“It isn’t every day that a fellow eats his birthday dinner in the woods,” he exclaimed, by way of apology for the dainties he tossed down to them in the shape of sugar-cake and “spice pie.” 52 “Aunt Hannah was pretty liberal with me this morning. I wonder if she knew anything, for she said: ‘I’d find plenty of squirrels to help eat it.’ Where do you live, anyway?” he questioned, after he had fed them.
“We live in Brookline,” answered the elder.
“Well, do you know what under the sun we are cutting such bundles of fagots for to-day?” he slyly questioned, being beyond the hearing of the ears of his friend, and so safe from censure.
“I asked father this morning,” spoke up the younger lad (of not more than nine years), “and he told me he guessed General Washington was going to take Boston on the ice, and every soldier was going to take a bundle of fagots along, so as to keep from sinking if the ice broke through.”
This bit of military news was received with shouts of laughter, that echoed from tree to tree along the brook, and then the noon-day rest was over. The wind began to blow in cooler and faster from the sea, and busy hands were obliged to work fast to keep from stiffening under the power of the growing frost.
When the new moon hung low in the west and the sun was gone, the brookside, the cart-path, even the swamp fell back into its accustomed silence, for the workers, in groups of eight or ten, had from minute to minute gone homeward, leaving huge piles of fagots near the log bridge.
Jeremy went early to bed that night. His right arm was weary and his left arm ached; 53 nevertheless, he went straightway to dreaming that both arms were dragging his beloved mother forth from Boston.
At midnight his companion of the morning came and stood under his chamber window, and tapped lightly with a bean-pole against the glass to awaken him.
Jeremy heard the sound, but in his dream thought it was a gun fired from one of the ships in the harbor at his mother, and himself, and Boston.
“Jeremy, get up!” said somebody, touching his shoulder.