16. Joe, with every hair on end, was still standing valiantly at his post, his uplifted axe ready to fall on the first head that should risk an entrance. He had paid no attention to Obed's movements, and was momentarily expecting to hear the roar of the old rifle.
17. "The other jack-lantern! Don't you see that's what scar't 'em so?" demanded Obed as, emboldened by his success, he bobbed the hideous thing up and down before the window. Joe finally comprehended, and, speedily lighting the second one, imitated Obed's lively evolutions with such effect that, when Mrs. Moore came-to, the yells were dying away in the distance, and she heard Obed climbing the ladder.
18. The anxious mother now gathered her family in the room below, and watched patiently for daylight and her husband. They came together, and the story had to be told all over again. "And so," added Joe, "Obed did raise his pumpkins for the Injuns, after all."
STORIES OF THE REVOLUTION.
XIV.—THE GASPÉ.
1. Just before the Revolution, the British ship-of-war Gaspé was sent to Narragansett Bay to see that the trade was all right there. Lieutenant Duddington was the commander, and he annoyed the traders as much as possible. He would order a vessel to stop, go on board of her, and, having seen that everything was right, would go off with words of insult instead of apology. The Governor of Rhode Island ordered Duddington to let the trading-vessels alone, but the pert little officer only laughed at him. Next the Governor appealed to Admiral Watson, and received an insulting reply.
2. By this time the people were aroused. The petty little tyrant had issued an order that all vessels sailing up the bay should lower their flag by way of salute—an order very much like that of Gessler when he required the people to bow to a hat set upon a post. On the 9th of June Captain Lindsay, coming up in his packet, refused to lower his flag. The Gaspé gave chase, but Captain Lindsay dodged about among the shoals in such a way that the Gaspé got aground on the sand. Here she must stick until high tide, about three o'clock the next morning.