"We are ordered to assemble in front of General Ward's headquarters an hour before sunset!" I replied breathlessly, giving no heed to his banter.
"Then there is some work to be done!" Silas cried joyfully.
"It must be so since we are to provide ourselves with blankets and a day's ration."
"I'm thinking that Colonel Prescott would have been wiser had he forgotten the blankets and ordered more food," Hiram said with an odd expression on his face, and I taxed him with knowing more regarding the purpose for which we were to assemble than he had told us.
"Nay, lad, whatever may be in my head is only suspicion, aroused by a word here and a word there dropped by some of our officers. You know I always hold that a man should gather all the information he can when there is nothing else to be done. I've had my ears opened mighty wide since knowing the Committee of Safety held a secret session not long ago, and from that time out it strikes me there have been many conversations between our commanders."
"Tell us what you suspect," Silas demanded, and Hiram shook his head with the air of one who has come to an end of his budget of news.
"It is only that we are to make some important move mighty soon, and more than that I am in the dark. You can set it down as a fact, however, that this ordering of the Minute Boys to be ready for what looks like special duty, goes to prove that our people are aiming to give General Gage a black eye inside of a short time."
We speculated upon what might be in the wind, during ten minutes or more without coming to any satisfactory conclusion, and then I realized it was my duty to make the other lads acquainted with the orders of the day, so far as they concerned us, therefore I hastened away in order to find them, for my Minute Boys were prone to scatter all over the encampment, instead of remaining in any one particular place.
There is little reason why I should waste words in trying to repeat all that we said regarding this special duty, or in striving to describe the joy which was felt by all because of our having been ordered to report, thus showing that we were considered as a portion of the army.
It may readily be understood that at the appointed time we Minute Boys were drawn up in line facing General Ward's headquarters, and within the next fifteen minutes no less than a thousand men filed into the Common in our rear.