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.
There is one thing about that day that you have _not_ heard and I will
tell you now. It is, how one little woman staid in the town of
Concord, whence all the women save her had fled.
All the houses that were standing then, are very old-fashioned now,
but there was one dwelling-place on Concord Common that was
old-fashioned even then! It was the abode of Martha Moulton and "Uncle
John." Just who "Uncle John" was, is not known to the writer, but he
was probably Martha Moulton's uncle. The uncle, it appears by record,
was eighty-five years old; while the niece was _only_ three-score and
eleven.
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?"
"I'm getting Uncle John his breakfast to be sure, Joe," she answered.
"Have _you_ seen so many sights this morning that you don't know
breakfast, when you see it? Have a care there, for hot fat _will_
burn," as she deftly poured the contents of a pan, fresh from the
fire, into a dish.
Hungry Joe had been astir since the first drum had beat to arms at two
of the clock. He gave one glance at the boiling cream and the slices
of crisp pork swimming in it, as he gasped forth the words, "Getting
breakfast in Concord _this_ morning! _Mother Moulton_, you _must_ be
crazy."
"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."
"Ah! Hear that!" cried Joe, tossing back his hair and swinging his
arms triumphantly at an airy foe. "You won't have to wait long. _That
signal_ is for the minute men. They are going to march out to meet the
Red Coats. Wish I was a minute man, this minute."
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.
"May be," groaned Uncle John, "youngsters _like you may_ think it is a
good morning, but _I don't_. Such a din and clatter as the fools have
kept up all night long. If I had the power" (and now the poor old man
fairly groaned with rage), "I'd make 'em quiet long enough to let an
old man get a wink of sleep, when the rheumatism lets go."
"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.
"Oh, I didn't mean to lift _that thing_," he made haste to explain,
"but to carry off things and hide 'em away, as everybody else has been
doing half the night. I know a first-rate place up in the woods. Used
to be a honey tree, you know, and it's just as hollow as anything.
Silver spoons and things would be just as safe in it--" but Joe's
words were interrupted by unusual tumult on the street and he ran off
to learn the news, intending to return and get the breakfast that had
been offered to him.
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!"
"You don't mean that it's really true that the soldiers are coming
here, _right into our town_!" cried Martha Moulton, rising in haste
and bringing together, with rapid flourishes to right and to left,
every fragment of silver on it. Divining her intent, Uncle John strove
to hold fast his individual spoon, but she twitched it without
ceremony out from his rheumatic old fingers, and ran next to the
parlor cupboard, wherein lay her movable treasures.
"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.
"No! No!" she replied, to his repeated offers. "I know what I'll do.
You, Joe Devins, stay right where you are until I come back, and,
don't you even _look_ out of the window."
"Dear, dear me!" she cried, flushed and anxious when she was out of
sight of Uncle John and Joe. "I _wish_ I'd given 'em to Colonel
Barrett when he was here before daylight, only, I _was_ afraid I
should never get sight of them again."
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.
Just as the dark circle had closed over the blue stocking, Joe Devins'
face peered down the depths by her side, and his voice sounded out the
words: "O Mother Moulton, the British will search the wells the _very_
first thing. Of course, they _expect_ to find things in wells!"
"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."
"Yes, and what a fool I've been--flung _my watch_ into the well with
the spoons!"
"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.
"Let 'em!" was his reply, grasping his staff firmly with both hands
and gleaming defiance out of his wide, pale eyes. "_You_ won't get the
key, even if they do."
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.
"I've never seen the inside of it," said Mother Moulton. "It holds the
poor old soul's sole treasure, and I _do_ want to save it for him if I
can."
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.
In the very midst of the overturnings, a voice from below had been
heard crying out, "Let my box alone! Don't you break it open! If you
do, I'll--I'll--" but, whatever the poor man _meant_ to threaten as a
penalty, he could not think of anything half severe enough to say, so
left it uncertain as to the punishment that might be looked for.
"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.
Then Joe sprang to the high-up-window ledge in the point of the roof
and took one glance out. "Oh, I see them, the Red Coats! 'Strue's I
live, there go our militia _up the hill_. I thought they was going to
stand and defend. Shame on 'em, I say!" Jumping down and crying back
to Mother Moulton, "I'm going to stand by the minute men," he went
down, three steps at a leap, and nearly overturned Uncle John on the
stairs, who, with many groans, was trying to get to the defense of his
strong box.
"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.
"Your strong box is safe under nubbins in the garret, unless the house
burns down, and now that you are up here, you had better stay," she
added soothingly, as she hastened by him to reach the kitchen below.
Once there, she paused a second or two to take resolution regarding
her next act. She knew full well that there was not one second to
spare, and yet she stood looking, apparently, into the glowing embers
on the hearth. She was flushed and excited, both by the unwonted toil
and the coming events. Cobwebs from the rafters had fallen on her hair
and homespun dress, and would readily have betrayed her late
occupation to any discerning soldier of the king.
A smile broke suddenly over her fair face, displacing for a brief
second every trace of care. "It's my old weapon, and I must use it,"
she said, making a stately courtesy to an imaginary guest, and
straightway disappeared within an adjoining room. With buttoned door
and dropped curtains the little woman made haste to array herself in
her finest raiment. In five minutes she reappeared in the kitchen, a
picture pleasant to look at. In all New England, there could not be a
more beautiful little old lady than Martha Moulton was that day. Her
hair was guiltless now of cobwebs, but haloed her face with fluffy
little curls of silvery whiteness, above which, like a crown, was a
little cap of dotted muslin, pure as snow. Her erect figure, not a
particle of the hard-working-day in it now, carried well the folds of
a sheeny, black silk gown, over which she had tied an apron as
spotless as the cap.
As she fastened back her gown and hurried away the signs of the
breakfast she had not eaten, the clear pink tints seemed to come out
with added beauty of coloring in her cheeks, while her hair seemed
fairer and whiter than at any moment in her three-score and eleven
years.
Once more, Joe Devins looked in. As he caught a glimpse of the picture
she made, he paused to cry out: "All dressed up to meet the robbers!
My, how fine you do look! I wouldn't. I'd go and hide behind the
nubbins. They'll be here in less than five minutes now," he cried,
"and I'm going over the North Bridge to see what's going on there."
"O Joe, stay, won't you?" she urged, but the lad was gone, and she was
left alone to meet the foe, comforting herself with the thought,
"They'll treat me with more respect if I _look_ respectable, and if I
_must_ die, I'll die good-looking in my best clothes, anyhow."
She threw a few sticks of hickory-wood on the embers and then drew out
the little round stand, on which the family Bible was always lying.
Recollecting that the British soldiers probably belonged to the Church
of England, she hurried away to fetch Uncle John's "prayer book."
"They'll have respect to me, if they find me reading that, I know,"
she thought. Having drawn the round stand within sight of the well,
and where she could also command a view of the staircase, she sat and
waited for coming events.
Uncle John was keeping watch of the advancing troops from an upper
window. "Martha," he called, "you'd better come up. They're close by,
now." To tell the truth, Uncle John himself was a little afraid; that
is to say, he hadn't quite courage enough to go down and, perhaps,
encounter his own rheumatism and the king's soldiers on the same
stairway, and yet, he felt that he must defend Martha as well as he
could.
The rap of a musket, quick and ringing, on the front door, startled
the little woman from her apparent devotions. She did not move at the
call of anything so profane. It was the custom of the time to have the
front door divided into two parts, the lower half and the upper half.
The former was closed and made fast, the upper could be swung open at
will.
The soldier getting no reply, and doubtless thinking that the house
was deserted, leaped over the chained lower half of the door.
At the clang of his bayonet against the brass trimmings, Martha
Moulton groaned in spirit, for, if there was any one thing that she
deemed essential to her comfort in this life, it was to keep spotless,
speckless and in every way unharmed, the great knocker on her front
door.
"Good, sound English metal, too," she thought, "that an English
soldier ought to know how to respect."
As she heard the tramp of coming feet she only bent the closer over
the Book of Prayer that lay open on her knee. Not one word did she
read or see; she was inwardly trembling and outwardly watching the
well and the staircase. But now, above all other sounds, broke the
noise of Uncle John's staff thrashing the upper step of the staircase,
and the shrill, tremulous cry of the old man, defiant, doing his
utmost for the defense of his castle.
The fingers that lay beneath the book tingled with desire to box the
old man's ears, for the policy he was pursuing would be fatal to the
treasure in garret and in well; but she was forced to silence and
inactivity.
As the king's troops, Major Pitcairn at their head, reached the open
door and saw the old lady, they paused. What could they do but look,
for a moment, at the unexpected sight that met their view: a placid
old lady in black silk and dotted muslin, with all the sweet solemnity
of morning devotion hovering about the tidy apartment and seeming to
centre at the round stand by which she sat,--this pretty woman, with
pink and white face surmounted with fleecy little curls and crinkles
and wisps of floating whiteness, who looked up to meet their gaze with
such innocent, prayer-suffused eyes.
"Good morning, Mother," said Major Pitcairn, raising his hat.
"Good morning, gentlemen and soldiers," returned Martha Moulton. "You
will pardon my not meeting you at the door, when you see that I was
occupied in rendering service to the Lord of all." She reverently
closed the book, laid it on the table, and arose, with a stately
bearing, to demand their wishes.
"We're hungry, good woman," spoke the commander, "and your hearth is
the only hospitable one we've seen since we left Boston. With your
good leave I'll take a bit of this," and he stooped to lift up the
Johnny-cake that had been all this while on the hearth.
"I wish I had something better to offer you," she said, making haste
to fetch plates and knives from the corner-cupboard, and all the while
she was keeping eye-guard over the well. "I'm afraid the Concorders
haven't left much for you to-day," she added, with a soft sigh of
regret, as though she really felt sorry that such brave men and good
soldiers had fallen on hard times in the ancient town. At the moment
she had brought forth bread and baked beans, and was putting them on
the table, a voice rang into the room, causing every eye to turn
toward Uncle John. He had gotten down the stairs without uttering one
audible groan, and was standing, one step above the floor of the room,
brandishing and whirling his staff about in a manner to cause even
rheumatism to flee the place, while at the top of his voice he cried
out:
"Martha Moulton, how _dare_ you _feed_ these--these--monsters--in
human form?"
"Don't mind him, gentlemen, _please_ don't," she made haste to say;
"he's old, _very_ old; eighty-five, his last birthday, and--a little
hoity-toity at times," pointing deftly with her finger in the region
of the reasoning powers in her own shapely head.
Summoning Major Pitcairn by an offer of a dish of beans, she contrived
to say, under cover of it:
"You see, sir, I couldn't go away and leave him; he is almost
distracted with rheumatism, and this excitement to-day will kill him,
I'm afraid."
Advancing toward the staircase with bold and soldierly front, Major
Pitcairn said to Uncle John:
"Stand aside, old man, and we'll hold you harmless."
"I don't believe you will, you red-trimmed trooper, you," was the
reply; and, with a dexterous swing of the wooden staff, he mowed off
and down three military hats.
Before any one had time to speak, Martha Moulton, adroitly stooping,
as though to recover Major Pitcairn's hat, which had rolled to her
feet, swung the stairway-door into its place with a resounding bang,
and followed up that achievement with a swift turn of two large wooden
buttons, one high up, and the other low down, on the door.
"There!" she said, "he is safe out of mischief for a while, and your
heads are safe as well. Pardon a poor old man, who does not know what
he is about."
"He seems to know remarkably well," exclaimed an officer.
Meanwhile, behind the strong door, Uncle John's wrath knew no bounds.
In his frantic endeavors to burst the fastenings of the wooden
buttons, rheumatic cramps seized him and carried the day, leaving him
out of the battle.
Meanwhile, a company of soldiers clustered about the door. The king's
horses were fed within five feet of the great brass knocker,
while, within the house, the beautiful little old woman, in her
Sunday-best-raiment, tried to do the dismal honors of the day to the
foes of her country. Watching her, one would have thought she was
entertaining heroes returned from the achievement of valiant
deeds, whereas, in her own heart, she knew full well that she was
giving a little, to save much.
Nothing could exceed the seeming alacrity with which she fetched water
from the well for the officers: and, when Major Pitcairn gallantly
ordered his men to do the service, the little soul was in alarm; she
was so afraid that "somehow, in some way or another, the blue stocking
would get hitched on to the bucket." She knew that she must to its
rescue, and so she bravely acknowledged herself to have taken a vow
(when, she did not say), to draw all the water that was taken from
that well.
"A remnant of witchcraft!" remarked a soldier within hearing.
"Do I look like a witch?" she demanded.
"If you do," replied Major Pitcairn, "I admire New England witches,
and never would condemn one to be hung, or burned, or--smothered."
Martha Moulton never wore so brilliant a color on her aged cheeks as
at that moment. She felt bitter shame at the ruse she had attempted,
but silver spoons were precious, and, to escape the smile that went
around at Major Pitcairn's words, she was only too glad to go again to
the well and dip slowly the high, over-hanging sweep into the cool,
clear, dark depth below.
During this time the cold, frosty morning spent itself into the
brilliant, shining noon.
You know what happened at Concord on that 19th of April in the year
1775. You have been told the story--how the men of Acton met and
resisted the king's troops at the old North Bridge; how brave Captain
Davis and minute-man Hosmer fell; how the sound of their falling
struck down to the very heart of mother earth, and caused her to send
forth her brave sons to cry "Liberty, or Death!"
And the rest of the story; the sixty or more barrels of flour that the
king's troops found and struck the heads from, leaving the flour in
condition to be gathered again at nightfall, the arms and powder that
they destroyed, the houses they burned; all these, are they not
recorded in every child's history in the land?
While these things were going on, for a brief while, at mid-day,
Martha Moulton found her home deserted. She had not forgotten poor,
suffering, irate Uncle John in the regions above, and so, the very
minute she had the chance, she made a strong cup of catnip tea (the
real tea, you know, was brewing in Boston harbor).
She turned the buttons, and, with a bit of trembling at her heart,
such as she had not felt all day, she ventured up the stairs, bearing
the steaming peace-offering before her.
Uncle John was writhing under the sharp thorns and twinges of his old
enemy, and in no frame of mind to receive any overtures in the shape
of catnip tea; nevertheless, he was watching, as well as he was able,
the motions of the enemy. As she drew near, he cried out:
"Look out this window, and see! Much _good_ all your scheming will do
_you_!"
She obeyed his command to look, and the sight she then saw caused her
to let fall the cup of catnip tea and rush down the stairs, wringing
her hands as she went, and crying out:
"Oh, dear! what shall I do? The house will burn and the box up garret.
Everything's lost!"
Major Pitcairn, at that moment, was on the green in front of her door,
giving orders.
Forgetting the dignified part she intended to play; forgetting
everything but the supreme danger that was hovering in mid-air over
her home--the old house wherein she had been born, and the only home
she had ever known--she rushed out upon the green, amid the troops and
surrounded by cavalry, and made her way to Major Pitcairn.
"The court-house is on fire!" she cried, laying her hand upon the
commander's arm.
He turned and looked at her. Major Pitcairn had recently learned that
the task he had been set to do in the provincial towns that day was
not an easy one; that, when hard pressed and trodden down, the
despised rustics, in homespun dress, could sting even English
soldiers; and thus it happened that, when he felt the touch of Mother
Moulton's plump little old fingers on his military sleeve, he was not
in the pleasant humor that he had been when the same hand had
ministered to his hunger in the early morning.
"Well, what of it? _Let it burn!_ We won't hurt _you_, if you go in
the house and stay there!"
She turned and glanced up at the court-house. Already flames were
issuing from it. "Go in the house and let it burn, _indeed_!" thought
she. "He knows _me_, don't he? Oh, sir! for the love of Heaven won't
you stop it?" she said, entreatingly.
"Run in the house, good mother. That is a wise woman," he advised.
Down in her heart, and as the very outcome of lip and brain she wanted
to say, "You needn't 'mother' me, you murderous rascals!" but,
remembering everything that was at stake, she crushed her wrath and
buttoned it in as closely as she had Uncle John behind the door in the
morning, and again, with swift gentleness, laid her hand on his arm.
He turned and looked at her. Vexed at her persistence, and extremely
annoyed at intelligence that had just reached him from the North
Bridge, he said, imperiously, "Get away! or you'll be trodden down by
the horses!"
"I _can't_ go!" she cried, clasping his arm, and fairly clinging to it
in her frenzy of excitement. "Oh, stop the fire, quick, quick! or my
house will burn!"
"I have no time to put out your fires," he said, carelessly, shaking
loose from her hold and turning to meet a messenger with news.
Poor little woman! What could she do? The wind was rising, and the
fire grew. Flame was creeping out in a little blue curl in a new
place, under the rafter's edge, _and nobody cared_. That was what
increased the pressing misery of it all. It was so unlike a common
country alarm, where everybody rushed up and down the streets, crying
"Fire! fire! f-i-r-e!" and went hurrying to and fro for pails of water
to help put it out.
Until that moment the little woman did not know how utterly deserted
she was.
In very despair, she ran to her house, seized two pails, filled them
with greater haste than she had ever drawn water before, and,
regardless of Uncle John's imprecations, carried them forth, one in
either hand, the water dripping carelessly down the side breadths of
her fair silk gown, her silvery curls tossed and tumbled in white
confusion, her pleasant face aflame with eagerness, and her clear eyes
suffused with tears.
Thus equipped with facts and feeling, she once more appeared to Major
Pitcairn.
"Have you a mother in old England?" she cried. "If so, for her sake,
stop this fire."
Her words touched his heart.
"And if I do--?" he answered.
"_Then your johnny-cake on my hearth won't burn up_," she said, with a
quick little smile, adjusting her cap.
Major Pitcairn laughed, and two soldiers, at his command, seized the
pails and made haste to the court-house, followed by many more.
For awhile the fire seemed victorious, but, by brave effort, it was
finally overcome, and the court-house saved.
At a distance Joe Devins had noticed the smoke hovering like a little
cloud, then sailing away still more like a cloud over the town; and he
had made haste to the scene, arriving in time to venture on the roof,
and do good service there.
After the fire was extinguished, he thought of Martha Moulton, and he
could not help feeling a bit guilty at the consciousness that he had
gone off and left her alone.
Going to the house he found her entertaining the king's troopers with
the best food her humble store afforded.
She was so charmed with herself, and so utterly well pleased with the
success of her pleading, that the little woman's nerves fairly
quivered with jubilation; and best of all, the blue stocking was
still safe in the well, for had she not watched with her own eyes
every time the bucket was dipped to fetch up water for the fire,
having, somehow, got rid of the vow she had taken regarding the
drawing of the water.
As she saw the lad looking, with surprised countenance, into the room
where the feast was going on, a fear crept up her own face and darted
out from her eyes. It was, lest Joe Devins should spoil it all by
ill-timed words.
She made haste to meet him, basket in hand.
"Here, Joe," she said, "fetch me some small wood, there's a good
boy."
As she gave him the basket she was just in time to stop the rejoinder
that was issuing from his lips.
In time to intercept his return she was at the wood-pile.
"Joe," she said, half-abashed before the truth that shone in the boy's
eyes--"Joe," she repeated, "you know Major Pitcairn ordered the fire
put out, _to please me_, because I begged him so, and, in return, what
_can_ I do but give them something to eat? Come and help me."
"I won't," responded he. "Their hands are red with blood. They've
killed two men at the bridge."
"Who's killed?" she asked, trembling, but Joe would not tell her. He
demanded to know what had been done with Uncle John.
"He's quiet enough, up-stairs," she replied, with a sudden spasm of
feeling that she _had_ neglected Uncle John shamefully; still, with
the day, and the fire and everything, how could she help it? but,
really, it did seem strange that he made no noise, with a hundred
armed men coming and going through the house.
At least, that was what Joe thought, and, having deposited the basket
of wood on the threshold of the kitchen door, he departed around the
corner of the house. Presently he had climbed a pear tree, dropped
from one of its overhanging branches on the lean-to, raised a sash and
crept into the window.
Slipping off his shoes, heavy with spring mud, he proceeded to search
for Uncle John. He was not in his own room; he was not in the
guest-chamber; he was not in any one of the rooms.
On the floor, by the window in the hall, looking out upon the green,
he found the broken cup and saucer that Martha Moulton had let fall.
Having made a second round, in which he investigated every closet and
penetrated into the spaces under beds, Joe thought of the garret.
Tramp, tramp went the heavy feet on the sanded floors below, drowning
every possible sound from above; nevertheless, as the lad opened the
door leading into the garret, he whispered cautiously: "Uncle John!
Uncle John!"
All was silent above. Joe went up, and was startled by a groan. He had
to stand a few seconds, to let the darkness grow into light, ere he
could see; and, when he could discern outlines in the dimness, there
was given to him the picture of Uncle John, lying helpless amid and
upon the nubbins that had been piled over his strong box.
"Why, Uncle John, are you dead?" asked Joe, climbing over to his
side.
"Is the house afire?" was the response.
"House afire? No! The confounded Red Coats up and put it out."
"I thought they was going to let me burn to death up here!" groaned
Uncle John.
"Can I help you up?" and Joe proffered two strong hands, rather black
with toil and smoke.
"No, no! You can't help me. If the house isn't afire, I'll stand it
till the fellows are gone, and then, Joe, you fetch the doctor as
quick as you can."
"_You_ can't get a doctor for love nor money this night, Uncle John.
There's too much work to be done in Lexington and Concord to-night for
wounded and dying men; and there'll be more of 'em too afore a single
Red Coat sees Boston again. They'll be hunted down every step of the
way. They've killed Captain Davis, from Acton."
"You don't say so!"
"Yes, they have, and--"
"I say, Joe Devins, go down and do--do something. There's _my niece_
a-feeding the murderers! I'll disown her. She shan't have a penny of
my pounds, she shan't!"
Both Joe and Uncle John were compelled to remain in inaction, while
below, the weary little woman acted the kind hostess to His Majesty's
troops.
But now the feast was spent, and the soldiers were summoned to begin
their painful march. Assembled on the green, all was ready, when Major
Pitcairn, remembering the little woman who had ministered to his
wants, returned to the house to say farewell.
'Twas but a step to her door, and but a moment since he had left it,
but he found her crying; crying with joy, in the very chair where he
had found her at prayers in the morning.
"I would like to say good-by," he said; "you've been very kind to me
to-day."
With a quick dash or two of the dotted white apron (spotless no
longer) to her eye, she arose. Major Pitcairn extended his hand, but
she folded her own closely together, and said:
"I wish you a pleasant journey back to Boston, sir."
"Will you not shake hands with me before I go?"
"I can feed the enemy of my country, but shake hands with him,
_never_!"
For the first time that day the little woman's love of country seemed
to rise triumphant within her, and drown every impulse to selfishness;
or, was it the nearness to safety that she felt? Human conduct is the
result of so many motives that it is sometimes impossible to name the
compound, although on that occasion Martha Moulton labelled it
"Patriotism."
"And yet I put out the fire for you," he said.
"For your mother's sake, in old England, it was, you remember, sir."
"I remember," said Major Pitcairn, with a sigh, as he turned away.
"And for _her_ sake I will shake hands with you," said Martha
Moulton.
So he turned back, and, across the threshold, in presence of the
waiting troops, the commander of the expedition to Concord and the
only woman in the town shook hands at parting.
Martha Moulton saw Major Pitcairn mount his horse; heard the order
given for the march to begin--the march of which you all have heard.
You know what a sorry time the Red Coats had of it in getting back to
Boston; how they were fought at every inch of the way, and waylaid
from behind every convenient tree-trunk, and shot at from tree-tops,
and aimed at from upper windows, and besieged from behind stone walls,
and, in short, made so miserable and harassed and overworn, that at
last their depleted ranks, with the tongues of the men parched and
hanging, were fain to lie down by the road-side and take what came
next, even though it might be death. And then _the dead_ they left
behind them!
Ah! there's nothing wholesome to mind or body about war, until long,
long after it is over and the earth has had time to hide the blood,
and send forth its sweet blooms of Liberty.
The men of that day are long dead. The same soil holds regulars and
minute-men. England, which over-ruled, and the provinces, that put out
brave hands to seize their rights, are good friends to-day, and have
shaken hands over many a threshold of hearty thought and kind deed
since that time.
The tree of Liberty grows yet, stately and fair, for the men of the
Revolution planted it well, and surely, God himself _hath_ given it
increase. So we gather to-day, in this our story, a forget-me-not
more, from the old town of Concord.
When the troops had marched away, the weary little woman laid aside
her silken gown, resumed her homespun dress, and immediately began to
think of getting Uncle John down-stairs again into his easy chair; but
it required more aid than she could give, to lift the fallen man. At
last, Joe Devins summoned returning neighbors, who came to the rescue,
and the poor nubbins were left to the rats once more.
Joe climbed down the well and rescued the blue stocking, with its
treasures unharmed, even to the precious watch, which watch was Martha
Moulton's chief treasure, and one of the very few in the town.
Martha Moulton was the heroine of the day. The house was besieged by
admiring men and women that night and for two or three days
thereafter; but when, years later, she being older, and poorer, even
to want, petitioned the General Court for a reward for the service she
rendered in persuading Major Pitcairn to save the court-house from
burning, there was granted to her only fifteen dollars, a poor little
grant, it is true, but _just enough_ to carry her story down the
years, whereas, but for that, it might never have been wafted up and
down the land, on the wings of this story.