Read Ebook: Farthest North The Life and Explorations of Lieutenant James Booth Lockwood of the Greely Arctic Expedition by Lanman Charles

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PAGE The Only Woman in the Town 9 A Windham Lamb in Boston Town 38 How One Boy Helped the British Troops Out of Boston in 1776 47 Pussy Dean's Beacon Fire 67 David Bushnell and His American Turtle 75 The Birthday of Our Nation 117 The Overthrow of the Statue of King George 127 Sleet and Snow 135 Patty Rutter: The Quaker Doll who slept in Independence Hall 151 Becca Blackstone's Turkeys at Valley Forge 159 How Two Little Stockings Saved Fort Safety 169 A Day and a Night in the Old Porter House 181

THE ONLY WOMAN IN THE TOWN.

One hundred years and one ago, in Boston, at ten of the clock one April night, a church steeple had been climbed and a lantern hung out.

At ten, the same night, in mid-river of the Charles, oarsmen two, with passenger silent and grim, had seen the signal light out-swung, and rowed with speed for the Charlestown shore.

At eleven, the moon was risen, and the grim passenger, Paul Revere, had ridden up the Neck, encountered a foe, who opposed his ride into the country, and, after a brief delay, had gone on, leaving a British officer lying in a clay pit.

At midnight, a hundred ears had heard the flying horseman cry, "Up and arm. The Regulars are coming out!"

You know the story well. You have heard how the wild alarm ran from voice to voice and echoed beneath every roof, until the men of Lexington and Concord were stirred and aroused with patriotic fear for the safety of the public stores that had been committed to their keeping.

You know how, long ere the chill April day began to dawn, they had drawn, by horse power and by hand power, the cherished stores into safe hiding-places in the depth of friendly forest-coverts.

Once and again that morning, a friendly hand had pulled the latch-string at Martha Moulton's kitchen entrance and offered to convey herself and treasures away, but, to either proffer, she had said: "No, I must stay until Uncle John gets the cricks out of his back, if all the British soldiers in the land march into town."

At last, came Joe Devins, a lad of fifteen years--Joe's two astonished eyes peered for a moment into Martha Moulton's kitchen, and then eyes and owner dashed into the room, to learn what the sight he there saw could mean.

"Whew! Mother Moulton, what are you doing?"

"So they tell me," she said, serenely. "There comes Uncle John!" she added, as the clatter of a staff on the stone steps of the stairway outrang, for an instant, the cries of hurrying and confusion that filled the air of the street.

"Don't you know, Mother Moulton," Joe went on to say, "that every single woman and child have been carried off, where the Britishers won't find 'em?"

"I don't believe the king's troops have stirred out of Boston," she replied, going to the door leading to the stone staircase, to open it for Uncle John.

"Don't believe it?" and Joe looked, as he echoed the words, as though only a boy could feel sufficient disgust at such a want of common sense, in full view of the fact, that Reuben Brown had just brought the news that eight men had been killed by the king's Red Coats in Lexington, which fact he made haste to impart.

"I won't believe a word of it," she said, stoutly, "until I see the soldiers coming."

Meanwhile, poor Uncle John was getting down the steps of the stairway, with many a grimace and groan. As he touched the floor, Joe, his face beaming with excitement and enthusiasm, sprang to place a chair for him at the table, saying, "Good morning," at the same moment.

"I'm real sorry for you," said Joe, "but you don't know the news. The king's troops, from camp, in Boston, are marching right down here, to carry off all our arms that they can find."

"Are they?" was the sarcastic rejoinder. "It's the best news I've heard in a long while. Wish they had my arms, this minute. They wouldn't carry them a step further than they could help, I know. Run and tell them that mine are ready, Joe."

"But, Uncle John, wait until after breakfast, you'll want to use them once more," said Martha Moulton, trying to help him into a chair that Joe had placed on the white sanded floor.

Meanwhile, Joe Devins had ears for all the sounds that penetrated the kitchen from out of doors, and he had eyes for the slices of well-browned pork and the golden-hued Johnny-cake lying before the glowing coals on the broad hearth.

As the little woman bent to take up the breakfast, Joe, intent on doing some kindness for her in the way of saving treasures, asked, "Sha'n't I help you, Mother Moulton?"

"I reckon I am not so old that I can't lift a mite of corn-bread," she replied with chilling severity.

Presently he rushed back to the house with cheeks aflame and eyes ablaze with excitement. "They're coming!" he cried. "They're in sight down by the rocks. They see 'em marching, the men on the hill do!"

"What in the world shall I do with them?" she cried, returning with her apron well filled, and borne down by the weight thereof.

"Give 'em to me," cried Joe. "Here's a basket. Drop 'em in, and I'll run like a brush-fire through the town and across the old bridge, and hide 'em as safe as a weasel's nap."

Joe's fingers were creamy; his mouth was half filled with Johnny-cake, and his pocket on the right bulged to its utmost capacity with the same, as he held forth the basket; but the little woman was afraid to trust him, as she had been afraid to trust her neighbors.

She drew off one of her stockings, filled it, tied the opening at the top with a string--plunged stocking and all into a pail full of water and proceeded to pour the contents into the well.

"Why didn't you tell me before, Joe? but now it is too late."

"I would, if I had known what you was going to do; they'd been a sight safer in the honey tree."

"Well, well! Don't stand there, looking!" as she hovered over the high curb, with her hand on the bucket. "Everybody will know, if you do."

"Martha! Martha!" shrieked Uncle John's quavering voice from the house door.

"Bless my heart!" she exclaimed, hurrying back over the stones.

"What's the matter with your heart?" questioned Joe.

"Nothing. I was thinking of Uncle John's money," she answered.

"Has he got money?" cried Joe. "I thought he was poor, and you took care of him because you were so good!"

Not one word that Joe uttered did the little woman hear. She was already by Uncle John's side and asking him for the key to his strong box.

Uncle John's rheumatism was terribly exasperating. "No, I won't give it to you!" he cried, "and nobody shall have it as long as I am above ground."

"Then the soldiers will carry it off," she said.

At this instant, a voice at the doorway shouted the words, "Hide, hide away somewhere, Mother Moulton, for the Red Coats are in sight this minute!"

She heard the warning, and giving one glance at Uncle John, which look was answered by another "No, you won't have it," she grasped Joe Devins by the collar of his jacket and thrust him before her up the staircase so quickly that the boy had no chance to speak, until she released her hold, on the second floor, at the entrance to Uncle John's room.

The idea of being taken a prisoner in such a manner, and by a woman, too, was too much for the lad's endurance. "Let me go!" he cried, the instant he could recover his breath. "I won't hide away in your garret, like a woman, I won't. I want to see the militia and the minute men fight the troops, I do."

"Help me first, Joe. Here, quick now! Let's get this box out and up garret. We'll hide it under the corn and it'll be safe," she coaxed.

The box was under Uncle John's bed.

"What's in the old thing anyhow?" questioned Joe, pulling with all his strength at it.

The box, or chest, was painted red, and was bound about by massive iron bands.

They had drawn it with much hard endeavor as far as the garret stairs, but their united strength failed to lift it. "Heave it, now!" cried Joe, and lo! it was up two steps. So they turned it over and over with many a thudding thump;--every one of which thumps Uncle John heard and believed to be strokes upon the box itself to burst it asunder--until it was fairly shelved on the garret floor.

"Poor old soul!" ejaculated the little woman, her soft white curls in disorder and the pink color rising from her cheeks to her fair forehead, as she bent to help Joe drag the box beneath the rafter's edge.

"Now, Joe," she said, "we'll heap nubbins over it, and if the soldiers want corn they'll take good ears and never think of touching poor nubbins." So they fell to work throwing corn over the red chest, until it was completely concealed from view.

"What did you help her for, you scamp?" he demanded of Joe, flourishing his staff unpleasantly near the lad's head.

"'Cause she asked me to, and couldn't do it alone," returned Joe, dodging the stick and disappearing from the scene at the very moment Martha Moulton encountered Uncle John.

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