DECEMBER, 1843.
Vol. 6. No. 6.
December, the first month of winter and the last of the year, has come. It is a severe and pinching season, and compels us to shut the door, cherish the fire, and make ourselves comfortable within.
It is the very time for Robert Merry’s Museum, provided it be interesting and instructive. We have taken some pains to make the present number satisfactory to our readers. It winds up the stories of Jumping Rabbit, a Tale of the Revolution, the Life of Columbus, and Inquisitive Jack; for we do not wish to stretch our narratives across from one year to another.
We know not how it may be with others, but we are seldom satisfied with our own efforts. The conception is often bright and warm, while the performance is dim and cold. We have sought to please, we have striven to improve the little companions of our monthly prattle, but we have fallen far short of what we intended. We are, however, not discouraged; but, with good resolution and cheerful hope, we shall enter upon a new year, promising to exert ourselves to do our best—to do better than ever before.
A Revolutionary Story.
CHAPTER VI.
[Continued from [page 138].]
We left our party of adventurers at a moment of deep interest. Young Joinly and the greater portion of his companions were posted near the house in which the captain of the Tiger, with some of his officers, was then stationed. Bushnell and his associate had just returned from the ship, to which they had attached their little magazine of powder, with the mechanism intended to explode it in half an hour.
Guided by one of their party, who had waited for them, they now joined the little band we have just mentioned. The position of the party commanded a view of the ship, and, amid the intense darkness, her position was known by the light at her bow. When Bushnell arrived, and communicated to Joinly and his friends the success of the enterprise, thus far, and assured them that the vessel would be torn in pieces in the space of a few minutes, it may be well imagined that their anxiety was intense.