“Good luck, John Fenderson, in thy brave coat,� said Polly at four o’clock, as the young man took leave, after she had given him breakfast. “May the color hold,� she added. “But if it fades——�
“I shall come back to you,� said John.
“Ah, but it will grieve me when I hear that thou art to be hanged for a rebel!� cried Polly from the door.
“Nay, Mistress Polly, I should have but to send for thee to teach me how to dye!� replied John Fenderson.
So he rode away, and had cause to be thankful for the disguise the coat offered him; for while riding through Newton a little before noon, he was hailed by three redcoats, two of whom raised their muskets; but the third held them back, saying, “Nay, by his coat he must be one of our men.�
There is much reason to believe that Mistress Polly’s loyalty to King George was ever afterward open to question. At any rate, the records of John Fenderson’s native town show that he married in 1779, and that the bride’s name was Polly Callendar.
NEIL DAVIDSON IN DISGUISE[X]
By Mary Tracy Earle
A boy in General Greene’s army sets out to capture a famous Tory marauder and finds him to be his own brother. What does he do?
IN THE early days of March, 1781, Neil Davidson was thirteen years old and had been five months in the patriot army. He had taken part in several skirmishes and had lived in camps where food was scarce and clothing scarcer, where a blanket for four men was a prize, and companies were sometimes obliged to stay away from review because their uniform had been worn through to that of mother nature. He had shared the hard marches by which Greene and Morgan kept the prisoners taken at Cowpens from recapture by Cornwallis, and during which Greene had reported that the naked feet of his men marked their way with blood.