Chapter II: Part 2

"O yes! yes! Where did you get it?"

"I've brought it from Roxbury in my arms. Mary Robbins gave it, in Windham, for some poor little girl who was hungry in Boston. Are you hungry?"

"No," said the child, hesitatingly.

"Are you poor?"

"My father is"--a sudden thought stopped the words she was about to speak. "Give me the lamb," she said, "and I'll feed three hungry little girls every day as long as Boston is shut up. I will! I will! and Mary's lamb shall live until I'm a hungry little girl myself, and I will keep it until I am starved clear almost to death."

Johnny put Mary's little lamb on the walk. "See if it will follow you," he said.

"Come lamb! lamb! come with Catharine," and it went bleating after her along the Common side.

"It's used to a girl," ejaculated the boy, "and it hasn't been a bit happy with me. Give it grass and milk," he called after Catharine, who turned and bowed her head.

"A pretty story I shall have to tell Mary Robbins," thought Johnny. "Here I have given her lamb to be kept and coddled, and it's likely never eaten at all--but I know that little girl will keep her word. She looks it--and she said she would feed three little girls as long as Boston is shut up, and that is more than the lamb could do. I must recollect the very words, to tell Mary."

When the _Boston Gazette_ of July 4th, 1774, reached the village of Windham, its inhabitants were surprised at the following announcement, more particularly as not one of them knew where the _last sheep_ came from:

"Last week, were driven to the neighboring town of Roxbury two
hundred and fifty-eight sheep, a generous contribution of our
sympathizing brethren of the town of Windham, in the colony of
Connecticut; to be distributed for the employment or relief of
those who may be sufferers by means of the act of Parliament,
called the Boston Port Bill."

Johnny Manning, when he returned to Windham, privately explained the matter to Mary Robbins, by telling her that when the sheep were numbered at Roxbury he counted in her lamb.

HOW ONE BOY HELPED THE BRITISH TROOPS OUT OF BOSTON IN 1776.

It was Commander-in-chief Washington's birthday, and it was Jeremy Jagger's birthday.

General Washington was forty-four years old that birthday, a hundred years ago. Jeremy Jagger was fourteen, and early in the morning of the 22d of February, 1776, the General and the lad were looking upon the same bit of country, but from different positions. General George Washington was reviewing his precious little army for the thousandth time; the lad Jeremy was looking from a hill upon the camp at Cambridge, and from thence across the River Charles over into Boston, which city had, for many months, been held by the British soldiers.

At last Jeremy exclaimed: "I say, it's too chestnut-bur bad; it is."

"Did you step on one?" questioned a tall, hard-handed, earnest-faced man, who at the instant had come up to the stone-wall on which Jeremy stood, surveying the camp and its surroundings.

"No, I didn't," retorted the lad; "but I wish Boston was _paved_ all over with chestnut-burs, and that every pesky British officer in it had to walk barefoot from end to end fourteen times a day, I do; and the fourteenth time I'd order two or three Colony generals to take a turn with 'em. General Gates for one."

"Come along, Jeremy," called his companion, who had strode across the wall and gone on, regardless of the boy's words.

When Jeremy had ended his expressed wishes, he gathered up his hatchet, dinner-basket, and coil of stout cord, and plunged through the snow after his leader.

When he had overtaken him, the impulsive lad's heart burst out at the lips with the words: "_We_ could take Boston _now_, just as easy as anything--without wasting a jot of powder either. Skip across the ice, don't you see, and be right in there before daylight. A big army lying still for months and months, and just doing nothing but wait for folks in Boston to starve out! I _say_ it's shameful; now, too, when the ice has come that General Washington has been waiting all winter for."

"You won't help your country one bit by scolding about it, Jeremy. You'd better save your strength for cutting willow-rods to-day."

"I'd cut like a hurricane if the rods were only going to whip the enemy with. But just for sixpence a day--pshaw! I say, it don't pay."

"Look here, lad, can you keep a secret?"

"Trust me for that," returned Jeremy. Turning suddenly upon his questioner, he faced him to listen to a supposed bit of information.

"Then why on earth are you talking to _me_ in that manner, boy?" questioned the man.

"Why you _know_ all about it, just as well as I do; and a fellow _must_ speak out in the woods or _somewhere_. Why, I get so mad and hot sometimes that it seems as if every thought in me would burn right out on my face, when I think about my poor mother over there," pointing backward to the three-hilled city.

The two were standing at the moment midway of a corn-field. The February wind was lifting and rustling and shaking rudely the withered corn-stalks, with their dried leaves. To the northward lay the Cambridge camp, across the Charles River. To the south and east, just over Muddy River and Stony Brook, lay the right wing of the American Army, with here a fort and there a redoubt stretching at intervals all the distance between the camp at Cambridge and Dorchester Neck, on the southeast side of Boston. Behind them, to the westward, lay Cedar Swamp, while not more than half a mile to the front there was a four-gun battery and Brookline Fort, on the Charles, near by.

While Jeremy Jagger was pouring forth his words with vociferous violence, the man by his side glanced eagerly about the wide field; but, satisfying himself that no one was within hearing, he said, resting his hatchet on the lad's shoulder while speaking: "See here, my boy. The brave man never boasts of his bravery nor the trustworthy man of his trustworthiness. How you learned what you know of the plans of General Washington I do not care to ask; but to-day and all days keep quiet and show yourself worthy of being trusted."

"I'll try as hard as I can," promised Jeremy.

"No one can have tried his best without accomplishing something that it was grand to do, though not always _just what_ he was trying to do," responded the man, glancing kindly down upon the fresh, eager lad, tramping through the snow, at his side. "Don't forget. 'Silence is golden,' in war always. Not a word, mind, when you get home, about the work of to-day."

They were come now to a spot where the marsh seemed to be filled with sounds of wood-cutting. As they plunged into Cedar Swamp, the sounds grew nearer and multiplied. It was like the rapid firing of muskets.

Running through the swamp there was a trout-brook, that bore along its borders a dense growth of water-willows.

And now they advanced within sight of at least two hundred men and boys, every one of whom worked away as though his life depended on cutting a certain amount of willow-boughs in a given time.

"What does it all mean?" questioned Jeremy.

"It means," replied his companion, "work for your country to-day with all your might and main."

"But, pray tell me," persisted Jeremy, "what under the sun the things are for, anyway. They're good for nothing for fire-wood, green."

Mr. Wooster turned and looked at the lad and said: "A good soldier asks no questions and marches, without knowing whither. He also cuts, without knowing for what. Now, to work!" and, at the instant they mingled with the workmen.

In less than a minute Jeremy's dinner-basket was swinging on a willow-bough, his coat was hanging protectingly over it (you must remember that it contained Jeremy Jagger's birthday cake), and the lad's own arms were working away to the musical sounds of a hatchet beating on a vast amount of "whistle-stuff," until mid-day and hunger arrived in company.

At the signal for noon Jeremy Jagger began his birthday feast. He perched himself on a stout willow-branch, hanging the basket on a conveniently growing peg at his right hand, and, by frequent examination of the store within, was able to solace two or three lads, less fortunate than himself, who were taking the mid-day rest, refreshed by plain bread and cheese, seated on a branch, lower down on the same tree.

"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." "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; 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.

"Come, mother!" ejaculated Jeremy, clutching at the air and uttering the words under tremendous pressure.

"Come yourself, lad," said somebody, shaking him a little roughly; whereupon Jeremy awoke. "Get up, Jeremy Jagger. Hitch the oxen to the cart. Put on the hay-rigging. Stay, I must help you to do that; but hurry."

Jeremy rubbed his eyes, wondered what had become of his mother, and how Mr. Wooster found his way into the house in the night, and lastly, what was to be done. Furthermore, he dressed with speed, and awakened the oxen by vigorous touches and moving words.

"Get up! get up!" he importuned, "and work for your country, and may be you won't be killed and eaten for your country when you are old." The large, patient eyes of the oxen slowly opened into the night, and after awhile the vigorous strokes and voiceful "get ups" of their master had due effect.

Mr. Wooster helped to adjust the hay-rigging, and then the large-wheeled cart rolled grindingly over the frozen ground of the highway, until it turned into the path leading into the swamp, over which the snow lay in unbroken surface. Jeremy Jagger's was but the pioneer cart that night. A half-dozen rolled and tumbled and reeled over the uneven surface behind him, to the log bridge. It was cold and still. As the topmost fagot was tossed on the pile in his cart he drew off a mitten, thrust his benumbed fingers between his parted lips, and when he removed them said: "I hope General Washington has had a better birthday than mine."

"I know one thing, my lad."

Jeremy turned quickly, for he did not recognize the voice. Even then he could not discern the face; but he knew instantly that it was no common person who had spoken. Nevertheless, with that sturdy, good-as-anybody air that made the men of April 19th and June 17th fight so gloriously, he demanded:

"What do you know?"

"That General Washington would gladly change places with you to-night, if you are the honest lad you seem to be."

"Go and see him in his comfortable bed over there in Cambridge," was Jeremy's response, uttered in the same breath with the word to his oxen to move on. They moved on. The fagots reeled and swayed, the cart rumbled over the logs of the bridge, and boy, oxen and cart were soon lost to sight and hearing in the cedar thickets of the swamp.

Through the next two hours they toiled on, Jeremy on foot, and often ready to lie down with the healthy sleep that would not leave its hold on his weary brain.

It was day-dawn when the fagots had been duly delivered at the appointed place and Jeremy reached home.

He had been cautiously bidden to see that the cart was not left outside with its tell-tale rigging. He obeyed the injunction, shut the oxen in, gave them double allowance of hay, and was startled by Aunt Hannah's cheery call of: "Jerry, my boy, come to breakfast."

"Breakfast ready?" said Jeremy.

"Why, yes. I was up early this morning, and thought of you." And that was the only allusion Aunt Hannah made to his night's work. He longed to tell her and chat about it all at the table; but, remembering his promise in the swamp, he said not a word.

Six nights out of seven Jeremy and his oxen worked all night and slept nearly all day.

The brook in Cedar Swamp was robbed of its willows, and many another bit of land and watercourse suffered in a like manner.

Then came the order to make the fagots into fascines. Two thousand soldiers were got to work to effect this. Jeremy Jagger began to understand what was going on behind the lines at Roxbury. He was the happiest lad in existence during the ensuing days. He forgot to eat, even, when the fascines were in making. Perceiving the manner in which they were formed he volunteered to help, and soon found he could drive the cross supports into the ground, lay the saplings upon them, and even aid in twisting the green withes about them, as well as any soldier of them all.

Bales of "screwed" hay began to appear in great numbers within the lines, and empty barrels by the hundreds sprang up from somewhere.

And all this time, guess as every man might and did--the coming event was known only to the commander-in-chief and to the six generals forming the council of war.

Monday night, before sundown, Jeremy Jagger received an order. It was:

March 4th.

JEREMY JAGGER:

With oxen and cart (hay-rigging on), be at the Roxbury lines by
moon-rise to-night. Take a pocketful of gingerbread along.

WOOSTER.

With manly pride the boy set forth. He longed to put the note in his aunt's hand ere he went; but she (long ago it seemed, though only a few days had passed) seemed to take no note of his frequent absences. He had scarcely gone a rod ere the cannon-balls began their march into Boston from all the fortifications of the Americans; and in return from Boston, flying north and south and west, came shot and shells.

Undaunted and excited by the mere possibility of being hit, Jeremy went onward. When he arrived in Roxbury he found everybody and everything astir. His cart was seized, filled with bundles of "screwed" hay, and, ere he knew it, he was in line with two hundred and ninety-nine other carts, marching forward to fortify Dorchester Heights. Before him went twelve hundred troops, under the command of General Thomas; before the troops trundled an unknown number of carts, filled with intrenching tools; before the tools were eight hundred men. Not a word was spoken. In silence and with utmost care they trod the way. At eight of the clock the covering party of eight hundred reached the Height and divided--one-half going toward the point nearest Boston, the other to the point nearest Castle William, on Castle Island, held by the British.

Then the working party began their labor with enthusiasm unbounded, wondering what the British general would think when he should behold their work in the morning. They toiled in silence by the light of the moon and the home music of 144 shot and 13 shell going into Boston, and unnumbered shot and shell coming out of Boston. Gridley, whose quick night work at Breed's Hill on the sixteenth of June had startled the world, headed the intrenching party as engineer.

Poor Jeremy was not allowed to go farther than Dorchester Neck with his first load. The bundles of hay were tumbled out and laid in line, to protect the supplying party, in case the work going on on the hill beyond should be found out.

The next time, to his extreme delight, he found that fascines were to go in his cart. When he reached Dorchester Height quick work was made of unloading his freight, and, without a word spoken, he was ordered back with a move of the hand.

Four times the lad and the oxen went up Dorchester Hill that night. The fourth time, as no order was given to return, Jeremy thought he might as well stay and see the battle that would begin with the dawn.

He left the oxen behind an embankment with a big bundle of hay to the front of them; and after five minutes devoted to gingerbread he went to work. Morning would come long before they were ready to have it unveil the growing forts to the eyes of Admiral Shuldham, with his ships of war lying in the harbor; or to the sentinels at Castle William, on Castle Island, to the right of them; or to General Howe, with his vigilant thousands of Englishmen safe and snug in Boston, to the north of them.

Jeremy was rolling barrels to the brow of the hill they were fortifying, and tumbling into them with haste shovelful after shovelful of good solid earth, that they might hit hard when rolled down on the foe that should dare to mount the height, when a cautious voice at his side uttered the one word "Look!" accompanied with a motion of the hand toward Dorchester Neck.

In the moonlight, past the bales of hay, two thousand Americans were filing in silent haste to the relief of the men who had toiled all night to build forts they meant to defend on the morrow.

It was four o'clock in the morning when they came. Jeremy was tired and sleepy too. His eyelids would drop over his eyes, shutting out everything he so longed to keep in sight.

"You've worked like a hero," said a kind voice to the lad. "It will be hot work here by sunrise--no place for boys, when the battle begins."

"I can fight," stoutly persisted Jeremy, nodding as he spoke; and, had anybody thought of the lad at all after that, he might have been found in the ox-cart, carelessly strewn over with hay, taking a nap.

Meanwhile on came the morning. A friendly fog hung lovingly around the new hills on the old hills, that the Yankees had built in a night.

Admiral Shuldham was called in haste from his bed by frightened men, who wondered what had happened on Dorchester Height. Castle William stood aghast with astonishment. Messengers went up the bay to tell the army the news.

General Howe marched out to take a look through the fog at the old familiar hills he had known so long, and didn't like the looks of the new hats they wore. He wondered how in the world the thing had been done without discovery; but there it was, larger a good deal than life, seen through the fog, and he knew also why it was that the cannon had been playing on Boston through the hours of three or four nights. He was angry, astonished, perplexed. He had a little talk with Admiral Shuldham; and they agreed to do something. Yes, they _would_ walk up and demand back the hills looking over into Boston. Transports came hurrying to pier and wharf, and soldiers went bravely down and gave themselves to the work of a short sea voyage.

Meanwhile Jeremy Jagger's nap was broken by a number of trenching tools thrown carelessly over his back, as he lay asleep in his cart.

"Halloo there!" he shouted, striving to rise from the not very comfortable blanket that dropped in twain to the left and the right, as he shook off the tools and returned from the land of sleep to Dorchester Heights and the 5th of March. He was just in time to hear a voice like a clarion cry out: "Remember it is the 5th of March, and avenge the death of your brethren."

It was the very voice that had said in the swamp in the night that "General Washington would gladly change places with Jeremy Jagger." It was the voice of General Washington animating the troops for the coming battle.

Meanwhile a new and unexpected force arrived on the field of action. It came in from sea--a great and mighty wind, that tossed and tumbled the transports to and fro on the waves and would not let them land anywhere save at the place they came from. So they went peacefully back to Boston, and the Liberty Men over on the hills went on all day and all night, in the rain and the wind, building up, strengthening, fortifying, in fact getting ready, as Jeremy told his aunt, when he reached home on the morning of the sixth of March, "for a visit from King George and all his army."

The next day General Howe doubted and did little. The next and the next went on and then on the morning of the 17th of March something new had happened. There was one little hill, so near to Boston that it was almost in it; and lo! in the night it had been visited by the Americans, and a Liberty Cap perched above its head.

General Howe said: "We must get away from here in haste."

"Take us with you," said a thousand Royalists of the town; and he took them, bag and baggage, to wander up and down the earth.

Over on Bunker Breed's Hill wooden sentinels did duty when the British soldiers left and for full two hours after; and then two brave Yankees guessed the men were wooden, and marched in to take possession just nine months from the day they bade it good-by, because they had no powder with which to "tune" their guns.

Over on Cambridge Common marched, impatient as ever, General Putnam, with his four thousand followers, ready to cross the River Charles and walk once more the city streets of the good old town. On all the hills were gathered men, women and children to see the British troops depart.

Jeremy Jagger was up before the dawn on that sweetest of Sunday mornings in March, and he reached the Roxbury lines just as General Ward was ready to put his arms about Boston's Neck. The lad took his place with the five hundred men and walked by Ensign Richards' side, as he proudly bore the standard up to the gates, which Ebenezer Learned "unbarred and opened." Once within the lines, Jeremy, unmindful of the crow's feet strewn over the way, made haste through lane and street to his old home on Beacon Hill. "Could that be his mother looking out at him through the window-pane?" he thought, as he drew near.

She saw him. She knew him. But what could it mean that she did not open the door to let him in; that she waved him away? It could not be that she, his own mother, had turned Tory, that her face was grown so red and angry at the sight of her son.

Jeremy banged away at the door. There was no answer.

At last he heard the lifting of a sash, a head, muffled carefully, appeared from the highest window in the house, and a voice (the lad knew whose it was) said: "Go, Jeremy! Go away out of Boston as fast as you can. I'll come to you as soon as it is safe."

"Why, mother, what's the matter?" cried the boy.

"Small pox! I've had it. Everybody has it. Go!"

"Good-by," cried Jeremy, running out of Boston as fast as any British soldier of them all and a good deal more frightened. He burst into Aunt Hannah's house with the news that he had been to Boston, that the soldiers were all gone, that he had seen his mother, that she had the small-pox and sent him off in a hurry.

"Tut! tut!" she cried. "It's wicked to tell lies, Jeremy Jagger."

"I'm not telling lies. Every word is true. Please give me something to eat."

But Aunt Hannah did not wait to give the lad food, nor even to speak the prayer of thanksgiving that went like incense from her heart. She went into the barn-yard and threw corn on the barn-floor, to which the hens and turkeys made haste. Closing the door, she summoned Jeremy to kill the largest and best of them.

That Sunday afternoon the brick oven glowed with fervent heat, the white, fat offerings went in, and the golden-brown turkeys and chickens came out; and as each, in turn, was pronounced "done," Aunt Hannah repeated the words: "Hungry! hungry! hungry! Hungry all winter!"

The big clothes-basket was full of lint for wounds that now never should be made. Gladly she tossed out the fluffy mass, and packed within it every dainty the house contained.

It was nearly sunset when Aunt Hannah and Jeremy started forth, with the basket between them, to Mr. Wooster's house, hoping that he would carry it in his wagon up to Boston. He was not at home.

"Get out the cart," said Aunt Hannah to Jeremy, when they learned no help was to be obtained. She sat by the roadside watching the basket until the cart arrived.

"I'm going with you," she said, after the basket was in; she climbed to the seat beside the lad, and off they started for Boston.

It was dark when they reached the lines, and no passes granted, the officers said, to go in that night.

"But I've food for the hungry," said Aunt Hannah, in her sweetest voice, from the darkness of the cart, "and folks are hungry in the night as well as in the day."

She deftly threw aside the cover from the basket and took out a chicken, which she held forth to the man, saying: "Take it. It's good."

He hesitated a moment, then seized it eagerly.

"I know you," spoke up Jeremy, at this juncture. "You went up the Neck with us this morning. I saw you."

"Then you are the boy who got first into Boston this morning, are you, sir?"

"I believe I did, sir."

"Go on."

The oxen went on.

"Now, Jeremy, down with you and wait here for me. You haven't had small-pox," said Aunt Hannah.

"But the oxen won't mind you," said Jeremy.

Aunt Hannah was troubled. She never had driven oxen.

At the moment who should appear but Mr. Wooster. He gladly offered to take the basket and deliver it at Mrs. Jagger's door.

"Don't go in, mind! Mother's had small-pox," called Jeremy, as he started.

"I'm tired," gasped Aunt Hannah, who had done baking enough for a small army that day, as she sat down to rest on the broad seat of the cart, and the two started for home. The soldier at the gate scarcely heeded them as they went out, for roasted chicken "tasted so good."

"I'm so glad the British are out of Boston," said Aunt Hannah, as she touched home soil again and went wearily up the walk to the little dark house.

"And so am I," said Jeremy to the oxen, as he turned them in for the night; "only if I'd had my way, they wouldn't have gone without one good fair fight. You've done your duty, anyhow," he added, soothingly, with a parting stroke to the honest laborer who went in last, "and you deserve well of your country, too, for like Gen. Washington, you have served without hope of reward. The thing I like best about the man is that he don't work for money. I don't want my sixpence a day for cutting willows; and--I won't--take it." And he didn't take it, consoling himself with the reflection "that he would be like Gen. Washington in one thing, anyhow."

PUSSY DEAN'S BEACON FIRE.

March 17, 1776.

A hundred years ago the winds of March were blowing.

To-day the same winds rush by the stone memorials and sweep across the low mounds that securely cover the men and the women that then were alive to chill blast and stirring event. Even the lads who gathered at sound of drum and fife on village green, wishing, as they saw the troopers march, that they were men, and the little girls who hung about father's neck because he was going off to war, who watched the post-riders on their course, wishing that they knew the news he carried, are no longer with us.

For nearly two years Boston had been the lost town of the people. It had been taken from the children by an unkind father and given to strangers. You have been told how British ships came and closed her harbor, so that food and raiment could not enter. You know how grandly the younger sister towns behaved toward stately, hungry Boston; how they marched up the narrow neck of land that holds back the town from the sea, each and every one bearing gifts to the beloved town, until there came the sad and fatal day wherein British military lines turned back the tide of offerings and closed the gate of entrance.

Then it was that friends began to gather across the rivers that wound their waters around Boston. Presently an army grew up and stationed itself with leaders and banners and forts.

Summer came. The army waited through all the long warm days. The summer went; the leaves fell; the chill winds and the cold sea-fogs wound into and out of the poor little tents and struck the brave men who, having no tents, tried to be strong and endure.

Every child knows, or ought to know, the story of that winter; how day by day, all over New England, men were striving to gather firearms and powder wherewith to take back from the foe poor Boston. But, alas, there was not powder enough in all the land to do it.

The long, wearying winter had done its worst for the prisoned inhabitants within the town; and, truly, it had tried and pinched the waiting friends who stood at the gates.

At last, in March, in the night, the brave helpers climbed the hills, built on them smaller hills, and by the light of the morning were able to look over into the town--at which the patriots were glad and the British commander frightened.

A little after nine of the clock on Sunday morning, the 17th of March, 1776, three Narragansett ponies stood before General Washington's headquarters at Cambridge.

"Go with all possible speed to Governor Trumbull," said Washington, delivering despatches to a well-known and trusted messenger, who instantly mounted one of the ponies in waiting--Sweeping Wind by name--and rode away, with many a sharp and inquiring glance back at city and river and camp.

It was four of the clock in the afternoon, and the messenger had not paused since he set forth, longer than to give Sweeping Wind water to drink, when, on the highway in the distance, he saw a red cloak fluttering and flying before him.

It was Pussy Dean who wore the cloak. She was fifteen, fair and lovely, brave and patriotic as any soldier in the land.

At first she was angry at the law by which she was denied a new cloak that winter, made of English fabric, but when wrapped in the coveted broadcloth of scarlet belonging to her mother she was more than reconciled.

On this Sunday Pussy had been at the meeting-house on the hill, two miles from home, at both morning and afternoon service, and afterward had lingered a little to gather up bits of news from camp and town to take home to her mother, and so it had happened that she was quite alone on the highway.

Pussy chanced to look back to the summit of the hill down which she had walked, and she saw the express coming.

"Now," she thought, "if I could only stop him! I wonder if I can't. I'll try, and then," swinging her silken bag, "I shall have news to carry home, the very latest, too."

As she swung the bag she suddenly remembered that she had something within it to offer the rider.

"Of course I can," she went on saying to herself. "Post-riders are always hungry, and it's lucky for him that I didn't have to eat my dinner myself, to-day. Now, if I only had a basketful of clover heads or roses for that pony, I'd find out all about Boston while it was eating."

The only roses within sight were blooming on Pussy Dean's two cheeks as Sweeping Wind came clattering his shoes against the frozen ground. He would have gone straight on had a scarlet cloak not been planted, like a fluttering standard, full in his pathway.

The rider gave the pony the slightest possible check, since he felt sure that no red-coated soldier lurked behind the red cloak.

"Take something to eat, won't you?" accosted Pussy, rather glowing in feature and agitated in voice by her own daring.

Meanwhile the rider had given Sweeping Wind a second intimation to stand, which he obeyed, and sniffed at Pussy's cloak and cheeks and silken bag as she held it forth to the rider, saying naively, "I went to meeting and was invited to luncheon, and so didn't eat mine." She spoke swiftly, as though she knew she must not detain him.

He answered with a smile and a "Thank you," took the bag, and rewarded her by saying, "The British are getting out of Boston, bag and baggage."

"And where are you going?" demanded Pussy, determined not to go home with but half the story if she could help it.

"To Governor Trumbull with the good news and a demand for two thousand men to save New York," he cried back, having gone on. His words were entangled with a mouthful of gingerbread or mince-pie to such an extent that it was a full minute before Pussy understood their import, and then she could only say over and over to herself, as she hastened on, "Father will be here, father will come home, and we'll have the good old times back again."

But notwithstanding her hope and a country's wish, the good old times were not at hand.

Pussy reached home and told the story. Baby went down plump into the wooden cradle at the first note of it, and set up a tune of rejoicing in his own fashion which no one regarded. Brother Benjamin, aged thirteen, whistled furiously, regardless of the honors of the day. Sammy, who was ten, clapped his hands and knocked his heels together, first in joy, and then began to fear lest the war should be over before he grew big enough to be in it.

"Mother," said Pussy, a few minutes later, "let Benny come with me to tell Mr. Gale about it; may he?"

Pussy laid aside her Sunday bonnet, tied a straw hat over her ears with a silk kerchief to keep out the wind, and in three minutes got Benny into the highway.

"See here, Ben, I'm going to light a fire on Baldhead to tell all the folks together about it, and I want you to help me; quick, before it gets dark."

"You can't gather fagots," responded Ben.

Yes, she could, and would, and did, while Benny went to the house nearest to Baldhead to ask for some fire in a kettle.

The two worked with such vigor and will that the first gathering of darkness saw the light of the beacon-flame burst forth, and the great March wind blew it into fiercest glow. Every eye that saw the fire there knew that it had been kindled with a purpose, and many feet from house and hamlet set forth to learn the cause.

While Pussy and Ben were yet adding fagots to the fire, they heard a voice crying out: "The young rascals shall be punished soundly for this," and ere Pussy had time to explain or expostulate, a strong man had Ben in his grasp.

"Stop that, sir!" cried the girl, rushing to the rescue with a burning fagot that she had seized from the fire, and shaking it full in the assailant's face.

By the light of it, the man saw Pussy and she saw him; and then both began to laugh, while Ben rubbed his ears and wondered whether they were both on his head.

"It means," spoke the girl, waving the still flaming brand toward the east, "that the British left Boston this morning, and that General"--(just here a dozen men were at the fire. Pussy raised her voice and continued)--"Washington wants you all, every one of you, to march straight to Governor Trumbull, and he'll tell you what to do next."

"If that's the case," said the responsible man of the constantly-increasing group after questioning Pussy, "we'd better summon the militia by the ringing of the bell," and off they went in the direction of the village, while Pussy and Ben went home.

The next day saw fifty men, well armed, and provisioned for three days, on the road to Lebanon. They marched into town and into the now famous war-office of Governor Trumbull, to his pleased surprise.

"Who sent you?" asked the governor, for it was not yet six hours since the demand on the nearest town had been made.

"Who sent us?" echoed the lieutenant, looking confused and at a loss to explain, and finally answering truthfully, he said: "It was a young girl, your excellency. She lit a beacon fire on a hill and gave the command that we report to you."

A laugh ran around the sides of the old war-office. The messenger who had ridden from Cambridge sat upon the counter pressing his spurs into the wood and heard it all.

"And who commissioned the girl as a recruiting officer?" questioned the governor.

"I'm afraid," said the messenger, "I am the guilty party. I met a young patriot in scarlet cloak who asked my news, and, I told her."

"Where is the girl's father?" demanded Governor Trumbull.

"He is with the army, at Cambridge," was the response.

"And his name?"

"Reuben Dean."

A scratch or two of the quill pen was heard on the open paper. It was folded, sealed, and handed to the ready horseman, with the words: "Reuben Dean; he is mentioned for promotion."

The words, as they were spoken by Governor Trumbull, were caught up and gathered into a mighty cheer, for every man of their number knew that Reuben Dean was worthy of promotion, even had his daughter not gained it for him by her services as recruiting officer.

DAVID BUSHNELL AND HIS AMERICAN TURTLE.

THE FIRST SUBMARINE BOAT INVENTED.

"David!" cried a voice stern and commanding, from a house-door one morning, as the young man who owned the name was taking a short cut "across lots" in the direction of Pautapoug.

"Sir!" cried the youth in response to the call, and pausing as nearly as he could, and at the same time keep his feet from sinking into the marshy soil.

"Where are you going?" was the response.

"To Pautapoug, to see Uriah Hayden, sir."

"You'd better hire out at ship-building with him. Your college learning's of no earthly use in these days," said the father of David Bushnell, returning from the door, and sinking slowly down into his high-backed chair.

Then spoke up a sweet-voiced woman from the kitchen fire-side, where she had that moment been hanging an iron pot on the crane:

"Have a little patience, father (Mrs. Bushnell always called her husband, father), David is only looking about to see what to do. It's hardly four weeks since he was graduated."

"True enough; but where can you find an idle man in all Saybrook town? and you know as well as I do that it makes men despise college-learning to see folks idle. I'd rather, for my part, David _did_ go to work on the ship Uriah Hayden is building. I wish I knew what he's gone over there for to-day."

A funny smile crept into the curves of Mrs. Bushnell's lips, but her husband did not notice it.

Mr. Bushnell moved uneasily in his chair, as he sat leaning forward, both hands clasped about a hickory stick, and his chin resting on the knob at its top. Presently he said:

"Anna, I fear David is getting into bad habits. He used to talk a good deal. Now he sits with his eyes on the floor, and his forehead in wrinkles, and I'm _sure_ I've heard him moving about more than one night lately, after all honest folks were in bed."

"Father, you must remember that you've been very sick, and fever gives one queer notions sometimes. I shouldn't wonder one bit if you dreamed you heard something, when 'twas only the rats behind the wainscot."

"Rats don't step like a grown man in his stocking-feet, nor make the rafters creak, either."

Madam Bushnell appeared to be investigating the contents of the pot hanging on the crane, and perhaps the heat of the blazing wood was sufficient to account for the burning of her cheeks. She cooled them a moment later by going down cellar after cider, a mug of which she offered to her husband, proposing the while that he should have his chair out of doors, and sit under the sycamore tree by the river-bank. When he assented, and she had seen him safely in the chair, she made haste to David's bed-room.

Since Mr. Bushnell's illness began, no one had ascended to the chamber except herself and her son.

On two shelves hanging against the wall were the books that he had brought home with him from Yale College, just four weeks ago.

A table was drawn near to the one window in the room. On it were bits of wood, with iron scraps, fragments of glass and copper. In fact, the same thing to-day would suggest boat-building to the mother of any lad finding them among her boy's playthings. To this mother they suggested nothing beyond the fact that David was engaged in something which he wished to keep a profound secret.

He had not told her so. It had not been necessary. She had divined it and kept silence, having all a mother's confidence in, and hope of, her son's success in life.

As she surveyed the place, she thought:

"There is nothing here, even if he (meaning her husband) should take it into his head to come up and look about."

Meanwhile young David had crossed the Pochaug River, and was half the way to Pautapoug.

All this happened more than a thousand moons ago, when all the land was aroused and astir, and David Bushnell was not in the least surprised to meet, at the ship-yard of Uriah Hayden, Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of Connecticut.

This man was everywhere, seeing to everything, in that year. Whatever his country needed, or Commander-in-chief Washington ordered from the camp at Cambridge, was forthcoming.

A ship had been demanded of Connecticut, and so Governor Trumbull had come down from Lebanon to look with his own eyes at the huge ribs of oak, thereafter to sail the seas as "The Oliver Cromwell."

The self-same oaken ribs had intense interest for young David Bushnell. Uriah Hayden had promised to sell to him all the pieces of ship-timber that should be left, and while the governor and the builder planned, he went about gathering together fragments.

"Better take enough to build a boat that will carry a seine. 'T won't cost you a mite more, and might serve you a good turn to have a sizable craft in a heavy sea some day," said Mr. Hayden.

Now David Bushnell had been wishing that he had some good and sufficient reason to give Mr. Hayden for wanting the stuff at all, and here he had given it to him.

"That's true," spoke up David, "but how am I to get all this over to Pochaug?"

"Don't get it over at all, until it's ready to row down the Connecticut, and around the Sound. You're welcome to build your boat at the yard, and, now and then, there will be odd minutes that the men can help you on with it."

David thanked Mr. Hayden, grew cheerful of heart over the prospect of owning a boat of his own, and went merrily back to the village of Pochaug.

Two weeks later David's boat was ready for sea. It was launched into the Connecticut from the ways on which the "Oliver Cromwell" grew, was named Lady Fenwick, and, when water-tight, was rowed down the river, past Saybrook and Tomb Hill, and so into the Long Island Sound.

When its owner and navigator went by Tomb Hill, he removed his hat, and bowed reverently. He thought with respect and admiration of the occupant of the sandstone tomb on its height, the Lady Fenwick who had slept there one hundred and thirty years.

With blistered palms and burning fingers David Bushnell pushed his boat with pride up the Pochaug River, and tied it to a stake at the bridge just beyond the sycamore tree, near his father's door.

"I'll fetch father and mother out to see it," he thought, "when the moon gets up a little higher."

With boyish pride he looked down at the work of his hands from the river-bank, and went in to get his supper.

"David!" called Mr. Bushnell, having heard his steps in the entry-way.

"Here I am, father," returned the young man, appearing within the room, and speaking in a cheerful tone.

"Don't you think you have wasted about time enough?"

The voice was high-wrought and nervous in the extreme. He, poor man, had been that afternoon thinking the matter over in a convalescent's weak manner of looking upon the act of another man.

David Bushnell, smiling still, and taking out a large silver watch from his waistcoat pocket, and looking at it, replied:

"I haven't wasted one moment, father. The tide was against me, but I've rowed around from Pautapoug ship-yard to the sycamore tree out here since two o'clock."

"_You_ row a boat!" cried Mr. Bushnell, with lofty disdain.

"Why, father, you have not a very good opinion of your son, have you?" questioned the son. "Come, though, and see what he has been doing. Come, mother," as Mrs. Bushnell entered, bearing David's supper in her hands.

She put it down. Mr. Bushnell pulled himself upright with a groan or two, and suffered David to assist him by the support of his arm as they went out.

"Why, you tremble as though you had the palsy," said the father.

"It's nothing. I'm not used to pulling so long at the oar," said the son.

When they came to the bank, the full moon shone athwart the little boat rocking on the stream.

"What's that?" exclaimed both parents.

"That is the Lady Fenwick. I've been building the boat myself. You advised me, father, to go to ship-building one morning--do you remember? I took your advice, and began at the bottom of the ladder."

"_You_ built that boat with your own hands, you say?"

"With my own hands, sir."

"In two weeks' time?"

"Yes, sir."

"And rowed it all the way down the river, and up the Pochaug?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good boy! You may go in and have your supper," said Mr. Bushnell, patting him on the back, just as he had done when he returned from college with his first award.

As for Madam Bushnell, she smiled down upon Lady Fenwick and did her great reverence in her heart, while she said to the boat-builder:

"David, dear, wait a few minutes, and I'll give you something nice and warm for your supper. Your father, Ezra and I had ours long ago."

That night Mr. Bushnell did not lie awake to listen for the stealthy stepping in the upper room. He slept all the sounder, because he had at last seen one stroke of honest work, as he called it, as the result of his endeavors to help David on in life.

As for David himself, he went to sleep, saying in his heart: "It is a good stepping-stone at least;" which conclusion grew into form in sleep, and shaped itself into a mighty monster, that bored itself under mountains, and, after taking a nap, roused and shook itself so mightily that the mountain flew into fragments high in air.

If you go, to-day, into the Connecticut River from Long Island Sound, you will see on its left bank the old town of Saybrook, on its right the slightly younger town of Lyme, and you will have passed by, without having been very much interested in it, an island lying just within the shelter of either bank.

In the summer of 1774 a band of fishermen put up a reel upon the island, on which to wind their seine. Over the reel they built a roof to protect it from the rains. With the exception of the reel, there was no building upon the island. A large portion of the land was submerged at the highest tides, and in the spring freshets, and was covered with a generous growth of salt grass, in which a small army might readily find concealment.

The little fishing band was now sadly broken and lessened by one of the Washingtonian demands upon Brother Jonathan. For reasons that he did not choose to give, David Bushnell joined this band of fishermen in the summer of 1775. Gradually he made himself, by purchase, the owner of the larger part of the reel and seine. In a few weeks' time he had induced his brother Ezra to become as much of a fisherman as he himself was.

As the days went by, the brothers fairly haunted this island. They gave it a name for their own use, and, early in the day-dawn of many a morning, they pulled the Lady Fenwick wearily up the Pochaug, to snatch a few winks of sleep at home, before the sun should fairly rise and call them to their daily tasks, for David assumed to help Ezra on the farm, even as Ezra helped him on the island.

The two brothers owned the reel and the seine before the end of the month of August in 1775. As soon as they became the sole owners, they procured lumber and enclosed the reel, and very seldom took down the seine from its great round perch; they used it just often enough to allay any suspicion as to their real object in becoming owners of the fishing implements.

About that time a story grew into general belief that the tomb of Lady Fenwick was haunted. Boatmen, passing in the stillness of the solemn night hours, asserted that they heard strange noises issuing from the hill, just where the lady slept in her lonely burial-place. The sounds seemed to emerge from the earth, and timid men passed up the river with every inch of sail set to catch the breeze, lest the solemn thud should sound, that a hundred persons were willing to testify had been heard by each and every one of them, at some hour of the night, coming from the tomb.

One evening in late September, the two brothers started forth as usual, nominally to "go fishing." As they stepped down the bank, Mr. Bushnell followed them.

"Boys," said he, "it's an uncommon fine night on the water. I believe I'll take a seat in your boat, with your permission. I used to like fishing myself when I was young and spry."

"And leave mother alone!" objected David.