"You need not think anything about it, Tom, but you are better off, for all that. The man was simply a clog about the necks of all of you."
"Then I may join the Liberty Boys, if I am big enough? Mother does not need me now and I want to do something for my country."
"Your mother is willing, Tom?"
"Yes, if you will take me."
"Very good. You are young, but not too young, and you are strong and willing, and that is a good deal. I will see your mother, Tom, and I do not think there will be any trouble about your joining."
Tom returned to his mother and in a day or so Dick saw her and found that she was willing that Tom should join the company. Tom went back with Dick, therefore, and was sworn in as one of the Liberty Boys, to his great delight. The boys cheered him for they had all heard of him and knew of his sterling character and manly qualities. He fought with the Liberty Boys at White Plains and Fort Washington and went into the Jerseys with the troop when they joined the commander after the fall of the fort. He was at Trenton and Princeton, where he did brave work with the boys and fought through the succeeding campaign, doing good service at Brandywine and Germantown and going into camp at Valley Forge, where he bore with fortitude all the hardships of that rigorous winter, one of the severest ever known. During the next spring he was with the Liberty Boys in Connecticut and lost his life during a fight with Tryon's raiders. His mother had married in the meantime and was in comfortable circumstances, and this was a great comfort to the boy, who said to Dick:
"I have done my duty, Captain?"
"Yes, Tom, and well."
"And mother and the children are well and happy?"
"Yes, they are, Tom."