GEORGE THE THIRD
It is well to remember, in these days, that George Washington was in reality an Englishman who fought a German king whom chance had seated on the throne of England. And it is well to recall also that George the Third, though obstinate and wrong-headed enough, gave in at last with a better grace than might have been expected. To John Adams, our first minister to England, he said: Sir, I will be very free with you. I was the last to consent to the separation, but the separation having been made ... I have always said and I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power.
THE LITTLE FIFER[H]
By Helen M. Winslow
John Holden was lost. His mother’s faith that God would take care of her boy was rewarded, however, when it was discovered that John with his little fife was helping to drill the soldiers in Washington’s army.
MORE than a hundred years ago there lived, in the town of Shirley, Mass., a bright, well-grown lad named John Holden. His father was a farmer, and the little fellow trudged about the farm, clad in home-spun and home-made clothing, feeding calves, driving cows, and doing whatever his hands found to do “with all his might.�
One Saturday night John was early at the gate waiting for his father’s homecoming; for Saturday was the day when John Holden went to the village, and returned laden with packages and news from Boston—which to them was the centre of the world. A present was an unheard-of thing in little John’s life. What was his surprise, then, as his father rode up to the gate, to see him hand out a long black case, saying:
“Here, my boy, see what I’ve brought you for a birthday present.�
And imagine his greater astonishment, on opening the case, to see a beautiful fife of dark wood with silver trimmings!
The boy could hardly believe his own eyes; and as he was passionately fond of music he lost no time in beginning to learn the use of his newly acquired instrument. He carried the fife with him everywhere and practised on it in every spare moment, and before many months he was able to greatly astonish the villagers and won many a compliment by his skillful playing.
Just before the Revolutionary War the whole country, as every boy and girl ought to know, was in a state of ferment and dread. War seemed inevitable, and the oppressive rule of the English was the theme of conversation everywhere.
Little John heard much of it, and longed to be a man that he might join the “rebellious colonists.� And one day he received a compliment which set him thinking of matters in a way the older members of his family never mistrusted.
A visitor from Boston was at the farmhouse, and the talk, as usual, ran on the prospect of war in the colonies. During a pause in the conversation, Mr. Holden asked John to play something on the fife. When he had played a stirring march or two, the stranger exclaimed, “Upon my word! But the boy has the soul of music in him! He will be ready for the British bulls and lions when it is necessary.�
John sat quite still for some time. But before he went to bed he went to his father and said, “Father, if the British do come, shall I go to war with my fife?�
“To be sure,� answered his father laughingly. “They could not get along without you.�
Long after his father had forgotten this incident, John Holden took his dog Zip, and his darling fife, and went to a favorite hill on the place to practise. At night the dog came back alone and going straight up to the boy’s chamber began to moan and cry, and would not leave John’s bed.
The family were greatly alarmed, and instantly divined that something had happened to John.
Soon the whole town was in commotion; for the news that John Holden was lost flew like wildfire. Bands of men were organized and went searching the woods in every direction.
Indians had been traveling through the town recently. Had they carried off the boy or had they stolen the valuable fife and thrown the boy into the river? The woods were hunted through and through; the river was dragged; notices of the lost boy were sent in every direction; but weeks lengthened into months and no clew was obtained that threw the faintest glimmer of light on the strange disappearance.
Everybody believed him to be dead, or with the cruel Indians. Everybody but one. The boy’s mother never lost faith in his being safe somewhere.
“My boy is in God’s hands,� she would say. “In his good time John will come home.�
And nothing could move her from this belief while two anxious years slipped by.
In the meantime war had broken out, and Shirley had sent her full quota of men to fight for the country’s independence. It was through one of these that a rumor reached Mr. Holden that a boy of twelve was in General Washington’s army as fifer.
Jonas Holden was impressed with the certainty that the boy in Washington’s army and his lost son were the same. He went home and told his wife the story, and she was certain of it. Accordingly Mr. Holden started for New York, where General Washington and his army were then stationed. There were no railroads or telegraphs then, remember; nothing but horses and stagecoaches. Mr. Holden chose the former, and the best he could do, by traveling on horseback, was to reach General Washington’s headquarters in seven days.
When he finally drew rein at the outposts of the Continental Army, he made known his desire to see General Knox, who was with Washington at that time.
General Knox received the Massachusetts farmer with a cordiality that put him at his ease in a moment; and Mr. Holden found no difficulty in stating his errand.
“There is your boy, sir!� exclaimed the interested General, pointing to a young fellow in a soldier’s suit, gay with brass buttons, who was playing on a fife. “He is drilling some raw recruits. That boy is Captain-general of us all, sir. I have never known him to whimper or say ‘I can’t,’ although he is the youngest of us.�
The fifer was sent for in the Colonel’s name. As he drew near, and lifting his cap, asked, “Did you send for me, sir?� his eye fell on his father sitting in a corner of the tent.
In a moment the boy was in his father’s arms and sobbing like a baby. The father’s tears were mingled with the long-lost son’s and the redoubtable General was obliged to resort to his handkerchief as he withdrew, leaving father and son alone, with the remark:
“I will see our Commander-in-chief.�
“When did you come?� said John, when he could speak. “And how did you find me?�
“Old Captain brought me,� was the reply, “and he can take us both home.�
“And how is mother?� pursued the boy. “Oh! I have been so sorry for dear mother. I tell you, father, not a night have I camped down to sleep but I have thought of mother; and every time I thought of her the tears came. I thought perhaps she might die and I should never see her again.�
“Your mother is well,� was the father’s answer. “And she has never for one moment lost faith in your being well and happy, and finally restored to us.�
“Yes, I shall return, father,� said John. “But I want this war ended first.�
After the boy had inquired for all the family, he said:
“But why didn’t you bring Zip along, too?�
“Poor Zip!� was the reply. “He mourned himself to death before you had been gone a week. He never touched another mouthful of food, and would only lie on your bed and moan.�
General Knox soon returned with orders from the Commander-in-chief to conduct Mr. Holden and John to his headquarters—a summons that must be obeyed at once.
General Washington received Mr. Holden very kindly and said smilingly:
“I hear a story that sounds like a romance in the midst of war. Tell me, my little fifer, how you came to leave your parents without their knowledge, and to join my army at such a tender age?�
John was somewhat abashed by this direct question from so dignified and august a personage; but the General added kindly:
“You have the name of being one of my bravest boys. Tell me how it happened. You never ran away, did you?�
“No, sir, never,� answered John with spirit. “I was playing with my dog Zip, on Sorrel Hill, when a big wagon, full of men, came along. They stopped when they saw me, and one of them called out, ‘Halloo, my little fifer! We are looking for you. Jump in.’ I asked them if the British bulls and lions were here, and they said ‘Yes, hurry up!’ I jumped in, sir, and that was the way it happened.�
Mr. Holden then remembered, for the first time, what he had said long ago, when John asked him if he would be needed when the British bulls and lions appeared.
John’s story was met by a burst of laughter quite unusual with Washington. Then patting the boy’s rosy cheeks, the General said, “After this you must give us some music, my lad.�
And John, quite elated, rendered a stirring march.
“I don’t see how we can part with this brave boy of yours,� said General Washington to Mr. Holden when the boy had finished playing; “but parents have the first claim.�
John was just then ordered to go and dismiss the men he had been drilling, and he departed with a martial salute to his superiors, and “I will be back in five minutes,� to his father.
Mr. Holden, left alone, told the story of the mother’s deep faith, and added, “John seems to be in his element here.�
Then General Washington told the gratified parent an incident, showing the spirit of the lad.
“When I, with a number of my suite, approached the vicinity of Monmouth Court House,� said he, “I was met by a little musician, who archly cried out, ‘They are all coming this way, your Honor!’�
“‘Who are coming this way?’� said I.
“‘Why, our boys, your Honor! Our boys! and the British are right after them!’�
“‘Impossible!’ I cried; but spurring my horse, I found the boy’s words only too true.�
“He is a good boy,� added General Knox, “and invaluable in training raw recruits. If they are homesick he talks kindly with them and cheers them wonderfully with his ardent patriotism.�
The boy just then returned and General Knox added, “Well, what did your men say when you told them you were going home?�
John blushed and answered, “I could not tell them that, your Honor. Father, let me stay another year. Then I shall be thirteen and able to help you more on the farm. You know mother is well, and the war will soon be over.�
What father in Revolutionary times could resist such an appeal?
Washington smiled, and Mr. Holden consented. And after a kind farewell from the Father of his Country, and a loving one from the young fifer, Jonas Holden rode away, saying to himself:
“My boy could not hold a more honored position. I leave him safe in the hands of General Washington—and of God.�
When, after seven more days of horseback riding, Jonas Golden arrived at his own door in Shirley, he was met by his maiden sister with the words:
“Disappointed again! So it wasn’t our John at all? I tell you, you’ll never see that boy again.�
But Mr. Holden held out his hand to the boy’s mother.
“My dear,� he said, “John is the happiest boy in the Continental Army.�
It took a long time to tell the story of the journey; of his reception at Washington’s headquarters; of his finding the boy; of his growth, improvement, and popularity; of his close adherence to the principles of right and truth which they had taught him; and of the great Commander’s praise of their son. But at last the father said:
“Have I done right in leaving him there?�
“Just right,� said the mother.
John Holden returned to his parents when the war was over and lived to a good old age. And his name may be seen, for the searching, even now, on the books at Washington, as a pensioner of 1776.
ETHAN ALLEN AND THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS[I]
By Washington Irving
The story of the capture of Fort Ticonderoga by the Robin Hood of the New Hampshire Grants.
AS affairs were now drawing to a crisis, and war was considered inevitable, some bold spirits in Connecticut conceived a project for the outset. This was the surprisal of the old forts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, already famous in the French war. Their situation on Lake Champlain gave them the command of the main route to Canada; so that the possession of them would be all-important in case of hostilities. They were feebly garrisoned and negligently guarded, and abundantly furnished with, artillery and military stores so much needed by the patriot army.
This scheme was set on foot in the purlieus, as it were, of the provincial Legislature of Connecticut, then in session. It was not openly sanctioned by that body, but secretly favored, and money lent from the treasury to those engaged in it. A committee was appointed, also, to accompany them to the frontier, aid them in raising troops, and exercise over them a degree of superintendence and control.
Sixteen men were thus enlisted in Connecticut, a greater number in Massachusetts, but the greatest accession of force was from what was called the “New Hampshire Grants.� This was a region having the Connecticut River on one side and Lake Champlain and the Hudson River on the other—being, in fact, the country forming the present State of Vermont. It had long been a disputed territory claimed by New York and New Hampshire. George II had decided in favor of New York; but the Governor of New Hampshire had made grants of between one and two hundred townships in it, whence it had acquired the name of the New Hampshire Grants. The settlers on those grants resisted the attempts of New York to eject them, and formed themselves into an association called “The Green Mountain Boys.� Resolute, strong-handed fellows they were, with Ethan Allen at their head, a native of Connecticut, but brought up among the Green Mountains. He and his lieutenants, Seth Warner and Remember Baker, were outlawed by the Legislature of New York, and rewards offered for their apprehension. They and their associates armed themselves, set New York at defiance, and swore they would be the death of any one who should attempt their arrest.
Thus Ethan Allen was becoming a kind of Robin Hood among the mountains, when the present crisis changed the relative position of things as if by magic. Boundary feuds were forgotten amid the great questions of colonial rights. Ethan Allen at once stepped forward, a patriot, and volunteered with his Green Mountain Boys to serve in the popular cause. He was well fitted for the enterprise in question, by his experience as a frontier champion, his robustness of mind and body, and his fearless spirit. He had a kind of rough eloquence, also, that was very effective with his followers. “His style,� says one, who knew him personally, “was a singular compound of local barbarisms, Scriptural phrases, and oriental wildness; and though unclassic, and sometimes ungrammatical, was highly animated and forcible.� Washington, in one of his letters, says there was “an original something in him which commanded admiration.�
Thus reinforced, the party, now two hundred and seventy strong, pushed forward to Castleton, a place within a few miles of the head of Lake Champlain. Here a council of war was held on the 2d of May. Ethan Allen was placed at the head of the expedition, with James Easton and Seth Warner as second and third in command. Detachments were sent off to Skenesborough (now Whitehall), and another place on the lake, with orders to seize all the boats they could find and bring them to Shoreham, opposite Ticonderoga, whither Allen prepared to proceed with the main body.
At this juncture another adventurous spirit arrived at Castleton. This was Benedict Arnold, since so sadly renowned. He, too, had conceived the project of surprising Ticonderoga and Crown Point; or, perhaps, had caught the idea from its first agitators in Connecticut—in the militia of which province he held a captain’s commission. He had proposed the scheme to the Massachusetts committee of safety. It had met their approbation. They had given him a colonel’s commission, authorized him to raise a force in western Massachusetts not exceeding four hundred men, and furnished him with money and means. Arnold had enlisted but a few officers and men when he heard of the expedition from Connecticut being on the march. He instantly hurried on with one attendant to overtake it, leaving his few recruits to follow as best they could; in this way he reached Castleton just after the council of war.
Producing the colonel’s commission received from the Massachusetts committee of safety, he now aspired to the supreme command. His claims were disregarded by the Green Mountain Boys; they would follow no leader but Ethan Allen. As they formed the majority of the party, Arnold was fain to acquiesce, and serve as a volunteer, with the rank, but not the command, of colonel.
The party arrived at Shoreham, opposite Ticonderoga, on the night of the 9th of May. The detachment sent in quest of boats had failed to arrive. There were a few boats at hand, with which the transportation was commenced. It was slow work; the night wore away; day was about to break, and but eighty-three men, with Allen and Arnold, had crossed. Should they wait for the residue, day would dawn, the garrison wake, and their enterprise might fail. Allen drew up his men, addressed them in his own emphatic style, and announced his intention to make a dash at the fort without waiting for more force. “It is a desperate attempt,� said he, “and I ask no man to go against his will. I will take the lead, and be the first to advance. You that are willing to follow, poise your firelocks.� Not a firelock but was poised.
They mounted the hill briskly but in silence, guided by a boy from the neighborhood. The day dawned as Allen arrived at a sally-port. A sentry pulled trigger on him, but his piece missed fire. He retreated through a covered way. Allen and his men followed. Another sentry thrust at Easton with his bayonet, but was struck down by Allen and begged for quarter. It was granted on condition of his leading the way instantly to the quarters of the commandant, Captain Delaplace, who was yet in bed. Being arrived there, Allen thundered at the door, and demanded a surrender of the fort. By this time his followers had formed into two lines on the parade-ground, and given three hearty cheers. The commandant appeared at his door half dressed, “the frightened face of his pretty wife peering over his shoulder.� He gazed at Allen in bewildered astonishment. “By whose authority do you act?� exclaimed he. “In the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress,� replied Allen, with a flourish of his sword, and an oath which we do not care to subjoin.
There was no disputing the point. The garrison, like the commander, had been startled from sleep, and made prisoners as they rushed forth in their confusion. A surrender accordingly took place.
THE CAPTURE OF THE HENNEPIN GUN[J]
By Margaret Emma Ditto
The Fourth of July pranks of a young Ethan Allen and his friends—descendants of the Green Mountain Boys of Revolutionary days.
ON THE evening of the third of July, somewhat more than fifty years ago, a number of boys were gathered in secret council at a deserted house on Otter Creek. The boys had come one by one in the gathering gloom of the early darkness, creeping along from bush to copse or hugging the shady side of the stone fences. They had come silently—no lilt of merry whistle or song, no wanton hoot or random stone-fling, had betrayed their presence on the road.
“There are nine of us already,� whispered a tall boy of fifteen as he shoved aside the hingeless door and peered out. “That is Seneca Goodyear coming across the meadow. He is strong if he does limp. Come in, Senk, and shut the door quick, hang your coat over the crack, and I’ll stand against the lower part. Now, Martin, let out your lantern—just a narrow slit of light and throw it on the floor—not in our faces. Go on, Ethan, and tell them about it.�
A heavy-shouldered boy with Saxon hair and eyes straightened himself up from the cobwebby wall against which he had been leaning and settled himself stolidly on his feet. This boy’s name was Ethan Allen and he was a descendant of the Revolutionary hero of the same name.
“There isn’t much to tell,� he began. “The Ogden County boys have stolen our cannon—old ‘Ticonderoga’ that belongs to Hennepin County, that we have fired off every Fourth of July, or our folks have, ever since there was a Fourth of July. It has been stolen and carried across the county line, and in less than four hours they will be banging it in our faces from the top of Horncliffe. And we’ve got to get that gun between this and midnight.�
“How are we going to do it?� asked Seneca Goodyear.
“That is what we have got to find out,� said Ethan.
“Why don’t the men do something about it?� asked a conservative boy. “I should think it ought to be settled by law; the gun was given to the county by Eth’s grandfather, and it is county property the same as everything else on the court-house grounds.�
“Yes, it is county property,� said Seneca Goodyear. “And that is where the point lies. I’ve heard father talk about it. It is some kind of claim they set up on account of the new boundary line that has sliced off miles and miles of our county, and now they have got the ground they want everything that ever stood on the ground—their proportion of county property they call it, and they have begun by helping themselves to that gun. But there’s no right in their claim.�
“Of course there’s not!� said one indignantly.
“Ogden County is the meanest lot that live on top of the State of Vermont anyway!� said another.
“Well, the Ogden boys were smart enough to steal that gun,� said Ethan Allen, “and if Hennepin boys are any smarter we’d better show our stuff by getting it away from them.�
“I don’t take it to be any question of smartness,� answered the conservative boy. “It is quite as smart to keep out of a hornet’s nest as it is to get into it, and then fight out stung half to death. The question is, what are our chances for doing it? I’m not going on a fool’s errand. To begin with, who took the gun? Where did they take it to? Where is it now? And how do you know anything about it, anyway?�
“We have got all that straight enough, and here is the boy that will speak for himself. Come up here, Eph,� said Allen.
Thus conjured, a boy arose from a dark corner and with a quick cat-like motion came to the front. He looked to be an artless little fellow of ten years, with his quiet eyes and his limp white locks hanging about his small face. But in truth he was fourteen years old, and the discipline of his life had made him shrewd and courageous. He showed very thin and imp-like as the ray of the lantern fell upon him. It seemed as if that sliver of light would go through him like a bayonet and come out on the other side.
There was a murmur of voices. “Oh, him!�
“Eph Stearns—much he knows about it.�
“Dodge down, you little white top, nobody wants to hear you!�
But burly Ethan Allen shouldered up to the little fellow. “Go ahead, Eph,� he said, “tell it to ’em just as you told it to me. Don’t be scared.�
“I wa’n’t scared last night, and I ain’t likely to be now,� said Eph with a grin up at Ethan’s broad face.
“That’s so. Shake hands. After all there is nothing little about you, Eph—except yourself.�
The little fellow looked bigger after this grip of good fellowship and he piped up and began his story.
“I was out last night,� he said. “It was near midnight I reckon. Most all the lights was out in the village and everything was quiet. I was out—out looking for something——�
“He was out looking for his drunken old father,� whispered one of the boys, nudging his neighbor. “That’s Eph’s regular beat nights. He is afraid the old man will get run over, or get sunstruck by moonlight.�
“Hush up, you,� said the boy addressed. “Eph isn’t to blame.�
“I had been down by the cross-roads,� Eph went on. “You know where that is.�
“I think it’s likely we do—there is where General Stark buried a traitor and staked him down with a crowbar,� said one.
“For some time I didn’t hear anything,� Eph went on. “Then I heard something coming along slow and still on the old turnpike. It didn’t seem like a wagon at first, nothing about it rattled and squeaked natural-like for a wagon. There must have been lots of axle grease onto them wheels and that harness was oiled up and strapped up, I tell you, and if them horses had a had smart-weed drafts onto their hoofs they couldn’t have set ’em down more soft and quiet-like. When I saw that it was a wagon and that there wa’n’t no signs of a driver to it—for whatever was driving of it was flat on the bottom—then it came over me that they was a-bringing home somebody dead in that wagon——�
“And the Remains was driving itself home, quiet and respectable-like, and conducting its own funeral—that’s accommodating now—I like that, go on,� interrupted Martin.
“Of course,� Eph admitted, looking a little “sheepish.� “Of course there wa’n’t no sense in that—not by daylight. But that’s what I thought of then, and I was hot and cold all to onct, I tell you, and I streaked after that wagon, for I meant to get home to mother ahead of it. I got up to the court house and lay down flat in that clump of pines by the horse block, ’cause all the roads branch off from there and I could see which way it went next. There wa’n’t no moon last night, and precious few stars.
“On come the wagon, slow and steady—just as if a chunk of the dark had got loose from the rest of the dark and was moving on by itself. It come close to the horse block and I could see it wa’n’t going down any of the roads. Then I heard a clattering sound, and I knew they were going over the round stones of the gutter, and the off horse struck out a spark with his hoof. When I saw ’em a-following me up so close I thought certain it was me they was after. But I had a good place for dodging—out by the meeting-house sheds, or down the court-house steps into the cellar, or round the wood pile—good places all of them, and I thought I would chance it. But there wa’n’t no call for dodging. The wagon just rolled quietly on a few steps and then stood stockstill and six black shadows rose up one by one and got out on to the ground, and when I saw that, why I could have squealed right out a-laughing.
“I meant to see what they were after, so I dragged myself along like a worm in the shadow of that bad-smelling green stuff that edges the driveway, and I found out they were boys from over the line and they had come for our gun. Phil Basset was bossing around—same as he tried to when he came to the academy before Ethan settled him. He was wheezing away like the croup, talking in big whispers full of wind, telling everybody else to keep still, and where to put the crowbars and how to lift all together when he give the word, one, two, three! But just as he got to ‘three,’ there was a pin pointing toward the calf of his leg, and I braced myself against that pin and it naturally sent me off down the knoll, quiet-like and out of the way, and it left him hollering and kicking. Then everybody dropped flat till they see whether any one in the village heard the noise. When they went to work again Phil said he’d been taken with cramp and couldn’t lift. But they got the gun onto the wagon and started for home. Phil drove ’cause his leg was lame and they was his father’s horses. The other five boys had gone on ahead.
“Well, when I saw that gun moving off, and I thought how that was ours for sure, and we’d got it from the English and how we’d got ourselves from the English—Fourth of July and all, so that they couldn’t ever boss us again, and so that everybody was his own boss in this country—why something rose up in my throat and choked me. Then I thought about Eth, ’cause he’d had charge of the gun, and he’d been awful good and let me help clean her up, and how we’d dug the rust out of her and greased her and polished her, and he’d showed me the powder and things for to-morrow and said I might touch her off the first bang—then I nearly busted, only I saw that it wasn’t any time for busting. I just got myself together pretty quick and jumped for the tailboard of that wagon. I hung on—I thought I’d stick to that gun, and if I died a sticking there, well then I’d die.
“The boys had told Phil to take the new road to Tadman’s Ferry, ’cause the hills were so steep on the old one, and the fellows were to go cross-lots and meet him on the other side, and then they were going to set the gun up as high as they could get it on Horncliffe. But Phil said he reckoned he knew what the horses could haul, and as soon as he was left to himself he struck off onto the old road. He was up high on the seat and I’d crawled in and was laying on the bottom, flatter than flat—froze on to the gun. We buzzed along lively at first. The down-hills were rather shaky work you guess, but the up-hills were worse, and they kept getting more so till we got to that awful steep pitch near the top of Smith’s hill. You know where that is?�
“Oh, yes,� said Martin. “There is where you have to lean backward to keep from bumping your forehead when you go up. I suppose you rose to the occasion, Eph—it must have stood you and the gun right up on end.�
“I got out,� Eph went on, “for the horses stood stockstill and couldn’t go an inch farther and then the wagon began to slip back, and Phil put stones back of the wheels. Then he went at his horses again, whipping and coaxing them. But it was no use. The road is slaty along there and the horses had no grip for their feet. He had to give it up at last and he left everything standing and went for the boys to get them to boost. As soon as I knew I was alone I hid the crowbars in a hollow tree, and I cut the traces and let the horses loose, and I took the linchpin out of one of the wheels—it wasn’t in very tight, and I took the ramrod of the gun, and I wrapped them traces around it and I dropped ’em into the brook at the foot of the hill. Then I put for home, and I waked up Ethan Allen and went to bed myself.�
“I reckon you were in bed all the time, and saw all this with your eyes shut in the dark,� said a derisive voice.
“Sure you didn’t dream it, Eph?� asked Seneca kindly.
“It is a good yarn, anyway,� said Martin who had a taste for fancy sketches. “And it hangs together as well as most. I believe it is as true as any of us could make up unless we had facts or some little conveniences of that kind to go upon.�
The little boy straightened up and leveled a look of indignant protest at the scoffers. Then, turning to Ethan Allen, he said, “You go on—you know about the rest of it.�
“No chaffing about this not being true,� said Ethan, “we haven’t the time for it. Eph wakened me up at two o’clock this morning with a handful of gravel on my window, and I was over at Smith’s hill before daylight, and I found the crowbars rammed up a hollow tree just as he told me, and the gun is there by the roadside, tipped over in a kind of gully, and there is some gravel on top of it, and a pile of dry brushwood, so that any one driving along the road would not notice it, and I fished the ramrod and old Basset’s traces out of the brook. I reckon the Ogden boys are coming over for the gun to-night, and we want to get in ahead of them. I can go, for one. Who else?�
“Me, too,� piped in little Eph.
“Oh, of course,� said Ethan.
“Me, three—that makes six,� said Martin.
“I will go,� said Seneca Goodyear in his slow, heavy way, “and I reckon that father will let me have a team—our horses won’t have to work to-morrow.�
“Will your father make you tell what you are going to do with it?� asked the conservative boy.
“Well, no—not if I had rather not,� said Seneca. “He’ll trust me—and that is the tightest tether I want to be fastened with. Sometimes I wish he didn’t. I wouldn’t like to get home minus the traces and linchpin and crowbars as Phil Basset did.�
“Well, if Seneca goes, that takes me,� said Mark Hemingway, the tall doorkeeper. “My folks said I might stay all night with Seneca and I shall stick like a tick.�
“I’ll go, and I, and I,� chorused the rest—conservative boy and all.
Then Seneca Goodyear moved that Ethan Allan be captain of the expedition. This was carried by acclaim.
“All right,� said Ethan in terse acceptance of the appointment. “Now we’ve got to be quicker than lightning and darker than thunder. We don’t want the Ogden boys to get there ahead of us, and have to fight them. No more we don’t want our folks stopping us nor helping us out as if we were babies. We want the glory of this ourselves. Quick and quiet is the word. All scatter and get ready and we’ll meet at the cross-roads and start when the town clock strikes nine.�
The company at the cross-roads organized as follows:
Ethan Allen, captain.
Eph Stearns, with the court-house mule, mounted scout.
Martin Fox, with a dark lantern, spy and light skirmisher.
Mark Hemingway, with an old triggerless flintlock of 1812, high private.
The rank and file consisted of two boys with pistols and no cartridges, and three boys with doughnuts and sweet apples, while the conservative boy with a pocket-compass, a lead pencil, some string, and a chunk of shoemaker’s wax, put in a bid as topographer, correspondent, and surgeon. But Seneca Goodyear, with his stout team and wagon, well equipped with ropes, crowbars, skids, and other lifting apparatus, was the mainstay of the expedition.
Little Eph Stearns was, for the nonce, a glorified being. Hitherto the heroisms of his life had been of the obscure and pathetic kind. Angels had inspired them, and a cloud of witnesses beheld them, but here the chance had come for a heroism brilliant and jubilant. Ethan Allen told him to go ahead and the big boys would see him do it. No wonder that he wrought marvels. Besides lassoing the mule, he had got a bag of shavings larger than himself, and a stout clothes line; the last two were for some secret service of his own suggestion, though approved by the captain. But the mule seemed to be a purely ornamental feature of the occasion. He had been half-shoved, half-carried to the place of rendezvous; here he seemed unwilling to go any farther. He was hitched ignominiously to the tailboard of the wagon, and being pulled in front, and poked in the rear by his doughty rider who walked behind for this purpose, he moved off in spite of himself.
Away into the darkness of that quiet summer night the expedition passed on. The sleepy lights twinkled in the distant farmhouses, the dewy winds came over the meadows and grain fields, and the stars looked down from their solemn depths. The boys were rather quiet, for boys. The secrecy of the affair, the chances for a fight which might prove dangerous, the honorable and important character of the undertaking all conspired to give a sombre coloring to the occasion. These were veritable Green Mountain Boys, too, with the legends of heroic ancestry all aglow in their young hearts and the strength of their own hills in their sturdy purpose.
After a half-hour’s ride the boys reached the place and found everything all quiet. The gun was in bad shape, dislodged from the carriage and pitched into the gully. Nobody knew how to go at it and the darkness of the night added confusion to the situation. Now the Secret Service blazoned itself splendidly forth. Eph emptied his shavings on the ground in two piles, one or each side of the gun; upon these he heaped the brushwood and in less than two minutes he had two grand bonfires for the boys to work by. Then the little scout, with mule and clothes line, disappeared over the brow of the hill. A few rods below this point of vantage he stretched the clothes line across the road; it was about a foot from the ground and fastened on either side to the trunk of a tree. He then reported to his chief and received reinforcements: one boy and munitions of war—an empty bag, in which he gathered stones.
Meanwhile at the gun the skids had been well adjusted by the firelight, and the lifting went sturdily on. Upon the height of the hill Eph awaited the onslaught of the enemy. The deploying force made a brave line of battle: Eph on the right flank with a pile of stones, his aide on the left, and the mule in the centre. They had not long to wait. A heavy team was heard laboring up. Moving shadows soon were seen in advance of it.
“Now don’t waste your stones,� Eph orders his command. “Don’t fire one of them till you see them Ogdens keel over the rope and hear them holler. Then pelt away like Jehu, and whoop like an Indian, and they’ll think it’s the regular army.�
The enemy came on en masse, they tripped over the rope so beautifully that Eph Stearns, boy and man, has laughed at the thought of it ever since, they fell kicking and struggling and tangled up as to legs and arms. Rattle and whiz came the stones in showers upon them, and, to crown all, the mule cavorted right down into the thickest of the scrimmage as if he had been Job’s war-horse smelling the battle afar.
It was full ten minutes before the Ogden boys got themselves together again, and during that ten minutes the last long pull and strong pull had been given to the cannon and the iron giant was rolling comfortably homeward in Seneca’s wagon.
Then the boys hot, exultant, shouting, made a wild break for the enemy as they came pelting over the brow of the hill.
“Sneaks!� calls one, with a stone.
“Thieves!� yells another.
“At ’em—fight ’em!� shouts another, brandishing a big stick.
“Let’s lay ’em out! thrash ’em!�
“Hold on! Halt!� cries Captain Ethan with the voice of a trumpet and he springs to the front of his little troop and faces them, his arms aloft with a kind of impassioned dominance of voice and mien that hustles back the pell-mell advance.
“Halt! Form in line!� he calls, and the wild crowd sway into a kind of half-circle about their captain.
“Three cheers for Hennepin County and the Gun!� orders the captain.
Shout, shout, shout. Oh, how they shouted! That wild hurrah rifted the clouds and shook the mountains. Then as the echoes died away, in the sharp interval of silence that followed, Captain Ethan faced around to the enemy:
“Now, gentlemen, what will you have?�
“Three cheers for Ogden County!� returned the leader.
“Ogden County—without the Gun, amen!� piped up Eph like a fife.
But the three cheers were lustily given. The old Vermont hills echoed and re-echoed again, and a vast deal of spleen spent itself in those six cheers.
“Now, all hands!� commanded Captain Ethan Allen in ringing tones. “Now, both sides and everybody, give three cheers for the Green Mountain Boys and the Fourth of July!�
Again, and doubly loud, roared out the great shouts. Again the mountains heard and the echoes reverberated around the sky. The stars listened, in their far heights, and knew that America was a stronger nation for the throb of patriotic feeling that pulsed through those hot young hearts and voiced itself in those fine huzzas.
PAUL REVERE’S RIDE[K]
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Every American boy and girl ought to know by heart the story of how Paul Revere on his famous ride called the minute-men to arms on the eve of the Battle of Lexington.
LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.�
Then he said, “Good-night!� and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!�
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet through the gloom and the light
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog
That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm—
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
TONY’S BIRTHDAY AND GEORGE WASHINGTON’S[L]
By Agnes Repplier
Washington’s Birthday—boys skating—and how one timid little boy called after the Father of his Country lived up to his illustrious name.
IT WAS the great misfortune of Tony Butler’s life to have been born on the twenty-second of February.
There was no comfort in reflecting that there were doubtless plenty of other boys in the country who labored under the same disadvantage. The other boys might perhaps be better fitted for the honor, but for poor Tony the distinction was a crushing one.
In the first place, he had an older brother, and that older brother’s name was George. Now it is generally conceded that one of a name is enough for any family; but when Tony was born on the twenty-second of February, how was poor Mrs. Butler to act?
Not to have called him after the Father of his Country would have been, in that good woman’s opinion, a positive slight to the illustrious dead. As long as her boy was fortunate enough to have the same birthday as our great President, it became her plain duty to give him one other point of resemblance, and then trust to time to complete the likeness.
It was a pity that they had a George already, but that difficulty could be done away with by calling her second son Washington. Washington Butler sounded well, and seemed all that was desirable; only there was just a little too much of it for every-day use. Sometimes the boy was called Washie, and sometimes Wash, and sometimes Wah, and sometimes Tony, until, as he grew older, and able to talk, he evinced a decided preference for the last title, and would answer to no other.
But although this lessened his troubles it by no means ended them; for when a child has so many nicknames to choose from, everybody is apt to select a different one; and to confess the truth, he was not at all the right sort of a boy to be called George Washington.
There was nothing of the soldier, nothing of the patriot, nothing at all remarkable, about poor Tony in any way. He was a shy, homely little boy, who would have passed well enough as plain Sam, which, being his father’s name, would also have been his had it not been for his unfortunate birthday. But as George Washington, even his doting mother was forced to realize he was not a complete success.
The first day he went to school the master sonorously read out his name as Antony Butler, whereat his brother giggled, and Tony, blushing fiery red, stammered out that he was not an Antony at all.
“Not Antony?� said the teacher, in natural surprise. “Why, then, are you called Tony?�
“Because my name is George Washington, and we had a George already,� was the embarrassed answer.
After this the boys with one accord dubbed him Washing Tony, as if he were a Chinese laundryman, and Washing Tony he continued to be called.
Under these circumstances, perhaps he was excusable in wishing he had been born on some less illustrious day, and when the Twenty-second came duly around it required all the delights of a new pair of skates and a fur cap to reconcile him entirely to his fate.
It being a general holiday, all the boys proposed spending it on the ice, and Tony could skate a great deal better than he could write or cipher; although even here he was never what boys consider brave, and what their parents are apt to more accurately define as foolhardy.
The truth is, there was not in the child a spice of that boyish daring which seems so attractive in its possessor, and which is in reality so wanton and useless.
Tony never wanted to climb high trees, or jump from steep places, or pat a restive horse, or throw an apple at a cross old farmer. All these things, which were dear to the hearts of his companions, were totally unattractive to him. He could never be dared to any deed that had a touch of danger in it, and the contrast between his prudent conduct and his illustrious title was, in the eyes of all the other boys, the crowning absurdity of the case.
On this particular birthday the weather, though clear, was mild for the season, and some apprehension had been felt as to the complete soundness of the ice. A careful investigation, however, showed it to be all firm and solid except in one corner, where the lake was deepest, and where the ice, though unbroken, looked thin and semi-transparent, with the restless water underneath. Around this uncertain quarter a line was drawn, and soon some thirty or forty boys were skimming rapidly over the frozen surface.
Fred Hazlit and Eddy Barrows were the champion skaters of the district, and their evolutions were regarded with wonder and delight by a host of smaller boys, who vainly tried to rival their achievements.
Not so Tony. Although perfectly at home on the ice, he seemed to have no more desire to excel here than elsewhere, but skated gravely up and down, enjoying himself in his sober fashion, his cap drawn over his eyes, his little red hands thrust in his overcoat pockets.
George, who did not think this at all amusing, was off with the older boys, trying to write his name on the ice, and going over and over it with a patient persistency that, practised at school, would have made him the first writer in his class.
Gradually the forbidden ground began to be encroached on, some of the older boys skimming lightly over it, and finding it quite hard enough to bear their weight. Soon the line was obliterated by a dozen pairs of skates, and the children, never heeding it, spread themselves over every inch of ice on the lake.
All but Tony. With characteristic prudence he had marked the dangerous corner well, and never once ventured upon it. As he stopped to tighten his skates, four of the younger boys, hand in hand, came bearing down upon him.
“Catch hold,� shouted Willie Marston, “and we’ll make a line. Hurrah! Here goes!� and Tony with the rest shot across the smooth sheet of ice until they came to the inclosed quarter. The others were keeping right on, but Tony stopped short.
“It is not safe,� he said, “and I am not going on it.�
“Nonsense!� cried Dick Treves. “What a coward you are, Tony! We have been over it a dozen times already this morning, and it is just as safe as the rest.�
“Of course it is,� said Willie. “Come ahead.�
But Tony did not go ahead. Neither did he discuss the matter, for argument of any kind was not at all in his way. He merely stopped and let go of Willie’s hand. “It isn’t safe,� he persisted. “You can do as you like, but I am not going on it.�
“Well, stay there,� said Ned Marston, giving him a little shove—“stay where you are, General Washington, and cross the Delaware on dry land if you can.�
“Three cheers for General Washington!� shouted Dick derisively. “Hurrah for the bravest of the brave!� and then the three boys skated on, leaving Tony standing there upon the ice.
His face flushed crimson with shame, but he never stirred. He hated to be laughed at and called a coward, but he was afraid to venture, and no amount of ridicule could urge him on.
Slowly he turned to go when at that instant an ominous sound struck his ear. The treacherous ice was cracking in all directions, a dozen jagged seams spreading like magic over the smooth surface. There was a sharp snap, a cry of terror, a splash, and three boys, white with fright, started back from the yawning hole barely in time to save themselves from falling.
In the excitement and fear of that moment no one of them thought of his companion; but Tony, who stood beside, had seen poor Willie’s despairing blue eyes fixed on him with a mute appeal for help as he staggered and fell into the dark water.
Somehow all his habitual caution, which was so falsely termed cowardice, had disappeared; he never even thought of being afraid, with that pitiful glance still before his eyes, but, urged on by some great impulse, cleared the space between them in an instant, and plunged down after his drowning friend.
Another minute and both boys re-appeared, Willie clutching fiercely at his preserver, and Tony holding him off as well as he could with one arm while he struck out bravely with the other.
It was but the work of a moment before help reached them, but that moment had saved poor Willie’s life, and changed forever the opinions of the school.
They had learned what true courage was. Tony Butler might be timid and insignificant, but he had proved himself beyond a doubt worthy of his illustrious name, and a fit hero for the Twenty-second.
A VENTURE IN 1777[M]
By S. Weir Mitchell
A good, long boy’s story of how three Philadelphia lads spent an exciting Christmas at Valley Forge, after performing a service of great value to the patriots’ cause.