“Well, I will try to; but I know I cannot keep my mind on the sermon for one instant. I shall be thinking of what is going on outside the city.” Yet she accompanied her aunt without further words, and announced at the dinner-table that she believed it had done her good to go.
Shortly after noon of the following day came flying reports that a battle was in progress. Next came the news that the British general, Ross, had been killed. After this were various reports, and, throughout the night, stragglers brought in accounts of the day’s action. The next morning early came a sudden, ominous sound. Lettice jumped from her bed. It was six o’clock. She ran to her sister Betty’s room. The baby, terrified by the sudden noise, was crying with fright. “Isn’t it a hideous sound!” said Lettice, placing herself at the foot of the bed. “Hark! it gets worse and worse; it fairly shakes the house to its foundations. Oh, Betty, do you suppose they will get near enough to bombard the city?”
“If they can get past the forts. Pray Heaven they do not!”
All day the sombre sound of the cannonading continued. At three in the afternoon it grew fiercer, and those who waited in terror, now feared that their beloved town would share the fate of Washington. From the windows Lettice and Betty watched the ascending rockets, and as night came on and the fearful booming continued, becoming louder and fiercer, it seemed as if every brick in the house must fall about their ears.
Suddenly the noise increased in volume. It sounded nearer. What did it mean? Betty and Lettice, with one accord, rushed out into the street. Throngs of anxious people, with pale faces and terror-stricken eyes, were gathered there. “What does it mean?” they whispered one to another.
All at once, as suddenly, a stillness fell. It was an awe-inspiring silence. Betty clung to Lettice, crying, “Oh, Letty, we are lost!” But the bombs and rockets again began to illumine the sky, though now at a greater distance, and when the morning broke upon those who had sleeplessly kept their vigil in the streets of the threatened city, the danger was over. Baltimore was saved.
That night the British sailed away, and then those who, so short a time before, had appeared a sadly anxious company, driven by fear from their homes, now gayly paraded the streets, cheering and shouting as the triumphant troops marched by.
“I am glad we stayed. I am truly glad, for all that it was so terrible. I am glad to get rid of my recollections of Washington,” Lettice exclaimed. “They have gone, Aunt Martha! They have gone, Betty! Do you realize that it was a victory?” And, seizing the baby, she danced him up and down till he screamed with mirth and excitement.
They had hardly recovered from their joy at the victory, and the delight in welcoming home the ones who had done so much toward winning it, when other glad tidings came to them. Weak, miserable, fever-wasted though he was, it was a day of rejoicing for them all that brought Joe home again. Big Pat Flynn and William lifted the wasted figure from the carriage to the house, and Lettice, who was on the lookout for him, ran to the door. She burst into tears as she saw the mournful, hollow eyes, and Aunt Martha, close upon her heels, chid her with:—
“That is a pretty way to welcome the boy! Why, Joe—” And then she, too, lost control of herself, and, leaning on Lettice’s shoulder, began to weep.