"'Sir,' begins the Cap'n, in a voice like a nor'east gale.
"'Oh, Cap'n Mayne,' says Thorpe (who warn't bright 'nuff to see the joke), 'if the young gentleman sees his error, and takes back his words, I'm satisfied.'
"'Well,' says the Cap'n, bitin' his lips to keep from laughin', 'if you're satisfied, I am; but catch me ever trying to get an apology out of a midshipman again!'"
[to be continued.]
THE STORY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON.
BY EDWARD CARY.
Chapter IV.
In the last chapter I told you how Washington kept the British out of Philadelphia during the winter of 1776 and 1777. The next year the British came around from New York by water with a large and fine army. Washington's army was badly trained, and many of them were new men. A bloody battle was fought below Philadelphia, on the Brandywine Creek, and the Americans were divided and beaten. The British marched into Philadelphia, and in spite of all that Washington could do, staid there that winter, and the Americans went into camp at Valley Forge, some twenty miles away. It was a terrible winter, and often the soldiers were "barefoot and otherwise naked," as Washington wrote to Congress, and food was often very hard to get. Some members of Congress found fault with Washington for not attacking the enemy. He answered, "I can assure these gentlemen that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fireside than to occupy a cold bleak hill, and sleep under frost and snow without clothes or blankets." During the winter Mrs. Washington came on from Virginia, and shared her husband's log-hut.