," said Mother Moulton. "It holds the +poor old soul's sole treasure, and I _do_ want to save it for him if I +can." + +They had drawn it with much hard endeavor as far as the garret stairs, +but their united strength failed to lift it. "Heave it, now!" cried +Joe, and lo! it was up two steps. So they turned it over and over with +many a thudding thump;--every one of which thumps Uncle John heard and +believed to be strokes upon the box itself to burst it asunder--until +it was fairly shelved on the garret floor. + +In the very midst of the overturnings, a voice from below had been +heard crying out, "Let my box alone! Don't you break it open! If you +do, I'll--I'll--" but, whatever the poor man _meant_ to threaten as a +penalty, he could not think of anything half severe enough to say, so +left it uncertain as to the punishment that might be looked for. + +"Poor old soul!" ejaculated the little woman, her soft white curls in +disorder and the pink color rising from her cheeks to her fair +forehead, as she bent to help Joe drag the box beneath the rafter's +edge. + +"Now, Joe," she said, "we'll heap nubbins over it, and if the soldiers +want corn they'll take good ears and never think of touching poor +nubbins." So they fell to work throwing corn over the red chest, until +it was completely concealed from view. + +Then Joe sprang to the high-up-window ledge in the point of the roof +and took one glance out. "Oh, I see them, the Red Coats! 'Strue's I +live, there go our militia _up the hill_. I thought they was going to +stand and defend. Shame on 'em, I say!" Jumping down and crying back +to Mother Moulton, "I'm going to stand by the minute men," he went +down, three steps at a leap, and nearly overturned Uncle John on the +stairs, who, with many groans, was trying to get to the defense of his +strong box. + +"What did you help her for, you scamp?" he demanded of Joe, +flourishing his staff unpleasantly near the lad's head. + +"'Cause she asked me to, and couldn't do it alone," returned Joe, +dodging the stick and disappearing from the scene at the very moment +Martha Moulton encountered Uncle John. + +"Your strong box is safe under nubbins in the garret, unless the house +burns down, and now that you are up here, you had better stay," she +added soothingly, as she hastened by him to reach the kitchen below. + +Once there, she paused a second or two to take resolution regarding +her next act. She knew full well that there was not one second to +spare, and yet she stood looking, apparently, into the glowing embers +on the hearth. She was flushed and excited, both by the unwonted toil +and the coming events. Cobwebs from the rafters had fallen on her hair +and homespun dress, and would readily have betrayed her late +occupation to any discerning soldier of the king. + +A smile broke suddenly over her fair face, displacing for a brief +second every trace of care. "It's my old weapon, and I must use it," +she said, making a stately courtesy to an imaginary guest, and +straightway disappeared within an adjoining room. With buttoned door +and dropped curtains the little woman made haste to array herself in +her finest raiment. In five minutes she reappeared in the kitchen, a +picture pleasant to look at. In all New England, there could not be a +more beautiful little old lady than Martha Moulton was that day. Her +hair was guiltless now of cobwebs, but haloed her face with fluffy +little curls of silvery whiteness, above which, like a crown, was a +little cap of dotted muslin, pure as snow. Her erect figure, not a +particle of the hard-working-day in it now, carried well the folds of +a sheeny, black silk gown, over which she had tied an apron as +spotless as the cap. + +As she fastened back her gown and hurried away the signs of the +breakfast she had not eaten, the clear pink tints seemed to come out +with added beauty of coloring in her cheeks, while her hair seemed +fairer and whiter than at any moment in her three-score and eleven +years. + +Once more, Joe Devins looked in. As he caught a glimpse of the picture +she made, he paused to cry out: "All dressed up to meet the robbers! +My, how fine you do look! I wouldn't. I'd go and hide behind the +nubbins. They'll be here in less than five minutes now," he cried, +"and I'm going over the North Bridge to see what's going on there." + +"O Joe, stay, won't you?" she urged, but the lad was gone, and she was +left alone to meet the foe, comforting herself with the thought, +"They'll treat me with more respect if I _look_ respectable, and if I +_must_ die, I'll die good-looking in my best clothes, anyhow." + +She threw a few sticks of hickory-wood on the embers and then drew out +the little round stand, on which the family Bible was always lying. +Recollecting that the British soldiers probably belonged to the Church +of England, she hurried away to fetch Uncle John's "prayer book." + +"They'll have respect to me, if they find me reading that, I know," +she thought. Having drawn the round stand within sight of the well, +and where she could also command a view of the staircase, she sat and +waited for coming events. + +Uncle John was keeping watch of the advancing troops from an upper +window. "Martha," he called, "you'd better come up. They're close by, +now." To tell the truth, Uncle John himself was a little afraid; that +is to say, he hadn't quite courage enough to go down and, perhaps, +encounter his own rheumatism and the king's soldiers on the same +stairway, and yet, he felt that he must defend Martha as well as he +could. + +The rap of a musket, quick and ringing, on the front door, startled +the little woman from her apparent devotions. She did not move at the +call of anything so profane. It was the custom of the time to have the +front door divided into two parts, the lower half and the upper half. +The former was closed and made fast, the upper could be swung open at +will. + +The soldier getting no reply, and doubtless thinking that the house +was deserted, leaped over the chained lower half of the door. + +At the clang of his bayonet against the brass trimmings, Martha +Moulton groaned in spirit, for, if there was any one thing that she +deemed essential to her comfort in this life, it was to keep spotless, +speckless and in every way unharmed, the great knocker on her front +door. + +"Good, sound English metal, too," she thought, "that an English +soldier ought to know how to respect." + +As she heard the tramp of coming feet she only bent the closer over +the Book of Prayer that lay open on her knee. Not one word did she +read or see; she was inwardly trembling and outwardly watching the +well and the staircase. But now, above all other sounds, broke the +noise of Uncle John's staff thrashing the upper step of the staircase, +and the shrill, tremulous cry of the old man, defiant, doing his +utmost for the defense of his castle. + +The fingers that lay beneath the book tingled with desire to box the +old man's ears, for the policy he was pursuing would be fatal to the +treasure in garret and in well; but she was forced to silence and +inactivity. + +As the king's troops, Major Pitcairn at their head, reached the open +door and saw the old lady, they paused. What could they do but look, +for a moment, at the unexpected sight that met their view: a placid +old lady in black silk and dotted muslin, with all the sweet solemnity +of morning devotion hovering about the tidy apartment and seeming to +centre at the round stand by which she sat,--this pretty woman, with +pink and white face surmounted with fleecy little curls and crinkles +and wisps of floating whiteness, who looked up to meet their gaze with +such innocent, prayer-suffused eyes. + +"Good morning, Mother," said Major Pitcairn, raising his hat. + +"Good morning, gentlemen and soldiers," returned Martha Moulton. "You +will pardon my not meeting you at the door, when you see that I was +occupied in rendering service to the Lord of all." She reverently +closed the book, laid it on the table, and arose, with a stately +bearing, to demand their wishes. + +"We're hungry, good woman," spoke the commander, "and your hearth is +the only hospitable one we've seen since we left Boston. With your +good leave I'll take a bit of this," and he stooped to lift up the +Johnny-cake that had been all this while on the hearth. + +"I wish I had something better to offer you," she said, making haste +to fetch plates and knives from the corner-cupboard, and all the while +she was keeping eye-guard over the well. "I'm afraid the Concorders +haven't left much for you to-day," she added, with a soft sigh of +regret, as though she really felt sorry that such brave men and good +soldiers had fallen on hard times in the ancient town. At the moment +she had brought forth bread and baked beans, and was putting them on +the table, a voice rang into the room, causing every eye to turn +toward Uncle John. He had gotten down the stairs without uttering one +audible groan, and was standing, one step above the floor of the room, +brandishing and whirling his staff about in a manner to cause even +rheumatism to flee the place, while at the top of his voice he cried +out: + +"Martha Moulton, how _dare_ you _feed_ these--these--monsters--in +human form?" + +"Don't mind him, gentlemen, _please_ don't," she made haste to say; +"he's old, _very_ old; eighty-five, his last birthday, and--a little +hoity-toity at times," pointing deftly with her finger in the region +of the reasoning powers in her own shapely head. + +Summoning Major Pitcairn by an offer of a dish of beans, she contrived +to say, under cover of it: + +"You see, sir, I couldn't go away and leave him; he is almost +distracted with rheumatism, and this excitement to-day will kill him, +I'm afraid." + +Advancing toward the staircase with bold and soldierly front, Major +Pitcairn said to Uncle John: + +"Stand aside, old man, and we'll hold you harmless." + +"I don't believe you will, you red-trimmed trooper, you," was the +reply; and, with a dexterous swing of the wooden staff, he mowed off +and down three military hats. + +Before any one had time to speak, Martha Moulton, adroitly stooping, +as though to recover Major Pitcairn's hat, which had rolled to her +feet, swung the stairway-door into its place with a resounding bang, +and followed up that achievement with a swift turn of two large wooden +buttons, one high up, and the other low down, on the door. + +"There!" she said, "he is safe out of mischief for a while, and your +heads are safe as well. Pardon a poor old man, who does not know what +he is about." + +"He seems to know remarkably well," exclaimed an officer. + +Meanwhile, behind the strong door, Uncle John's wrath knew no bounds. +In his frantic endeavors to burst the fastenings of the wooden +buttons, rheumatic cramps seized him and carried the day, leaving him +out of the battle. + +Meanwhile, a company of soldiers clustered about the door. The king's +horses were fed within five feet of the great brass knocker, +while, within the house, the beautiful little old woman, in her +Sunday-best-raiment, tried to do the dismal honors of the day to the +foes of her country. Watching her, one would have thought she was +entertaining heroes returned from the achievement of valiant +deeds, whereas, in her own heart, she knew full well that she was +giving a little, to save much. + +Nothing could exceed the seeming alacrity with which she fetched water +from the well for the officers: and, when Major Pitcairn gallantly +ordered his men to do the service, the little soul was in alarm; she +was so afraid that "somehow, in some way or another, the blue stocking +would get hitched on to the bucket." She knew that she must to its +rescue, and so she bravely acknowledged herself to have taken a vow +(when, she did not say), to draw all the water that was taken from +that well. + +"A remnant of witchcraft!" remarked a soldier within hearing. + +"Do I look like a witch?" she demanded. + +"If you do," replied Major Pitcairn, "I admire New England witches, +and never would condemn one to be hung, or burned, or--smothered." + +Martha Moulton never wore so brilliant a color on her aged cheeks as +at that moment. She felt bitter shame at the ruse she had attempted, +but silver spoons were precious, and, to escape the smile that went +around at Major Pitcairn's words, she was only too glad to go again to +the well and dip slowly the high, over-hanging sweep into the cool, +clear, dark depth below. + +During this time the cold, frosty morning spent itself into the +brilliant, shining noon. + +You know what happened at Concord on that 19th of April in the year +1775. You have been told the story--how the men of Acton met and +resisted the king's troops at the old North Bridge; how brave Captain +Davis and minute-man Hosmer fell; how the sound of their falling +struck down to the very heart of mother earth, and caused her to send +forth her brave sons to cry "Liberty, or Death!" + +And the rest of the story; the sixty or more barrels of flour that the +king's troops found and struck the heads from, leaving the flour in +condition to be gathered again at nightfall, the arms and powder that +they destroyed, the houses they burned; all these, are they not +recorded in every child's history in the land? + +While these things were going on, for a brief while, at mid-day, +Martha Moulton found her home deserted. She had not forgotten poor, +suffering, irate Uncle John in the regions above, and so, the very +minute she had the chance, she made a strong cup of catnip tea (the +real tea, you know, was brewing in Boston harbor). + +She turned the buttons, and, with a bit of trembling at her heart, +such as she had not felt all day, she ventured up the stairs, bearing +the steaming peace-offering before her. + +Uncle John was writhing under the sharp thorns and twinges of his old +enemy, and in no frame of mind to receive any overtures in the shape +of catnip tea; nevertheless, he was watching, as well as he was able, +the motions of the enemy. As she drew near, he cried out: + +"Look out this window, and see! Much _good_ all your scheming will do +_you_!" + +She obeyed his command to look, and the sight she then saw caused her +to let fall the cup of catnip tea and rush down the stairs, wringing +her hands as she went, and crying out: + +"Oh, dear! what shall I do? The house will burn and the box up garret. +Everything's lost!" + +Major Pitcairn, at that moment, was on the green in front of her door, +giving orders. + +Forgetting the dignified part she intended to play; forgetting +everything but the supreme danger that was hovering in mid-air over +her home--the old house wherein she had been born, and the only home +she had ever known--she rushed out upon the green, amid the troops and +surrounded by cavalry, and made her way to Major Pitcairn. + +"The court-house is on fire!" she cried, laying her hand upon the +commander's arm. + +He turned and looked at her. Major Pitcairn had recently learned that +the task he had been set to do in the provincial towns that day was +not an easy one; that, when hard pressed and trodden down, the +despised rustics, in homespun dress, could sting even English +soldiers; and thus it happened that, when he felt the touch of Mother +Moulton's plump little old fingers on his military sleeve, he was not +in the pleasant humor that he had been when the same hand had +ministered to his hunger in the early morning. + +"Well, what of it? _Let it burn!_ We won't hurt _you_, if you go in +the house and stay there!" + +She turned and glanced up at the court-house. Already flames were +issuing from it. "Go in the house and let it burn, _indeed_!" thought +she. "He knows _me_, don't he? Oh, sir! for the love of Heaven won't +you stop it?" she said, entreatingly. + +"Run in the house, good mother. That is a wise woman," he advised. + +Down in her heart, and as the very outcome of lip and brain she wanted +to say, "You needn't 'mother' me, you murderous rascals!" but, +remembering everything that was at stake, she crushed her wrath and +buttoned it in as closely as she had Uncle John behind the door in the +morning, and again, with swift gentleness, laid her hand on his arm. + +He turned and looked at her. Vexed at her persistence, and extremely +annoyed at intelligence that had just reached him from the North +Bridge, he said, imperiously, "Get away! or you'll be trodden down by +the horses!" + +"I _can't_ go!" she cried, clasping his arm, and fairly clinging to it +in her frenzy of excitement. "Oh, stop the fire, quick, quick! or my +house will burn!" + +"I have no time to put out your fires," he said, carelessly, shaking +loose from her hold and turning to meet a messenger with news. + +Poor little woman! What could she do? The wind was rising, and the +fire grew. Flame was creeping out in a little blue curl in a new +place, under the rafter's edge, _and nobody cared_. That was what +increased the pressing misery of it all. It was so unlike a common +country alarm, where everybody rushed up and down the streets, crying +"Fire! fire! f-i-r-e!" and went hurrying to and fro for pails of water +to help put it out. + +Until that moment the little woman did not know how utterly deserted +she was. + +In very despair, she ran to her house, seized two pails, filled them +with greater haste than she had ever drawn water before, and, +regardless of Uncle John's imprecations, carried them forth, one in +either hand, the water dripping carelessly down the side breadths of +her fair silk gown, her silvery curls tossed and tumbled in white +confusion, her pleasant face aflame with eagerness, and her clear eyes +suffused with tears. + +Thus equipped with facts and feeling, she once more appeared to Major +Pitcairn. + +"Have you a mother in old England?" she cried. "If so, for her sake, +stop this fire." + +Her words touched his heart. + +"And if I do--?" he answered. + +"_Then your johnny-cake on my hearth won't burn up_," she said, with a +quick little smile, adjusting her cap. + +Major Pitcairn laughed, and two soldiers, at his command, seized the +pails and made haste to the court-house, followed by many more. + +For awhile the fire seemed victorious, but, by brave effort, it was +finally overcome, and the court-house saved. + +At a distance Joe Devins had noticed the smoke hovering like a little +cloud, then sailing away still more like a cloud over the town; and he +had made haste to the scene, arriving in time to venture on the roof, +and do good service there. + +After the fire was extinguished, he thought of Martha Moulton, and he +could not help feeling a bit guilty at the consciousness that he had +gone off and left her alone. + +Going to the house he found her entertaining the king's troopers with +the best food her humble store afforded. + +She was so charmed with herself, and so utterly well pleased with the +success of her pleading, that the little woman's nerves fairly +quivered with jubilation; and best of all, the blue stocking was +still safe in the well, for had she not watched with her own eyes +every time the bucket was dipped to fetch up water for the fire, +having, somehow, got rid of the vow she had taken regarding the +drawing of the water. + +As she saw the lad looking, with surprised countenance, into the room +where the feast was going on, a fear crept up her own face and darted +out from her eyes. It was, lest Joe Devins should spoil it all by +ill-timed words. + +She made haste to meet him, basket in hand. + +"Here, Joe," she said, "fetch me some small wood, there's a good +boy." + +As she gave him the basket she was just in time to stop the rejoinder +that was issuing from his lips. + +In time to intercept his return she was at the wood-pile. + +"Joe," she said, half-abashed before the truth that shone in the boy's +eyes--"Joe," she repeated, "you know Major Pitcairn ordered the fire +put out, _to please me_, because I begged him so, and, in return, what +_can_ I do but give them something to eat? Come and help me." + +"I won't," responded he. "Their hands are red with blood. They've +killed two men at the bridge." + +"Who's killed?" she asked, trembling, but Joe would not tell her. He +demanded to know what had been done with Uncle John. + +"He's quiet enough, up-stairs," she replied, with a sudden spasm of +feeling that she _had_ neglected Uncle John shamefully; still, with +the day, and the fire and everything, how could she help it? but, +really, it did seem strange that he made no noise, with a hundred +armed men coming and going through the house. + +At least, that was what Joe thought, and, having deposited the basket +of wood on the threshold of the kitchen door, he departed around the +corner of the house. Presently he had climbed a pear tree, dropped +from one of its overhanging branches on the lean-to, raised a sash and +crept into the window. + +Slipping off his shoes, heavy with spring mud, he proceeded to search +for Uncle John. He was not in his own room; he was not in the +guest-chamber; he was not in any one of the rooms. + +On the floor, by the window in the hall, looking out upon the green, +he found the broken cup and saucer that Martha Moulton had let fall. +Having made a second round, in which he investigated every closet and +penetrated into the spaces under beds, Joe thought of the garret. + +Tramp, tramp went the heavy feet on the sanded floors below, drowning +every possible sound from above; nevertheless, as the lad opened the +door leading into the garret, he whispered cautiously: "Uncle John! +Uncle John!" + +All was silent above. Joe went up, and was startled by a groan. He had +to stand a few seconds, to let the darkness grow into light, ere he +could see; and, when he could discern outlines in the dimness, there +was given to him the picture of Uncle John, lying helpless amid and +upon the nubbins that had been piled over his strong box. + +"Why, Uncle John, are you dead?" asked Joe, climbing over to his +side. + +"Is the house afire?" was the response. + +"House afire? No! The confounded Red Coats up and put it out." + +"I thought they was going to let me burn to death up here!" groaned +Uncle John. + +"Can I help you up?" and Joe proffered two strong hands, rather black +with toil and smoke. + +"No, no! You can't help me. If the house isn't afire, I'll stand it +till the fellows are gone, and then, Joe, you fetch the doctor as +quick as you can." + +"_You_ can't get a doctor for love nor money this night, Uncle John. +There's too much work to be done in Lexington and Concord to-night for +wounded and dying men; and there'll be more of 'em too afore a single +Red Coat sees Boston again. They'll be hunted down every step of the +way. They've killed Captain Davis, from Acton." + +"You don't say so!" + +"Yes, they have, and--" + +"I say, Joe Devins, go down and do--do something. There's _my niece_ +a-feeding the murderers! I'll disown her. She shan't have a penny of +my pounds, she shan't!" + +Both Joe and Uncle John were compelled to remain in inaction, while +below, the weary little woman acted the kind hostess to His Majesty's +troops. + +But now the feast was spent, and the soldiers were summoned to begin +their painful march. Assembled on the green, all was ready, when Major +Pitcairn, remembering the little woman who had ministered to his +wants, returned to the house to say farewell. + +'Twas but a step to her door, and but a moment since he had left it, +but he found her crying; crying with joy, in the very chair where he +had found her at prayers in the morning. + +"I would like to say good-by," he said; "you've been very kind to me +to-day." + +With a quick dash or two of the dotted white apron (spotless no +longer) to her eye, she arose. Major Pitcairn extended his hand, but +she folded her own closely together, and said: + +"I wish you a pleasant journey back to Boston, sir." + +"Will you not shake hands with me before I go?" + +"I can feed the enemy of my country, but shake hands with him, +_never_!" + +For the first time that day the little woman's love of country seemed +to rise triumphant within her, and drown every impulse to selfishness; +or, was it the nearness to safety that she felt? Human conduct is the +result of so many motives that it is sometimes impossible to name the +compound, although on that occasion Martha Moulton labelled it +"Patriotism." + +"And yet I put out the fire for you," he said. + +"For your mother's sake, in old England, it was, you remember, sir." + +"I remember," said Major Pitcairn, with a sigh, as he turned away. + +"And for _her_ sake I will shake hands with you," said Martha +Moulton. + +So he turned back, and, across the threshold, in presence of the +waiting troops, the commander of the expedition to Concord and the +only woman in the town shook hands at parting. + +Martha Moulton saw Major Pitcairn mount his horse; heard the order +given for the march to begin--the march of which you all have heard. +You know what a sorry time the Red Coats had of it in getting back to +Boston; how they were fought at every inch of the way, and waylaid +from behind every convenient tree-trunk, and shot at from tree-tops, +and aimed at from upper windows, and besieged from behind stone walls, +and, in short, made so miserable and harassed and overworn, that at +last their depleted ranks, with the tongues of the men parched and +hanging, were fain to lie down by the road-side and take what came +next, even though it might be death. And then _the dead_ they left +behind them! + +Ah! there's nothing wholesome to mind or body about war, until long, +long after it is over and the earth has had time to hide the blood, +and send forth its sweet blooms of Liberty. + +The men of that day are long dead. The same soil holds regulars and +minute-men. England, which over-ruled, and the provinces, that put out +brave hands to seize their rights, are good friends to-day, and have +shaken hands over many a threshold of hearty thought and kind deed +since that time. + +The tree of Liberty grows yet, stately and fair, for the men of the +Revolution planted it well, and surely, God himself _hath_ given it +increase. So we gather to-day, in this our story, a forget-me-not +more, from the old town of Concord. + +When the troops had marched away, the weary little woman laid aside +her silken gown, resumed her homespun dress, and immediately began to +think of getting Uncle John down-stairs again into his easy chair; but +it required more aid than she could give, to lift the fallen man. At +last, Joe Devins summoned returning neighbors, who came to the rescue, +and the poor nubbins were left to the rats once more. + +Joe climbed down the well and rescued the blue stocking, with its +treasures unharmed, even to the precious watch, which watch was Martha +Moulton's chief treasure, and one of the very few in the town. + +Martha Moulton was the heroine of the day. The house was besieged by +admiring men and women that night and for two or three days +thereafter; but when, years later, she being older, and poorer, even +to want, petitioned the General Court for a reward for the service she +rendered in persuading Major Pitcairn to save the court-house from +burning, there was granted to her only fifteen dollars, a poor little +grant, it is true, but _just enough_ to carry her story down the +years, whereas, but for that, it might never have been wafted up and +down the land, on the wings of this story. + + + + +A WINDHAM LAMB IN BOSTON TOWN. + + +It was one hundred and one years ago in this very month of June, that +nine men of the old town of Windham--which lies near the northeast +corner of Connecticut--met at the meeting-house door. There was no +service that day; the doors were shut, and the bell in the steeple +gave no sound. + +The town of Windham had appointed the nine men a committee to ask the +inhabitants to give from their flocks of sheep as many as they could +for the hungry men and women of Boston. Each man of the committee was +told at the meeting-house door the district in which he was to gather +sheep. + +On his stout grey pony sat Ebenezer Devotion. As soon as he heard the +eastern portion of the town assigned to him, he gave the signal to his +horse, and in five minutes was out of sight over the high hill. In ten +minutes he was near the famous Frog pond. As he was passing it by, a +voice from the marsh along its bank cried out: + +"Where now, so fast, this fine morning, Mr. Devotion?" + +"The same to you, Goodwife Elderkin. I know your voice, though I can't +see your face." + +Presently a hand parted the thicket and a woman's face appeared. + +"I'm getting flag-root. It gives a twang to root beer that nothing +else will, and the flag hereabout is the twangiest I know of. Stop at +the house as you go along and get some beer, won't you? Mary Ann's to +home." + +"Thank you," said Mr. Devotion, with a stiff bow. "It's a little early +for beer this morning. I'll stop as I come this way again. How are +your sheep and lambs this year?" + +"First rate. Never better." + +"Have you any to part with?" + +"Who wants to buy?" and Goodwife Elderkin came out from the thicket to +the road-side, eager for gain. + +"We don't sell sheep in Windham this year," said Mr. Devotion. + +"Why, what's the matter with the man?" thought Mrs. Elderkin, for +Ebenezer Devotion liked to drive a good bargain as well as any one of +his neighbors. Before she had time to give expression to her surprise, +he said with a sharp inclination of his head toward the sun, "We've +neighbors over yonder, good and true, who wouldn't sell sheep if we +were shut in by ships of war, and hungry, too." + +"What! any news from Boston town?" + +"It's twenty-four days, to-day, since the port was shut up." + +Goodwife Elderkin laughed. Ebenezer Devotion looked grim enough to +smother every bit of laughter in New England. + +"'Pears as if king and Parliament really believed that tea was cast +away by the men of Boston, now don't it? 'stead of every man, woman +and child in the country havin' a hand in it," said Mrs. Elderkin. + +"About the sheep!" replied Mr. Devotion, jerking up his horse's head +from the sweet, pure grass, greening all the road-side. + +"Let your pony feed while he can," she replied. "What about the +sheep?" + +"How many will you give?" + +"How many are you going to give yourself?" + +"Twice as many as you will." + +"Do you mean it?" + +"I do." + +"Then I'll give every sheep I own." + +"And how many is that?" + +"A couple of dozen or so." + +"Better keep some of them for another time." + +Mrs. Elderkin laughed again. "I'll say half a dozen then, if a dozen +is all you want to give yourself." + +Ebenezer Devotion drew from his wallet a slip of paper and headed his +list of names with "Six sheep, from Goodwife Elderkin." + +"Thank you in the name of God Almighty and the country," he said, +solemnly, as he jerked his pony's head from the grass and rode on. + +Mrs. Elderkin watched him as he wound along the pond-side and was +lost to sight; then she, chuckling forth the words, "I knew well +enough my sheep were safe," went back to the marsh after flag-root. + +When every neighbor feels it a duty to carry intelligence from the +last speaker he has met to the next hearer he may meet, news flies +fast, so Goodwife Elderkin was prepared for the accost of Mr. +Devotion. She did not linger long in the swamp, but, washing her hands +free from mud in the water of the pond, walked swiftly home. By the +time she reached her house, the gray pony and his rider were two miles +away on the road to Canterbury. The cry of hunger and possible +starvation in the town of Boston was spreading from village to village +and from house to house. + +Do you know how Boston is situated? It would be an island but for the +narrow neck of land on the south side. On the east, west and north are +the waters of Massachusetts Bay and Charles River. Just north from it, +and divided only by the same river, is another almost island, with its +neck stretched toward the north; and this latter place is Charlestown +and contains Bunker's Hill. Not far from the two towns, in the bay, +are many islands. Noddle's Island, Hog, Snake, Deer, Apple, Bird and +Spectacle Islands are of the number. On these islands were many sheep +and cattle, likewise hay and wood, all of which the inhabitants of +Boston needed for daily use, but by the Boston port bill, which went +into operation on the first day of June, no person was permitted to +land anything at either Boston or Charlestown; and so the neck of +Charlestown reached out to the north for food and help, and the neck +of Boston pleaded with the south for sustenance, and it was in answer +to this cry that our nine men of Windham went sheep-gathering. + +The work went on for four days, and at the end of that time 257 sheep +had been freely given. The owners drove them, on the evening of the +27th day of the month, to the appointed place, and, very early in the +morning of the 28th, many of the inhabitants were come together to see +the flock start on its long march. Two men and two boys went with the +gift. Good wife Elderkin was early on the highway. She wanted to make +certain just how many sheep bore the mark of Ebenezer Devotion's +ownership; but the driven sheep went past too quickly for her, and she +never had the satisfaction of finding out how many he gave. Following +the flock up the hill, she saw in the distance a sight that made her +heart beat fast. On the stone wall, under a great tree, sat Mary +Robbins, a little girl. She was dressed in a pink calico frock, and +she was holding in her arms a snow-white lamb, around whose neck she +had tied a strip of the calico of which her own gown was fashioned. + +"Now if I ever saw the beat of that!" cried Good wife Elderkin, +walking almost at a run up the hill, and so coming to the place where +the child sat, before the sheep got there. + +"Mary Robbins!" she cried, breathless from her haste. "What have you +got that lamb for?" + +Mary blushed under her little sun-bonnet, hugged the lamb, and said +not a word. At the moment up came the flock, panting and warm. Down +sprang Mary Robbins from the wall, the lamb in her arms. Johnny +Manning, aged fifteen years, was one of the two lads in care of the +sheep. To him Mary ran, saying: + +"Johnny, Johnny, won't you take my lamb, too?" + +"What for?" + +"Why, for some poor little girl in the town where there isn't anything +to eat," urged Mary, her sun-bonnet falling unheeded into the dust, as +she held up her offering to the cause of liberty. + +"Why, it can't walk to Boston," said the boy, running back to recover +a stray sheep. + +"You can carry it in your arms," she urged. + +"Give it to me, then." + +She gave it, saying: + +"Be good to it, Johnny, and give him some milk to drink to-night. It +don't eat much grass, yet." + +And so Johnny Manning marched away, over and down and out of sight, +with Mary's lamb in his arms. As for Mary herself, little woman that +she was, having made her sacrifice, she would have dropped on the +grass, after picking up her sun-bonnet, and had a good cry over her +loss, had it not been for Goodwife Elderkin standing there in the +road, waiting for her. + +With a sharp look at the child, the woman left the highway to go to +her own house, and Mary went home, hoping that no one would ask her +about the lamb. + +The flock of sheep marched until the noontide, when a halt was +ordered. After that they went onward over hill and river, with rest at +night and at noon, until the town of Roxbury was reached. At this +place the sheep were left to be taken to Boston, when opportunity +could be had. + +With Mary's lamb in his arms, Johnny Manning accompanied the messenger +who went up Boston Neck to carry a letter to the "Selectmen of the +Town." That letter has been preserved and is carefully kept among the +treasured documents of the Massachusetts Historical Society. It is too +long to be given here, but, after begging Boston to suffer and be +strong, remembering what had been done for the country by its +founders, it closes in these words: "We know you suffer, and feel for +you. As a testimony of our commiseration of your misfortunes, we have +procured a small flock of sheep, which at this season are not so good +as we could wish, but are the best we had. This small present, +gentlemen, we beg you would accept and apply to the relief of those +honest, industrious poor, who are most oppressed by the late +oppressive acts." + +Then, after a promise of future help in case of need, the letter is +signed by Samuel Grey, Ebenezer Devotion, and seven other names, +ending with that of Hezekiah Manning. + +[Illustration: "Give me the lamb, and I'll feed three hungry little girls +every day as long as Boston is shut up."] + +A British officer, seeing the lamb in Johnny's arms, offered to buy +it, bribing him with a bit of gold; but Johnny said "there wasn't any +gold in the land that he would exchange it for," and so the lamb +reached Boston in safety before the sheep got there. As Johnny walked +along the streets he was busy looking out for some poor little girl to +give it to, according to Mary's request. + +"I must wait," he thought, "until I find some one who is almost +starved." + +On the Common side he met a little girl who cried "Oh! see! see! A +lamb! A live lamb in Boston Town!" + +The child's eyes rested on the little white creature, which accosted +her with a plaintive bleat. Johnny Manning's eyes were riveted on the +little girl. What he thought, he never said. "Do you want it?" he +asked. + +"O yes! yes! Where did you get it?" + +"I've brought it from Roxbury in my arms. Mary Robbins gave it, in +Windham, for some poor little girl who was hungry in Boston. Are you +hungry?" + +"No," said the child, hesitatingly. + +"Are you poor?" + +"My father is"--a sudden thought stopped the words she was about to +speak. "Give me the lamb," she said, "and I'll feed three hungry +little girls every day as long as Boston is shut up. I will! I will! +and Mary's lamb shall live until I'm a hungry little girl myself, and +I will keep it until I am starved clear almost to death." + +Johnny put Mary's little lamb on the walk. "See if it will follow +you," he said. + +"Come lamb! lamb! come with Catharine," and it went bleating after her +along the Common side. + +"It's used to a girl," ejaculated the boy, "and it hasn't been a bit +happy with me. Give it grass and milk," he called after Catharine, who +turned and bowed her head. + +"A pretty story I shall have to tell Mary Robbins," thought Johnny. +"Here I have given her lamb to be kept and coddled, and it's likely +never eaten at all--but I know that little girl will keep her word. +She looks it--and she said she would feed three little girls as long +as Boston is shut up, and that is more than the lamb could do. I must +recollect the very words, to tell Mary." + +When the _Boston Gazette_ of July 4th, 1774, reached the village of +Windham, its inhabitants were surprised at the following announcement, +more particularly as not one of them knew where the _last sheep_ came +from: + + "Last week, were driven to the neighboring town of Roxbury two + hundred and fifty-eight sheep, a generous contribution of our + sympathizing brethren of the town of Windham, in the colony of + Connecticut; to be distributed for the employment or relief of + those who may be sufferers by means of the act of Parliament, + called the Boston Port Bill." + +Johnny Manning, when he returned to Windham, privately explained the +matter to Mary Robbins, by telling her that when the sheep were +numbered at Roxbury he counted in her lamb. + + + + +HOW ONE BOY HELPED THE BRITISH TROOPS OUT OF BOSTON IN 1776. + + +It was Commander-in-chief Washington's birthday, and it was Jeremy +Jagger's birthday. + +General Washington was forty-four years old that birthday, a hundred +years ago. Jeremy Jagger was fourteen, and early in the morning of the +22d of February, 1776, the General and the lad were looking upon the +same bit of country, but from different positions. General George +Washington was reviewing his precious little army for the thousandth +time; the lad Jeremy was looking from a hill upon the camp at +Cambridge, and from thence across the River Charles over into Boston, +which city had, for many months, been held by the British soldiers. + +At last Jeremy exclaimed: "I say, it's too chestnut-bur bad; it is." + +"Did you step on one?" questioned a tall, hard-handed, earnest-faced +man, who at the instant had come up to the stone-wall on which Jeremy +stood, surveying the camp and its surroundings. + +"No, I didn't," retorted the lad; "but I wish Boston was _paved_ all +over with chestnut-burs, and that every pesky British officer in it +had to walk barefoot from end to end fourteen times a day, I do; and +the fourteenth time I'd order two or three Colony generals to take a +turn with 'em. General Gates for one." + +"Come along, Jeremy," called his companion, who had strode across the +wall and gone on, regardless of the boy's words. + +When Jeremy had ended his expressed wishes, he gathered up his +hatchet, dinner-basket, and coil of stout cord, and plunged through +the snow after his leader. + +When he had overtaken him, the impulsive lad's heart burst out at the +lips with the words: "_We_ could take Boston _now_, just as easy as +anything--without wasting a jot of powder either. Skip across the ice, +don't you see, and be right in there before daylight. A big army lying +still for months and months, and just doing nothing but wait for folks +in Boston to starve out! I _say_ it's shameful; now, too, when the ice +has come that General Washington has been waiting all winter for." + +"You won't help your country one bit by scolding about it, Jeremy. +You'd better save your strength for cutting willow-rods to-day." + +"I'd cut like a hurricane if the rods were only going to whip the +enemy with. But just for sixpence a day--pshaw! I say, it don't pay." + +"Look here, lad, can you keep a secret?" + +"Trust me for that," returned Jeremy. Turning suddenly upon his +questioner, he faced him to listen to a supposed bit of information. + +"Then why on earth are you talking to _me_ in that manner, boy?" +questioned the man. + +"Why you _know_ all about it, just as well as I do; and a fellow +_must_ speak out in the woods or _somewhere_. Why, I get so mad and +hot sometimes that it seems as if every thought in me would burn right +out on my face, when I think about my poor mother over there," +pointing backward to the three-hilled city. + +The two were standing at the moment midway of a corn-field. The +February wind was lifting and rustling and shaking rudely the withered +corn-stalks, with their dried leaves. To the northward lay the +Cambridge camp, across the Charles River. To the south and east, just +over Muddy River and Stony Brook, lay the right wing of the American +Army, with here a fort and there a redoubt stretching at intervals all +the distance between the camp at Cambridge and Dorchester Neck, on the +southeast side of Boston. Behind them, to the westward, lay Cedar +Swamp, while not more than half a mile to the front there was a +four-gun battery and Brookline Fort, on the Charles, near by. + +While Jeremy Jagger was pouring forth his words with vociferous +violence, the man by his side glanced eagerly about the wide field; +but, satisfying himself that no one was within hearing, he said, +resting his hatchet on the lad's shoulder while speaking: "See here, +my boy. The brave man never boasts of his bravery nor the trustworthy +man of his trustworthiness. How you learned what you know of the plans +of General Washington I do not care to ask; but to-day and all days +keep quiet and show yourself worthy of being trusted." + +"I'll try as hard as I can," promised Jeremy. + +"No one can have tried his best without accomplishing something that +it was grand to do, though not always _just what_ he was trying to +do," responded the man, glancing kindly down upon the fresh, eager +lad, tramping through the snow, at his side. "Don't forget. 'Silence +is golden,' in war always. Not a word, mind, when you get home, about +the work of to-day." + +They were come now to a spot where the marsh seemed to be filled with +sounds of wood-cutting. As they plunged into Cedar Swamp, the sounds +grew nearer and multiplied. It was like the rapid firing of muskets. + +Running through the swamp there was a trout-brook, that bore along its +borders a dense growth of water-willows. + +And now they advanced within sight of at least two hundred men and +boys, every one of whom worked away as though his life depended on +cutting a certain amount of willow-boughs in a given time. + +"What does it all mean?" questioned Jeremy. + +"It means," replied his companion, "work for your country to-day with +all your might and main." + +"But, pray tell me," persisted Jeremy, "what under the sun the things +are for, anyway. They're good for nothing for fire-wood, green." + +Mr. Wooster turned and looked at the lad and said: "A good soldier +asks no questions and marches, without knowing whither. He also cuts, +without knowing for what. Now, to work!" and, at the instant they +mingled with the workmen. + +In less than a minute Jeremy's dinner-basket was swinging on a +willow-bough, his coat was hanging protectingly over it (you must +remember that it contained Jeremy Jagger's birthday cake), and the +lad's own arms were working away to the musical sounds of a hatchet +beating on a vast amount of "whistle-stuff," until mid-day and hunger +arrived in company. + +At the signal for noon Jeremy Jagger began his birthday feast. He +perched himself on a stout willow-branch, hanging the basket on a +conveniently growing peg at his right hand, and, by frequent +examination of the store within, was able to solace two or three lads, +less fortunate than himself, who were taking the mid-day rest, +refreshed by plain bread and cheese, seated on a branch, lower down on +the same tree. + +"It isn't _every_ day that a fellow eats his birthday dinner in the +woods," he exclaimed, by way of apology for the dainties he tossed +down to them in the shape of sugar-cake and "spice pie." "Aunt Hannah +was pretty liberal with me this morning. I wonder if she knew +anything, for she said: 'I'd find plenty of squirrels to help eat it.' +Where do you live, anyway?" he questioned, after he had fed them. + +"We live in Brookline," answered the elder. + +"Well, do you know what under the sun we are cutting such bundles of +fagots for to-day?" he slyly questioned, being beyond the hearing of +the ears of his friend, and so safe from censure. + +"I asked father this morning," spoke up the younger lad (of not more +than nine years), "and he told me he guessed General Washington was +going to take Boston on the ice, and every soldier was going to take a +bundle of fagots along, so as to keep from sinking if the ice broke +through." + +This bit of military news was received with shouts of laughter, that +echoed from tree to tree along the brook, and then the noon-day rest +was over. The wind began to blow in cooler and faster from the sea, +and busy hands were obliged to work fast to keep from stiffening under +the power of the growing frost. + +When the new moon hung low in the west and the sun was gone, the +brookside, the cart-path, even the swamp fell back into its accustomed +silence, for the workers, in groups of eight or ten, had from minute +to minute gone homeward, leaving huge piles of fagots near the log +bridge. + +Jeremy went early to bed that night. His right arm was weary and his +left arm ached; nevertheless, he went straightway to dreaming that +both arms were dragging his beloved mother forth from Boston. + +At midnight his companion of the morning came and stood under his +chamber window, and tapped lightly with a bean-pole against the glass +to awaken him. + +Jeremy heard the sound, but in his dream thought it was a gun fired +from one of the ships in the harbor at his mother, and himself, and +Boston. + +"Jeremy, get up!" said somebody, touching his shoulder. + +"Come, mother!" ejaculated Jeremy, clutching at the air and uttering +the words under tremendous pressure. + +"Come yourself, lad," said somebody, shaking him a little roughly; +whereupon Jeremy awoke. "Get up, Jeremy Jagger. Hitch the oxen to the +cart. Put on the hay-rigging. Stay, I must help you to do that; but +hurry." + +Jeremy rubbed his eyes, wondered what had become of his mother, and +how Mr. Wooster found his way into the house in the night, and lastly, +what was to be done. Furthermore, he dressed with speed, and awakened +the oxen by vigorous touches and moving words. + +"Get up! get up!" he importuned, "and work for your country, and may +be you won't be killed and eaten for your country when you are old." +The large, patient eyes of the oxen slowly opened into the night, and +after awhile the vigorous strokes and voiceful "get ups" of their +master had due effect. + +Mr. Wooster helped to adjust the hay-rigging, and then the large-wheeled +cart rolled grindingly over the frozen ground of the highway, until it +turned into the path leading into the swamp, over which the snow lay in +unbroken surface. Jeremy Jagger's was but the pioneer cart that night. +A half-dozen rolled and tumbled and reeled over the uneven surface behind +him, to the log bridge. It was cold and still. As the topmost fagot +was tossed on the pile in his cart he drew off a mitten, thrust his +benumbed fingers between his parted lips, and when he removed them +said: "I hope General Washington has had a better birthday than mine." + +"I know one thing, my lad." + +Jeremy turned quickly, for he did not recognize the voice. Even then +he could not discern the face; but he knew instantly that it was no +common person who had spoken. Nevertheless, with that sturdy, +good-as-anybody air that made the men of April 19th and June 17th +fight so gloriously, he demanded: + +"What do you know?" + +"That General Washington would gladly change places with you to-night, +if you are the honest lad you seem to be." + +"Go and see him in his comfortable bed over there in Cambridge," was +Jeremy's response, uttered in the same breath with the word to his +oxen to move on. They moved on. The fagots reeled and swayed, the cart +rumbled over the logs of the bridge, and boy, oxen and cart were soon +lost to sight and hearing in the cedar thickets of the swamp. + +Through the next two hours they toiled on, Jeremy on foot, and often +ready to lie down with the healthy sleep that would not leave its hold +on his weary brain. + +It was day-dawn when the fagots had been duly delivered at the +appointed place and Jeremy reached home. + +He had been cautiously bidden to see that the cart was not left +outside with its tell-tale rigging. He obeyed the injunction, shut the +oxen in, gave them double allowance of hay, and was startled by Aunt +Hannah's cheery call of: "Jerry, my boy, come to breakfast." + +"Breakfast ready?" said Jeremy. + +"Why, yes. I was up early this morning, and thought of you." And that +was the only allusion Aunt Hannah made to his night's work. He longed +to tell her and chat about it all at the table; but, remembering his +promise in the swamp, he said not a word. + +Six nights out of seven Jeremy and his oxen worked all night and slept +nearly all day. + +The brook in Cedar Swamp was robbed of its willows, and many another +bit of land and watercourse suffered in a like manner. + +Then came the order to make the fagots into fascines. Two thousand +soldiers were got to work to effect this. Jeremy Jagger began to +understand what was going on behind the lines at Roxbury. He was the +happiest lad in existence during the ensuing days. He forgot to eat, +even, when the fascines were in making. Perceiving the manner in which +they were formed he volunteered to help, and soon found he could drive +the cross supports into the ground, lay the saplings upon them, and +even aid in twisting the green withes about them, as well as any +soldier of them all. + +Bales of "screwed" hay began to appear in great numbers within the +lines, and empty barrels by the hundreds sprang up from somewhere. + +And all this time, guess as every man might and did--the coming event +was known only to the commander-in-chief and to the six generals +forming the council of war. + +Monday night, before sundown, Jeremy Jagger received an order. It +was: + + March 4th. + + JEREMY JAGGER: + + With oxen and cart (hay-rigging on), be at the Roxbury lines by + moon-rise to-night. Take a pocketful of gingerbread along. + + WOOSTER. + +With manly pride the boy set forth. He longed to put the note in his +aunt's hand ere he went; but she (long ago it seemed, though only a +few days had passed) seemed to take no note of his frequent absences. +He had scarcely gone a rod ere the cannon-balls began their march into +Boston from all the fortifications of the Americans; and in return +from Boston, flying north and south and west, came shot and shells. + +Undaunted and excited by the mere possibility of being hit, Jeremy +went onward. When he arrived in Roxbury he found everybody and +everything astir. His cart was seized, filled with bundles of +"screwed" hay, and, ere he knew it, he was in line with two hundred +and ninety-nine other carts, marching forward to fortify Dorchester +Heights. Before him went twelve hundred troops, under the command of +General Thomas; before the troops trundled an unknown number of carts, +filled with intrenching tools; before the tools were eight hundred +men. Not a word was spoken. In silence and with utmost care they trod +the way. At eight of the clock the covering party of eight hundred +reached the Height and divided--one-half going toward the point +nearest Boston, the other to the point nearest Castle William, on +Castle Island, held by the British. + +Then the working party began their labor with enthusiasm unbounded, +wondering what the British general would think when he should behold +their work in the morning. They toiled in silence by the light of the +moon and the home music of 144 shot and 13 shell going into Boston, +and unnumbered shot and shell coming out of Boston. Gridley, whose +quick night work at Breed's Hill on the sixteenth of June had startled +the world, headed the intrenching party as engineer. + +Poor Jeremy was not allowed to go farther than Dorchester Neck with +his first load. The bundles of hay were tumbled out and laid in line, +to protect the supplying party, in case the work going on on the hill +beyond should be found out. + +The next time, to his extreme delight, he found that fascines were to +go in his cart. When he reached Dorchester Height quick work was made +of unloading his freight, and, without a word spoken, he was ordered +back with a move of the hand. + +Four times the lad and the oxen went up Dorchester Hill that night. +The fourth time, as no order was given to return, Jeremy thought he +might as well stay and see the battle that would begin with the dawn. + +He left the oxen behind an embankment with a big bundle of hay to the +front of them; and after five minutes devoted to gingerbread he went +to work. Morning would come long before they were ready to have it +unveil the growing forts to the eyes of Admiral Shuldham, with his +ships of war lying in the harbor; or to the sentinels at Castle +William, on Castle Island, to the right of them; or to General Howe, +with his vigilant thousands of Englishmen safe and snug in Boston, to +the north of them. + +Jeremy was rolling barrels to the brow of the hill they were +fortifying, and tumbling into them with haste shovelful after +shovelful of good solid earth, that they might hit hard when rolled +down on the foe that should dare to mount the height, when a cautious +voice at his side uttered the one word "Look!" accompanied with a +motion of the hand toward Dorchester Neck. + +In the moonlight, past the bales of hay, two thousand Americans were +filing in silent haste to the relief of the men who had toiled all +night to build forts they meant to defend on the morrow. + +It was four o'clock in the morning when they came. Jeremy was tired +and sleepy too. His eyelids would drop over his eyes, shutting out +everything he so longed to keep in sight. + +"You've worked like a hero," said a kind voice to the lad. "It will be +hot work here by sunrise--no place for boys, when the battle begins." + +"I can fight," stoutly persisted Jeremy, nodding as he spoke; and, had +anybody thought of the lad at all after that, he might have been found +in the ox-cart, carelessly strewn over with hay, taking a nap. + +Meanwhile on came the morning. A friendly fog hung lovingly around the +new hills on the old hills, that the Yankees had built in a night. + +Admiral Shuldham was called in haste from his bed by frightened men, +who wondered what had happened on Dorchester Height. Castle William +stood aghast with astonishment. Messengers went up the bay to tell the +army the news. + +General Howe marched out to take a look through the fog at the old +familiar hills he had known so long, and didn't like the looks of the +new hats they wore. He wondered how in the world the thing had been +done without discovery; but there it was, larger a good deal than +life, seen through the fog, and he knew also why it was that the +cannon had been playing on Boston through the hours of three or four +nights. He was angry, astonished, perplexed. He had a little talk with +Admiral Shuldham; and they agreed to do something. Yes, they _would_ +walk up and demand back the hills looking over into Boston. Transports +came hurrying to pier and wharf, and soldiers went bravely down and +gave themselves to the work of a short sea voyage. + +Meanwhile Jeremy Jagger's nap was broken by a number of trenching +tools thrown carelessly over his back, as he lay asleep in his cart. + +"Halloo there!" he shouted, striving to rise from the not very +comfortable blanket that dropped in twain to the left and the right, +as he shook off the tools and returned from the land of sleep to +Dorchester Heights and the 5th of March. He was just in time to hear a +voice like a clarion cry out: "Remember it is the 5th of March, and +avenge the death of your brethren." + +It was the very voice that had said in the swamp in the night that +"General Washington would gladly change places with Jeremy Jagger." +It was the voice of General Washington animating the troops for the +coming battle. + +Meanwhile a new and unexpected force arrived on the field of action. +It came in from sea--a great and mighty wind, that tossed and tumbled +the transports to and fro on the waves and would not let them land +anywhere save at the place they came from. So they went peacefully +back to Boston, and the Liberty Men over on the hills went on all day +and all night, in the rain and the wind, building up, strengthening, +fortifying, in fact getting ready, as Jeremy told his aunt, when he +reached home on the morning of the sixth of March, "for a visit from +King George and all his army." + +The next day General Howe doubted and did little. The next and the +next went on and then on the morning of the 17th of March something +new had happened. There was one little hill, so near to Boston that it +was almost in it; and lo! in the night it had been visited by the +Americans, and a Liberty Cap perched above its head. + +General Howe said: "We must get away from here in haste." + +"Take us with you," said a thousand Royalists of the town; and he took +them, bag and baggage, to wander up and down the earth. + +Over on Bunker Breed's Hill wooden sentinels did duty when the British +soldiers left and for full two hours after; and then two brave +Yankees guessed the men were wooden, and marched in to take +possession just nine months from the day they bade it good-by, because +they had no powder with which to "tune" their guns. + +Over on Cambridge Common marched, impatient as ever, General Putnam, +with his four thousand followers, ready to cross the River Charles and +walk once more the city streets of the good old town. On all the hills +were gathered men, women and children to see the British troops +depart. + +Jeremy Jagger was up before the dawn on that sweetest of Sunday +mornings in March, and he reached the Roxbury lines just as General +Ward was ready to put his arms about Boston's Neck. The lad took his +place with the five hundred men and walked by Ensign Richards' side, +as he proudly bore the standard up to the gates, which Ebenezer +Learned "unbarred and opened." Once within the lines, Jeremy, +unmindful of the crow's feet strewn over the way, made haste through +lane and street to his old home on Beacon Hill. "Could that be his +mother looking out at him through the window-pane?" he thought, as he +drew near. + +She saw him. She knew him. But what could it mean that she did not +open the door to let him in; that she waved him away? It could not be +that she, his own mother, had turned Tory, that her face was grown so +red and angry at the sight of her son. + +Jeremy banged away at the door. There was no answer. + +At last he heard the lifting of a sash, a head, muffled carefully, +appeared from the highest window in the house, and a voice (the lad +knew whose it was) said: "Go, Jeremy! Go away out of Boston as fast as +you can. I'll come to you as soon as it is safe." + +"Why, mother, what's the matter?" cried the boy. + +"Small pox! I've had it. Everybody has it. Go!" + +"Good-by," cried Jeremy, running out of Boston as fast as any British +soldier of them all and a good deal more frightened. He burst into +Aunt Hannah's house with the news that he had been to Boston, that the +soldiers were all gone, that he had seen his mother, that she had the +small-pox and sent him off in a hurry. + +"Tut! tut!" she cried. "It's wicked to tell lies, Jeremy Jagger." + +"I'm not telling lies. Every word is true. Please give me something to +eat." + +But Aunt Hannah did not wait to give the lad food, nor even to speak +the prayer of thanksgiving that went like incense from her heart. She +went into the barn-yard and threw corn on the barn-floor, to which the +hens and turkeys made haste. Closing the door, she summoned Jeremy to +kill the largest and best of them. + +That Sunday afternoon the brick oven glowed with fervent heat, the +white, fat offerings went in, and the golden-brown turkeys and +chickens came out; and as each, in turn, was pronounced "done," Aunt +Hannah repeated the words: "Hungry! hungry! hungry! Hungry all +winter!" + +The big clothes-basket was full of lint for wounds that now never +should be made. Gladly she tossed out the fluffy mass, and packed +within it every dainty the house contained. + +It was nearly sunset when Aunt Hannah and Jeremy started forth, with +the basket between them, to Mr. Wooster's house, hoping that he would +carry it in his wagon up to Boston. He was not at home. + +"Get out the cart," said Aunt Hannah to Jeremy, when they learned no +help was to be obtained. She sat by the roadside watching the basket +until the cart arrived. + +"I'm going with you," she said, after the basket was in; she climbed +to the seat beside the lad, and off they started for Boston. + +It was dark when they reached the lines, and no passes granted, the +officers said, to go in that night. + +"But I've food for the hungry," said Aunt Hannah, in her sweetest +voice, from the darkness of the cart, "and folks are hungry in the +night as well as in the day." + +She deftly threw aside the cover from the basket and took out a +chicken, which she held forth to the man, saying: "Take it. It's +good." + +He hesitated a moment, then seized it eagerly. + +"I know you," spoke up Jeremy, at this juncture. "You went up the Neck +with us this morning. I saw you." + +"Then you are the boy who got first into Boston this morning, are you, +sir?" + +"I believe I did, sir." + +"Go on." + +The oxen went on. + +"Now, Jeremy, down with you and wait here for me. You haven't had +small-pox," said Aunt Hannah. + +"But the oxen won't mind you," said Jeremy. + +Aunt Hannah was troubled. She never had driven oxen. + +At the moment who should appear but Mr. Wooster. He gladly offered to +take the basket and deliver it at Mrs. Jagger's door. + +"Don't go in, mind! Mother's had small-pox," called Jeremy, as he +started. + +"I'm tired," gasped Aunt Hannah, who had done baking enough for a +small army that day, as she sat down to rest on the broad seat of the +cart, and the two started for home. The soldier at the gate scarcely +heeded them as they went out, for roasted chicken "tasted so good." + +"I'm so glad the British are out of Boston," said Aunt Hannah, as she +touched home soil again and went wearily up the walk to the little +dark house. + +"And so am I," said Jeremy to the oxen, as he turned them in for the +night; "only if I'd had my way, they wouldn't have gone without one +good fair fight. You've done your duty, anyhow," he added, soothingly, +with a parting stroke to the honest laborer who went in last, "and you +deserve well of your country, too, for like Gen. Washington, you have +served without hope of reward. The thing I like best about the man is +that he don't work for money. I don't want my sixpence a day for +cutting willows; and--I won't--take it." And he didn't take it, +consoling himself with the reflection "that he would be like Gen. +Washington in one thing, anyhow." + + + + +PUSSY DEAN'S BEACON FIRE. + +March 17, 1776. + + +A hundred years ago the winds of March were blowing. + +To-day the same winds rush by the stone memorials and sweep across the +low mounds that securely cover the men and the women that then were +alive to chill blast and stirring event. Even the lads who gathered at +sound of drum and fife on village green, wishing, as they saw the +troopers march, that they were men, and the little girls who hung +about father's neck because he was going off to war, who watched the +post-riders on their course, wishing that they knew the news he +carried, are no longer with us. + +For nearly two years Boston had been the lost town of the people. It +had been taken from the children by an unkind father and given to +strangers. You have been told how British ships came and closed her +harbor, so that food and raiment could not enter. You know how grandly +the younger sister towns behaved toward stately, hungry Boston; how +they marched up the narrow neck of land that holds back the town from +the sea, each and every one bearing gifts to the beloved town, until +there came the sad and fatal day wherein British military lines turned +back the tide of offerings and closed the gate of entrance. + +Then it was that friends began to gather across the rivers that wound +their waters around Boston. Presently an army grew up and stationed +itself with leaders and banners and forts. + +Summer came. The army waited through all the long warm days. The +summer went; the leaves fell; the chill winds and the cold sea-fogs +wound into and out of the poor little tents and struck the brave men +who, having no tents, tried to be strong and endure. + +Every child knows, or ought to know, the story of that winter; how day +by day, all over New England, men were striving to gather firearms and +powder wherewith to take back from the foe poor Boston. But, alas, +there was not powder enough in all the land to do it. + +The long, wearying winter had done its worst for the prisoned +inhabitants within the town; and, truly, it had tried and pinched the +waiting friends who stood at the gates. + +At last, in March, in the night, the brave helpers climbed the hills, +built on them smaller hills, and by the light of the morning were able +to look over into the town--at which the patriots were glad and the +British commander frightened. + +A little after nine of the clock on Sunday morning, the 17th of +March, 1776, three Narragansett ponies stood before General +Washington's headquarters at Cambridge. + +"Go with all possible speed to Governor Trumbull," said Washington, +delivering despatches to a well-known and trusted messenger, who +instantly mounted one of the ponies in waiting--Sweeping Wind by +name--and rode away, with many a sharp and inquiring glance back at +city and river and camp. + +It was four of the clock in the afternoon, and the messenger had not +paused since he set forth, longer than to give Sweeping Wind water to +drink, when, on the highway in the distance, he saw a red cloak +fluttering and flying before him. + +It was Pussy Dean who wore the cloak. She was fifteen, fair and +lovely, brave and patriotic as any soldier in the land. + +At first she was angry at the law by which she was denied a new cloak +that winter, made of English fabric, but when wrapped in the coveted +broadcloth of scarlet belonging to her mother she was more than +reconciled. + +On this Sunday Pussy had been at the meeting-house on the hill, two +miles from home, at both morning and afternoon service, and afterward +had lingered a little to gather up bits of news from camp and town to +take home to her mother, and so it had happened that she was quite +alone on the highway. + +Pussy chanced to look back to the summit of the hill down which she +had walked, and she saw the express coming. + +"Now," she thought, "if I could only stop him! I wonder if I can't. +I'll try, and then," swinging her silken bag, "I shall have news to +carry home, the very latest, too." + +As she swung the bag she suddenly remembered that she had something +within it to offer the rider. + +"Of course I can," she went on saying to herself. "Post-riders are +always hungry, and it's lucky for him that I didn't have to eat my +dinner myself, to-day. Now, if I only had a basketful of clover heads +or roses for that pony, I'd find out all about Boston while it was +eating." + +The only roses within sight were blooming on Pussy Dean's two cheeks +as Sweeping Wind came clattering his shoes against the frozen ground. +He would have gone straight on had a scarlet cloak not been planted, +like a fluttering standard, full in his pathway. + +The rider gave the pony the slightest possible check, since he felt +sure that no red-coated soldier lurked behind the red cloak. + +"Take something to eat, won't you?" accosted Pussy, rather glowing in +feature and agitated in voice by her own daring. + +Meanwhile the rider had given Sweeping Wind a second intimation to +stand, which he obeyed, and sniffed at Pussy's cloak and cheeks and +silken bag as she held it forth to the rider, saying naively, "I went +to meeting and was invited to luncheon, and so didn't eat mine." She +spoke swiftly, as though she knew she must not detain him. + +He answered with a smile and a "Thank you," took the bag, and rewarded +her by saying, "The British are getting out of Boston, bag and +baggage." + +"And where are you going?" demanded Pussy, determined not to go home +with but half the story if she could help it. + +"To Governor Trumbull with the good news and a demand for two thousand +men to save New York," he cried back, having gone on. His words were +entangled with a mouthful of gingerbread or mince-pie to such an +extent that it was a full minute before Pussy understood their import, +and then she could only say over and over to herself, as she hastened +on, "Father will be here, father will come home, and we'll have the +good old times back again." + +But notwithstanding her hope and a country's wish, the good old times +were not at hand. + +Pussy reached home and told the story. Baby went down plump into the +wooden cradle at the first note of it, and set up a tune of rejoicing +in his own fashion which no one regarded. Brother Benjamin, aged +thirteen, whistled furiously, regardless of the honors of the day. +Sammy, who was ten, clapped his hands and knocked his heels together, +first in joy, and then began to fear lest the war should be over +before he grew big enough to be in it. + +"Mother," said Pussy, a few minutes later, "let Benny come with me to +tell Mr. Gale about it; may he?" + +Pussy laid aside her Sunday bonnet, tied a straw hat over her ears +with a silk kerchief to keep out the wind, and in three minutes got +Benny into the highway. + +"See here, Ben, I'm going to light a fire on Baldhead to tell all the +folks together about it, and I want you to help me; quick, before it +gets dark." + +"You can't gather fagots," responded Ben. + +Yes, she could, and would, and did, while Benny went to the house +nearest to Baldhead to ask for some fire in a kettle. + +The two worked with such vigor and will that the first gathering of +darkness saw the light of the beacon-flame burst forth, and the great +March wind blew it into fiercest glow. Every eye that saw the fire +there knew that it had been kindled with a purpose, and many feet from +house and hamlet set forth to learn the cause. + +While Pussy and Ben were yet adding fagots to the fire, they heard a +voice crying out: "The young rascals shall be punished soundly for +this," and ere Pussy had time to explain or expostulate, a strong man +had Ben in his grasp. + +"Stop that, sir!" cried the girl, rushing to the rescue with a burning +fagot that she had seized from the fire, and shaking it full in the +assailant's face. + +By the light of it, the man saw Pussy and she saw him; and then both +began to laugh, while Ben rubbed his ears and wondered whether they +were both on his head. + +"It means," spoke the girl, waving the still flaming brand toward +the east, "that the British left Boston this morning, and that +General"--(just here a dozen men were at the fire. Pussy raised +her voice and continued)--"Washington wants you all, every one of +you, to march straight to Governor Trumbull, and he'll tell you +what to do next." + +"If that's the case," said the responsible man of the constantly-increasing +group after questioning Pussy, "we'd better summon the militia by the +ringing of the bell," and off they went in the direction of the village, +while Pussy and Ben went home. + +The next day saw fifty men, well armed, and provisioned for three +days, on the road to Lebanon. They marched into town and into the now +famous war-office of Governor Trumbull, to his pleased surprise. + +"Who sent you?" asked the governor, for it was not yet six hours since +the demand on the nearest town had been made. + +"Who sent us?" echoed the lieutenant, looking confused and at a loss +to explain, and finally answering truthfully, he said: "It was a +young girl, your excellency. She lit a beacon fire on a hill and gave +the command that we report to you." + +A laugh ran around the sides of the old war-office. The messenger who +had ridden from Cambridge sat upon the counter pressing his spurs into +the wood and heard it all. + +"And who commissioned the girl as a recruiting officer?" questioned +the governor. + +"I'm afraid," said the messenger, "I am the guilty party. I met a +young patriot in scarlet cloak who asked my news, and, I told her." + +"Where is the girl's father?" demanded Governor Trumbull. + +"He is with the army, at Cambridge," was the response. + +"And his name?" + +"Reuben Dean." + +A scratch or two of the quill pen was heard on the open paper. It was +folded, sealed, and handed to the ready horseman, with the words: +"Reuben Dean; he is mentioned for promotion." + +The words, as they were spoken by Governor Trumbull, were caught up +and gathered into a mighty cheer, for every man of their number knew +that Reuben Dean was worthy of promotion, even had his daughter not +gained it for him by her services as recruiting officer. + + + + +DAVID BUSHNELL AND HIS AMERICAN TURTLE. + +THE FIRST SUBMARINE BOAT INVENTED. + + +"David!" cried a voice stern and commanding, from a house-door one +morning, as the young man who owned the name was taking a short cut +"across lots" in the direction of Pautapoug. + +"Sir!" cried the youth in response to the call, and pausing as nearly +as he could, and at the same time keep his feet from sinking into the +marshy soil. + +"Where are you going?" was the response. + +"To Pautapoug, to see Uriah Hayden, sir." + +"You'd better hire out at ship-building with him. Your college +learning's of no earthly use in these days," said the father of David +Bushnell, returning from the door, and sinking slowly down into his +high-backed chair. + +Then spoke up a sweet-voiced woman from the kitchen fire-side, where +she had that moment been hanging an iron pot on the crane: + +"Have a little patience, father (Mrs. Bushnell always called her +husband, father), David is only looking about to see what to do. It's +hardly four weeks since he was graduated." + +"True enough; but where can you find an idle man in all Saybrook +town? and you know as well as I do that it makes men despise +college-learning to see folks idle. I'd rather, for my part, David +_did_ go to work on the ship Uriah Hayden is building. I wish I +knew what he's gone over there for to-day." + +A funny smile crept into the curves of Mrs. Bushnell's lips, but her +husband did not notice it. + +Mr. Bushnell moved uneasily in his chair, as he sat leaning forward, +both hands clasped about a hickory stick, and his chin resting on the +knob at its top. Presently he said: + +"Anna, I fear David is getting into bad habits. He used to talk a good +deal. Now he sits with his eyes on the floor, and his forehead in +wrinkles, and I'm _sure_ I've heard him moving about more than one +night lately, after all honest folks were in bed." + +"Father, you must remember that you've been very sick, and fever gives +one queer notions sometimes. I shouldn't wonder one bit if you dreamed +you heard something, when 'twas only the rats behind the wainscot." + +"Rats don't step like a grown man in his stocking-feet, nor make the +rafters creak, either." + +Madam Bushnell appeared to be investigating the contents of the pot +hanging on the crane, and perhaps the heat of the blazing wood was +sufficient to account for the burning of her cheeks. She cooled them +a moment later by going down cellar after cider, a mug of which she +offered to her husband, proposing the while that he should have his +chair out of doors, and sit under the sycamore tree by the river-bank. +When he assented, and she had seen him safely in the chair, she made +haste to David's bed-room. + +Since Mr. Bushnell's illness began, no one had ascended to the chamber +except herself and her son. + +On two shelves hanging against the wall were the books that he had +brought home with him from Yale College, just four weeks ago. + +A table was drawn near to the one window in the room. On it were bits +of wood, with iron scraps, fragments of glass and copper. In fact, the +same thing to-day would suggest boat-building to the mother of any lad +finding them among her boy's playthings. To this mother they suggested +nothing beyond the fact that David was engaged in something which he +wished to keep a profound secret. + +He had not told her so. It had not been necessary. She had divined it +and kept silence, having all a mother's confidence in, and hope of, +her son's success in life. + +As she surveyed the place, she thought: + +"There is nothing here, even if he (meaning her husband) should take +it into his head to come up and look about." + +Meanwhile young David had crossed the Pochaug River, and was half the +way to Pautapoug. + +All this happened more than a thousand moons ago, when all the land +was aroused and astir, and David Bushnell was not in the least +surprised to meet, at the ship-yard of Uriah Hayden, Jonathan +Trumbull, Governor of Connecticut. + +This man was everywhere, seeing to everything, in that year. Whatever +his country needed, or Commander-in-chief Washington ordered from the +camp at Cambridge, was forthcoming. + +A ship had been demanded of Connecticut, and so Governor Trumbull had +come down from Lebanon to look with his own eyes at the huge ribs of +oak, thereafter to sail the seas as "The Oliver Cromwell." + +The self-same oaken ribs had intense interest for young David +Bushnell. Uriah Hayden had promised to sell to him all the pieces of +ship-timber that should be left, and while the governor and the +builder planned, he went about gathering together fragments. + +"Better take enough to build a boat that will carry a seine. 'T won't +cost you a mite more, and might serve you a good turn to have a +sizable craft in a heavy sea some day," said Mr. Hayden. + +Now David Bushnell had been wishing that he had some good and +sufficient reason to give Mr. Hayden for wanting the stuff at all, and +here he had given it to him. + +"That's true," spoke up David, "but how am I to get all this over to +Pochaug?" + +"Don't get it over at all, until it's ready to row down the +Connecticut, and around the Sound. You're welcome to build your boat +at the yard, and, now and then, there will be odd minutes that the men +can help you on with it." + +David thanked Mr. Hayden, grew cheerful of heart over the prospect of +owning a boat of his own, and went merrily back to the village of +Pochaug. + +Two weeks later David's boat was ready for sea. It was launched into +the Connecticut from the ways on which the "Oliver Cromwell" grew, was +named Lady Fenwick, and, when water-tight, was rowed down the river, +past Saybrook and Tomb Hill, and so into the Long Island Sound. + +When its owner and navigator went by Tomb Hill, he removed his hat, +and bowed reverently. He thought with respect and admiration of the +occupant of the sandstone tomb on its height, the Lady Fenwick who had +slept there one hundred and thirty years. + +With blistered palms and burning fingers David Bushnell pushed his +boat with pride up the Pochaug River, and tied it to a stake at the +bridge just beyond the sycamore tree, near his father's door. + +"I'll fetch father and mother out to see it," he thought, "when the +moon gets up a little higher." + +With boyish pride he looked down at the work of his hands from the +river-bank, and went in to get his supper. + +"David!" called Mr. Bushnell, having heard his steps in the +entry-way. + +"Here I am, father," returned the young man, appearing within the +room, and speaking in a cheerful tone. + +"Don't you think you have wasted about time enough?" + +The voice was high-wrought and nervous in the extreme. He, poor man, +had been that afternoon thinking the matter over in a convalescent's +weak manner of looking upon the act of another man. + +David Bushnell, smiling still, and taking out a large silver watch +from his waistcoat pocket, and looking at it, replied: + +"I haven't wasted one moment, father. The tide was against me, but +I've rowed around from Pautapoug ship-yard to the sycamore tree out +here since two o'clock." + +"_You_ row a boat!" cried Mr. Bushnell, with lofty disdain. + +"Why, father, you have not a very good opinion of your son, have you?" +questioned the son. "Come, though, and see what he has been doing. +Come, mother," as Mrs. Bushnell entered, bearing David's supper in her +hands. + +She put it down. Mr. Bushnell pulled himself upright with a groan or +two, and suffered David to assist him by the support of his arm as +they went out. + +"Why, you tremble as though you had the palsy," said the father. + +"It's nothing. I'm not used to pulling so long at the oar," said the +son. + +When they came to the bank, the full moon shone athwart the little +boat rocking on the stream. + +"What's that?" exclaimed both parents. + +"That is the Lady Fenwick. I've been building the boat myself. You +advised me, father, to go to ship-building one morning--do you +remember? I took your advice, and began at the bottom of the ladder." + +"_You_ built that boat with your own hands, you say?" + +"With my own hands, sir." + +"In two weeks' time?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"And rowed it all the way down the river, and up the Pochaug?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Good boy! You may go in and have your supper," said Mr. Bushnell, +patting him on the back, just as he had done when he returned from +college with his first award. + +As for Madam Bushnell, she smiled down upon Lady Fenwick and did her +great reverence in her heart, while she said to the boat-builder: + +"David, dear, wait a few minutes, and I'll give you something nice +and warm for your supper. Your father, Ezra and I had ours long ago." + +That night Mr. Bushnell did not lie awake to listen for the stealthy +stepping in the upper room. He slept all the sounder, because he had +at last seen one stroke of honest work, as he called it, as the result +of his endeavors to help David on in life. + +As for David himself, he went to sleep, saying in his heart: "It is a +good stepping-stone at least;" which conclusion grew into form in +sleep, and shaped itself into a mighty monster, that bored itself +under mountains, and, after taking a nap, roused and shook itself so +mightily that the mountain flew into fragments high in air. + +If you go, to-day, into the Connecticut River from Long Island Sound, +you will see on its left bank the old town of Saybrook, on its right +the slightly younger town of Lyme, and you will have passed by, +without having been very much interested in it, an island lying just +within the shelter of either bank. + +In the summer of 1774 a band of fishermen put up a reel upon the +island, on which to wind their seine. Over the reel they built a roof +to protect it from the rains. With the exception of the reel, there +was no building upon the island. A large portion of the land was +submerged at the highest tides, and in the spring freshets, and was +covered with a generous growth of salt grass, in which a small army +might readily find concealment. + +The little fishing band was now sadly broken and lessened by one of +the Washingtonian demands upon Brother Jonathan. For reasons that he +did not choose to give, David Bushnell joined this band of fishermen +in the summer of 1775. Gradually he made himself, by purchase, the +owner of the larger part of the reel and seine. In a few weeks' time +he had induced his brother Ezra to become as much of a fisherman as he +himself was. + +As the days went by, the brothers fairly haunted this island. They +gave it a name for their own use, and, early in the day-dawn of many a +morning, they pulled the Lady Fenwick wearily up the Pochaug, to +snatch a few winks of sleep at home, before the sun should fairly rise +and call them to their daily tasks, for David assumed to help Ezra on +the farm, even as Ezra helped him on the island. + +The two brothers owned the reel and the seine before the end of the +month of August in 1775. As soon as they became the sole owners, they +procured lumber and enclosed the reel, and very seldom took down the +seine from its great round perch; they used it just often enough to +allay any suspicion as to their real object in becoming owners of the +fishing implements. + +About that time a story grew into general belief that the tomb of Lady +Fenwick was haunted. Boatmen, passing in the stillness of the solemn +night hours, asserted that they heard strange noises issuing from the +hill, just where the lady slept in her lonely burial-place. The sounds +seemed to emerge from the earth, and timid men passed up the river +with every inch of sail set to catch the breeze, lest the solemn thud +should sound, that a hundred persons were willing to testify had been +heard by each and every one of them, at some hour of the night, coming +from the tomb. + +One evening in late September, the two brothers started forth as +usual, nominally to "go fishing." As they stepped down the bank, Mr. +Bushnell followed them. + +"Boys," said he, "it's an uncommon fine night on the water. I believe +I'll take a seat in your boat, with your permission. I used to like +fishing myself when I was young and spry." + +"And leave mother alone!" objected David. + +"She's been out with me many a night on the Sound. She's brave, and +won't mind a good south-west wind, such as I dare say breaks in on the +shore this minute. Go and call her." + +And so the family started forth to go fishing. + +This was a night the two brothers had been looking forward to during +weeks of earnest labor, and now--well, it could not be helped, and +there was not a moment in which to hold counsel. + +Mr. Bushnell had planned this surprise early in the day, but had not +told his wife until evening. Then he announced his determination to +"learn what all these midnight and all-night absences did mean." + +As the Lady Fenwick came out from the Pochaug River into the Sound, +the south-west wind brought crested waves to shore. The wind was +increasing, and, to the great relief of David and Ezra, Mr. Bushnell +gave the order to turn back into the river. + +The next day David Bushnell asked his mother whether or not she knew +the reason his father had proposed to go out with them the night +before. + +"Yes, David," was the reply, "I do." + +"Will you tell me?" + +"He does not believe that you and Ezra go fishing at all." + +"What do you believe about it, mother?" + +"I believe in _you_, David, and that when you have anything to tell to +me, I shall be glad to listen." + +"And father does not trust me yet; I am sorry," said David, turning +away. And then, as by a sudden impulse, he returned and said: + +"If you can trust _me_ so entirely, mother, _we_ can trust _you_. +To-day, two gentlemen will be here. You will please be ready to go out +in the boat with us whenever they come." + +"Where to?" + +"To my fishing ground, mother." + +The strangers arrived, and were presented to Mrs. Bushnell as Dr. Gale +and his friend, Mr. Franklin. + +At three of the clock the little family set off in the row-boat. Down +at Pochaug harbor, there was Mr. Bushnell hallooing to them to be +taken on board. + +"I saw my family starting on an unknown voyage," he remarked, as the +boat approached the shore as nearly as it could, while he waded out to +meet it. + +"Ah, Friend Gale, is that you?" he said, as with dripping feet he +stepped in. "And whither bound?" he added, dropping into a seat. + +"For the far and distant land of the unknown, Mr. Bushnell. Permit me +to introduce you to my friend, Mr. Franklin." + +"Franklin! Franklin!" exclaimed Mr. Bushnell, eyeing the stranger a +little rudely. "_Doctor Benjamin Franklin_, _if you please_, Benjamin +Gale!" he corrected, to the utter amazement of the party. + +The oars missed the stroke, caught it again, and, for a minute, poor +Dr. Franklin was confused by the sudden announcement that he existed +at all, and, in particular, in that small boat on the sea. + +"Yes, sir, even so," responded Dr. Gale, cheerfully adding, "and we're +going down to see the new fishing tackle your son is going to catch +the enemy's ships with." + +"Fishing tackle! Enemy's ships! Why, David _is_ the laziest man in all +Saybrook town. He does nothing with his first summer but fish, fish +all night long! The only stroke of honest work I've _ever_ known him +to do was to build this boat we're in." + +During this time the brothers were pulling with a will for the +island. + +Arrived there, the boat was drawn up on the sand, the seine-house +unlocked, and, when the light of day had been let into it, fishing-reel +and seine had disappeared, and, in the language of Doctor Benjamin Gale, +this is what they found therein: + + THE AMERICAN TURTLE. + + "The body, when standing upright, in the position in which it is + navigated, has the nearest resemblance to the two upper shells of + the tortoise, joined together. It is seven and a half feet long, + and six feet high. The person who navigates it enters at the top. + It has a brass top or cover which receives the person's head, as + he sits on a seat, and is fastened on the inside by screws. + + "On this brass head are fixed eight glasses, viz: two before, two + on each side, one behind, and one to look out upwards. On the same + brass head are fixed two brass tubes to admit fresh air when + requisite, and a ventilator at the side, to free the machine from + the air rendered unfit for respiration. + + "On the inside is fixed a barometer, by which he can tell the + depth he is under water; a compass by which he knows the course he + steers. In the barometer, and on the needles of the compass, is + fixed fox-fire--that is, wood that gives light in the dark. His + ballast consists of about nine hundred-weight of lead, which he + carries at the bottom and on the outside of the machine, part of + which is so fixed as he can let run down to the bottom, and serves + as an anchor by which he can ride _ad libitum_. + + "He has a sounding lead fixed at the bow, by which he can take the + depth of water under him, and a forcing-pump by which he can free + the machine at pleasure, and can rise above water, and again + immerge, as occasion requires. + + "In the bow he has a pair of oars fixed like the two opposite arms + of a windmill, with which he can row forward, and, turning them + the opposite way, row the machine backward; another pair, fixed + upon the same model, with which he can row the machine round, + either to the right or left; and a third by which he can row the + machine either up or down; all of which are turned by foot, like a + spinning wheel. The rudder by which he steers he manages by hand, + within-board. + + "All these shafts which pass through the machine are so curiously + fixed as not to admit any water. + + "The magazine for the powder is carried on the hinder part of the + machine, without-board, and so contrived that, when he comes under + the side of a ship, he rubs down the side until he comes to the + keel, and a hook so fixed as that when it touches the keel it + raises a spring which frees the magazine from the machine, and + fastens it to the side of the ship; at the same time it draws a + pin, which sets the watch-work a-going, which, at a given time, + springs the lock, and an explosion ensues." + +Thus wrote Dr. Benjamin Gale to Silas Deane, member of Congress at +Philadelphia. His letter bears the date November 9, 1775, and, after +describing the wonderful machine, he adds: + + "I well know the man. Lately he has conducted matters with the + greatest secrecy, both for the personal safety of the navigator, + and to produce the greater astonishment to those against whom it + is designed; and, you may call me a visionary, an enthusiast, or + what you please, I do insist upon it that I believe the + inspiration of the Almighty has given him understanding for this + very purpose and design." + +When the seine-house door had been fastened open, when Dr. Franklin +and Dr. Gale had gone within, followed by the two brothers, Mr. +Bushnell and his wife stood without looking in, and wondering in +their hearts what the sight they saw could mean; for, of the +intent or purpose of the curious, oaken, iron-bound, many-paddled, +brass-headed, window-lighted thing, they, it must be remembered, knew +nothing. It must mean something extraordinary, of course, or Doctor +Franklin would never have thought it worth his while to come out of +his way to behold it. + +"Father," whispered Mrs. Bushnell, "it's the _fish_ David has been all +summer catching." + +"Fish!" ejaculated Mr. Bushnell, "it's more like a turtle." + +"That's good!" spoke up Dr. Gale, from within. "Turtle it shall be." + +"It is the first _submarine_ boat ever made--a grand idea, wrought +into substance," slowly pronounced Dr. Franklin; "let us have it forth +into the river." + +"And run the risk of discovery?" suggested David, pleased that his +work approved itself to the man of science. + +"We meant to try it last night, but failed," said Ezra Bushnell. + +"There, now, father, don't you wish we had staid at home?" whispered +Mrs. Bushnell. + +"No!" growled the father. "They would have killed themselves getting +it down alone." + +He stepped within and laid his hand on the machine, saying: + +"Anna, you keep watch, and, if any boat heaves in sight, let us know. +Does the Turtle snap, David?" he questioned, putting forth his hand +and laying it cautiously upon the animal. + +"Never, until the word is given," replied the son, and then ten strong +hands applied the strength within them to lift the curious piece of +mechanism and carry it without. + +The seine-house was close to the river-bank, and in a half-hour's time +the American Turtle was in its native element. + +Madam Anna Bushnell kept strict watch over the shores and the river, +but not a sail slid into sight, not an oar troubled the waters of the +tide, as it tossed back the tumble of the down-flowing river. + +It was a hard duty for the mother to perform; for, at a glance toward +the bank, she saw David step into the machine, and the brass cover +close down over his head. She felt suffocating fears for him, as, at +last, the thing began to move into the stream. She saw it go out, she +saw it slowly sinking, going down out of sight, until even the brass +head was submerged. + +Then she forsook her post, and hastened to the bank to keep watch with +the rest. + +One, two, three minutes went by. The men looked at the surface of the +waters, at each other, grew thoughtful, pale; the mother gasped and +dropped on the salt grass, fainting; the brother gave to Lady Fenwick +a running push, bounded on board, and clutched the oars to row swiftly +to the spot where David went down. + +Mr. Bushnell filled his hat with water, and sprinkled the pale face in +the sedge. + +"_There! there!_" cried Dr. Franklin, with distended eyes and eager +outlook. + +"_Where? where?_" ejaculated Dr. Gale, striving to take into vision +the whole surface of the river, at a glance. + +"It's all right! He's coming up _plump_!" shouted Ezra, from his boat, +as he rowed with speed for the spot where a brass tube was rising, +sun-burnished, from the Connecticut. + +Presently the brass head, with its very small windows, emerged, even +the oaken sides were rising,--and Mr. Bushnell was greeting the +returning consciousness of his wife with the words: + +"It's all right, mother. David is safe." + +"Don't let him know," were the first words she spoke, "that his own +mother was so faithless as to doubt!" + +And now, paddle, paddle, toward the river-bank came the Turtle, David +Bushnell's head rising out of its shell, proud confidence shining +forth from his eyes, as feet and hands busied themselves in navigating +the boat that had lived for months in his brain, and now was living, +in very substance, under his control. + +As he neared the bank a shout of acclamation greeted him. + +He reached the island, was fairly dragged forth from his seat, and +carried up to the spot where his mother sat, trying to overcome every +trace of past doubt and fear. + +"Now," said Dr. Gale, "let us give thanks unto Him who hath given +this youth understanding to do this great work." + +With bared heads and devout hearts the thanksgiving went upward, and +thereafter a perfect shower of questions pelted David Bushnell +concerning his device to blow up ships: _how_ he came to think of it +at all--_where_ he got this idea and that as to its construction--to +all of which he simply said: + +"_You'll find your answer in the prayer you've just offered!_" + +"But," said practical Mr. Bushnell, "the Lord did not send you money +to buy oak and iron and brass, did he?" + +"Yes," returned David, "by the hand of my good friend, Dr. Gale. To +him belongs half the victory." + +"Pshaw! pshaw!" impatiently uttered the doctor. "I tell you it is _no +such thing_! I only advanced My Lady here," turning to Madam Bushnell, +"a little money, on her promise to pay me at some future time. I'm +mightily ashamed _now_ that I took the promise at all. Madam Bushnell, +I'll never take a penny of it back again, _never_, as long as I live. +I _will_ have a little of the credit of this achievement, and no one +shall hinder me." + +"How is that, mother?" questioned Mr. Bushnell. "_You_ borrow money +and not tell me!" and David and Ezra looked at her. + +"I--I--" stammered forth the woman, "I only _guessed_ that David was +doing something that he wanted money for, and told Dr. Gale if he +gave it to him I would repay it. Do you _care_, father?" + +Before he had a chance to get an answer in, David Bushnell stepped +forward, and, taking the little figure of his mother in his arms, +kissed her sharply, and walked away, to give some imaginary attention +to the Turtle at the bank. + +"It is a fair land to work for!" spoke up Doctor Franklin, looking +about upon river and earth and sea; "worthy it is of our highest +efforts; of our lives, even, if need be. God give us strength as our +need _shall_ be." + +With many a tug and pull and hearty heave-ho, the Turtle was hoisted +up the bank and safely drawn into the seine-house. The door was +locked, and Lady Fenwick's tomb gave forth no sound that night. + +Doctor Franklin went his way to Boston. Doctor Gale returned to +Killingworth and his waiting patients, and the Bushnells, father, +mother and sons, having put the two gentlemen on the Saybrook shore, +went down the river into the Sound, along its edge, and up the small +Pochaug to their own home by the sycamore tree. + +Mr. Bushnell and Ezra did the rowing that night. David's white hands +had, somehow, a new radiance in them for his father's eyes, and did +not seem exactly fitted for rowing just a common boat and every-day +oars. + +The young man sat in the stern, beside his mother, one arm around her +waist, and the other clasped closely between her little palms, while, +now and then, her finding eyes would penetrate his consciousness with +a glance that seemed to say, "I always believed in you, David." + + * * * * * + +If you go to-day and stand upon the site of the old fort, built at the +mouth of the Connecticut River, in the year 1635, by Lion Gardiner, +once engineer in the service of the Prince of Orange, and search the +waters up and down for the island on which David Bushnell built the +American Turtle in 1775, you will not find it. + +If you seek the oldest inhabitant of Saybrook, and ask him to point +out its locality, he will say, with boyhood's fondness for olden +play-grounds in his tone: + +"Ah, yes! It is _Poverty_ Island that you mean. It used to be there, +but spring freshets and beating storms have washed it away." + +The unexpected visit of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, to see the machine +David Bushnell was building, gave new force to that young gentleman's +confidence in his own powers of invention. + +He worked with increased energy and hope to perfect boat and magazine, +that he might do good service with them before winter should fall on +the waters of the Massachusetts Bay, where the hostile ships were +lying. + +At last came the day wherein the final trial-trip should be made. The +pumps built by Mr. Doolittle, but not according to order, had failed +once, but new ones had been supplied, and everything seemed +propitious. David and Ezra, with their mother in the boat, rowed once +more to Poverty Island. "On the morrow the great venture should +begin," they said. + +The time was mid-October. The forests had wrapped the cooling coast in +warmth of coloring that was soft and many-hued as the shawls of +Cashmere, while the sun-made fringe of goldenrod fell along the shores +of river and island and sea. + +Mrs. Bushnell's heart beat proudly above the fond affection that could +not suppress a shiver, as the Turtle was pushed into the stream. She +could not help seeing that David made a line fast from the seine-house +to his boat ere he went down. They watched many minutes to see him +rise to the surface, but he did not. + +"Mother," said Ezra, "the pump for forcing water out when he wants to +rise don't work, and we must pull him in. He feared it." + +As he spoke the words he laid hold on the line, and began gently to +draw on it. + +"Hurry! hurry! _do!_" cried Mrs. Bushnell, seizing the same line close +to the water's edge, and drawing on it with all her strength. She was +vexed that Ezra had not told her the danger in the beginning, and she +"knew _very_ well that SHE would not have stood there and let David +die of suffocation, in that horrid, brass-topped coffin!" + +"Hold, mother!" cried Ezra; "pull gently, or the line may part on some +barnacled rock if it gets caught." + +Nevertheless, Mrs. Bushnell pulled in as fast as she could. + +The tide was sweeping up the river, and a shark, in hard chase after a +school of menhaden, swam steadily up, with fin out of water. + +Just as the shark reached the place, he made a dive, and the rope +parted! + +Mrs. Bushnell screamed a word or two of the terror that had seized +her. Ezra looked up, amazed to find the rope coming in so readily, +hand over hand. He cast it down, sprang to the boat, and pushed off to +the possible rescue, only to find that the Turtle was making for the +river-bank instead of the island. + +He rowed to the spot. His brother, for the first time in his life, was +overcome with disappointment and disinclined to talk. + +"I--I," said David, wiping his forehead. "I grew tired, and made for +shore. The tide was taking me up fast." + +"Did you let go the line?" questioned Ezra. + +"Yes." + +"The pump works all right, then?" + +"Yes." + +"You've frightened mother terribly." + +"Have I? I never thought. I _forgot_ she was here. Let us get back, +then;" and the two brothers, without speaking a word, rowed down +against the sweep of tide, the great Turtle in tow. + +The three went home, still keeping a silence broken only by briefest +possible question and answer. + +The golden October night fell upon the old town. Pochaug River, its +lone line of silver gathered in many a stretch of interval into which +the moon looked calmly down, lay on the land for many a mile. + +Again and again, during the evening, David Bushnell went out from the +house and stood silently on the rough bridge that crossed the river by +the door. + +"Let David alone, mother," urged Ezra, as she was about to follow him +on one occasion. "He is thinking out something, and is better alone." + +That which the young man was thinking at the moment was, that he +wished the moon would hurry and go down. He longed for darkness. + +The night was growing cold. Frost was in the air. + +As he stood on the rough logs, a post-rider, hurrying by with letters, +came up. + +"Holloa there!" he called aloud, not liking the looks of the man on +the bridge. + +"It's I,--David Bushnell, Joe Downs! You can ride by in safety," he +responded, ringing out one of his merriest chimes of laughter at the +very idea of being taken for a highwayman. + +"I've news," said Joe; "want it?" + +"Yes." + +Joe Downs opened his pocket, and, by the light of the moon, found the +letter he had referred to. + +"Dr. Gale told me not to fail to put this into your hands as I came +by. I should kind o' judge, by the way he _spoke_, that the continent +couldn't get along very well _'thout you_, if I hadn't known a thing +or two. Howsomever, here's the letter, and I've to jog on to Guilford +afore the moon goes down. So good-night." + +"Good night, Joe. Thank you for stopping," said David, going into the +house. + +"Were you expecting that letter, David?" questioned Mr. Bushnell, when +it had been read. + +"No, sir. It is from Dr. Gale. He asks me to hasten matters as far as +possible, but a new contrivance will have to go in before I am +ready." + +"There! _That's_ what troubles him," thought both Mrs. Bushnell and +Ezra, and they exchanged glances of sympathy and satisfaction--and the +little household went to sleep, quite care-free that night. + +At two of the clock, with nearly noiseless tread, David Bushnell left +the house. + +As the door closed his mother moved uneasily in her sleep, and awoke +with the sudden consciousness that something uncanny had happened. She +looked from a window and saw, by the light of a low-lying moon, that +David had gone out. + +Without awakening her husband she protected herself with needful +clothing, and, wrapped about in one of the curious plaid blankets of +mingled blue and white, adorned with white fringe, that are yet to be +found in the land, she followed into the night. + +Save for the sleepy tinkle of the water over the stones in the Pochaug +River, and an occasional cry of a night-bird still lingering by the +sea, the air was very still. + +With light tread across the bridge she ran a little way, and then +ventured a timid cry of her own into the night: + +"David! David!" + +Now David Bushnell hoped to escape without awakening his mother. He +was lingering near, to learn whether his going had disturbed anyone, +and he was quite prepared for the call. + +Turning back to meet her he thought: "_What_ a mother _mine_ is." And +he said, "Well, mother, what is it? I was afraid I might disturb +you." + +"O David!" was all that she could utter in response. + +"And so _you_ are troubled about me, are you? I'm only going to chase +the will-o'-the-wisp a little while, and I could not do it, you know, +until moon-down." + +"_O_ David!" and this time with emphatic pressure on his arm, "David, +come home. _I_ can't let you go off alone." + +"Come with me, then. You're well blanketed, I see. I'd much rather +have some one with me, only Ezra was tired and sleepy." + +He said this with so much of his accustomed manner that Mrs. Bushnell +put her hand within his arm and went on, quite content now, and +willing that he should speak when it pleased him to do so, and it +pleased him very soon. + +"Little mother," he said, "I am afraid you are losing faith in me." + +"Never! David; only--I _was_ a little afraid that you were losing your +own head, or faith in yourself." + +"No; but I _am_ afraid I've lost my faith in something else. I showed +you the two bits of fox-fire that were crossed on one end of the +needle in the compass, and the one bit made fast to the other? Well, +to-day, when I went to the bottom of the river, the fox-fire gave no +light, and the compass was useless. Can you understand how bad that +would be under an enemy's ship, not to know in which direction to +navigate?" + +"You must have fresh fire, then." + +"_That_ is just what I am out for to-night. I had to wait till the +moon was gone." + +"Oh! is _that_ all? How foolish I have been! but you ought to tell me +some things, sometimes, David." + +"And so I will. I tell you now that it will be well for you to go home +and go to sleep. I may have to go deep into the woods to find the fire +I want." + +But his mother only walked by his side a little faster than before, +and on they went to a place where a bit of woodland had grown up above +fallen trees. + +They searched in places wherein both had seen the fire of decaying +wood a hundred times, but not one gleam of phosphorescence could be +found anywhere. At last they turned to go homeward. + +"What will you do, David? Go and search in the Killingworth woods +to-morrow night?" she asked, as they drew near home. + +"It is of no use," he said, with a sigh. "It _must_ be that the frost +destroys the fox-fire. Unless Dr. Franklin knows of a light that will +not eat up the air, everything must be put off until spring." + +The next day David Bushnell went to Killingworth, to tell the story to +Dr. Gale, and Dr. Gale wrote to Silas Deane (Conn. Historical Col., +Vol. 2), begging him to inquire of Dr. Franklin concerning the +possibility of using the Philosopher's Lantern, but no light was +found, and the poor Turtle was housed in the seine-house on Poverty +Island during the long winter, which proved to be one of great +mildness from late December to mid-February. + +In February we find David Bushnell before Governor Jonathan Trumbull +and his Council at Lebanon, to tell about and illustrate the marvels +of his wonderful machine. + +During this time the whole affair had been kept a profound secret +from all but the faithful few surrounding the inventor. And now, if +ever, the time was drawing near wherein the labor and outlay must +either repay laborer and lender, or give to both great trouble and +distress. + +I cannot tell you with what trepidation the young man walked into the +War Office at Lebanon, with a very small Turtle under his arm. + +You will please remember the situation of the colonists at that +moment. On the land they feared not to contend with Englishmen. Love +of liberty in the Provincials was strong enough, when united with a +trusty musket and a fair supply of powder, to encounter red-coated +regulars of the British army; but on the ocean, and in every bay, +harbor and river, they were powerless. The enemy's ships had kept +Boston in siege for nearly two years, the Americans having no opposing +force to contend with them. + +Could this little Turtle, which David Bushnell carried under his arm, +do the work he wished it to, why, every ship of the line could be +blown into the air! + +The inventor had faith in his invention, but he feared, when he looked +into the faces of the grave Governor and his Council of War, that he +could _never_ impart his own belief to them. + +I cannot tell you with what trust of heart and faith of soul Mrs. +Bushnell kept the February day in the house by the bridge at Pochaug. +Even the strong-minded, sturdy-nerved Mr. Bushnell looked often up +the road by which David and Ezra would approach from Lebanon, with a +keen interest in his eyes; but he would not let any word escape him, +until darkness had fallen and they were not come. + +"He said he would be here at eight, at the very latest," said the +mother at length, and she went to the fire and placed before the +burning coals two chickens to broil. + +"I'm afraid David won't have much appetite, unless his model _should_ +be approved, and money is too precious to spend on _experiments_," +said Mr. Bushnell, as she returned to his side. + +"Do you mean to tell me you _doubt_?" + +"Of course I doubt. Jonathan Trumbull is a man not at all likely to +give his consent to anything that does not commend itself to common +sense." + +Mr. Bushnell was saved the pain of saying his thought, that he was +afraid, if David's plan was a good one, _somebody_ would have thought +of it long ago, for vigorous knuckles were at work upon the +winter-door. + +As soon as it was opened the genial form of good Dr. Gale stood +revealed. + +"Are the boys back yet?" he asked, stepping within. + +"No, but we expect them every minute," said Mr. Bushnell. + +"Well, friends, I had a patient within three miles of you to visit, +and I thought I'd come on and hear the news." + +Ere he was fully made welcome to hearth and home, in walked David, +with the little Turtle under his arm. Without ado he went up to his +mother and said: + +"Madam, I present this to you, with Governor Trumbull's compliments. +He has ordered your boy money, men, metals and powder without stint to +work with. _Wish me joy, won't you?_" + +I do not anywhere find a record of the words in which the joy was +wished, on that 2nd of February, a hundred years ago, but it is easy +to imagine the very tones in which the good, God-loving Dr. Gale gave +thanks for the new blessing that had that day fallen on his friend's +house. + +It is impossible to follow David Bushnell in his many journeys to the +iron furnaces of Salisbury, in the spring and early summer of 1776, +during which time the entire country was aroused and astir from the +removal of the American army from Boston to New York; and our friends +at Saybrook were busy as bees from morning till night, in getting +ready perfect machines for duty. + +David Bushnell's strength proved insufficient to navigate one of his +Turtles in the tidal waters of the Sound, and his brother Ezra learned +to do it most perfectly. + +In the latter end of June, the British fleet, which had sailed out of +Boston harbor so ingloriously on the 17th of March, for Halifax, there +to await re-inforcements, appeared in waters adjacent to New York. + +The signal of their approach was gladly hailed by the inventor and by +the navigator of the American Turtle. + +A whale-boat from New London, her seamen sworn to inviolable secrecy, +was ordered to be in the river at a given point, on a given night, for +a service of which the men were utterly ignorant. + +On the evening previous, Ezra Bushnell, overworn by many attempts at +navigating the machine, was taken seriously ill. At midnight he was +delirious--at day-dawn Dr. Gale was sent for. + +When night fell he was in a raging fever, with no prospect of rapid +recovery. + +David set off alone, and with a heavy heart, to meet the boatmen. In +the seine-house on Poverty Island the brothers had stored provisions +for a cruise of several days. To this spot David Bushnell went alone, +and with a saddened heart, for he knew that it must be many days ere +he could learn of his brother's condition. + +The New London boatmen were promptly at the appointed place of +meeting. + +When they saw the curious thing they were told to take in tow, their +curiosity knew no bounds; and it was only when assured that it was +dangerous to examine it, that they desisted from their determination +to know all about it, and consented to obey orders. + +When, at last, a departure was made, the hour was midnight, the tide +served, and no ill-timed discovery was made of the deed. + +The strong-armed boatmen rowed well and long, and, as daylight dawned, +they were directed to keep a look-out for Faulkner's Island, a small +bit of land in the Sound, nearly five miles from the Connecticut +shore. + +The flashing light that illumines the waters at night for us, did not +gleam on them, but nevertheless, the high brown bank and the little +slope of land looked inviting to weary men, as they cautiously rowed +near to it, not knowing whom they might meet there. + +They landed, made a fire, cooked their food, ate of it, and lay down +to sleep until night should come again. + +They set out early in the ensuing twilight, and rowed westward all +night, in the face of a gentle wind. + +"If there were only another Faulkner's Island to flee to," said Mr. +Bushnell, as morning drew near. "Do you know (to one of the men) a +safe place to hide in on this coast?" + +They were then off Merwin's Point, and between West Haven and +Milford. + +"There's Poquahaug," was the reply, with a momentary catch of the oar, +and incline of the head toward the south-west. + +"_What_ is Poquahaug?" + +"A little island, pretty well in, close to shore, as it were, and, +maybe, deserted." + +After deliberate council had been held it was resolved to examine the +locality. + +A few years after New Haven and Milford churches were formed under the +oak-tree at New Haven, this little island, to which they were fleeing +to hide the Turtle from daylight, was "granted to Charles Deal for a +tobacco plantation, provided that he would not trade with the Dutch or +Indians;" but now Indians, Dutch and Charles Deal alike had left it, +the latter with a rude, sheltering building in place of Ansantawae's +big summer wigwam that used to adorn its crest. + +To this spot, bright with grass, and green with full-foliaged trees of +oak on its eastern shore, the weary boatmen, who had had a long, hard +pull of twenty miles to make, came, just as the longest day's sun was +at its rising. + +They were so glad and relieved _and_ satisfied to find no one on it. + +The Turtle was left at anchor near the shore; the whale-boat gave up +of its provisions, and presently the little camp was in the enjoyment +of a long day of rest and refreshment. + +Should anyone approach from the seaward or from the mainland, it was +determined that the party should resolve itself into a band of +fishermen, fishing for striped bass, for which the locality was well +known. + +As the day wore on, and the falling tide revealed a line of stones +that gradually increased, as the water fell, to a bar a hundred feet +wide, stretching from the island to the sands of the Connecticut +shore, David Bushnell perceived that the locality was just the proper +place in which to learn and teach the art of navigating the Turtle. He +examined the region well, and then called the men together. + +They were staunch, good-hearted fellows, accustomed to long pulls in +northern seas after whales, and that they were patriotic he fully +believed. The Turtle was drawn up under the grassy bank, where the +long sedge half hid, and bushels of rock-weed and sea-drift wholly +concealed it, and then, in a few carefully-chosen words, David +Bushnell entrusted it to the watch and care of the boatmen. + +"I am going to leave it here, and you with it, until I return," he +said. "Guard it with your lives if need be. If you handle it, it will +be at the risk of life. If you keep it _well_, Congress will reward +you." + +The mystery of the whole affair enchanted the men. They made faithful +promises, and, in the glorious twilight of the evening, rowed David +Bushnell across the beautiful stretch of Sound that to-day separates +Charles Island from the comely old town of Milford. + +As the whale-boat went up the harbor, a sailing vessel was getting +ready to depart. + +Finding that it was bound to New York, David Bushnell took passage in +it the same night. + +Two days later, with a letter from Governor Trumbull to General +Washington as his introduction, the young man, by command of the +latter, sought out General Parsons, and "requested him to furnish him +with two or three men to learn the navigation of his new machine. +General Parsons immediately sent for Ezra Lee, then a sergeant, and +two others, who had _offered_ their services to go on board a +fireship; and, on Bushnell's request being made known to them, they +enlisted themselves under him for this novel piece of service." + +Returning to Poquahaug (the Indian name of Charles Island), the +American Turtle was found safe and sound. Here the little party spent +many days in experimenting with it in the waters about the island; and +in the Housatonic River. + +During this time the enemy had got possession of a portion of Long +Island, and of Governor's Island in the harbor--thus preventing the +approach to New York by the East River. + +When the appalling news of the battle of Long Island reached David +Bushnell, he resolved, cost what it might of danger to himself, or +hazard to the Turtle, to get it to New York with all speed. + +To that end he had it conveyed by water to New Rochelle, there landed +and carried across the country to the Hudson River, and presently we +hear of it as being on a certain night, late in August, ready to start +on its perilous enterprise. + +If you will go to-day and stand where the Turtle floated that night +(for the land has since that time grown outward into the sea), on your +right hand across the Hudson River, you will see New Jersey. At your +left, across the East River, Long Island begins, with the beautiful +Governor's Island in the bay just before you, and, looking to the +southward, in the distance, you will discern Staten Island. + +Let us go back to that day and hour. + +The precise date of the Turtle's voyage down the bay is not given, but +the time must have been on the night of either the thirtieth or +thirty-first of August. We will choose the thirtieth, and imagine +ourselves standing in the crowd by the side of Generals Washington and +Putnam, to see the machine start. + +Remember, now, where we stand. It is only _last_ night that _our_ +army, defeated, dispirited, exhausted by battle, lay across the river +on Brooklyn Heights. Behind it, busy with pickaxe and shovel, the +victorious troops of Mother England were making ready to "finish" the +Americans on the morrow. + +There were supposed to be twenty-four thousand of the enemy, only nine +thousand Continentals; and, just ready to enter East River and cut +them off from New York, lay the British fleet to the north of Staten +Island. + +As happened at Boston in March, so happened it last night in New York, +a friendly fog held the heights of Brooklyn in its grasp, while at New +York all was clear. + +Under cover of this fog General Washington withdrew across the river, +a mile or more in width, _nine thousand men_, with all their +"baggage, stores, provisions, horses, and munitions of war," and not a +man of the enemy knew that they were gone until the fog lifted. + +Now, as we stand, Long Island, Governor's Island, Staten Island, one +and all are under the control of Britons. + +David Bushnell is in a whale-boat, down close to the Turtle, giving +some last important words of direction to brave Ezra Lee, who has +stepped within it. David Bushnell could not help wishing, as he did +so, that he could take his place and guide the spirit of the child of +his own creation, in its first great encounter with the world. + +The word is given. The brass top of the Turtle is shut down. Watchful +eyes and swift rowers belonging to the enemy are keeping guard on +Governor's Island, by which Ezra Lee must row, and it is safer to go +under water. How crowded this little pier would be, did the +inhabitants but know what is going on! + +The whale-boats start out, David Bushnell in one of them. They mean to +take the Turtle in tow the minute it is safe to do so and save Ezra +Lee the labor of rowing it until the last minute. + +It is eleven o'clock. All silently they dip the oars, and hear the +sentinels cry from camp and shore. + +Past the island, in safety, at last. They look for the Turtle. Up it +comes, a distant watch-light gleaming across its brass head disclosing +its presence. Once more it is in tow, and Lee is in the whale-boat. + +Down the bay they go, until the lights from the fleet grow dangerously +near. + +On the wide, wind-stirred waters of New York Bay, Ezra Lee gets into +the Turtle, and is cast off, and left alone, for the whale-boats +return to New York. + +With the rudder in his hand, and his _feet_ upon the oars, he pursues +his way. The strong ebb tide flows fast, and, before he is aware of +it, it has drifted him down past the men-of-war. + +However, he immediately _gets the machine about_, and, "by hard labor +at the crank for the space of five glasses by the ships' bells, or two +and a half hours, he arrives under the stern of one of the ships at +about slack water." + +Day is now beginning to dawn. He can see the people on board, and hear +them talk. + +The moment has come for diving. He closes up quickly overhead, lets in +the water, and goes down under the ship's bottom. + +He now applies the screw and does all in his power to make it enter, +but in vain; it will not pierce the ship's copper. Undaunted, he +paddles along to a different part, hoping to find a softer place; but, +in doing this, in his hurry and excitement, he manages the mechanism +so that the Turtle instantly arises to the surface on the east side of +the ship, and is at once exposed to the piercing light of day. + +Again he goes under, hoping that he has not been seen. + +This time his courage fails. It is getting to be day. If the ship's +boats are sent after him his escape will be very difficult, well-nigh +impossible, and, if he saves himself at all, it must be by rowing more +than four miles. + +He gives up the enterprise with reluctance, and starts for New York. + +Governor's Island _must_ be passed by. He draws near to it, as near as +he can venture, and then submerges the Turtle. Alas! something has +befallen the compass. It will not guide the rowing under the sea. + +Every few minutes he is compelled to rise to the surface to look out +from the top of the machine to guide his course, and his track grows +very zig-zag through the waters. + +Ah! the soldiers at Governor's Island see the Turtle! Hundreds are +gathering upon the parapet to watch its motions, such a curious boat +as it is, with turret of brass bobbing up and down, sinking, +disappearing--coming to the surface again in a manner _wholly_ +unaccountable. + +Brave Lee knows his danger, and paddles away for dear life and love of +family up in Lyme, eating breakfast quietly now he remembers, not +knowing his peril. + +Once more he goes up to take a lookout, to see where White-hall slip +lies. + +A glance at Governor's Island, and he sees a barge shove off laden +with his enemies. + +Down again, and up, and he sees it making for him. _There is no +escape!_ What _can_ he do! + +"If I must die," he thinks, "they shall die with me!" and he lets go +the magazine. + +Nearer and nearer--the barge is _very_ close. "If they pick me up they +will pick that up," thinks Lee, "and we shall all be blown to atoms +together!" + +They are now within a hundred and fifty feet of the Turtle and they +see the magazine that he has detached. + +"Some horrible Yankee trick!" cries a British soldier. "_Beware!_" And +they do beware by turning and rowing with all speed for the island +whence they came. + +Poor Lee looks out with amazement to see them go. He is well-nigh +exhausted, _and the magazine, with its dreadful clock-work going on +within it, and its hundred and fifty pounds of powder, ready to go off +at a given moment_, is floating on behind him, borne by the tide. + +He strains every muscle to near New York. He signals the shore. + +Since daylight Putnam has been there keeping watch. David Bushnell has +paced up and down all night, in keen anxiety. + +The friendly whale-boats put out to meet him. + +Meanwhile, slowly borne by the coming tide, the magazine floats into +the East River. + +"It will blow up in five minutes now," says Bushnell, looking at his +watch, and he goes to welcome Ezra Lee. + +The five minutes go by. + +Suddenly, with tremendous voice, and awful uproar of the sea, the +magazine explodes. + +Columns of water toss high in air, mingled with the oaken ribs that +held the powder but a minute ago. + +Consternation seizes British troops on Long Island. The brave soldiers +on the parapet at Governor's Island quake with fear. All New York +rushes to the river-side to find out what it can mean. Nothing, on all +the face of the earth, _ever_ happened like it before, one and all +declare. + +Opinion varies concerning it, from bomb to earthquake, from meteor to +water-spout, and settles down on neither. + +Poor Ezra Lee feels that he _meant_ well, but did not act wisely. +David Bushnell praises the sergeant, and takes all the want of success +to himself, in not going to do his own work. + +Meanwhile, with astonishment, Generals Washington and Putnam and David +Bushnell himself behold, as did the Provincials, _after_ the battle of +_Bunker-Breed's_ Hill, _victory in defeat_, for lo! no British ship +sails up the East River, or appears to bombard New York. + +Silently they weigh anchor and drop down the bay. The little American +Turtle gained a bloodless victory that day. + + + NOTE.--The writer has carefully followed, in the account of the + Turtle's attempt upon the Eagle, the statement of Ezra Lee, made + to Mr. Charles Griswold of Lyme, more than forty years after the + occurrence, and by him communicated to the _American Journal of + Science and Arts_ in 1820. For the description of the wonderful + mechanism of the machine, the account given _at the time_ by Dr. + Gale in his letters to Silas Deane has been chosen, as probably + more accurate than one made from memory after forty years had + passed. + + * * * * * + +David Bushnell was appointed from civil life Captain-Lieutenant of a +Corps of Sappers and Miners--recommended for the position by Governor +Trumbull, General Parsons and others. June 8, 1781, he was promoted +full Captain. He was present at the siege of Yorktown and commanded +the Corps in 1783. + +He was also a member of the Society of the Cincinnati. + + + + +THE BIRTHDAY OF OUR NATION. + + +Bellman Grey and Blue-Eyed Boy were hurrying up Chestnut street; the +man carried a large key, the boy a new broom. + +It was a very warm morning in a very warm month of a very warm year; +in fact it may as well be stated at once that it was the Fourth day of +July, 1776, and that Bellman Grey and Blue-Eyed Boy were in haste to +make ready the State House of Pennsylvania for the birth of the United +States of America. No wonder they were in a hurry. + +In fact, everybody seemed in a hurry that day; for before Bellman Grey +had whisked that new broom over the floor of Congress Hall, in walked, +arm-in-arm, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. + +"Good morning, gentlemen," said Bellman Grey. "You'll find the dust +settled in the committee-room. I'm cleaning house a little extra +to-day for the expected visitor." + +"For the coming heir?" said Mr. Adams. + +"When Liberty comes, She comes to stay," said Mr. Jefferson, +half-suffocated with the dust; and the two retreated to the +committee-room. + +Blue-Eyed Boy was polishing with his silken duster the red morocco of +a chair as the gentlemen opened the door. He heard one of them say, +"If Cæsar Rodney gets here, it will be done." + +"If it's done," said the boy, "won't you, please, Mr. Adams, won't +you, please, Mr. Jefferson, let me carry the news to General +Washington?" + +The two gentlemen looked either at the other, and both at the lad, in +smiling wonder. + +"If what is done?" asked Mr. Adams. + +"If the thing is voted and signed and made sure," (just here Blue-Eyed +Boy waved his duster of a flag and stood himself as erect as a +flagpole;) "if the tree's transplanted, if the ship gets off the ways, +if we run clear away from King George, sir; so far away that he'll +never catch us." + +"And why do you, my lad, wish to carry the news to General Washington?" +asked Mr. Jefferson. + +"Because," said the boy, "why--wouldn't you? It'll be jolly work for +the soldiers when they know they can fight for themselves." + +Just here Bellman Grey shouted for Blue-Eyed Boy, bidding him come +quick and be spry with his dusting, too. + +Before the hall was cleared of the accumulated dust of State-rooms +above and Congress-rooms below, in came members of the Congress, +one-by-one and two-by-two, and in groups. The doors were locked, and +the solemn deliberations began. Within that room, now known as +Independence Hall, sat, in solemn conclave, half a hundred men, each +and every one of whom knew full well that the deed about to be done +would endanger his own life. + +On a table lay a paper, awaiting signatures. A silver ink-stand held +the ink that trembled and wavered to the sound and stir of John +Adams's voice, as he stated once more the why and the wherefore of the +step America was about to take. + +This final statement was made for the especial enlightenment of three +gentlemen, new members of the Congress from New Jersey, and in reply +to the reasons given by Mr. Dickinson why the Declaration of +Independence should _not_ be made. + +In the meantime Bellman Grey was up in the steeple, "seeing what he +could see," and Blue-Eyed Boy was answering knocks at the entrance +doors; then running up the stairs to tell the scraps of news that he +had gleaned through open door, or crack, or key-hole. + +The day wore on; outside a great and greater crowd surged every moment +against the walls; but the walls of the State House were thick, and +the crowd was hushed to silence, with intense longing to hear what was +going on inside. + +From his high-up place in the belfry, where he had been on watch, +Bellman Grey espied a figure on horseback, hurrying toward the scene; +the horse was white with heat and hurry; the rider's "face was no +bigger than an apple," but it was a face of importance that day. + +"Run!" shouted Bellman Grey from the belfry. "Run and tell them that +Mr. Rodney comes." + +The boy descended the staircase with a bound and a leap and a thump +against the door, and announced Cæsar Rodney's approach. + +In he came, weary with his eighty miles in the saddle, through heat +and hunger and dust, for Delaware had sent her son in haste to the +scene. + +The door closed behind him and all was as still and solemn as before. + +Up in the belfry the old man stroked fondly the tongue of the bell, +and softly said under his breath again and again as the hours went: +"They will never do it; they will never do it." + +The boy sat on the lowest step of the staircase, alternately peeping +through the key-hole with eye to see and with ear to hear. At last, +came a stir within the room. He peeped again. He saw Mr. Hancock, with +white and solemn face, bend over the paper on the table, stretch forth +his hand, and dip the pen in the ink. He watched that hand and arm +curve the pen to and fro over the paper, and then he was away up the +stairs like a cat. + +Breathless with haste, he cried up the belfry: "_He's a doing it, he +is!_ I saw him through the key-hole. Mr. Hancock has put his name to +that big paper on the table." + +"Go back! go back! you young fool, and keep watch, and tell me quick +when to ring!" cried down the voice of Bellman Grey, as he wiped for +the hundredth time the damp heat from his forehead and the dust from +the iron tongue beside him. + +Blue-Eyed Boy went back and peeped again just in time to see Mr. +Samuel Adams in the chair, pen in hand. + +One by one, in "solemn silence all," the members wrote their names, +each one knowing full well, that unless the Colonists could fight +longer and stronger than Great Britain, that signature would prove his +own death-warrant. + +It was fitting that the men who wrote their names that day should +write with solemn deliberation. + +Blue-Eyed Boy peeped again. "I hope they're almost done," he sighed; +"and I reckon they are, for Mr. Rodney has the pen now. My! how tired +and hot his face looks! I don't believe he has had any more dinner +to-day than I have, and I feel most awful empty. It's almost night by +this time, too." + +At length the long list was complete. Every man then present had +signed the Declaration of Independence, except Mr. Dickinson of +Pennsylvania. + +And now came the moment wherein the news should begin its journey +around the world. The Speaker, Mr. Thompson, arose and made the +announcement to the very men who already knew it. + +Blue-Eyed Boy peeped with his ear and heard the words through the +key-hole. + +With a shout and a cry of "Ring! ring!" and a clapping of hands, he +rushed upward to the belfry. The words, springing from his lips like +arrows, sped their way into the ears and hands of Bellman Grey. +Grasping the iron tongue of the old bell, backward and forward he +hurled it a hundred times, its loud voice proclaiming to all the +people that down in Independence Hall a new nation was born to the +earth that day. + +When the members heard its tones swinging out the joyous notes they +marvelled, because no one had authorized the announcement. When the +key was turned from within, and the door opened, there stood the +mystery facing them, in the person of Blue-Eyed Boy. + +"I told him to ring; I heard the news!" he shouted, and opened the +State House doors to let the Congress out and all the world in. + +You know the rest; the acclamation of the multitude, the common peals +(they forgot to be careful of powder that night in the staid old +city), the big bonfires, and the illuminations that rang and roared +and boomed and burned from Delaware to Schuylkill. + +In the waning light of the latest bonfire, up from the city of Penn, +rode our Blue-Eyed Boy--true to his purpose to be the first to carry +the glad news to General Washington. + +"It will be like meeting an old friend," he thought; for had he not +seen the commander-in-chief every day going in and out of the Congress +Hall during his visit to Philadelphia only a month ago? + +The self-appointed courier never deemed other evidence of the truth of +his news needful than his own "word of mouth." He rode a strong young +horse, which, early in the year, had been left in his care by a +southern officer when on his way to the camp at Cambridge; and that no +one might worry about him, he had taken the precaution to intrust his +secret to a neighbor lad to tell at the home-door in the light of +early day. + +The journey was long, too long to write of here. Suffice it to say, +that on Sunday morning Blue-Eyed Boy reached the ferry at the Hudson +river. The old ferryman hesitated to cross with the lad. + +"Wait at my house until the cool of the evening," he urged. + +But Blue-Eyed Boy said, "No, I must cross this morning, and my pony: +I'll pay for two if you'll take me." + +The ferryman crossed the river with the boy, who, on the other side, +inquired his way to the headquarters of the general. + +Warm, tired, hungry, and dusty, he urged his pony forward to the +place, only to find that he whom he sought had gone to divine service +at St. Paul's church. + +Blue-Eyed Boy rode to St. Paul's. In the Fields (now City Hall Park) +he tied his faithful horse, and went his way to the church. + +Gently and with reverent mien, he entered the open door, and listened +to the closing words of the sermon. At length the service was over and +the congregation turned toward the entrance where stood the young +traveler, his heart beating with exultant pride at the glorious news +he had to tell to the glorious commander. + +How grand the General looked to the boy, as, with stately step, he +trod slowly the church aisle accompanied by his officers. + +Now he was come to the vestibule. It was Blue-Eyed Boy's chance at +last. The great, dancing, gleeful eyes, that have outlived in fame the +very name of the lad, were fixed on Washington, as he stepped forward +to accost him. + +"Out of the way!" exclaimed a guard, and thrust him aside. + +"I _will_ speak! General Washington!" screamed Blue-Eyed Boy, in +sudden excitement. The idea of anybody who had seen, even through a +key-hole, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, being thrust +aside thus! + +General Washington stayed his steps and ordered, "Let the lad come to +me." + +"I've good news for you," said the youth. + +"What news?" + +Officers stood around--even the congregation paused, having heard the +cry. + +"It's for you alone, General Washington." + +The lad's eyes were ablaze now. All the light of Philadelphia's late +illuminations burned in them. General Washington bade the youth follow +him. + +"But my pony is tied yonder," said he, "and he's hungry and tired too. +I can't leave him." + +"Come hither, then," and the Commander-in-chief withdrew with the lad +within the sacred edifice. + +"General Washington," said Blue-Eyed Boy, "on Thursday Congress +declared _us_ free and independent." + +"Where are your dispatches?" leaped from the General's lips, his face +shining. + +"Why--why, I haven't any, but it's all true, sir," faltered the boy. + +"How did you find it out?" + +"I was right there, sir. Don't you remember me? I help Bellman Grey +take care of the State House at Philadelphia, and I run on errands for +the Congress folks, too, sometimes." + +"Did Congress send you on this errand?" + +"No, General Washington; I can't tell a lie, I came myself." + +"How did you know me?" + +Blue-Eyed Boy was ready to cry now. To be sure he was sturdy and +strong, and nearly fourteen, too; but to be doubted, after all his +long, tiresome journey, was hard. However, he winked once or twice +violently, and then he looked his very soul into the General's face, +and said: "Why, I saw you every day you went to Congress, only a +month ago, I did." + +"I believe you, my lad. Get your horse and follow me." + +Blue-Eyed Boy followed on, and waited in camp until the tardy +despatches came in on Tuesday morning, confirming every word that he +had spoken. + +The same evening all the brigades in and around New York were ordered +to their respective parade-grounds. + +Blue-Eyed Boy was admitted within the hollow square formed by the +brigades on the spot where stands the City Hall. Within the same +square was General Washington, sitting on horseback, and the great +Declaration was read by one of his aids. + +It is needless to tell how it was received by the eager men who +listened to the mighty truths with reverent, uncovered heads. +Henceforth every man felt that he had a banner under which to fight, +as broad as the sky above him, as sheltering as the homely roof of +home. + + + + +THE OVERTHROW OF THE STATUE OF KING GEORGE. + + +If, on the evening of July 9, 1876, at six of the clock, you go and +stand where the shadow of the steeple of St. Paul's church in New York +is falling, you will occupy the space General Washington occupied, +just one hundred years ago, when with uncovered head and reverent +mien, he, in the presence of and surrounded by a brigade of noble +soldiers, listened to the reading of the Declaration of Independence. + +You will remember that at the church door on Sunday, Blue-Eyed Boy +brought to him, by word of mouth, the great news that a nation was +born on Thursday. + +This news was now, for the first time, announced to the men of New +York and New England. + +No wonder that their military caps came off on Tuesday, that their +arms swung in the air, and their voices burst forth into one loud +acclaim that might have been heard by the British foe then landing on +Staten Island. + +As you stand there, and the shadow of old St. Paul swings around and +covers you, shut your eyes and listen. Something of the olden music, +of the loud acclaim, may swing around with the shadow and fall on your +ears, since no motion is ever spent, no sound ever still. + +On that night, when the grand burst of enthusiasm had arisen, +Blue-Eyed Boy said to General Washington: "I am afraid, sir, if +Congress had known, they never would have done it, never! It seemed +easy to do it in Philadelphia, where everything is just as it used to +be; but here, with all the British ships riding in, full of soldiers, +and guns enough in them to smash the old State House where they did +it! If they'd only known about the ships!--" + +Ah! Blue-Eyed Boy. You didn't keep your eye very close to Congress +Hall in the morning of last Thursday, or you would have heard Mr. +Hancock or Mr. Thompson read to Congress a letter from General +Washington, announcing the arrival of General Howe at Sandy Hook with +one hundred and ten ships of war. + +No, no! Blue-Eyed Boy and every other boy; the men who dared to say, +and sign their names to the assertion, "A nation is born to-day," did +not do it under the rosy flush of glorious victory, but in the +fast-coming shadow of mighty Britain, strong in all the power and +radiant with all the pomp of war. + +And what had a few little colonies to meet them with? They had, it is +true, a new name, that of "States"; but cannon and camp-kettles alike +were wanting; the small powder mills in the Connecticut hive could +yield them only a fragment of the black honey General Washington cried +for, day and night, from Cambridge to New York; the houses of the +inhabitants, diligently searched for fragments of lead, gave them not +enough; and you know how every homestead in New England was besieged +for the last yard of homespun cloth, that the country's soldiers might +not go coatless by day and tentless at night. + +Brave men and women good! + +Let us hurrah for them all, if it is a hundred years too late for them +to hear. The men of a hundred years to come will remember our huzzas +of this year, and grow, it may be, the braver and the better for them +all. + +But now General Washington has ridden away to his home at Number One +in the Broadway; the brigade has moved on, and even Blue-Eyed Boy is +hastening after General Washington, intent on taking a farewell +glance, from the rampart of Fort George, at the far-away English +ships. + +To-morrow he will begin his homeward journey through the Jerseys. His +pass is in his pocket, and as he quickens his steps, he sees groups +gathering here and there, and knows that some excitement is astir in +the public mind, but thinks it is all about the great Declaration. + +He reaches Wall street, and the sun is at its going down. Up from the +East river come the sounds of orderly drummers drumming, of +regimental fifers fifing. He stays his steps, and stands listening: he +sees a brigade marching the "grand parade" at sunset. + +Up it comes from Wall street to Smith street; (I am sure I do not know +what Smith street is lost into now, but the orderly-book of Major +Phineas Porter of Waterbury, one hundred years old to-morrow morning, +has it "Smith street"); from the upper end of Smith street back to +Wall street, and the young Philadelphian follows it, marching to sound +of fife and drum. + +As it turns towards the East river, he remembers whither he was bound +and starts off with speed for the Grand Battery. + +As he goes, glancing backward, he sees that all the town is at his +heels. + +He begins to run. All the town begins to run. He runs faster: the +crowd runs faster. It is shouting now. He tries to listen; but his +feet are flying, his head is bobbing, his hat is falling, and this is +what he thinks he hears in the midst of all: "Down with him! Down with +the Tory!" It is "tyrant" that they cry, but he hears it as "tory," +and he knows full well how Governor Franklin of New Jersey and Mayor +Matthews of New York have just been sent off to Connecticut for safer +keeping, and he does not care to go into New England just now, so he +flies faster than ever, fully believing that the crowd pursues him, as +a Royalist. + +Just before him opens the Bowling Green. Into it he darts, hoping to +find covert, but there is none at hand. + +Right in the midst of the enclosure stands an equestrian statue of +King George the Third. + +It is high; it looks safe. Blue-Eyed Boy makes for it, utterly +ignorant of what it is. + +The crowd surges on. It is now at the gate. The young martyr makes a +spring at the leg and tail of the horse; he swings himself aloft, he +catches and clutches and climbs, and in the midst of ringing shouts of +"Down with him! Down with horse and king!" Blue-Eyed Boy gets over +King George and clings to the up-reared neck of the leaden horse; +thence he turns his wild-eyed face to the throng below. "Down with +him! He don't hear! He won't hear!" cry the populace. + +"I do hear!" in wild afright, shrieks Blue-Eyed Boy, "and I'm not a +Tory." + +Shut your eyes again, and see the picture as it stands there in the +waning light of the ninth of July, 1776. + +Four years ago, over the ocean, borne by loyal subjects to a loyal +colony, it came, this statue, that you shall see. It is a noble horse, +though made of lead, that stands there, poised on its hinder legs, its +neck in air. King George sits erect, the crown of Great Britain on his +head, a sword in his left hand, his right grasping the bridle-lines, +and over all, a sheen of gold, for horse and king were gilded. + +King George faces the bay, and looks vainly down. All his brave ships +and eight thousand Red Coats, yesterday landed on yonder island, +cannot save him now. Had he listened to the petitions of his children +it might have been, but he would not hear their just plaints, and now +his statue, standing so firm against storm, wind and time, trembles +before the sea of wrath surging at its base. + +"Come down, come down, you young rascal!" cries a strong voice to +Blue-Eyed Boy, but his hands grasped at either ear of the horse, and +he clings with all his strength to resist the pull of a dozen hands at +his feet. + +"Come down, you rogue, or we'll topple you over with his majesty, King +George," greets the lad's ears, and opens them to his situation. + +"King George!" cried Blue-Eyed Boy with a sudden sense of his +ridiculous fear and panic, and he yields to the stronger influence +exerted on his right leg, and so comes to earth with emotions of +relief and mortification curiously mingled in his young mind. + +To think that he had had the vanity to imagine the crowd pursued him, +and so has flown from his own friends to the statue of King George for +safety! + +"I won't tell," thinks the lad, "a word about this to anyone at home," +and then he falls to pushing the men who are pushing the statue, and +over it topples, horse and rider, down upon the sod of the little +United States, just five days old. + +How they hew it! How they hack it! How they saw at it with saw and +penknife! Blue-Eyed Boy himself cuts off the king's ear, that will not +hear the petitions of people or Congress, proudly pockets it, and +walks off, thankful because he carries his own on his head. + +Would you like to know what General Washington thought about the +overthrow of the statue in Bowling Green? + +We will turn to Phineas Porter's orderly-book, and copy from the +general orders for July 10, 1776, what he said to the soldiers about +it: + +"The General doubts not the persons who pulled down and mutilated the +statue in the Broad-way last night were actuated by zeal in the public +cause, yet it has so much the appearance of riot and want of order in +the army, that he disapproves the manner and directs that in future +such things shall be avoided by the soldiers, and be left to be +executed by proper authority." + +The same morning, the heavy ear of the king in his pocket, Blue-Eyed +Boy, once more on his pony, sets off to cross the ferry on his way to +Philadelphia. We leave him caught in the mazes of the Flying Camp +gathering at Amboy; whither by day and by night have been ferried over +from Staten Island, all the flocks of sheep and herds of cattle that +could be gotten away--lest the hungry men in red coats, coming up the +bay, seize upon and destroy them. + +Ah! what days, what days and nights too were those for the young +United States to pass through! + +To-day, we echo what somebody wrote somewhere, even then, amid all the +darkness--words we would gladly see on our banner's top-most fold: + +"The United States! Bounded by the ocean and backed by the forest. +Whom hath she to fear but her God?" + + + + +SLEET AND SNOW. + + +Fourth of July, 1776.--Troublous times, that day? Valentine Kull +thought so, as he stood in a barn-yard, with a portion of his mother's +clothes line tied as tightly as he dared to tie it around the neck of +a calf. He was waiting for the bars to be let down by his sister. Anna +Kull thought the times decidedly troublous, as she pulled and pushed +and lifted to get the bars down. + +"I can't do it, Valentine," she cried, her half-child face thrust +between the rails. + +"Try again!" + +She tried. Result as before. + +"Come over, then, and hold Snow." + +Anna went over, rending gown and apron on the roughnesses of rails and +haste. Never mind. She was over, and could, she thought, hold the +calf. + +Barn-yard, cow (I forgot to mention that there was a cow); calf, and +children, one and all, were on Staten Island in the Bay and Province +of New York. Beside these, there was a house. It was so small, so +queer, so old-fashioned, so Amsterdam Dutchy, that, for all that I +know to the contrary, Achter Kull may have built it as a play-house +for his children when first he came to America and took up his abode +by the Kill van Kull. The Kill van Kull is that curious little slice +of sea pinched in by a finger of New Jersey thrust hard against Staten +Island, as though trying its best to push the island off to sea. +However it may have been, there was the house, and from the very roof +of it arose a head, neck, two shoulders and one arm; the same being +the property of the mother of Valentine and Anna. The said mother was +keeping watch from the scuttle. + +"Be quick, my children," she cried. "The Continentals are now driving +off Abraham Rycker's cattle and the boat isn't full yet. They'll be +_here_ next." + +Anna seized the clothes line; Valentine made for the bars. Down they +came, the one after the other, and out over the lower one went calf, +Anna and cow. Valentine made a dive for Snow's leading string. He +missed it. Away went the calf, poor Anna clutching at the rope, into +green lane, through tall grass, tangle and thicket. She caught her +foot in her torn gown and was falling, when a sudden holding up of the +rope assisted by Valentine's clutch at her arm set her on her feet +again. During this slight respite from the chase, the cow (Sleet, by +name, because not quite so white as Snow) took a bite of grass and +wondered what all this unaccustomed fuss did mean. + +"Snow has pulled my arm out of joint," said Anna, holding fast to her +shoulder. + +"Never mind your arm, _now_," returned Valentine. "We must get to the +marsh. It's the only place. You get a switch, and if Sleet won't +follow Snow in, you drive her. I _wish_ the critters wasn't white; +they show up so; but Washington sha'n't have this calf and cow, +_anyhow_." + +From Newark Bay to Old Blazing Star Ferry stretched the marsh, deep, +dense, well-nigh impassable. Under the orders of General Washington, +supported by the approval of the Provincial Congress in session at +White Plains, the live stock was being driven from the island, and +ferried across Staten Island Sound to New Jersey. At the same moment +the grand fleet of armed ships from Halifax, England, and elsewhere, +was sailing in with General Howe on board and Red Coats enough to eat, +at a supper and a dinner, all the live stock on a five-by-seventeen +mile island. + +Now the Commander-in-chief of the Continental forces at New York did +not wish to afford the aid and comfort to the enemy of furnishing +horses to draw cannon, or fresh meat wherewith to satisfy the hunger +of British soldier and sailor. Oh no! On Manhattan Island were +braves--for freedom toiling day and night; building earthwork, redoubt +and battery with never a luxury from morning to morning, except the +luxury of fighting for Liberty. Soldiers from camp, light-horse and +militia from New Jersey, had gathered on the island, and had been at +work a day and a night when the news came to the Kull cottage that in +a few minutes its cow and calf would be called for. Hence the sudden +watch from the roof, and the escapade from the barn-yard. + +The Kull father, I regret to write, because it seems highly +unpatriotic, had gone forth to catch fish that day, hugging up the +thought close to his pocket of a heart, that the English fleet would +pay well for fresh fish. + +Now Sleet and Snow were treasures untold to Valentine and Anna Kull. +Anna's pocket-money, stored up to be spent once-a-year in New York, +came to her hands by the sale of butter to oystermen; and the calf, +Snow, was the exclusive property of her brother Valentine. No wonder +they were striving to save their possessions--ignorant, children as +they were, of every good which they could not see and feel. + +Cow and calf, or rather calf and cow, never before were given such a +race. Highways were ignored. There were not many beaten tracks at that +time on Staten Island. Daisied and clovered fields the calf was +dragged through; young corn and potato lots suffered alike by the +pressure of hoof and foot. Anna nearly forgot her out-of-joint arm +when the four reached the marsh. Its friendly-looking shelter was +hailed with delight. + +Said Valentine, tugging the tired calf, to Anna, switching forward the +anxious cow: "I should like to see the riflemen from Pennsylvania and +the _Yankeys_ from Doodle or Dandy either, chase Sleet and Snow +through _this_ marsh." + +"It's been _awful_ work though to get 'em here," said Anna, wiping her +face with a pink handkerchief suddenly detached for use from her +gown. + +In plunged the boy and up s-s-cissed a cloud of mosquitoes, humming at +the sound of the new-come feast; fresh flesh and blood from the +uplands was desirable. + +The grass was green, _very_ green--lovely, bright, _light_ green; the +July sun shone down untiringly; the tide rushing up from Raritan Bay +met the tide rolling over from Newark Bay, and the cool, sweet swash +of water snaked along the stout sedge, making it sway and bend as +though the wind were sweeping its tops. + +When within the queer infolding, boy, cow, and calf had disappeared, +Anna called: "I'll run now and keep watch and tell you when the +soldiers are gone." + +"No, _you won't_!" shrieked back her brother; "you'll stay _here_, and +help me, or the skeeters will kill the critters. Bring me the biggest +bush you can find, and fetch one for yourself." + +Anna always obeyed Valentine. It was a way she had. He liked it, and, +generally speaking, she didn't greatly dislike it, but her dress was +thinner than his coat, and the happy mosquitoes knew she was fairer +and sweeter than her Dutch brother, and didn't mind telling her so in +the most insinuating fashion possible. On this occasion, as she had in +so many other unlike instances, she acceded to his request; toiling +backward up the ascent and fetching thence an armful of the stoutest +boughs she could twist from branches. + +She neared the marsh on her return. All that she could discern was a +straw hat bobbing hither and thither; the horns of a cow tossing to +and fro; the tail of a cow lashing the air. + +A voice she heard, shouting forth in impatient bursts of sound, "Anna, +Anna Kull!" + +"_Here!_ I'm coming," she responded. + +"Hurry up! I'm eaten alive. Snow's crazy and Sleet's a lunatic," +shouted her brother, jerking the words forth between the vain dives +his hand made into the cloud of wings in the air. + +"Sakes alive!" said poor Anna, toiling from sedge bog to sedge bog +with her burden of "bushes" and striving to hide her face from the +mosquitoes as she went. + +It was nearly noon-day then, and the Fourth of July too, but neither +Valentine nor Anna thought of the day of the month. Why should they? +The Nation wasn't born yet whose hundredth birthday we keep this +year. + +The solemn assembly of earnest men--debating the to be or not to be of +the United States--was over there at work in Congress Hall in the old +State House. They were heated with sun and brick and argument; a +hundred and ten British ships of war were anchoring and at anchor over +on the ocean side of Staten Island. Up the bay, seven or eight +thousand troops in "ragged regimentals" were working to make ready for +battle; but not one of them all suffered more from sun and toil and +anxiety and greed of blood than did the lad and the lass in the +marsh. + +They fought it out, with many a sting and smart, another hour, and +then declaring that "cow or no cow they couldn't stay another minute," +they strove to work their way out of the beautiful green of the +sedge. + +On the meadow-land stood their mother. She had brought dinner for her +hungry children,--moreover, she had brought news. + +The Yankee troops--the Jersey militia--had gone, but the British +soldiers had arrived and demanded beef--beef raw, beef roasted, beef +in any form. + +The tears that the fiercest mosquito had failed to extort from Anna +came now. "I wish I'd let her go," she cried, fondly stroking Sleet. +"At least she wouldn't have been killed, and we'd had her again +sometime, maybe; but now--I say, Valentine, are _you_ going to give up +Snow?" + +"No, I _ain't_," stoutly persisted the lad, slapping with his broad +palm the panting side of the calf, where mosquitoes still clung. + +"But, my poor children," said Mother Kull, "you will _have_ to. It +_can't_ be helped. If we refuse them, don't you know, they will burn +our house down." + +"_If they do, I'll kill them!_" The words shot out from the gunpowdery +temper of Anna Kull. Poor innocent girl of thirteen! She never in her +life had seen an act of cruelty greater than the taking of a fish or +the death of a chicken; but the impotent impulse of revenge arose +within her at the bare idea of having her pet, her pretty Sleet, taken +from her and eaten by soldiers. + +"You'd better keep still, Anna Kull," said Valentine. "Mother, don't +you think we might hide the animals somewhere?" + +"Where?" echoed the poor woman, looking up and looking down. + +Truly there seemed to be no place. Already six thousand British +soldiers had landed and taken possession of the island. Hills and +forests were not high enough nor deep enough; and now the very marsh +had cast them out by its army of winged stingers--more dreadful than +human foe. + +"I just wish," ejaculated the poor sunburned, mosquito-tortured, +hungry girl, who stood between marsh and meadow,--"I _wish_ I had 'em +every one tied hand and foot and dumped into the sedge where we've +been. Mother, I wouldn't use Sleet's milk to-night, not a drop of +it,--it's crazy milk, I know: she's been tortured so. Poor cow! poor +creature! poor, dear, nice, honest Sleet!" And Anna patted the cow +with loving stroke and laid her head on its neck. + +"Well, children, eat something, and then we'll all go home together,--if +they haven't carried off our cot already," said the mother. + +They sat down under a tree and ate with the eager, wholesome appetite +of children. Mrs. Kull kept watch that the cow did not wander far +from the place. + +As they were eating, Valentine said to Anna, nodding his head in the +direction of his mother: "I've thought of something. We must manage to +send _her_ home without us." + +"_I've_ thought of something," responded Anna. "Yes, we _must_ +manage." + +"I should like to know _what_ you could think of, sister." + +"Should you? Why, think of saving the cow and calf, of course; though, +if you're _very_ particular, you can leave the calf here." + +"And what will you do with the cow?" + +"Put her in the boat--" + +"Whew!" interrupted Valentine. + +"And ferry her over the sound," continued Anna. + +"Who?" + +"You and me." + +"Do you think we could?" + +"We can try." + +"That's brave! How's your arm?" + +"All right! I jerked it back, slapping mosquitoes." + +"Give us another hunkey piece of bread and butter. Honey's good +to-day. I wonder mother thought about it." + +"I s'pose," said Anna, "she'd as leave we had it as soldiers. Wouldn't +it be jolly if we could make 'em steal the bees?" + +The wind blew east. Up came martial sounds mingled with the break and +the roar of the ocean. + +"Oh, dear! They're a coming," gasped Mrs. Kull, running to the spot. +"They're coming, and your father is not here." + +"Hide, hide, my children! Never mind the cow now," she almost +shrieked; her mind was running wild with all the scenes of terror she +had ever heard of. + +"Pshaw! pshaw! Mother Kull," said her boy, assuringly. "They won't +come down here. Somebody's guiding them around who knows just where +every house is. You and Anna get into that thicket yonder and keep, +whatever happens, as still as mice." + +"What'll _you_ do, bub?" questioned Anna, her sunburned face +brown-pale with affright. + +"Oh, I'll take care of myself. Boys always do." + +As soon as Mrs. Kull and her daughter were well concealed in the +thicket, the sounds began to die away. They waited half an hour. All +was still. They crept out, gazing the country over. No soldier in +sight. Down in the marsh again were boy and cow. + +"I'll run home now," said Mrs. Kull. "I dare say 'twas all a trick of +my ears." + +"But I heard it, too, Mother Kull." + +"Your ears serve you tricks, too, Anna. You wait and help Valentine +home with the animals." + +Anna was glad to have her mother gone. She sped to the marsh. She +threaded it, until by sundry signs she found the trio and summoned +them forth. + +The old Blazing Star Ferry was seldom used. A boat lay there. It was +staunch. The tide with them, they _might_ get it across. Had they been +older, wiser, they would never have made the attempt. + +A fresh water stream ran down to the sea. They passed it on their way +thither. In it Sleet drank deep, and soothed for a moment the bites +that tormented her; the children kneeled on the grassy bank, and drank +from their palms; the calf frolicked in it, till driven out. An hour +went by. They reached the ferry. It was deserted. Somebody had used +the boat that day. It was at the shore. Grass was yet in it. + +"Come along, Snow," said Valentine, urging with the rope. "Go along, +Snow," said Anna, helping it on with a stout twig she had picked up. +The calf pranced and ran, and before it knew its whereabouts was in +the broad-bottomed boat. Sleet stood on the shore, and saw her baby +tied fast. One poor cry the calf uttered. It went home to the motherly +heart of the dumb creature. She went down the sand, over the side, and +began, in her own way, to comfort Snow. + +"Now we are all right!" cried Valentine, delighted with the success of +his ruse; for he had slyly, lest Anna should see the deed, thrust a +pin in Snow to call forth the cry and win the cow over to his side. + +"Take an oar quick!" commanded the young captain. + +His mate obeyed. They pushed the boat out, unfastened it from the +pier. Before anybody concerned had time to realize the situation the +boat was adrift, and they were whirling in the tide. + +"Now, sis," said Valentine, a big lump in his throat, "we're in for +it. It is sink or swim. It's not much use to row. You steer and I'll +paddle." + +Sleet looked wildly around. She tossed her head, sniffed the salt, +oystery air, and seemed about to plunge overboard. + +Anna screamed. Valentine threw down his paddle and dashed himself on +the boat's outermost edge just in time to save it from overturning. +Mistress Sleet, disgusted with Fourth of July, had made up her mind to +lie down and take a nap. The boat righted and they were safe. Staten +Island Sound at this point was narrow, scarcely more than a quarter of +a mile in width, and the tide was fast bearing them out. + +"Such uncommon good sense in Sleet," exclaimed the boy. "_That_ cow is +worth saving." + +At that moment a dozen Red Coats were at the ferry they had just left. +The imperious gentlemen were in a fine frenzy at finding the boat +gone. + +They shouted to the children to return. + +"Steady, steady now," cried the young captain. His mate was steady at +the helm until a musket ball or two ran past them. + +"Let go!" shouted the captain. "Swing your bonnet. Let them know +you're a woman and they won't fire on _you_." + +The little mate stood erect. She waved her pink flag of a sun-bonnet. +Distinctly the soldiers saw the pink frock of Anna Kull; they saw her +long hair as the sea breeze lifted it when she shook her pink banner. + +A second, two, three went by as the girl stood there, and then a flash +was seen on the bank, a musket-ball ran through the bonnet of the +little mate, and the waves of air rattled along the shore. + +The bonnet was in the sea; Anna had dropped to her seat and caught the +helm in her left hand. + +"Cowards!" cried Valentine, for want of a stronger word, and then he +fell to working the boat on its way. The tide helped them now; it +swung the boat over toward the Jersey shore. + +The firing from Staten Island called out the inhabitants on the Jersey +coast. They watched the approaching boat with interest. Everything +depended now on the cow's lying still, on the boy's strength, on the +meeting of the tides. If he could reach there before the tide came up +all would be well; otherwise it would sweep him off again toward the +island. + +"Can't you row?" asked Valentine, at length. + +"Bub, I can't," said Anna, her voice shaking out the words. It was the +first time she had spoken since she sat down. + +"Are you hurt?" he questioned. + +"I tremble so," she answered, and turned her face away. + +"I reckon we'd better help that boy in," said a Jersey fisherman as he +watched, and he put off in a small boat. + +"Don't come near! Keep off! keep off!" called Valentine, as he saw him +approach. "I've a cow in here." + +The fisherman threw him a rope, and that rope saved them. The dewy +smell of the grassy banks had aroused the cow. She was stirring. + +The land was very near now; close at hand. "Hurry! hurry!" urged the +lad, as they were drawing him in. Before the cow had time to rise, the +boat touched land. + +"You'd better look after that girl," said the fisherman, who had towed +the boat. The poor child was holding, fast wrapped in the remnants of +her pink frock, her bleeding hand. The musket ball that shot away her +bonnet grazed her wrist. + +"Never mind me," she said, when they were pitying her. "The cow is +safe." + +The same evening, while, in Philadelphia, bonfires were blazing, bells +ringing, cannon booming, because, that day, a new nation was born; +over Staten Island Sound, by the light of the moon, strong-armed men +were ferrying home the girl and the boy, who that day _had_ fought a +good fight and gained the victory. + +At home, in the Kull cottage, the mother waited long for the +coming of the children. She said; "Poor young things! _Mine own +children_--they _shall_ have a nice supper." She made it ready and +they were not come. + +Farmer Rycker's wife and daughter came over to tell and hear the news, +and yet they were not come. + +Sundown. No children. The Kull father came up from his fishing and +heard the story. + +"The Red Coats have taken them," he said, and down came the +musket from against the wall, and out the father marched and made +straightway for the headquarters of General Howe, over at the +present "Quarantine." + +Then the mother, left alone in the soft summer gloaming, fell on her +knees and told her story in her own plain speech to her good Father in +Heaven. + +It was a long story. She had much to say to Heaven that night. The +mothers and wives of 1776 in our land spake often unto God. This +mother listened and prayed, and prayed and listened. + +The fishermen had left Valentine and Anna on the shore and gone home. +Tired, but happy, the brother and sister went up, over sand and field +and slope, and so came at length within sight of the trees that +towered near home. + +"Whistle now!" whispered Anna, afraid yet to speak aloud. "Mother will +hear and answer." + +Valentine whistled. + +Up jumped the mother Kull. She ran to the door and tried to answer. +There was no whistle in her lips. Joy choked it. + +"Mother, are you _there_?" cried the children. + +"No! I'm _here_," was the answer, and she had them safe in her arms. + + + + +PATTY RUTTER: THE QUAKER DOLL WHO SLEPT IN INDEPENDENCE HALL. + + +Patty Rutter had fallen asleep with her bonnet on, and had been lying +there, fast asleep, nobody knew just how long; for, somehow--it +happened so--there was nobody in particular to awaken her; that is to +say, no one had seemed to care though she slept on all day and all +night, without ever waking up at all. + +But then, there never had been another life quite like Patty Rutter's +life. In the first place, it had a curious reason for beginning at +all; and nearly everything about it had been as unlike your life and +mine as possible. + +In her very baby days, before she walked or talked, she had been sent +away to live with strangers, and no real, warm kiss of true love had +ever fallen on her little lips. + +It all came about in this way: Mrs. Sarah Rutter, a lady living in +Philadelphia--exactly what relation she bore to Patty it is a little +difficult to determine--decided to send the little one to live with a +certain Mrs. Adams, at Quincy, in Massachusetts, and she particularly +desired that the child should go dressed in a style fitting an +inhabitant of the proud city of Philadelphia. + +Now, at that time Philadelphia was very much elated because of several +things that had happened to her; but the biggest pride of all was, +that once upon a time the Continental Congress had met there, and--and +most wonderful thing--had made a Nation! + +Well, to be sure, that _was_ something to be proud of; though Patty +didn't understand, a bit more than you do, what it meant. However, the +glory of it all was talked about so much that she couldn't help +knowing that, when this nation, with its fifty-six Fathers, and +thirteen Mothers, was born one day in July, 1776, at Philadelphia, all +the city rang with a sweet jangle, and called to all the people, +through the tongue of its Liberty bell, to come up and greet the +newcomer with a great shout of welcome. + +But that had been long ago, before Mrs. Sarah Rutter was grown up, or +Patty Rutter began to be dressed for her trip to Quincy. + +As I wrote, Mrs. Rutter wished that Patty should go attired in a +manner to do honor to the city of Philadelphia; therefore she was not +permitted to depart in her baby clothes, but her little figure was +arrayed in a long, prim gown of soft drab silk, while a kerchief of +purest mull was crossed upon her breast; and, depending from her +waist, like the fashion of to-day, were pincushion and watch. Upon her +youthful head was a bonnet, crowned and trimmed in true Quaker +fashion; and her infantile feet were securely tied within shapely +slippers of kid. Thus equipped, Miss Patty was sent forth upon her +journey. + +Ah! that journey began a long time ago--fifty-eight, yes, fifty-nine +years have gone by, and Patty Rutter is quite an aged little lady now, +as she lies asleep, with her bonnet on. + +"It is time," says somebody, "to close." + +No one seems to take notice that Patty Rutter does not get up and +depart with the rest of the visitors, that she only stirs her eyelids +and turns her head on the silken "quilt" where she is lying. + +The little woman who keeps house in the Hall locks it up and goes +away, and there is little Patty Rutter shut in for the night. As the +key turns in the old-time lock, the Lady Rutter winks hard and sits +up. + +"Well, I've been patient, anyhow, and Mrs. Samuel Adams herself +couldn't wish me to do more," she said, with a comforting yawn +and a delightful stretch, and then she began to stare in blank +bewilderment. + +"I _should_ like to know what this all means," she whispered, "and +_where_ I am. I've heard enough to-day to turn my head. How very queer +folks are, and they talk such jargon now-a-days. Centennial and +Corliss Engine; Woman's Pavilion and Memorial Hall; Main Building and +the Trois Freres; Hydraulic Annex, railroads and what-nots. + +"_I_ never heard of such things. I don't think it is proper to speak +of them, or the Adamses would have told me. No more intelligent folks +in the land than the Adamses, and I guess _they_ know what belongs to +good society and polite conversation. I declare I blushed so in my +sleep that I was quite ashamed. I'll get up and look about now. I'm +sure this isn't any one of the houses where we visit, or folks +wouldn't talk so." + +Patty Rutter straightened her bonnet on her head, smoothed down her +robe of silken drab, adjusted her kerchief, looked at her watch to +learn how long she had been sleeping, and found, to her surprise, that +it had run down. Right over her head hung two watches. + +"Why, how thoughtful folks are in this house," she exclaimed in a +timid voice, reaching up and taking one of the two time-pieces in her +hand. "Why, here's a name; let me see." + +Reading slowly, she announced that the watch belonged to "Wil-liam +Wil-liams--worn when he signed the Declaration of Independence." "Ah!" +she cried, with pathetic tone, "this watch is run down _too_, at four +minutes after five. I remember! _This_ William Williams was one of the +fifty-six Fathers. I guess I must be in Lebanon--he lived there and +his folks would have his watch of course. Here's another," taking down +a watch and reading, "Colonel John Trumbull. _Run down, too!_ and at +twenty-three minutes after six. _He_ was the son of Brother Jonathan, +Governor of one of the Mothers, when the Nation was born. Yes, yes, I +must be in Lebanon. Well, it's a comfort, at least, to know that I'm +in company the Adamses would approve of, though _how_ I came here is a +mystery." + +She hung the watches in place, stepped out of the glass room, in which +she had slept, into a hall, and with a slight exclamation of delicious +approval, stopped short before a number of chairs, and clasped her +little fingers tightly together. + +You must remember that Patty Rutter was a Friend, a Quaker, perhaps a +descendant of William Penn, but then, in her baby days, having been +transplanted to the rugged soil and outspoken ways of Massachusetts, +she could not keep silence altogether, in view of that which greeted +her vision. + +She was in the very midst of old friends. Chairs in which she had sat +in her young days stood about the grand hall. On the walls hung +portraits of the ancestor kings of the nation born at Philadelphia in +1776. + +In royal robes and with careless grace, lounged King George III., the +nation's grandfather, angry no longer at his thirteen daughters who +strayed from home with the Sons of Liberty. + +Her feet made haste and her eyes opened wider, as her swift hands +seized relic after relic. She sat in chairs that Washington had rested +in; she caught up camp-kettles used on every field where warriors of +the Revolution had tarried; she patted softly La Fayette's camp +bedstead; and wondered at the taste that had put into the hall two +old, time-worn, battered doors, but soon found out that they had gone +through all the storm of balls that fell upon the Chew House during +the battle of Germantown. + +She read the wonderful prayer that once was prayed in Carpenter's +Hall, and about which every member of Congress wrote home to his +wife. + +On a small "stand," encased in glass, she came upon a portrait of +Washington, painted during the time he waited for powder at Cambridge. +Patty Rutter had seen it often, with its halo of the General's own +hair about it. She turned from it, and beheld (why, yes, surely she +_had_ seen _that_, but not here; it was, why long ago, in her baby +days in Philadelphia, that Mrs. Rutter had taken her up into a tower +to see it), a bell--Liberty Bell, that rang above the heads of the +Fathers when the Nation was born. + +Poor little Patty began to cry. Where could she be? She reached out +her hand, and climbed the huge beams that encased the bell, and tried +to touch the tongue. She wanted to hear it ring again, but could not +reach it. + +"It's curious, curious," she sobbed, wiping her eyes and turning them +with a thrill of delight upon a beloved name that greeted her vision. +It was growing dark, and she _might_ be wrong. But no, it was the +dear name of Adams; and she saw, in a basket, a little pile of baby +raiment. There were dainty caps and tiny shirts of cambric, whose +linen was like a gossamer web, and whose delicate lines of hem-stitch +were scarcely discernible; there were small dresses, yellow with the +sun color that time had poured over them, and they hung with pathetic +crease and tender fold over the sides of the basket. + +The little woman paused and peered to read these words, "Baby-clothes, +made by Mrs. John Adams for her son, John Quincy Adams." + +"Little John Quincy!" she cried, "A baby so long ago!" She took the +little caps in her hands, she pulled out the crumpled lace that edged +them. She said, through the swift-falling tears: + +"Oh, I remember when he was brought home _dead_, and how, in the +Independence Hall of the State House at Philadelphia, he lay in state, +that the inhabitants who knew his deeds, and those of his father, +John, and his uncle, Samuel, might see his face. I love the Adamses +every one," and she softly pressed the baby-caps that had been wrought +by a mother, ere the country began, to her small Quaker lips, with +real New England fervor for its very own. Tenderly she laid them down, +to see, while the light was fading, a huge picture on the wall. She +studied it long, trying to discern the faces, with their savage +beauty; the sturdy right-doing men who stood before them; and then +her eyes began to glisten, and gather light from the picture; her lips +parted, her breath quickened; for Patty Rutter had gone beyond her +life associations in Massachusetts, back to the times in which her +Quaker ancestors had make treaty with the native Indians. + +"It is!" she cried with a shout; "It is Penn's treaty!" Patty gazed at +it until she could see no longer. "I'm glad it is the last thing my +eyes will remember," she said sorrowfully, when in the gloom she +turned away, went down the hall, and entered her glass chamber. + +"Never mind my watch," she said softly. "When I waken it will be +daylight, and I need not wind it. It will be so sweet to lie here +through the night in such grand and goodly company. I only wish Mrs. +Samuel Adams could come and kiss me good night." + +With these words, Patty Rutter laid herself to rest upon the silken +quilt from Gardiner's Island; and if you look within the Relic Room, +opposite to Independence Hall, in the old State House at Philadelphia, +in this Centennial summer, you will find her there, still taking her +long nap, _fully indorsed by Miss Adams_, and in Independence Hall, +across the passage way, you will see the portraits of more than fifty +of the Fathers of the nation, but the Mothers abide at home. + + + + +BECCA BLACKSTONE'S TURKEYS AT VALLEY FORGE. + + +Turkeys, little girl and apple-tree lived in Pennsylvania, a hundred +years ago. The turkeys--eleven of them--went to bed in the apple-tree, +one night in December. + +After it was dark, the little girl stood under the tree and peered up +through the boughs and began to count. She numbered them from one up +to eleven. Addressing the turkeys, she said: "You're all up there, I +see, and if you only knew enough; if you weren't the dear, old, wise, +stupid things that you are, I'll tell you what you would do. After I'm +gone in the house, and the door is shut, and nobody here to see, you'd +get right down, and you'd fly off in a hurry to the deepest part of +the wood to spent your Thanksgiving, you would. The cold of the woods +isn't half as bad for you as the fire of the oven will be." + +Becca finished her speech; the turkeys rustled in their feathers and +doubtless wondered what it all meant, while she stood thinking. One +poor fellow lost his balance and came fluttering down to the ground, +just as she had decided what to do. As soon as he was safely reset on +his perch, Becca made a second little speech to her audience, in +which she declared that "they, the dear turkeys, were her own; that +she had a right to do with them just as she pleased, and that it was +her good pleasure that not one single one of the eleven should make a +part of anybody's Thanksgiving dinner." + +"Heigh-ho," whistles Jack, Becca's ten-year-old brother: "that you, +Bec? High time you were in the house." + +"S'pose I frightened you," said Becca. "Where have you been gone all +the afternoon, I'd like to know? stealin' home too, across lots." + +"I'll tell, if you won't let on a mite." + +"Do I ever, Jack?" reproachfully. + +He did not deign to answer, but in confidential whispers breathed it +into her ears that "he had been down to the Forge. Down to the Valley +Forge, where General Washington was going to fetch down lots and lots +of soldiers, and build log huts, and stay all Winter." He ended his +breathless narration with an allusion that made Becca jump as though +she had seen a snake. He said: "It will be bad for your turkeys." + +"Why, Jack? General Washington won't steal them." + +"Soldiers eat turkey whenever they can get it; and, Bec, this +apple-tree isn't above three miles from the Forge. You'd better have +'em all killed for Thanksgiving. Come, I'm hungry as a bear." + +"But," said Becca, grasping his jacket sleeve as they went, "I've just +promised 'em that they shall not be touched." + +Jack's laugh set every turkey into motion, until the tree was all in a +flutter of excitement. He laughed again and again, before he could say +"What a little goose you are! Just as if turkeys understood a word you +said." + +"But I understood if they didn't, and I should be telling my own self +a lie. No, not a turkey shall die. They shall all have a real good +Thanksgiving once in their lives." + +Two days later, on the 18th of December, Thanksgiving Day came, the +turkeys were yet alive, and Becca Blackstone was happy. + +The next day General Washington's eleven thousand men marched into +Valley Forge, and went out upon the cold, bleak hillsides, carrying +with them almost three thousand poor fellows, too ill to march, too +ill to build log huts, ill enough to lie down and die. Such a busy +time as there was for days and days. Farmer Blackstone felt a little +toryish in his thoughts, but the chance to sell logs and split slabs +so near home as Valley Forge was not likely to happen again, and he +worked away with strong good will to furnish building material. Jack +went every day to the encampment, and grew quite learned in the ways +of warlike men. + +Becca staid at home with her mother, but secretly wished to see what +the great army looked like. + +At last the final load of chestnut and walnut and oaken logs went up +to the hills from Mr. Blackstone's farm, and a great white snow fell +down over all Pennsylvania, covering the mountains and hills, the +soldiers' log huts, and the turkeys in the apple-tree. January came +and went, and every day affairs at the camp grew worse. Men were dying +of hunger and cold and disease. Stories of the sufferings of the men +grew strangely familiar to the inhabitants. Affairs that Winter would +not have been quite so hard at Valley Forge if the neighbors for miles +around had not been Tories. Now Becca Blackstone's mother was a New +England women, and in secret she bestowed many a comfort upon one +after another of her countrymen at the encampment. Her husband was +willing to sell logs and slabs and clay from his pits, but not a +farthing or a splinter of wood had he to bestow on the rebels. + +At last, one January day, when Mr. Blackstone had gone to Philadelphia, +permission was given to Becca to accompany her mother and Jack to the +village. Into the rear of the sleigh a big basket was packed. Becca +was told that she must not ask any questions nor peep, so she +neither questioned nor looked in, but found out, after all, for when +they were come to the camp, she saw her mother take out loaves of rye +bread and a jug, into which she knew nothing but milk ever was put, and +carry them into a hut which had the sign of a hospital over it. Every +third cabin was a hospital, and each and every one held within it +men that were always hungry and in suffering. + +In all her life Becca had never seen so much to make her feel +sorry, as she saw when she followed her mother to the door of the +log-hospital, into which she was forbidden to enter. + +There large-eyed, hungry men lay on the cold ground, with only poor, +wretched blankets to cover them. She caught a glimpse of a youth--he +did not seem much older than her own Jack--with light, fair hair, such +big blue eyes, and the thinnest, whitest hands, reaching up for the +mug of milk her mother was offering to him. + +Then, when Jack came to her, he was wiping his eyes on his jacket +sleeve. He said "If I was a soldier, and my country didn't care any +more for me than Congress does, I'd go home and leave the Red Coats to +carry off Congress. It's too bad, and he's a jolly good fellow. Wish +we could take him home and get him well." + +"Who is he, Jack?" + +"O, a soldier-boy from one of the New England colonies. He's got a +brother with him--that's good." + +The drive home, over the crisp snow, was a very silent one. More than +one tear froze on Mrs. Blackstone's cheek, as she remembered the +misery her eyes had beheld, and her hands could do so little to +lighten. + +The next day Mr. Blackstone reached home from Philadelphia. He had +seen the Britons in all the glory and pomp of plenty and red +regimentals in a prosperous city. He returned a confirmed Tory, and +wished--never mind what he did wish, since his unkind wish never came +to pass--but this is that which he did, he forbade Mrs. Blackstone +to give anything that belonged to him to a soldier of General +Washington's army. + +"What will you do now, mamma, with all the stockings and mittens you +are knitting?" questioned Becca. + +"Don't ask me, child," was the tearful answer that mother made, for +her whole heart was with her countrymen in their brave struggle. + +Three nights after that time Mr. Blackstone entered his house, +saying: + +"I caught a ragged, bare-footed tatterdemalion hanging around, and I +warned him off; told him he'd better go home, if he'd got one +anywhere, and if not to join the army, of his king at Philadelphia." + +"What did he say, pa?" asked Jack. + +"O some tomfoolery or other about the man having nothing to eat but +hay for two days, and his brother dying over at the Forge. I didn't +stop to listen to the fellow, but sent him flying." + +Jack touched his mother's toe in passing, and gave Becca a mysterious +nod of the head, as much as to say: + +"He's the soldier from our hospital over there," but nobody made +answer to Mr. Blackstone. + +Becca's eyes filled with tears as she sat down at the tea-table, and +sturdy Jack staid away until the last minute, taking all the time he +could at washing his hands, that he might get as many looks as +possible through the window in the hope that the bare-footed soldier +might be lingering about, but he gained no glimpse of him. + +Farmer Blackstone had the rheumatism sometimes, and that night he had +it worse than ever, so that an hour after tea-time he was quite ready +to go to bed, and his wife was quite ready to have him go, also to +give him the soothing, quieting remedies he called for. + +Becca was to sit up that night until eight-of-the-clock, if she made +no noise to disturb her father. + +While her mother was busied in getting her father comfortable, she +thought, as it was such bright moonlight, she would go out to give her +turkeys a count, it having been two or three nights since she had +counted them. + +Slipping a shawl of her mother's over her head, she opened softly the +kitchen door to steal out. The lowest possible whistle from Jack +accosted her at the house corner. That lad intercepted her course, +drew her back into the shadow, and bade her "Look!" + +She looked across the snow, over the garden wall, into the orchard, +and there, beneath her apple-tree, stood something between a man and a +scarecrow, and it appeared to be looking up at the sleeping turkeys. +Both arms were uplifted. + +"O dear! what shall we do?" whispered Becca, all in a shiver of cold +and excitement. + +"Let's go and speak to him. Maybe it is our hospital man," said Jack, +with a great appearance of courage. + +The two children started, hand in hand, and approached the soldier so +quietly that he did not hear the sound of their coming. + +As they went, Becca squeezed her brother's fingers and pointing to the +snow over which they walked, whispered the word "Blood!" + +"From his feet," responded Jack, shutting his teeth tightly together. + +Yes, there it lay in bright drops on the glistening snow, showing +where the feet of the patriot had trod. The children stood still when +they were come near to the tree. At the instant their mother appeared +in the kitchen doorway and called "Jack!" + +The ragged soldier of the United American States lost his courage at +the instant and began to retire in confusion; but Becca summoned him +to "Wait a minute!" He waited. + +"Did you want one of my turkeys?" she asked. + +"I was going to _steal_ one, to save my brother's life," he answered. + +"Is he only a boy, and has he light hair and blue eyes, and does he +lie on the wet ground?" + +"That's Joseph," he groaned. + +"Then take a good, big, fat turkey--that one there, if you can get +him," said Becca. "They are all mine." + +The turkey was quietly secured. + +"Now take one for yourself," said Becca. + +Number two came down from the perch. + +"How many men are there in your hospital?" asked Jack, who had +responded to his mother's summons, and was holding a pair of warm +stockings in his hand. + +"Twelve." + +"Give him another, Bec--there's a good girl; three turkeys ain't a +bone too many for twelve hungry men," prompted Jack. + +"Take three!" said Becca. "My pa never counts my turkeys." + +The third turkey joined his fellows. + +"Better put these stockings on before you start, or father will track +you to the camp," said Jack. "And pa told ma never to give you +anything of his any more." + +Never was weighty burden more cheerfully borne than the bag Jack +helped to hoist over the soldier's shoulder as soon as the stockings +had been drawn over the bleeding feet. + +"Now I'm going. Thank you, and good night. If you, little girl, would +give me a kiss, I'd take it--as from my little Bessy in Connecticut." + +"That's for Bessy in Connecticut," said the little girl, giving him +one kiss, "and now I'll give you one for Becca in Pennsylvania. Hurry +home and roast the turkeys quick." + +They watched him go over the hill. + +"Jack," said Becca, "if I'd told a lie to the turkeys where would they +have been to-night, and Joseph? There are eight more. I wish I'd told +him to come again. Pa's rheumatism came just right to-night, didn't +it?" + +"I reckon next year you won't have all the turkeys to give away to the +soldiers," said Jack, adding quite loftily, "I shall go to raising +turkeys in the Spring myself, and when Winter comes we shall see." + +"Now, Jacky," said Becca, half-crying, "there are eight left, and you +take half." + +"No, I won't," rejoined Jack. "I'd just like to walk over to Valley +Forge and see the soldiers enjoy turkey. Won't they have a feast! I +shouldn't wonder if they'd eat one raw." + +"O, Jack!" + +"Soldiers do eat dreadful things sometimes," he assured her with a +lofty air. And then they went into the house, and the door was shut. + +The next year there was not a soldier left above the sod at Valley +Forge. + +Now the soldiers are gone, the camp is not, the little girl has passed +away, the apple-tree is dead, and only the hills at Valley Forge are +left to tell the story, bitter with suffering, eloquent with praise, +of the men who had a hundred years ago toiled for Freedom there, and +are gone home to God. + + + + +HOW TWO LITTLE STOCKINGS SAVED FORT SAFETY. + + +"A story, children; so soon after Christmas, too! Let me think, what +shall it be?" + +"O yes, mamma," uttered three children in chorus. + +Mrs. Livingston sat looking into the fire that flamed on the broad +hearth so long, that Carl said, by way of reminder that time was +passing: "An uncommon story." + +Then up spoke Bessie: "Mamma, something, please, out of the real old +time before much of anybody 'round here was born." + +"As long off as the Indians," assisted young Dot. + +"Ah yes; that will do, children. I will tell you a story that happened +in this very house almost a hundred years ago. It was told to me by my +grandmother when she was very old." + +There was a grand old lady, Mrs. Livingston, at the head of this house +then. She loved her country very much indeed, and was willing to do +anything she could to help it, in the time of great trouble, during +the war for independence. My grandmother was a little girl, not so +old as you, Bessie. Her name was Lorinda Grey, and her home was in +Boston. The year before, when British soldiers kept close watch to see +that nothing to eat, or wear, or burn, was carried into Boston, Mr. +Grey contrived to get his family out of the city, and Lorinda, with +her brother Otis, was sent here. Afterward, when Boston was free +again, the two children were left because the father was too busy to +make the long journey after them. + +Altogether, more than a dozen children belonging in some way to the +Livingstons had been sent to the old house. The family friends and +relatives gave the place the name "Fort Safety," because it lay far +away from the enemy's ships, and quite out of the line where the +soldiers of either army marched or camped. + +The year had been very full of sorrow and care and trouble and hard +work; but when the time for Christmas drew near, this grand old Mrs. +Livingston said it should be the happiest Christmas that the old house +had ever known. She would make the children happy once, whatever might +come afterward, and so she set about it quite early in the fall. One +day the children (there were more than a dozen of them in the house at +the time) found out that the great room at the end of the hall was +locked. They asked Mrs. Livingston many times when it meant, and at +last she told them that one night after they were in bed and asleep, +Santa Claus appeared at her door and asked if he might occupy that +room until the night before Christmas. She told him he might, and he +had locked the door himself, and said "if any child so much as looked +through a crack in the door that child would find nothing but chestnut +burs in his stocking." Well, the children knew that Santa Claus meant +what he said, always, so they used to run past the door every day as +fast as they could go and keep their eyes the other way, lest +something should be seen that ought not to. Before the day came every +wide chimney in the house was swept bright and clean for Santa Claus. + +Aunt Elise, a sweet young lady, lived here then. She was old Mrs. +Livingston's daughter, and she told the children that she had seen +Santa Claus with her own eyes when he locked the door, and he said +that every room must be made as fine as fine could be. + +After that Tom and Richard and Will and Philip worked away as hard as +they could. They gathered bushels and bushels of ivy, and a mile or +two of ground-pine, and eight or ten pecks of bitter-sweet, and stored +them all in the corn granary, and waited for the day. Then, when Aunt +Elise set to work to adorn the house, she had twenty-four willing +hands to help, beside her own two. + +When all was made ready, and it was getting near to night in the +afternoon before Christmas, Mrs. Livingston sent a messenger for +three men from the farm. When they were come, she called in three +African servants, and she said to the six men, "Saddle horses and ride +away, each one of you in a different direction, and go to every house +within five miles of here, and ask: 'Are any children in this +habitation?' Then say that you are sent to fetch the children's +stockings, that Santa Claus wants them, and take special care to bring +me _two_ stockings from each child, whose father or brother is away +fighting for his country." + +So the six men set forth on their queer errand, after stockings, and +they rode up hill and down, and to the great river's bank, and +wherever the message was given at a house door, if a child was within +hearing, off flew a stocking, and sometimes two, as the case might be +about father and brother. + +Now, in a deep little dell, about five miles away, there was a small, +old brown house, and in it lived Mixie Brownson with her mother and +brother, but this night Mixie was all alone. When one of the six +horsemen rode up to the door, and without getting down from his horse, +thumped away on it with his riding-whip handle, Mixie thought, "Like +as not it is an Indian," but she straightway lifted the wooden latch +and opened the door. + +"There's one child here, I see," said the black man. "Any more?" + +"I'm all alone," trembled forth poor Mixie. + +"More's the pity," said the man. "I want one of your stockings; two of +'em, if you're a soldier's little girl. I'm taking stockings to Santa +Claus." + +"O take both mine, then, please," said Mixie with delight, and she +drew off two warm woolen stockings and made them into a little bundle, +which he thrust into a bag, and off he rode. Mixie's father was a +Royalist, fighting with the Indians for the British, but then Mrs. +Livingston knew nothing about that. + +It was nearly midnight when the stockings reached Fort Safety. It was +in this very room that Mrs. Livingston and Aunt Elise received them. +Some were sweet and clean, and some were not; some were new and some +were old. So they looked them over, and made two little piles, the one +to be filled, the other to be washed. + +About this time Santa Claus came down from his locked-up room, with +pack after pack, and began to fill stockings. There were ninety-seven +of them, beside sixteen more that were hung on a line stretched across +the fire-place by the children before they went to bed, so as to be +very handy for Santa Claus when he should enter by the chimney. + +"What an awful rich lady my fine old Grandmother Livingston must have +been, to have goodies enough to fill 113 stockings!" said Carl, his +red hair fairly glistening with interest and pride; while Bessie and +Dot looked eagerly at the fire-place and around the room, to see if +any fragment of a stocking might, by any chance, be about anywhere. + +Well, at last the stockings were full. I cannot tell you exactly what +was in them. I remember that my grandmother said, that in every +stocking went, first of all, a nice, pretty pair of new ones, just the +size of the old ones; and next, a pair of mittens to fit hands +belonging with feet that could wear the stockings. I know there were +oranges and some kind of candy, too. + +At last the stockings were all hung on a line extending along two +sides of the room, and Mrs. Livingston and Aunt Elise locked the room, +and being very tired, went to bed. The next morning, bright and early, +there was a great pattering of bare feet and a flitting of night-gowns +down the staircase, past the evergreen trees in the hall, and a little +host of twelve children stood at that door, trying to get in; but it +was all of no use, and they had to march back to bed again. + +As for Otis Grey, he was a real Boston boy, full of the spirit of a +Liberty Rebel. He dressed himself slyly, slipped down on the great +stair-rail, so as to make no noise, opened softly the hall-door, went +outside, climbed up, and looked into the room. When he peeped, he was +so frightened at the long line of fat stockings that he made haste +down, and never said a word to anybody, except my grandmother (Lorinda +Grey, his sister); and they two kept the secret. + +Breakfast time came, and not a child of the dozen had heard a word +from Santa Claus that morning. + +Mrs. Livingston said a very long grace, and after that she said to the +children: "I have disappointed you this morning, but you will all have +your stockings as soon as a little company I have invited to spend the +day with you, is come." + +"Bless me!" whispered Otis Grey to his sister, "are all them stockings +a-coming?" + +"Otis," said Mrs. Livingston, "you may leave the table." + +Otis obeyed silently, and lost his Christmas breakfast for the time. +Mrs. Livingston had strict laws in her house, and punishment always +followed disobedience. + +The morning was long to the children, but it was a busy time in the +winter kitchen, and even the summer kitchen was alive with cookery; +and at just mid-day Philip cried out "Company's come, grandma!" + +A dozen or more of the stocking-owners were at the door. In they +trooped, bright and laughing and happy. Before they were fairly +inside, more came, and more, and still more, until full sixty boys and +girls were gathered up and down the great hall and parlors. Mixie +Brownson came on the last sled-load. Now Mrs. Livingston did not know, +even by name, more than one-half of the young folks she had undertaken +to make happy that day; but that made no manner of difference, and +the children had not the least idea that Santa Claus had their +stockings all hung up in this room, until suddenly the doors were +opened, and there was the great hickory-wood fire, and the sunlight +streaming in, and the stockings, fat and bulging, hanging in rows. +Some were red, and some were blue, and some were white, and some were +mixed. Grand old Mrs. Livingston stood within the room, her white +curls shining and her stiff brocade trailing. + +"Come in, children," she said, and in they trooped, silent with awe +and wonder at the sight they saw. The lady arranged them side by side, +in lines, on the two sides of the room where the stockings were not, +and then she said: + +"Santa Claus, come forth!" + +In yonder corner there began a motion in the branches of the evergreen +tree, and such a Santa Claus as crept forth was never seen before. He +was bulgy with furs from crown to foot, but he made a low curve over +toward Mrs. Livingston, and then nodded his head about the lines of +children. + +"Good day to you, this Christmas," he said. + +"Wish you Merry Christmas, Santa Claus," said Philip, with a bow. + +"Here's business," said Santa Claus. "Stockings, let me see. Whoever +owns the stocking that I take down from the line, will step forward +and take it." + +Every single one of the children knew his or her own property, at a +glance. Santa Claus had a busy time of it handing down stockings, and +a few minutes later he escaped without notice, and was seen no more +that year, in Fort Safety. + +After the stockings came dinner, and such a dinner as it was! Whatever +there was not, I remember that it was told to me that there was great +abundance of English plum-pudding. After dinner came games and more +happiness, and after the last game, came time to go home. The sweet +clear afternoon suddenly became dark with clouds, and it began to snow +soon after the first load set off. One or two followed, and by the +time the last one was ready to start, Mrs. Livingston looked forth and +said "not another child should leave her roof that night in such a +blinding storm." + +Eight little hands clapped their new mittens together in token of joy, +but poor little Mixie Brownson began to cry. She had never in her life +been away from the brown house. + +Tea was served, and Mixie was comforted for a short time. After that +came games again, until all were weary with play; and Otis Grey begged +Mrs. Livingston for a story. + +Mixie was tearful still, and she crept shyly to the lady's side and +sobbed forth: "I wish you was my grandma and would take me in your +lap." + +Mrs. Livingston stooped and kissed Mixie's cheek, then lifted her on +her knees and began to tell the children a story. It must have been a +very pretty picture that the old, blowing snowstorm looked in upon +that night, in this very room: twenty or more children seated around +the fire-circle, with stately Mrs. Livingston and pretty Aunt Elise in +their midst. + +Whilst all this was going on within, outside a band of Indians, led by +a white man, was approaching Fort Safety to burn it down. + +Step by step, the savages crept nearer and nearer, until they were +standing in the very light that streamed out from the Christmas +windows. + +The white man who led them was in the service of the English, and knew +every step of the way, and just who lived in the great house. + +He ordered them to stand back while he looked in. Creeping closer and +closer, he climbed, as Otis Grey had done, and put his face to the +window-pane. He saw Mrs. Livingston and Miss Elise, and the great +circle of eager, interested faces, all looking at the story-teller, +and he wiped his eyes in order to get one more good look, for he could +not believe the story they told to him: that his own poor little Mixie +was in there, sitting in proud Mrs. Livingston's lap, looking happier +than he had ever seen her. He stayed so long, peering in, that the +savages grew impatient. One or two of their chief men crept up and put +their swarthy faces beside his own. + +It so happened that at that moment Aunt Elise glanced toward the +window. She did not scream, she uttered no word; but she fell from her +chair to the floor. + +[Illustration: "His own poor little Mixie was there, sitting in proud +Mrs. Livingston's lap."] + +Mixie's father, for it was he who led the savages, saw what was +happening within, and ordered the Indians to march away and leave the +big house unhurt. They grunted and grumbled, and refused to go until +they had been told that the little girl on the lady's knee was his +little girl. + +"He not going to burn his own papoose," explained the Indian chief to +his red men; and then the evil band went groping away through the +storm. + +The story to the children was not finished that night, for on the +floor lay pretty Aunt Elise, as white as white could be; and it was a +long time before she was able to speak. As soon as she could sit up, +she wished to get out into the open air. + +Mrs. Livingston went with her, and when she was told what had been +seen at the window, they together examined the freshly fallen snow and +found traces of moccasined feet. + +With fear and trembling, the two ladies entered the house. Not a word +of what had been seen was spoken to servant or child. Aunt Elise from +an upper window kept watch during the time that Mrs. Livingston +returned thanks to God for the happy day the children had passed, and +asked His love and protecting care during the silent hours of sleep. + +Then the sleepy, happy throng climbed the wide staircase to the rooms +above, went to bed and slept until morning. + +Not a red face approached Fort Safety that night. The two ladies, +letting the Christmas fires go down, kept watch from the windows until +the day dawned. + +"I'm so glad," exclaimed Carl, "that my fine, old, greatest of +grandmothers thought of having that good time at Christmas." + +"Dear me!" sighed Bessie, "if she hadn't, we wouldn't have this nice +home to-day." + +"Mamma," said Dot, "let's have a good stocking-time next Christmas; +just like that one, all but the Indians." + +"O, mamma, _will you_?" cried Bessie, jumping with glee. + +"Where _would_ we get the soldiers' children, though," questioned +Carl. + +"Lots of 'em in Russia and Turkey, if we only lived there," observed +Bessie. "But there's _always_ plenty of children that _want_ a good +time and never get it, just as much as the soldiers' children did. +Will you, mamma?" + +"When Christmas comes again, I will try to make just as many little +folks happy as I can," said Mrs. Livingston. + +"And we'll begin _now_," said Carl, "so as to be all ready. I shall +saw all summer, so as to make lots of pretty brackets and things." + +"And I s'pose I shall have to dress about five hundred dolls to go +'round," sighed Bessie, "there are so many children now-a-days." + + + + +A DAY AND A NIGHT IN THE OLD PORTER HOUSE. + + +Monday morning, July 5th, 1779, was oppressively warm and sultry in +the Naugatuck Valley. Great Hill, that rises so grandly to the +northward of Union City, and at whose base the red house still nestles +that was built either by Daniel Porter or his son Thomas before or as +early as 1735, was bathed in the full sunlight, for it was past eight +of the clock. Up the hill had just passed a herd of cows owned by Mr. +Thomas Porter and driven by his son Ethel, a lad of fourteen, and +Ethel's sister Polly, aged twelve years. + +"It's awful hot to-day!" said Ethel, as he threw himself on the grass +at the hill-top--the cows having been duly cared for. + +[Illustration: The Old Porter House] + +"You'd better not lose time lying here," said Polly. "There's +altogether too much going on uptown to-day, and there's lots to do +before we go up to celebrate." + +"One thing at a time," replied Ethel, "and this is my time to rest. I +never knew a hill to grow so much in one night before." + +"Well! you can rest, but I'm going to find out what that fellow is +riding his poor horse so fast for this hot morning--somebody must be +dying! Just see that line of dust a mile away!" and Polly started down +Great Hill to meet the rider. + +The horseman stayed his horse at Fulling Mill Brook to give him a +drink, and Polly reached the brook just at the instant the horse +buried his nose in the cool stream. + +"Do you live near here?" questioned the rider. + +"My father, Mr. Thomas Porter, keeps the inn yonder," said Polly. + +"I can't stop," said the horseman, "though I've ridden from New Haven +without breakfast, and I must get up to the Center; but you tell your +father the _British_ are landing at West Haven. They have more that +forty vessels! The new president was on the tower of the College when +I came by, watching with his spy-glass, and he shouted down that he +could see them, landing." + +At that instant, Ethel reached the brook. "What's going on?" he +questioned. + +"You're a likely looking boy--you'll do!" said the horseman, with a +glance at Ethel, cutting off at the same instant the draught his horse +was enjoying, by a sudden pull at the bridle lines. "You go tell the +news! Get out the militia! Don't lose a minute." + +"What news? What for?" asked Ethel, but the rider was flying onward. + +"A pretty time we'll have celebrating to-day," said Polly, to herself, +dipping the corner of her apron into the brook and wiping her heated +face with it, as she hurried to the house. Meanwhile, her brother was +running and shouting after the man who had ridden off in such haste. + +As Polly entered the house the big brick oven stood wide open, and it +was filled to the door with a roaring fire. On the long table stood +loaves of bread almost ready for the oven. Her sister Sybil was +putting apple pies on the same table. Sybil was a beautiful girl of +twenty years, much admired and greatly beloved in the region. + +"What is Ethel about so long this morning, that I have his work to do, +I wonder!" exclaimed Mr. Thomas Porter, as he lifted himself from the +capacious fire-place in which he had been piling birch-wood under the +crane--from which hung in a row three big iron pots. + +"It is a pretty hot morning, and the sun is powerful on the hill, +father," said Mrs. Mehitable Porter in reply--not seeing Polly, who +stood panting and glowing with all the importance of having great news +to tell. + +"Father," cried Polly, "where is Truman and the men? Send 'em! send +'em everywhere!" + +"What's the matter? what's the matter, child?" exclaimed Mr. Porter, +while his wife and Sybil stood in alarm. + +At that instant Ethel sprang in, crying out, "The militia! The +militia! They want the militia." + +"What for, and _who_ wants the men?" asked his father. + +"I don't know. He didn't stop to tell. He said: 'Get out the militia! +Don't lose a minute!' and then rode on." + +"Father, _I know_," said Polly. "He told _me_. The British ships, more +than forty of them, are landing soldiers at New Haven. President +Stiles saw them at daybreak from the college tower with his +spy-glass." + +Before Polly had ceased to speak, Ethel was off. Within the next ten +minutes six horses had set forth from the Porter house--each rider for +a special destination. + +"I'll give the alarm to the Hopkinses," cried back Polly from her +pony, as she disappeared in the direction of Hopkins Hill. + +"And I'll stir up Deacon Gideon and all the Hotchkisses from the +Captain over and down," said ten-year-old Stephen, as he mounted. + +"You'd better make sure that Sergeant Calkins and Roswell hear the +news. Tell Captain Terrell to get out his Ring-bone company, and don't +forget Captain John and Abraham Lewis, Lieutenant Beebe, and all the +rest. It isn't much use to go over the river--not much help _we'd_ +get, however much the British might, on that side," advised Mr. +Porter, as the fourth messenger departed. + +When the last courier had set forth, leaving only Mr. and Mrs. Porter, +Sybil and two servants in the house, Mr. Porter said to his wife: "I +believe, mother, that I'll go up town and see what I can do for +Colonel Baldwin and Phineas." Major Phineas Porter was his brother, +who six months earlier had married Melicent, daughter of Colonel +Baldwin and widow of Isaac Booth Lewis (the lady whose name has been +chosen for the Waterbury, Connecticut, Chapter of Daughters of the +American Revolution). + +After Mr. Porter's departure Mrs. Porter said to Sybil, "You remember +how it was two years ago at the Danbury alarm, how we were left +without a crumb in the house and fairly went hungry to bed. I think +I'd better stir up a few extra loaves of rye bread and make some more +cake. You'd better call up Phyllis and Nancy and tell them to let the +washing go and help me." + +Phyllis and Nancy were filled with astonishment and awe at the command +to leave the washing and bake, for, during their twenty years' service +in the house, nothing had ever been allowed to stay the progress of +Monday's washing. + +Before mid-day another messenger came tearing up the New Haven road +and demanded a fresh horse in order to continue the journey to arouse +help and demand haste. He brought the half-past nine news from New +Haven that fifteen hundred men were marching from West Haven Green to +the bridge, that women and children were escaping to the northward and +westward with all the treasure that they could carry, or bury on the +way, because every horse in the town had been taken for the defence. + +He had not finished his story, when from the northward the hastily +equipped militia came hurrying down the road. It was reported that +messengers had been posted from Waterbury Centre to Westbury and to +Northbury; to West Farms and to Farmingbury--all parts of ancient +Waterbury--and soon The City, as it was called in 1779, now Union +City, would be filled with militiamen. + +The messenger from New Haven grew impatient for the fresh horse he had +asked for. While he waited on the porch, Cato, son of Phyllis, whose +duty it was to make ready his steed, sought Mrs. Porter in the +kitchen. + +"Where that New Haven fellow," he asked, "get Massa's horse. He say he +come from New Haven, and he got the horse Ethel went away on." + +"Are you sure, Cato?" + +"Sure's I know Cato," said the boy, "and the horse he knew me--be a +fool if he didn't." + +Mrs. Porter immediately summoned the rider to her presence and learned +from him that about four miles down the road his pony had given out +under haste and heat; that he had met a boy who, pitying its +condition, had offered an exchange of animals, provided the courier +would promise to leave his pony at the Porter Inn and get a fresh +horse there. + +"Just like Ethel!" said Polly. "He'll dally all day now, while that +horse gets rested and fed, or else he'll go on foot. I wonder if I +couldn't catch him!" + +"Polly," said Mrs. Porter, "don't you leave this house to-day without +my permission." + +Poor Mrs. Porter! Truman, her eldest son, had gone. He was sixteen and +had been a "trained" soldier for more than six months; that, the +mother expected; but Ethel, only fourteen, and full of daring and +boyish zeal! Stephen also, the youngest, and the baby, being but ten +years old--he had not yet returned from "stirring up the Hotchkisses." +Had he followed Captain Gideon? + +"Ethel is too far ahead," sighed Polly. "I couldn't catch him now, +even if mother would let me; but here comes Uncle Phineas in his +regimentals, and Aunt Melicent and Polly and little Melicent, and O! +what a crowd! I can't see for the dust! It's better than the +celebration. It's so _real_, so 'strue as you live and breathe and +everything." + +Polly ran to the front door. At that day it opened upon a porch that +extended across the house front. This porch was supported by a line of +white pillars, and a rail along its front had rings inserted in it to +which a horseman could, after dismounting beneath its shelter, secure +his steed. Long ago, this porch was removed and the house itself was +taken from the roadside on the plain below, because of a great +freshet, and removed to its present location. The history of that +porch, of the men and women who dismounted beneath its shelter, or +who, footsore and weary, mounted its steps, would be the history of +the country for more than a century, for the men of Waterbury were in +every enterprise in which the colonies were engaged; but this is the +record of a single day in its eventful life, and we must return to the +porch, where Polly is welcoming Mrs. Melicent Porter with the words: +"Mother will be so glad you have come, Aunt Melicent, for Ethel has +gone off to New Haven and he's miles ahead of catching, and Stephen +hasn't got back yet from 'rousing the Alarm company. Mother wouldn't +_say_ a word, but she has got her mouth fixed and I know she's afraid +he's gone, too. I don't know what father will do when he finds it +out." + +"You go, now," said Mrs. Porter, "and tell your mother that your +father staid to go to the mill. He will not be here for some time." + +While Polly went to the kitchen with the message, Mrs. Melicent +alighted from her horse and, assisting her little daughter Melicent +from the saddle, said: "You are heavier to-day, Milly, than you were +when I threw you to the bank from my horse when it was floating down +the river. I couldn't do it now." + +The instant Major Porter had set little Polly Lewis on the porch Mrs. +Porter was beside him, begging that he would look for Ethel and care +for the boy if he found him. The promise was given, and looking well +despite the uncommon heat, the Major, in all the glory of his military +equipment, set forth. + +From that moment all was noise and call and confusion without. Men +went by singly, in groups, in squads, in companies, mounted and on +foot. It is a matter of public record that twelve militia companies, +with their respective captains, went from Waterbury alone to assist +New Haven in the day of its peril. It is no marvel that they set off +with speed, for the horrors of the Danbury burning was yet fresh in +memory. + +In the long kitchen, as the heated hours went by, the brick oven was +fired again and again until the very stones of the chimney expanded +with glowing heat, and the last swallow forsook its ancient nest in +despair. The sun was in the west when Mr. Porter, with a bag of wheat +on one side of the saddle and a bag of rye on the other, appeared at +the kitchen entrance and summoned help to unload, but his accustomed +helpers were gone. Even Cato, the reliable, was missing. Phyllis and +Nancy received the wheat and the rye. + +"Mother," said Mr. Porter, "I had to do the grinding myself--couldn't +find a man to do it, and I knew it couldn't be done here to-day, +water's too low. Where are the boys?" he questioned, as he entered and +looked around. When informed, his sole ejaculation was, "I ought to +have known that boys always have gone and always will go after +soldiers." + +"Don't worry, mother," he added to his wife, as she stood looking +wistfully down the road. + +There were tears in her eyes as she said: "Not a boy left." + +"Why yes, mother, here comes Stephen and Stiles Hotchkiss up the road. +My! how tired and hot the boys and the horses do look!" exclaimed +Polly. + +Stephen waited for no reprimand. He forestalled it by saying: "Captain +Hotchkiss let Stiles and me go far enough to _see_ the British +troops--way off, ever so far--but we saw 'em, we did, didn't we, +Stiles?" + +"Come! come!" said Mr. Porter, while the lad's mother stood with her +hand on his head. "Stephen, tell us all about it!" + +"Captain Hotchkiss said he was a boy once, and if we'd promise him to +go home the minute he told us to, he'd take us along. Well! we kept +meeting folks running away from New Haven, with everything on 'em but +their heads. One woman was lugging a lot of salt pork, 'because she +couldn't bear to have the Britishers eat it all up;' and another woman +was carrying away a lot of candles hanging by a string, and the sun +had melted the last drop of tallow, leaving the wicks dangling against +the tallow on her dress, but she didn't know it; and mother, would +you believe it--Mr. Timothy Atwater told Captain Hotchkiss that he +met a woman whom he knew hurrying out of town with a cat in her arms. +When he asked her where her children were, she said, 'Why, at home I +suppose.' 'Well,' said Mr. Atwater, 'hadn't you better leave the cat +and go back and get them?' And she said, 'Perhaps she had,' and went +back for 'em." + +"What became of the cat?" asked Mrs. Melicent Porter. + +"Why, Aunt Melicent, how nice!" cried Stephen, running back to the +porch and returning with a cat in his arms. + +"I've fetched her to you. I _knew_ you loved cats so! Here she is, +black as ink, and she stuck to the saddle every step of the way like a +true soldier's cat. I was afraid she'd run away when I took her off +the saddle, and I hid her. You know mother don't like cats around +under her feet." + +In a minute pussy was on the floor, and the last drop of milk in the +house was set before her by little Polly Lewis. Little Melicent +cooed softly to her, while Stephen and Stiles went on with their +story,--from which it was learned that the boys had gone within a +mile of Hotchkisstown (now Westville), where, from a height, they +had a view of the British troops. The lads were filled with +admiration of the marching, "as though it was all one motion," of +the "mingling colors of the uniforms worn, as the bright red of the +English Foot Guards blended with the graver hues of the dress worn +by the German mercenaries," and of "the waving line of glittering +bayonets." + +"We didn't see," said Stephen, "but just one flash of musketry, +because Stiles's father said we must start that instant for home, and +he told Stiles to stay here until morning, and we haven't had a +mouthful to eat since breakfast, and its been the hottest day that +ever was, and I'm tired to death." + +"And the cows are on the hill and nobody here to fetch them down," +sighed Mr. Porter. + +"Such a lot of captains waiting to see you, father!" announced Polly. +"There's Captain Woodruff and Captain Castle and Captain Richards and +a Fenn captain and a Garnsey captain. I forget the rest." The captains +invaded the kitchen itself, declaring that it being Monday in the +week, every householder had been short of provisions for the +emergency--that every inn on the way and many a private house had been +unable to provide enough for so many men, and what could they have at +the Porter Inn? + +Polly disappeared. Before her father had considered the matter she +had, assisted by her Aunt Melicent and Polly Lewis, seized from the +pantry shelves all that they could carry, and going by a rear way, had +hidden on the garret stairs a big roast of veal, one of lamb, and +enough bread and pies for family requirements, and still the pantry +shelves seemed amply filled. "I'm not going to have Ethel come home in +the night and find nothing left for him I know, and the hungry boys +fast asleep and tired out on the kitchen settle will come to life +ravenous. Wonder if I hadn't better be missing just now and go fetch +the cows down. Father would have asthma all night if he tried it," +said Polly to her aunt; and up the hill Polly went accompanied by +little Polly--while Mrs. Porter stood by and saw the fruits of her +hard day's work vanish out of sight. + +"Pray leave something for your own household," she ventured to +intercede at last. "Don't forget that we have four guests of our own +for the night;" but Mr. Porter, rather proud to show that, however +remiss others had been, the Porter Inn was prepared for emergencies, +had already bidden Nancy and Phyllis fetch forth the last loaf. + +"Like one for supper," ventured Nancy, as her master carefully +examined the empty larder, hoping to find something more. As the last +captain from Northbury started on the night journey for New Haven, Mr. +Porter faced his wife. "Now Thomas Porter," she said, "you can go +hungry to bed, but what can I do for my guests and the children and +the rest of the household?" + +Mr. Porter scratched his head--a habit when profoundly in doubt--and +said: "I must fetch the cows! It's most dark now," and set forth, to +find that Polly had them all safely in the cattle yard. + +"I suppose, father," said Polly, "that we've got to live on milk +to-night. I thought so when I heard you parleying with the captains. +So I thought I'd get the cows down." As Polly entered the house, she +saw a lady and two girls of about her own age, to whom her mother was +saying: "We will give you shelter, gladly, but my husband has just let +the militia you met just below have the last morsel of cooked food in +our house, and we've nothing left for ourselves but milk for supper." + +"Mother," said Polly, stepping to the front; "we have plenty! I looked +out for you before father got to the pantry. I made journeys to the +garret stairs, several of them, and Aunt Melicent and Polly Lewis +helped me. It is all right for the lady to stay." + +The lady in question was Mrs. Thankful Punderson and her twin +daughters, girls of twelve years, who had escaped from New Haven just +as the British troops reached Broadway, and the riot and plunder and +killing began. "I hoped," she said, "to reach the house of my +husband's sister, Mrs. Zachariah Thompson, in Westbury, but Anna and +Thankful are too tired to walk further to-night, and the horse can +carry but two. It is getting late, and I am so thankful to stay." + +As Mr. Porter stood on the porch looking down the road for the next +arrival, hoping to learn some later news and perhaps to hear Ethel's +cheery call in the distance, Polly said: "Father, will you let me be +innkeeper to-night?" + +"Gladly, Polly, with nothing to keep and not a room to spare," was his +reply. + +"Then I'll invite you to supper, and mind, if the ministers themselves +come, they can't have a bite to-night, for I'm the keeper." + +"I suppose you've made us some hasty pudding while the milking was +going on," he said, as Polly, preceding her father for once, went +before, and opened the door upon a table abundantly supplied, and laid +for twelve. + +At the table Mr. Porter told, for the benefit of Mrs. Melicent Porter +and Mrs. Punderson, some of the events, both pathetic and tragic, +that had occurred in the old house during his boyhood and youth, and +Mrs. Melicent Porter told again the events of the day in June--only +a year before--wherein the battle of Monmouth had been fought near +her New Jersey home, and she had spent the day in doing what she +could to relieve the sufferings of men so spent with battle and heat +and wounds that they panted to her door with tongues hanging from +their mouths; also of her perilous journey from New Jersey to +Connecticut on horseback, accompanied by Lieutenant-Colonel +Baldwin, her father--during which journey it was, that she had +thrown her daughter Melicent in safety from her horse to the bank +of the river they were fording, while the animal, having lost its +footing, was going down the current. + +While these things had been in the telling, Polly had slipped from the +table unnoticed, and had lighted every lamp that could brighten the +house front and serve to guide to its porch. The last lamp was just +alight when Polly's guests began to arrive. She half expected +soldiers, and refugees came. It seemed to her that every family in New +Haven must be related to every family in Waterbury--so many women and +children came in to rest themselves before continuing the journey and +"to wait until the moon should rise," for the evening was very dark, +and oh! the stories that each fresh arrival brought! They filled the +group that came in to listen with fear and agony. New Haven was very +near to Waterbury in that day. The inhabitants there were closely +connected with the inhabitants here, and their peril and distress was +a common woe. Little Stiles Hotchkiss cried himself to sleep that +night, fearing that one of the three Hotchkisses, reported killed, +might be his father. + +Polly acted well her part. To the children she gave fresh milk; to +their elders she explained that the militia had taken their supplies, +while she made place to receive two or three invalids who could go no +further, by giving up her own room. + +"You'll let me lie on the floor in your room, Aunt Melicent, I know," +she said, "for the poor lady is so old and so feeble; I'm most sure +she is a hundred. She came in a chaise and wanted to get up to Parson +Leavenworth's, but she just can't. She can't hold up her head." + +It was near midnight when the refugees set forth for the Center, Mr. +Porter himself acting as guide. After that time, the sleepy boys and +the entire household having taken themselves to bed, the old house was +left to the night, with its silence and its chill dampness that always +comes up from the river, that goes on "singing to us the same bonny +nonsense," despite our cheer or our sorrow. Again, and yet again +through the night, doors opened and two mothers stepped out in the +moonlight to listen, hoping--hoping to hear sound of the coming of the +boys, but only the lone cry of the whippoorwill was borne on the air. + +"'Pears like," said Phyllis to Mrs. Porter in the morning, "the +whippoorwills had lots to say last night; talked all night so's you +couldn't hear nothing 'tall." + +"Phyllis," said Mrs. Porter, "there was nothing else to hear, but we +shall know soon." + +Polly came down, bringing her checked linen apron full of eggs for +breakfast. "I thought, mother," she said, "that you'd leave yourself +without an egg yesterday, so I looked out. Isn't it handy to have them +in the house? Haven't heard a single cackle this morning yet, but +yesterday was a remarkable day everyway. I believe the hens knew the +British were coming. Did you ever see such eggs? Wonder if my old lady +is awake yet! Guess I'll carry up some hot water for her and find +out." + +Polly poured the water deftly from the big iron tea-kettle hanging +from the crane and hurried away with it, only to return with such +haste that she tripped on the threshold, broke the pitcher and sent +the water over everything it could reach. "Mother," she said, +recovering herself, "Parson Leavenworth will be here to breakfast. +He's coming down the road with father. My old lady will feel honored, +won't she? I know he's come for her. Phyllis, any more hot water to +spare? It's so good to take out wrinkles; she'll miss it, I know." + +The sun had not climbed over Great Hill when breakfast was over, and +the last guest of the night had gone. Mrs. Punderson's daughter Anna +rode behind the Rev. Mark Leavenworth on his horse, Thankful with Mrs. +Punderson, the old lady in the chaise, and even Stiles had galloped +away toward the east, and yet not a traveler on the road had brought +tidings from New Haven. The group on the porch watching the departure +had not dispersed when Polly's ears caught a strain floating up the +river valley. She listened. She ran. She clasped her mother in her +arms. She kissed her. She whispered in her ear, "I hear him! He's +coming! Ethel is; and Cato is with him!" she cried out, embracing +Phyllis in her joy. The two mothers--the one white, the other black; +the one free, the other in bonds--went to listen. They stood side by +side on the porch; tears fell from their eyes, tears that through all +the years science has failed to distinguish, the one from the other. +Ethel's cheery call rang clear and clearer. Cato's wild cadence grew +near and nearer, but when the boys rode up beside the porch, Mrs. +Porter was on her knees in the little bed-room off the parlor, and +Phyllis was in the kitchen. New England mothers, both of them! Their +sorrows they could bear; their joys they hid from sight. + +WATERBURY, CONN., September, 1898. + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes + +Incorrect quotes and a few obvious typos (hugh/huge, fireams/firearms, +and ziz/zig) have been fixed. + +Otherwise, the author's original spelling has been preserved; e.g. +Yankeys, afright and affright, and the incorrect usage of 'its'. + +Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Only Woman in the Town, by Sarah J. 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