which means that if the lads and lassies reaped and gleaned faithfully they should be rewarded by a tenth of the grain, and an unlimited supply of buttermilk.
Afterward Yankee Doodle seems to have tired of pastoral life, for we find him in the midst of Roundhead and Cavalier upon the battle-fields of England during the Civil War. No doubt such a jolly comrade felt a tinge of sadness at the misfortunes of the unlucky Charles I., and he could not have found the long-faced Puritans, with their nasal voices, very good company for such a happy-go-lucky as himself. At any rate he never became an Englishman, and seems only to have paused in England while making up his mind where to settle down and spend his old age. He probably made his first bow in America in 1775, and it is evident that he took a fancy to the new country, and was pleased, and perhaps flattered, by the reception he met. With his old abandon he threw himself heart and soul into the conflict, and became, in fact, the child of the Revolution. He was a leading spirit everywhere. Throwing all recollections of English hospitality to the winds, he chased the red coats at Bunker Hill, gave them a drubbing at Bennington, and remained bravely in the rear to watch their scouts while Washington retreated from Long Island. Many a time he was the sole support of the faithful few stationed to guard some important outpost; many a time he marched along with the old Continentals, grim and faithful, expecting every moment would reveal danger and perhaps death.
He crossed the Delaware with Washington on that eventful Christmas night, in 1775, though the Italian blood in him must have shrunk a little from the cold. He stood shoulder to shoulder with the great leader through all the misery and hopelessness of Valley Forge. He was joyously welcomed by the soldiers in all their daring escapades when breaking loose from the restraints of camp life; and the women and children who had to remain home and suffer danger and privation alone, never saw his honest face without a smile.
Such devotion met with its reward. When the war was over the old veteran retired from the service with full military rank, and was brevetted an American citizen besides. It is pleasant to think that he has at last found a resting place among a people who will always honor and love him.
Two other ballads very popular at that time were The Battle of Trenton and The Massacre of Wyoming, while innumerable ones of lesser note were sung by fireside and camp-fire, all through the colonies.
In New York the first liberty pole raised in the country was planted by the Sons of Liberty, a band of patriotic Americans, who set it up again and again as it was cut down by the Tories, accompanying their work by singing every imaginable kind of ballad that would irritate the breast of the British sympathizers.
During the war of 1812, came the Star Spangled Banner, written to the accompaniment of shot and shell, while the author, Francis S. Key, was a prisoner on shipboard watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British, in the harbor of Baltimore. The song was born in the darkness of a night of terrible anxiety, and when the dawn broke and found the flag still floating over the fort, an earnest of the victory to come, its triumphant measures seemed the fitting pæan of American liberty.
The ballad of the camps had developed into the national anthem.