However, despite all my desire to make the service rendered appear perilous, I did not neglect any precautions for our safety, although I must confess to having been somewhat disappointed when, about midnight, we pulled in under the tumble-down wharf without having so much as seen the glint of a lobster back's belt buckle.
There is little need to say with what warmth mother welcomed me, after much pounding on the door I succeeded in making her understand that I was come home.
I fear that at the time I gave but slight heed to her loving words because of being so weary that it seemed almost impossible to keep my eyes open while standing, and tumbling, rather than laying down, upon the bed, I was soon gone into the land of dreams. Until eight of the clock I slept as only a tired boy can, and would not then have wakened but for the fact that Archie and Silas were standing by my bedside, both doing their best to arouse me into wakefulness.
I understood without being told that they were come to accompany me to Master Warren's house so we might deliver the reply to the message sent to Colonel Barrett, and promising my mother that I would speedily come back to breakfast, I hurried away with the lads, wondering how it was I could have slept so long when such an important question was to be settled; for, if you remember, we had agreed to leave the matter of raising a company of Minute Boys to Doctor Warren himself.
If at the home of Samuel Hadley we were treated with scant courtesy, and if Colonel Barrett had seemed to believe that which we had done was nothing remarkable when performed by three lusty lads, we surely had no reason to complain when we met the doctor, for on the instant we presented ourselves before him he exclaimed in surprise that we had been able to return so speedily. It almost seemed as if he never would have done with praising us for our industry in behalf of the Cause.
"It turned out a simple matter, which anyone might have worked out," I said, striving to belittle our work even when believing it should be praised. "We had no opportunity of coming to grief on the way, however careless might have been our movements, for, except at the outset, when the guard-boat passed just as we were getting under way, we have met none who appeared friendly to the king."
"I shall remember the service rendered, and it may be that sometime in the future I can repay you," the doctor said with one of his kindly smiles which always went deep into my heart when bestowed upon me.
"You may repay us now in full, if it so pleases you," Archie made bold to say.
"In what way, young master?"
"By deciding whether or no ten or twenty lads of this city by binding themselves together under, perhaps, the high-sounding name of Minute Boys, could be of service to the Cause?"