Chapter IV: Part 4

When the members heard its tones swinging out the joyous notes they marvelled, because no one had authorized the announcement. When the key was turned from within, and the door opened, there stood the mystery facing them, in the person of Blue-Eyed Boy.

"I told him to ring; I heard the news!" he shouted, and opened the State House doors to let the Congress out and all the world in.

You know the rest; the acclamation of the multitude, the common peals (they forgot to be careful of powder that night in the staid old city), the big bonfires, and the illuminations that rang and roared and boomed and burned from Delaware to Schuylkill.

In the waning light of the latest bonfire, up from the city of Penn, rode our Blue-Eyed Boy--true to his purpose to be the first to carry the glad news to General Washington.

"It will be like meeting an old friend," he thought; for had he not seen the commander-in-chief every day going in and out of the Congress Hall during his visit to Philadelphia only a month ago?

The self-appointed courier never deemed other evidence of the truth of his news needful than his own "word of mouth." He rode a strong young horse, which, early in the year, had been left in his care by a southern officer when on his way to the camp at Cambridge; and that no one might worry about him, he had taken the precaution to intrust his secret to a neighbor lad to tell at the home-door in the light of early day.

The journey was long, too long to write of here. Suffice it to say, that on Sunday morning Blue-Eyed Boy reached the ferry at the Hudson river. The old ferryman hesitated to cross with the lad.

"Wait at my house until the cool of the evening," he urged.

But Blue-Eyed Boy said, "No, I must cross this morning, and my pony: I'll pay for two if you'll take me."

The ferryman crossed the river with the boy, who, on the other side, inquired his way to the headquarters of the general.

Warm, tired, hungry, and dusty, he urged his pony forward to the place, only to find that he whom he sought had gone to divine service at St. Paul's church.

Blue-Eyed Boy rode to St. Paul's. In the Fields (now City Hall Park) he tied his faithful horse, and went his way to the church.

Gently and with reverent mien, he entered the open door, and listened to the closing words of the sermon. At length the service was over and the congregation turned toward the entrance where stood the young traveler, his heart beating with exultant pride at the glorious news he had to tell to the glorious commander.

How grand the General looked to the boy, as, with stately step, he trod slowly the church aisle accompanied by his officers.

Now he was come to the vestibule. It was Blue-Eyed Boy's chance at last. The great, dancing, gleeful eyes, that have outlived in fame the very name of the lad, were fixed on Washington, as he stepped forward to accost him.

"Out of the way!" exclaimed a guard, and thrust him aside.

"I _will_ speak! General Washington!" screamed Blue-Eyed Boy, in sudden excitement. The idea of anybody who had seen, even through a key-hole, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, being thrust aside thus!

General Washington stayed his steps and ordered, "Let the lad come to me."

"I've good news for you," said the youth.

"What news?"

Officers stood around--even the congregation paused, having heard the cry.

"It's for you alone, General Washington."

The lad's eyes were ablaze now. All the light of Philadelphia's late illuminations burned in them. General Washington bade the youth follow him.

"But my pony is tied yonder," said he, "and he's hungry and tired too. I can't leave him."

"Come hither, then," and the Commander-in-chief withdrew with the lad within the sacred edifice.

"General Washington," said Blue-Eyed Boy, "on Thursday Congress declared _us_ free and independent."

"Where are your dispatches?" leaped from the General's lips, his face shining.

"Why--why, I haven't any, but it's all true, sir," faltered the boy.

"How did you find it out?"

"I was right there, sir. Don't you remember me? I help Bellman Grey take care of the State House at Philadelphia, and I run on errands for the Congress folks, too, sometimes."

"Did Congress send you on this errand?"

"No, General Washington; I can't tell a lie, I came myself."

"How did you know me?"

Blue-Eyed Boy was ready to cry now. To be sure he was sturdy and strong, and nearly fourteen, too; but to be doubted, after all his long, tiresome journey, was hard. However, he winked once or twice violently, and then he looked his very soul into the General's face, and said: "Why, I saw you every day you went to Congress, only a month ago, I did."

"I believe you, my lad. Get your horse and follow me."

Blue-Eyed Boy followed on, and waited in camp until the tardy despatches came in on Tuesday morning, confirming every word that he had spoken.

The same evening all the brigades in and around New York were ordered to their respective parade-grounds.

Blue-Eyed Boy was admitted within the hollow square formed by the brigades on the spot where stands the City Hall. Within the same square was General Washington, sitting on horseback, and the great Declaration was read by one of his aids.

It is needless to tell how it was received by the eager men who listened to the mighty truths with reverent, uncovered heads. Henceforth every man felt that he had a banner under which to fight, as broad as the sky above him, as sheltering as the homely roof of home.

THE OVERTHROW OF THE STATUE OF KING GEORGE.

If, on the evening of July 9, 1876, at six of the clock, you go and stand where the shadow of the steeple of St. Paul's church in New York is falling, you will occupy the space General Washington occupied, just one hundred years ago, when with uncovered head and reverent mien, he, in the presence of and surrounded by a brigade of noble soldiers, listened to the reading of the Declaration of Independence.

You will remember that at the church door on Sunday, Blue-Eyed Boy brought to him, by word of mouth, the great news that a nation was born on Thursday.

This news was now, for the first time, announced to the men of New York and New England.

No wonder that their military caps came off on Tuesday, that their arms swung in the air, and their voices burst forth into one loud acclaim that might have been heard by the British foe then landing on Staten Island.

As you stand there, and the shadow of old St. Paul swings around and covers you, shut your eyes and listen. Something of the olden music, of the loud acclaim, may swing around with the shadow and fall on your ears, since no motion is ever spent, no sound ever still.

On that night, when the grand burst of enthusiasm had arisen, Blue-Eyed Boy said to General Washington: "I am afraid, sir, if Congress had known, they never would have done it, never! It seemed easy to do it in Philadelphia, where everything is just as it used to be; but here, with all the British ships riding in, full of soldiers, and guns enough in them to smash the old State House where they did it! If they'd only known about the ships!--"

Ah! Blue-Eyed Boy. You didn't keep your eye very close to Congress Hall in the morning of last Thursday, or you would have heard Mr. Hancock or Mr. Thompson read to Congress a letter from General Washington, announcing the arrival of General Howe at Sandy Hook with one hundred and ten ships of war.

No, no! Blue-Eyed Boy and every other boy; the men who dared to say, and sign their names to the assertion, "A nation is born to-day," did not do it under the rosy flush of glorious victory, but in the fast-coming shadow of mighty Britain, strong in all the power and radiant with all the pomp of war.

And what had a few little colonies to meet them with? They had, it is true, a new name, that of "States"; but cannon and camp-kettles alike were wanting; the small powder mills in the Connecticut hive could yield them only a fragment of the black honey General Washington cried for, day and night, from Cambridge to New York; the houses of the inhabitants, diligently searched for fragments of lead, gave them not enough; and you know how every homestead in New England was besieged for the last yard of homespun cloth, that the country's soldiers might not go coatless by day and tentless at night.

Brave men and women good!

Let us hurrah for them all, if it is a hundred years too late for them to hear. The men of a hundred years to come will remember our huzzas of this year, and grow, it may be, the braver and the better for them all.

But now General Washington has ridden away to his home at Number One in the Broadway; the brigade has moved on, and even Blue-Eyed Boy is hastening after General Washington, intent on taking a farewell glance, from the rampart of Fort George, at the far-away English ships.

To-morrow he will begin his homeward journey through the Jerseys. His pass is in his pocket, and as he quickens his steps, he sees groups gathering here and there, and knows that some excitement is astir in the public mind, but thinks it is all about the great Declaration.

He reaches Wall street, and the sun is at its going down. Up from the East river come the sounds of orderly drummers drumming, of regimental fifers fifing. He stays his steps, and stands listening: he sees a brigade marching the "grand parade" at sunset.

Up it comes from Wall street to Smith street; (I am sure I do not know what Smith street is lost into now, but the orderly-book of Major Phineas Porter of Waterbury, one hundred years old to-morrow morning, has it "Smith street"); from the upper end of Smith street back to Wall street, and the young Philadelphian follows it, marching to sound of fife and drum.

As it turns towards the East river, he remembers whither he was bound and starts off with speed for the Grand Battery.

As he goes, glancing backward, he sees that all the town is at his heels.

He begins to run. All the town begins to run. He runs faster: the crowd runs faster. It is shouting now. He tries to listen; but his feet are flying, his head is bobbing, his hat is falling, and this is what he thinks he hears in the midst of all: "Down with him! Down with the Tory!" It is "tyrant" that they cry, but he hears it as "tory," and he knows full well how Governor Franklin of New Jersey and Mayor Matthews of New York have just been sent off to Connecticut for safer keeping, and he does not care to go into New England just now, so he flies faster than ever, fully believing that the crowd pursues him, as a Royalist.

Just before him opens the Bowling Green. Into it he darts, hoping to find covert, but there is none at hand.

Right in the midst of the enclosure stands an equestrian statue of King George the Third.

It is high; it looks safe. Blue-Eyed Boy makes for it, utterly ignorant of what it is.

The crowd surges on. It is now at the gate. The young martyr makes a spring at the leg and tail of the horse; he swings himself aloft, he catches and clutches and climbs, and in the midst of ringing shouts of "Down with him! Down with horse and king!" Blue-Eyed Boy gets over King George and clings to the up-reared neck of the leaden horse; thence he turns his wild-eyed face to the throng below. "Down with him! He don't hear! He won't hear!" cry the populace.

"I do hear!" in wild afright, shrieks Blue-Eyed Boy, "and I'm not a Tory."

Shut your eyes again, and see the picture as it stands there in the waning light of the ninth of July, 1776.

Four years ago, over the ocean, borne by loyal subjects to a loyal colony, it came, this statue, that you shall see. It is a noble horse, though made of lead, that stands there, poised on its hinder legs, its neck in air. King George sits erect, the crown of Great Britain on his head, a sword in his left hand, his right grasping the bridle-lines, and over all, a sheen of gold, for horse and king were gilded.

King George faces the bay, and looks vainly down. All his brave ships and eight thousand Red Coats, yesterday landed on yonder island, cannot save him now. Had he listened to the petitions of his children it might have been, but he would not hear their just plaints, and now his statue, standing so firm against storm, wind and time, trembles before the sea of wrath surging at its base.

"Come down, come down, you young rascal!" cries a strong voice to Blue-Eyed Boy, but his hands grasped at either ear of the horse, and he clings with all his strength to resist the pull of a dozen hands at his feet.

"Come down, you rogue, or we'll topple you over with his majesty, King George," greets the lad's ears, and opens them to his situation.

"King George!" cried Blue-Eyed Boy with a sudden sense of his ridiculous fear and panic, and he yields to the stronger influence exerted on his right leg, and so comes to earth with emotions of relief and mortification curiously mingled in his young mind.

To think that he had had the vanity to imagine the crowd pursued him, and so has flown from his own friends to the statue of King George for safety!

"I won't tell," thinks the lad, "a word about this to anyone at home," and then he falls to pushing the men who are pushing the statue, and over it topples, horse and rider, down upon the sod of the little United States, just five days old.

How they hew it! How they hack it! How they saw at it with saw and penknife! Blue-Eyed Boy himself cuts off the king's ear, that will not hear the petitions of people or Congress, proudly pockets it, and walks off, thankful because he carries his own on his head.

Would you like to know what General Washington thought about the overthrow of the statue in Bowling Green?

We will turn to Phineas Porter's orderly-book, and copy from the general orders for July 10, 1776, what he said to the soldiers about it:

"The General doubts not the persons who pulled down and mutilated the statue in the Broad-way last night were actuated by zeal in the public cause, yet it has so much the appearance of riot and want of order in the army, that he disapproves the manner and directs that in future such things shall be avoided by the soldiers, and be left to be executed by proper authority."

The same morning, the heavy ear of the king in his pocket, Blue-Eyed Boy, once more on his pony, sets off to cross the ferry on his way to Philadelphia. We leave him caught in the mazes of the Flying Camp gathering at Amboy; whither by day and by night have been ferried over from Staten Island, all the flocks of sheep and herds of cattle that could be gotten away--lest the hungry men in red coats, coming up the bay, seize upon and destroy them.

Ah! what days, what days and nights too were those for the young United States to pass through!

To-day, we echo what somebody wrote somewhere, even then, amid all the darkness--words we would gladly see on our banner's top-most fold:

"The United States! Bounded by the ocean and backed by the forest. Whom hath she to fear but her God?"

SLEET AND SNOW.

Fourth of July, 1776.--Troublous times, that day? Valentine Kull thought so, as he stood in a barn-yard, with a portion of his mother's clothes line tied as tightly as he dared to tie it around the neck of a calf. He was waiting for the bars to be let down by his sister. Anna Kull thought the times decidedly troublous, as she pulled and pushed and lifted to get the bars down.

"I can't do it, Valentine," she cried, her half-child face thrust between the rails.

"Try again!"

She tried. Result as before.

"Come over, then, and hold Snow."

Anna went over, rending gown and apron on the roughnesses of rails and haste. Never mind. She was over, and could, she thought, hold the calf.

Barn-yard, cow (I forgot to mention that there was a cow); calf, and children, one and all, were on Staten Island in the Bay and Province of New York. Beside these, there was a house. It was so small, so queer, so old-fashioned, so Amsterdam Dutchy, that, for all that I know to the contrary, Achter Kull may have built it as a play-house for his children when first he came to America and took up his abode by the Kill van Kull. The Kill van Kull is that curious little slice of sea pinched in by a finger of New Jersey thrust hard against Staten Island, as though trying its best to push the island off to sea. However it may have been, there was the house, and from the very roof of it arose a head, neck, two shoulders and one arm; the same being the property of the mother of Valentine and Anna. The said mother was keeping watch from the scuttle.

"Be quick, my children," she cried. "The Continentals are now driving off Abraham Rycker's cattle and the boat isn't full yet. They'll be _here_ next."

Anna seized the clothes line; Valentine made for the bars. Down they came, the one after the other, and out over the lower one went calf, Anna and cow. Valentine made a dive for Snow's leading string. He missed it. Away went the calf, poor Anna clutching at the rope, into green lane, through tall grass, tangle and thicket. She caught her foot in her torn gown and was falling, when a sudden holding up of the rope assisted by Valentine's clutch at her arm set her on her feet again. During this slight respite from the chase, the cow (Sleet, by name, because not quite so white as Snow) took a bite of grass and wondered what all this unaccustomed fuss did mean.

"Snow has pulled my arm out of joint," said Anna, holding fast to her shoulder.

"Never mind your arm, _now_," returned Valentine. "We must get to the marsh. It's the only place. You get a switch, and if Sleet won't follow Snow in, you drive her. I _wish_ the critters wasn't white; they show up so; but Washington sha'n't have this calf and cow, _anyhow_."

From Newark Bay to Old Blazing Star Ferry stretched the marsh, deep, dense, well-nigh impassable. Under the orders of General Washington, supported by the approval of the Provincial Congress in session at White Plains, the live stock was being driven from the island, and ferried across Staten Island Sound to New Jersey. At the same moment the grand fleet of armed ships from Halifax, England, and elsewhere, was sailing in with General Howe on board and Red Coats enough to eat, at a supper and a dinner, all the live stock on a five-by-seventeen mile island.

Now the Commander-in-chief of the Continental forces at New York did not wish to afford the aid and comfort to the enemy of furnishing horses to draw cannon, or fresh meat wherewith to satisfy the hunger of British soldier and sailor. Oh no! On Manhattan Island were braves--for freedom toiling day and night; building earthwork, redoubt and battery with never a luxury from morning to morning, except the luxury of fighting for Liberty. Soldiers from camp, light-horse and militia from New Jersey, had gathered on the island, and had been at work a day and a night when the news came to the Kull cottage that in a few minutes its cow and calf would be called for. Hence the sudden watch from the roof, and the escapade from the barn-yard.

The Kull father, I regret to write, because it seems highly unpatriotic, had gone forth to catch fish that day, hugging up the thought close to his pocket of a heart, that the English fleet would pay well for fresh fish.

Now Sleet and Snow were treasures untold to Valentine and Anna Kull. Anna's pocket-money, stored up to be spent once-a-year in New York, came to her hands by the sale of butter to oystermen; and the calf, Snow, was the exclusive property of her brother Valentine. No wonder they were striving to save their possessions--ignorant, children as they were, of every good which they could not see and feel.

Cow and calf, or rather calf and cow, never before were given such a race. Highways were ignored. There were not many beaten tracks at that time on Staten Island. Daisied and clovered fields the calf was dragged through; young corn and potato lots suffered alike by the pressure of hoof and foot. Anna nearly forgot her out-of-joint arm when the four reached the marsh. Its friendly-looking shelter was hailed with delight.

Said Valentine, tugging the tired calf, to Anna, switching forward the anxious cow: "I should like to see the riflemen from Pennsylvania and the _Yankeys_ from Doodle or Dandy either, chase Sleet and Snow through _this_ marsh."

"It's been _awful_ work though to get 'em here," said Anna, wiping her face with a pink handkerchief suddenly detached for use from her gown.

In plunged the boy and up s-s-cissed a cloud of mosquitoes, humming at the sound of the new-come feast; fresh flesh and blood from the uplands was desirable.

The grass was green, _very_ green--lovely, bright, _light_ green; the July sun shone down untiringly; the tide rushing up from Raritan Bay met the tide rolling over from Newark Bay, and the cool, sweet swash of water snaked along the stout sedge, making it sway and bend as though the wind were sweeping its tops.

When within the queer infolding, boy, cow, and calf had disappeared, Anna called: "I'll run now and keep watch and tell you when the soldiers are gone."

"No, _you won't_!" shrieked back her brother; "you'll stay _here_, and help me, or the skeeters will kill the critters. Bring me the biggest bush you can find, and fetch one for yourself."

Anna always obeyed Valentine. It was a way she had. He liked it, and, generally speaking, she didn't greatly dislike it, but her dress was thinner than his coat, and the happy mosquitoes knew she was fairer and sweeter than her Dutch brother, and didn't mind telling her so in the most insinuating fashion possible. On this occasion, as she had in so many other unlike instances, she acceded to his request; toiling backward up the ascent and fetching thence an armful of the stoutest boughs she could twist from branches.

She neared the marsh on her return. All that she could discern was a straw hat bobbing hither and thither; the horns of a cow tossing to and fro; the tail of a cow lashing the air.

A voice she heard, shouting forth in impatient bursts of sound, "Anna, Anna Kull!"

"_Here!_ I'm coming," she responded.

"Hurry up! I'm eaten alive. Snow's crazy and Sleet's a lunatic," shouted her brother, jerking the words forth between the vain dives his hand made into the cloud of wings in the air.

"Sakes alive!" said poor Anna, toiling from sedge bog to sedge bog with her burden of "bushes" and striving to hide her face from the mosquitoes as she went.

It was nearly noon-day then, and the Fourth of July too, but neither Valentine nor Anna thought of the day of the month. Why should they? The Nation wasn't born yet whose hundredth birthday we keep this year.

The solemn assembly of earnest men--debating the to be or not to be of the United States--was over there at work in Congress Hall in the old State House. They were heated with sun and brick and argument; a hundred and ten British ships of war were anchoring and at anchor over on the ocean side of Staten Island. Up the bay, seven or eight thousand troops in "ragged regimentals" were working to make ready for battle; but not one of them all suffered more from sun and toil and anxiety and greed of blood than did the lad and the lass in the marsh.

They fought it out, with many a sting and smart, another hour, and then declaring that "cow or no cow they couldn't stay another minute," they strove to work their way out of the beautiful green of the sedge.

On the meadow-land stood their mother. She had brought dinner for her hungry children,--moreover, she had brought news.

The Yankee troops--the Jersey militia--had gone, but the British soldiers had arrived and demanded beef--beef raw, beef roasted, beef in any form.

The tears that the fiercest mosquito had failed to extort from Anna came now. "I wish I'd let her go," she cried, fondly stroking Sleet. "At least she wouldn't have been killed, and we'd had her again sometime, maybe; but now--I say, Valentine, are _you_ going to give up Snow?"

"No, I _ain't_," stoutly persisted the lad, slapping with his broad palm the panting side of the calf, where mosquitoes still clung.

"But, my poor children," said Mother Kull, "you will _have_ to. It _can't_ be helped. If we refuse them, don't you know, they will burn our house down."

"_If they do, I'll kill them!_" The words shot out from the gunpowdery temper of Anna Kull. Poor innocent girl of thirteen! She never in her life had seen an act of cruelty greater than the taking of a fish or the death of a chicken; but the impotent impulse of revenge arose within her at the bare idea of having her pet, her pretty Sleet, taken from her and eaten by soldiers.

"You'd better keep still, Anna Kull," said Valentine. "Mother, don't you think we might hide the animals somewhere?"

"Where?" echoed the poor woman, looking up and looking down.

Truly there seemed to be no place. Already six thousand British soldiers had landed and taken possession of the island. Hills and forests were not high enough nor deep enough; and now the very marsh had cast them out by its army of winged stingers--more dreadful than human foe.

"I just wish," ejaculated the poor sunburned, mosquito-tortured, hungry girl, who stood between marsh and meadow,--"I _wish_ I had 'em every one tied hand and foot and dumped into the sedge where we've been. Mother, I wouldn't use Sleet's milk to-night, not a drop of it,--it's crazy milk, I know: she's been tortured so. Poor cow! poor creature! poor, dear, nice, honest Sleet!" And Anna patted the cow with loving stroke and laid her head on its neck.

"Well, children, eat something, and then we'll all go home together,--if they haven't carried off our cot already," said the mother.

They sat down under a tree and ate with the eager, wholesome appetite of children. Mrs. Kull kept watch that the cow did not wander far from the place.

As they were eating, Valentine said to Anna, nodding his head in the direction of his mother: "I've thought of something. We must manage to send _her_ home without us."

"_I've_ thought of something," responded Anna. "Yes, we _must_ manage."

"I should like to know _what_ you could think of, sister."

"Should you? Why, think of saving the cow and calf, of course; though, if you're _very_ particular, you can leave the calf here."

"And what will you do with the cow?"

"Put her in the boat--"

"Whew!" interrupted Valentine.

"And ferry her over the sound," continued Anna.

"Who?"

"You and me."

"Do you think we could?"

"We can try."

"That's brave! How's your arm?"

"All right! I jerked it back, slapping mosquitoes."

"Give us another hunkey piece of bread and butter. Honey's good to-day. I wonder mother thought about it."

"I s'pose," said Anna, "she'd as leave we had it as soldiers. Wouldn't it be jolly if we could make 'em steal the bees?"

The wind blew east. Up came martial sounds mingled with the break and the roar of the ocean.

"Oh, dear! They're a coming," gasped Mrs. Kull, running to the spot. "They're coming, and your father is not here."

"Hide, hide, my children! Never mind the cow now," she almost shrieked; her mind was running wild with all the scenes of terror she had ever heard of.

"Pshaw! pshaw! Mother Kull," said her boy, assuringly. "They won't come down here. Somebody's guiding them around who knows just where every house is. You and Anna get into that thicket yonder and keep, whatever happens, as still as mice."

"What'll _you_ do, bub?" questioned Anna, her sunburned face brown-pale with affright.

"Oh, I'll take care of myself. Boys always do."

As soon as Mrs. Kull and her daughter were well concealed in the thicket, the sounds began to die away. They waited half an hour. All was still. They crept out, gazing the country over. No soldier in sight. Down in the marsh again were boy and cow.

"I'll run home now," said Mrs. Kull. "I dare say 'twas all a trick of my ears."

"But I heard it, too, Mother Kull."

"Your ears serve you tricks, too, Anna. You wait and help Valentine home with the animals."

Anna was glad to have her mother gone. She sped to the marsh. She threaded it, until by sundry signs she found the trio and summoned them forth.

The old Blazing Star Ferry was seldom used. A boat lay there. It was staunch. The tide with them, they _might_ get it across. Had they been older, wiser, they would never have made the attempt.

A fresh water stream ran down to the sea. They passed it on their way thither. In it Sleet drank deep, and soothed for a moment the bites that tormented her; the children kneeled on the grassy bank, and drank from their palms; the calf frolicked in it, till driven out. An hour went by. They reached the ferry. It was deserted. Somebody had used the boat that day. It was at the shore. Grass was yet in it.

"Come along, Snow," said Valentine, urging with the rope. "Go along, Snow," said Anna, helping it on with a stout twig she had picked up. The calf pranced and ran, and before it knew its whereabouts was in the broad-bottomed boat. Sleet stood on the shore, and saw her baby tied fast. One poor cry the calf uttered. It went home to the motherly heart of the dumb creature. She went down the sand, over the side, and began, in her own way, to comfort Snow.

"Now we are all right!" cried Valentine, delighted with the success of his ruse; for he had slyly, lest Anna should see the deed, thrust a pin in Snow to call forth the cry and win the cow over to his side.

"Take an oar quick!" commanded the young captain.

His mate obeyed. They pushed the boat out, unfastened it from the pier. Before anybody concerned had time to realize the situation the boat was adrift, and they were whirling in the tide.

"Now, sis," said Valentine, a big lump in his throat, "we're in for it. It is sink or swim. It's not much use to row. You steer and I'll paddle."

Sleet looked wildly around. She tossed her head, sniffed the salt, oystery air, and seemed about to plunge overboard.

Anna screamed. Valentine threw down his paddle and dashed himself on the boat's outermost edge just in time to save it from overturning. Mistress Sleet, disgusted with Fourth of July, had made up her mind to lie down and take a nap. The boat righted and they were safe. Staten Island Sound at this point was narrow, scarcely more than a quarter of a mile in width, and the tide was fast bearing them out.

"Such uncommon good sense in Sleet," exclaimed the boy. "_That_ cow is worth saving."

At that moment a dozen Red Coats were at the ferry they had just left. The imperious gentlemen were in a fine frenzy at finding the boat gone.

They shouted to the children to return.

"Steady, steady now," cried the young captain. His mate was steady at the helm until a musket ball or two ran past them.

"Let go!" shouted the captain. "Swing your bonnet. Let them know you're a woman and they won't fire on _you_."

The little mate stood erect. She waved her pink flag of a sun-bonnet. Distinctly the soldiers saw the pink frock of Anna Kull; they saw her long hair as the sea breeze lifted it when she shook her pink banner.

A second, two, three went by as the girl stood there, and then a flash was seen on the bank, a musket-ball ran through the bonnet of the little mate, and the waves of air rattled along the shore.

The bonnet was in the sea; Anna had dropped to her seat and caught the helm in her left hand.

"Cowards!" cried Valentine, for want of a stronger word, and then he fell to working the boat on its way. The tide helped them now; it swung the boat over toward the Jersey shore.

The firing from Staten Island called out the inhabitants on the Jersey coast. They watched the approaching boat with interest. Everything depended now on the cow's lying still, on the boy's strength, on the meeting of the tides. If he could reach there before the tide came up all would be well; otherwise it would sweep him off again toward the island.

"Can't you row?" asked Valentine, at length.

"Bub, I can't," said Anna, her voice shaking out the words. It was the first time she had spoken since she sat down.

"Are you hurt?" he questioned.

"I tremble so," she answered, and turned her face away.

"I reckon we'd better help that boy in," said a Jersey fisherman as he watched, and he put off in a small boat.

"Don't come near! Keep off! keep off!" called Valentine, as he saw him approach. "I've a cow in here."

The fisherman threw him a rope, and that rope saved them. The dewy smell of the grassy banks had aroused the cow. She was stirring.

The land was very near now; close at hand. "Hurry! hurry!" urged the lad, as they were drawing him in. Before the cow had time to rise, the boat touched land.

"You'd better look after that girl," said the fisherman, who had towed the boat. The poor child was holding, fast wrapped in the remnants of her pink frock, her bleeding hand. The musket ball that shot away her bonnet grazed her wrist.

"Never mind me," she said, when they were pitying her. "The cow is safe."

The same evening, while, in Philadelphia, bonfires were blazing, bells ringing, cannon booming, because, that day, a new nation was born; over Staten Island Sound, by the light of the moon, strong-armed men were ferrying home the girl and the boy, who that day _had_ fought a good fight and gained the victory.

At home, in the Kull cottage, the mother waited long for the coming of the children. She said; "Poor young things! _Mine own children_--they _shall_ have a nice supper." She made it ready and they were not come.

Farmer Rycker's wife and daughter came over to tell and hear the news, and yet they were not come.

Sundown. No children. The Kull father came up from his fishing and heard the story.

"The Red Coats have taken them," he said, and down came the musket from against the wall, and out the father marched and made straightway for the headquarters of General Howe, over at the present "Quarantine."

Then the mother, left alone in the soft summer gloaming, fell on her knees and told her story in her own plain speech to her good Father in Heaven.

It was a long story. She had much to say to Heaven that night. The mothers and wives of 1776 in our land spake often unto God. This mother listened and prayed, and prayed and listened.

The fishermen had left Valentine and Anna on the shore and gone home. Tired, but happy, the brother and sister went up, over sand and field and slope, and so came at length within sight of the trees that towered near home.

"Whistle now!" whispered Anna, afraid yet to speak aloud. "Mother will hear and answer."

Valentine whistled.

Up jumped the mother Kull. She ran to the door and tried to answer. There was no whistle in her lips. Joy choked it.

"Mother, are you _there_?" cried the children.

"No! I'm _here_," was the answer, and she had them safe in her arms.

PATTY RUTTER: THE QUAKER DOLL WHO SLEPT IN INDEPENDENCE HALL.

Patty Rutter had fallen asleep with her bonnet on, and had been lying there, fast asleep, nobody knew just how long; for, somehow--it happened so--there was nobody in particular to awaken her; that is to say, no one had seemed to care though she slept on all day and all night, without ever waking up at all.

But then, there never had been another life quite like Patty Rutter's life. In the first place, it had a curious reason for beginning at all; and nearly everything about it had been as unlike your life and mine as possible.

In her very baby days, before she walked or talked, she had been sent away to live with strangers, and no real, warm kiss of true love had ever fallen on her little lips.

It all came about in this way: Mrs. Sarah Rutter, a lady living in Philadelphia--exactly what relation she bore to Patty it is a little difficult to determine--decided to send the little one to live with a certain Mrs. Adams, at Quincy, in Massachusetts, and she particularly desired that the child should go dressed in a style fitting an inhabitant of the proud city of Philadelphia.

Now, at that time Philadelphia was very much elated because of several things that had happened to her; but the biggest pride of all was, that once upon a time the Continental Congress had met there, and--and most wonderful thing--had made a Nation!

Well, to be sure, that _was_ something to be proud of; though Patty didn't understand, a bit more than you do, what it meant. However, the glory of it all was talked about so much that she couldn't help knowing that, when this nation, with its fifty-six Fathers, and thirteen Mothers, was born one day in July, 1776, at Philadelphia, all the city rang with a sweet jangle, and called to all the people, through the tongue of its Liberty bell, to come up and greet the newcomer with a great shout of welcome.

But that had been long ago, before Mrs. Sarah Rutter was grown up, or Patty Rutter began to be dressed for her trip to Quincy.

As I wrote, Mrs. Rutter wished that Patty should go attired in a manner to do honor to the city of Philadelphia; therefore she was not permitted to depart in her baby clothes, but her little figure was arrayed in a long, prim gown of soft drab silk, while a kerchief of purest mull was crossed upon her breast; and, depending from her waist, like the fashion of to-day, were pincushion and watch. Upon her youthful head was a bonnet, crowned and trimmed in true Quaker fashion; and her infantile feet were securely tied within shapely slippers of kid. Thus equipped, Miss Patty was sent forth upon her journey.

Ah! that journey began a long time ago--fifty-eight, yes, fifty-nine years have gone by, and Patty Rutter is quite an aged little lady now, as she lies asleep, with her bonnet on.

"It is time," says somebody, "to close."

No one seems to take notice that Patty Rutter does not get up and depart with the rest of the visitors, that she only stirs her eyelids and turns her head on the silken "quilt" where she is lying.

The little woman who keeps house in the Hall locks it up and goes away, and there is little Patty Rutter shut in for the night. As the key turns in the old-time lock, the Lady Rutter winks hard and sits up.

"Well, I've been patient, anyhow, and Mrs. Samuel Adams herself couldn't wish me to do more," she said, with a comforting yawn and a delightful stretch, and then she began to stare in blank bewilderment.

"I _should_ like to know what this all means," she whispered, "and _where_ I am. I've heard enough to-day to turn my head. How very queer folks are, and they talk such jargon now-a-days. Centennial and Corliss Engine; Woman's Pavilion and Memorial Hall; Main Building and the Trois Freres; Hydraulic Annex, railroads and what-nots.

"_I_ never heard of such things. I don't think it is proper to speak of them, or the Adamses would have told me. No more intelligent folks in the land than the Adamses, and I guess _they_ know what belongs to good society and polite conversation. I declare I blushed so in my sleep that I was quite ashamed. I'll get up and look about now. I'm sure this isn't any one of the houses where we visit, or folks wouldn't talk so."

Patty Rutter straightened her bonnet on her head, smoothed down her robe of silken drab, adjusted her kerchief, looked at her watch to learn how long she had been sleeping, and found, to her surprise, that it had run down. Right over her head hung two watches.

"Why, how thoughtful folks are in this house," she exclaimed in a timid voice, reaching up and taking one of the two time-pieces in her hand. "Why, here's a name; let me see."

Reading slowly, she announced that the watch belonged to "Wil-liam Wil-liams--worn when he signed the Declaration of Independence." "Ah!" she cried, with pathetic tone, "this watch is run down _too_, at four minutes after five. I remember! _This_ William Williams was one of the fifty-six Fathers. I guess I must be in Lebanon--he lived there and his folks would have his watch of course. Here's another," taking down a watch and reading, "Colonel John Trumbull. _Run down, too!_ and at twenty-three minutes after six. _He_ was the son of Brother Jonathan, Governor of one of the Mothers, when the Nation was born. Yes, yes, I must be in Lebanon. Well, it's a comfort, at least, to know that I'm in company the Adamses would approve of, though _how_ I came here is a mystery."

She hung the watches in place, stepped out of the glass room, in which she had slept, into a hall, and with a slight exclamation of delicious approval, stopped short before a number of chairs, and clasped her little fingers tightly together.

You must remember that Patty Rutter was a Friend, a Quaker, perhaps a descendant of William Penn, but then, in her baby days, having been transplanted to the rugged soil and outspoken ways of Massachusetts, she could not keep silence altogether, in view of that which greeted her vision.

She was in the very midst of old friends. Chairs in which she had sat in her young days stood about the grand hall. On the walls hung portraits of the ancestor kings of the nation born at Philadelphia in 1776.

In royal robes and with careless grace, lounged King George III., the nation's grandfather, angry no longer at his thirteen daughters who strayed from home with the Sons of Liberty.

Her feet made haste and her eyes opened wider, as her swift hands seized relic after relic. She sat in chairs that Washington had rested in; she caught up camp-kettles used on every field where warriors of the Revolution had tarried; she patted softly La Fayette's camp bedstead; and wondered at the taste that had put into the hall two old, time-worn, battered doors, but soon found out that they had gone through all the storm of balls that fell upon the Chew House during the battle of Germantown.

She read the wonderful prayer that once was prayed in Carpenter's Hall, and about which every member of Congress wrote home to his wife.

On a small "stand," encased in glass, she came upon a portrait of Washington, painted during the time he waited for powder at Cambridge. Patty Rutter had seen it often, with its halo of the General's own hair about it. She turned from it, and beheld (why, yes, surely she _had_ seen _that_, but not here; it was, why long ago, in her baby days in Philadelphia, that Mrs. Rutter had taken her up into a tower to see it), a bell--Liberty Bell, that rang above the heads of the Fathers when the Nation was born.

Poor little Patty began to cry. Where could she be? She reached out her hand, and climbed the huge beams that encased the bell, and tried to touch the tongue. She wanted to hear it ring again, but could not reach it.

"It's curious, curious," she sobbed, wiping her eyes and turning them with a thrill of delight upon a beloved name that greeted her vision. It was growing dark, and she _might_ be wrong. But no, it was the dear name of Adams; and she saw, in a basket, a little pile of baby raiment. There were dainty caps and tiny shirts of cambric, whose linen was like a gossamer web, and whose delicate lines of hem-stitch were scarcely discernible; there were small dresses, yellow with the sun color that time had poured over them, and they hung with pathetic crease and tender fold over the sides of the basket.

The little woman paused and peered to read these words, "Baby-clothes, made by Mrs. John Adams for her son, John Quincy Adams."

"Little John Quincy!" she cried, "A baby so long ago!" She took the little caps in her hands, she pulled out the crumpled lace that edged them. She said, through the swift-falling tears:

"Oh, I remember when he was brought home _dead_, and how, in the Independence Hall of the State House at Philadelphia, he lay in state, that the inhabitants who knew his deeds, and those of his father, John, and his uncle, Samuel, might see his face. I love the Adamses every one," and she softly pressed the baby-caps that had been wrought by a mother, ere the country began, to her small Quaker lips, with real New England fervor for its very own. Tenderly she laid them down, to see, while the light was fading, a huge picture on the wall. She studied it long, trying to discern the faces, with their savage beauty; the sturdy right-doing men who stood before them; and then her eyes began to glisten, and gather light from the picture; her lips parted, her breath quickened; for Patty Rutter had gone beyond her life associations in Massachusetts, back to the times in which her Quaker ancestors had make treaty with the native Indians.

"It is!" she cried with a shout; "It is Penn's treaty!" Patty gazed at it until she could see no longer. "I'm glad it is the last thing my eyes will remember," she said sorrowfully, when in the gloom she turned away, went down the hall, and entered her glass chamber.

"Never mind my watch," she said softly. "When I waken it will be daylight, and I need not wind it. It will be so sweet to lie here through the night in such grand and goodly company. I only wish Mrs. Samuel Adams could come and kiss me good night."

With these words, Patty Rutter laid herself to rest upon the silken quilt from Gardiner's Island; and if you look within the Relic Room, opposite to Independence Hall, in the old State House at Philadelphia, in this Centennial summer, you will find her there, still taking her long nap, _fully indorsed by Miss Adams_, and in Independence Hall, across the passage way, you will see the portraits of more than fifty of the Fathers of the nation, but the Mothers abide at home.

BECCA BLACKSTONE'S TURKEYS AT VALLEY FORGE.

Turkeys, little girl and apple-tree lived in Pennsylvania, a hundred years ago. The turkeys--eleven of them--went to bed in the apple-tree, one night in December.

After it was dark, the little girl stood under the tree and peered up through the boughs and began to count. She numbered them from one up to eleven. Addressing the turkeys, she said: "You're all up there, I see, and if you only knew enough; if you weren't the dear, old, wise, stupid things that you are, I'll tell you what you would do. After I'm gone in the house, and the door is shut, and nobody here to see, you'd get right down, and you'd fly off in a hurry to the deepest part of the wood to spent your Thanksgiving, you would. The cold of the woods isn't half as bad for you as the fire of the oven will be."

Becca finished her speech; the turkeys rustled in their feathers and doubtless wondered what it all meant, while she stood thinking. One poor fellow lost his balance and came fluttering down to the ground, just as she had decided what to do. As soon as he was safely reset on his perch, Becca made a second little speech to her audience, in which she declared that "they, the dear turkeys, were her own; that she had a right to do with them just as she pleased, and that it was her good pleasure that not one single one of the eleven should make a part of anybody's Thanksgiving dinner."

"Heigh-ho," whistles Jack, Becca's ten-year-old brother: "that you, Bec? High time you were in the house."

"S'pose I frightened you," said Becca. "Where have you been gone all the afternoon, I'd like to know? stealin' home too, across lots."

"I'll tell, if you won't let on a mite."

"Do I ever, Jack?" reproachfully.

He did not deign to answer, but in confidential whispers breathed it into her ears that "he had been down to the Forge. Down to the Valley Forge, where General Washington was going to fetch down lots and lots of soldiers, and build log huts, and stay all Winter." He ended his breathless narration with an allusion that made Becca jump as though she had seen a snake. He said: "It will be bad for your turkeys."

"Why, Jack? General Washington won't steal them."

"Soldiers eat turkey whenever they can get it; and, Bec, this apple-tree isn't above three miles from the Forge. You'd better have 'em all killed for Thanksgiving. Come, I'm hungry as a bear."

"But," said Becca, grasping his jacket sleeve as they went, "I've just promised 'em that they shall not be touched."

Jack's laugh set every turkey into motion, until the tree was all in a flutter of excitement. He laughed again and again, before he could say "What a little goose you are! Just as if turkeys understood a word you said."

"But I understood if they didn't, and I should be telling my own self a lie. No, not a turkey shall die. They shall all have a real good Thanksgiving once in their lives."

Two days later, on the 18th of December, Thanksgiving Day came, the turkeys were yet alive, and Becca Blackstone was happy.

The next day General Washington's eleven thousand men marched into Valley Forge, and went out upon the cold, bleak hillsides, carrying with them almost three thousand poor fellows, too ill to march, too ill to build log huts, ill enough to lie down and die. Such a busy time as there was for days and days. Farmer Blackstone felt a little toryish in his thoughts, but the chance to sell logs and split slabs so near home as Valley Forge was not likely to happen again, and he worked away with strong good will to furnish building material. Jack went every day to the encampment, and grew quite learned in the ways of warlike men.

Becca staid at home with her mother, but secretly wished to see what the great army looked like.