One morning Mr. Dove slept too late, or forgot himself. The boys made up a committee to bring the teacher to school. They took the lantern and the bell with them. Mr. Dove said they were quite right. He took his place in the procession, and the people saw Schoolmaster Dove taken to school late with a lantern and a bell.
The larger schoolboys of that time were very fond of foot races. They would take off their coats and tie handkerchiefs about their heads before starting. The short breeches they wore were fastened at the knee by bands. When they were going to run a race, they would loosen these bands, and pull off their shoes and stockings. Some of the boys ran barefoot in this way, but others wore Indian moccasins. The race course was round a block; that is, about three quarters of a mile. Crowds would gather to see the boys run, and the people rushed from one side of the block to the other to see which was leading in the race.
A DUTCH FAMILY IN THE REVOLUTION.
What is now the State of New York was first settled by people from Holland who spoke the Dutch language. New York afterward became an English colony, but the Dutch settlers and their descendants still spoke the language of Holland, at the time of the American Revolution.
In Flatbush, which is now a part of Brooklyn, was a family that spoke the Dutch language, while they were true Americans in feeling. When the British landed on Long Island, they got ready to leave the town. The horses were hitched to the wagon, and such things as were thought most valuable were put in. The first thing they put into the wagon was the great Dutch Bible with heavy brass clasps. A tall clock was also carefully lifted into the wagon. Then clothing and other things followed.
The father of the family told the two faithful negro men, Cæsar and his son Mink, how to take care of things. Femmetia, the most active of the daughters, had the whip in her hand, and, as the sound of firing was coming nearer and nearer, she tapped the horses on their ears, and the family dashed away to the house of a cousin who lived beyond the region where the fight was to be.
That evening Femmetia helped her father, who was an invalid, to climb to the top of a little hill from which they could see a fire raging in the village of Flatbush. The direction of the fire showed the father and daughter that it was their own house which was burning.
When the fight was over, General Washington's troops had been driven from Long Island. The good Dutch family went back and found their house burned. They moved into another house, whose owner was still away, and then began to build a new house. The mother bought some boards with what money she had saved, but she could not get any nails. In that day nails were not made by machinery, as they are now. Each nail had to be hammered out separately by a blacksmith. Nails made in this way cost a great deal of money.
There was but one way to do. Femmetia and her sister had to find nails by raking over the ashes of the old house. Some of these nails were crooked, and they had to be hammered to make them straight enough to use.