During this time the cold, frosty morning spent itself into the brilliant, shining noon.
You know what happened at Concord on that 19th of April in the year 1775. You have been told the story—how the men of Acton met and resisted the king’s troops at the old North Bridge; how brave Captain Davis and minute-man Hosmer fell; how the sound of their falling struck down to the very heart of mother earth, and caused her to send forth her brave sons to cry “Liberty, or Death!”
And the rest of the story; the sixty or more barrels of flour that the king’s troops found and struck the heads from, leaving the flour in condition to be gathered again at nightfall, the arms and powder that they destroyed, the houses they burned; all these, are they not recorded in every child’s history in the land?
While these things were going on, for a brief while, at mid-day, Martha Moulton found her home deserted. She had not forgotten poor, 27 suffering, irate Uncle John in the regions above, and so, the very minute she had the chance, she made a strong cup of catnip tea (the real tea, you know, was brewing in Boston harbor).
She turned the buttons, and, with a bit of trembling at her heart, such as she had not felt all day, she ventured up the stairs, bearing the steaming peace-offering before her.
Uncle John was writhing under the sharp thorns and twinges of his old enemy, and in no frame of mind to receive any overtures in the shape of catnip tea; nevertheless, he was watching, as well as he was able, the motions of the enemy. As she drew near, he cried out:
“Look out this window, and see! Much good all your scheming will do you!”
She obeyed his command to look, and the sight she then saw caused her to let fall the cup of catnip tea and rush down the stairs, wringing her hands as she went, and crying out:
“Oh, dear! what shall I do? The house will burn and the box up garret. Everything’s lost!”
Major Pitcairn, at that moment, was on the green in front of her door, giving orders.