March 17, 1776.
A hundred years ago the winds of March were blowing.
To-day the same winds rush by the stone memorials and sweep across the
low mounds that securely cover the men and the women that then were
alive to chill blast and stirring event. Even the lads who gathered at
sound of drum and fife on village green, wishing, as they saw the
troopers march, that they were men, and the little girls who hung
about father's neck because he was going off to war, who watched the
post-riders on their course, wishing that they knew the news he
carried, are no longer with us.
For nearly two years Boston had been the lost town of the people. It
had been taken from the children by an unkind father and given to
strangers. You have been told how British ships came and closed her
harbor, so that food and raiment could not enter. You know how grandly
the younger sister towns behaved toward stately, hungry Boston; how
they marched up the narrow neck of land that holds back the town from
the sea, each and every one bearing gifts to the beloved town, until
there came the sad and fatal day wherein British military lines turned
back the tide of offerings and closed the gate of entrance.
Then it was that friends began to gather across the rivers that wound
their waters around Boston. Presently an army grew up and stationed
itself with leaders and banners and forts.
Summer came. The army waited through all the long warm days. The
summer went; the leaves fell; the chill winds and the cold sea-fogs
wound into and out of the poor little tents and struck the brave men
who, having no tents, tried to be strong and endure.
Every child knows, or ought to know, the story of that winter; how day
by day, all over New England, men were striving to gather firearms and
powder wherewith to take back from the foe poor Boston. But, alas,
there was not powder enough in all the land to do it.
The long, wearying winter had done its worst for the prisoned
inhabitants within the town; and, truly, it had tried and pinched the
waiting friends who stood at the gates.
At last, in March, in the night, the brave helpers climbed the hills,
built on them smaller hills, and by the light of the morning were able
to look over into the town--at which the patriots were glad and the
British commander frightened.
A little after nine of the clock on Sunday morning, the 17th of
March, 1776, three Narragansett ponies stood before General
Washington's headquarters at Cambridge.
"Go with all possible speed to Governor Trumbull," said Washington,
delivering despatches to a well-known and trusted messenger, who
instantly mounted one of the ponies in waiting--Sweeping Wind by
name--and rode away, with many a sharp and inquiring glance back at
city and river and camp.
It was four of the clock in the afternoon, and the messenger had not
paused since he set forth, longer than to give Sweeping Wind water to
drink, when, on the highway in the distance, he saw a red cloak
fluttering and flying before him.
It was Pussy Dean who wore the cloak. She was fifteen, fair and
lovely, brave and patriotic as any soldier in the land.
At first she was angry at the law by which she was denied a new cloak
that winter, made of English fabric, but when wrapped in the coveted
broadcloth of scarlet belonging to her mother she was more than
reconciled.
On this Sunday Pussy had been at the meeting-house on the hill, two
miles from home, at both morning and afternoon service, and afterward
had lingered a little to gather up bits of news from camp and town to
take home to her mother, and so it had happened that she was quite
alone on the highway.
Pussy chanced to look back to the summit of the hill down which she
had walked, and she saw the express coming.
"Now," she thought, "if I could only stop him! I wonder if I can't.
I'll try, and then," swinging her silken bag, "I shall have news to
carry home, the very latest, too."
As she swung the bag she suddenly remembered that she had something
within it to offer the rider.
"Of course I can," she went on saying to herself. "Post-riders are
always hungry, and it's lucky for him that I didn't have to eat my
dinner myself, to-day. Now, if I only had a basketful of clover heads
or roses for that pony, I'd find out all about Boston while it was
eating."
The only roses within sight were blooming on Pussy Dean's two cheeks
as Sweeping Wind came clattering his shoes against the frozen ground.
He would have gone straight on had a scarlet cloak not been planted,
like a fluttering standard, full in his pathway.
The rider gave the pony the slightest possible check, since he felt
sure that no red-coated soldier lurked behind the red cloak.
"Take something to eat, won't you?" accosted Pussy, rather glowing in
feature and agitated in voice by her own daring.
Meanwhile the rider had given Sweeping Wind a second intimation to
stand, which he obeyed, and sniffed at Pussy's cloak and cheeks and
silken bag as she held it forth to the rider, saying naively, "I went
to meeting and was invited to luncheon, and so didn't eat mine." She
spoke swiftly, as though she knew she must not detain him.
He answered with a smile and a "Thank you," took the bag, and rewarded
her by saying, "The British are getting out of Boston, bag and
baggage."
"And where are you going?" demanded Pussy, determined not to go home
with but half the story if she could help it.
"To Governor Trumbull with the good news and a demand for two thousand
men to save New York," he cried back, having gone on. His words were
entangled with a mouthful of gingerbread or mince-pie to such an
extent that it was a full minute before Pussy understood their import,
and then she could only say over and over to herself, as she hastened
on, "Father will be here, father will come home, and we'll have the
good old times back again."
But notwithstanding her hope and a country's wish, the good old times
were not at hand.
Pussy reached home and told the story. Baby went down plump into the
wooden cradle at the first note of it, and set up a tune of rejoicing
in his own fashion which no one regarded. Brother Benjamin, aged
thirteen, whistled furiously, regardless of the honors of the day.
Sammy, who was ten, clapped his hands and knocked his heels together,
first in joy, and then began to fear lest the war should be over
before he grew big enough to be in it.
"Mother," said Pussy, a few minutes later, "let Benny come with me to
tell Mr. Gale about it; may he?"
Pussy laid aside her Sunday bonnet, tied a straw hat over her ears
with a silk kerchief to keep out the wind, and in three minutes got
Benny into the highway.
"See here, Ben, I'm going to light a fire on Baldhead to tell all the
folks together about it, and I want you to help me; quick, before it
gets dark."
"You can't gather fagots," responded Ben.
Yes, she could, and would, and did, while Benny went to the house
nearest to Baldhead to ask for some fire in a kettle.
The two worked with such vigor and will that the first gathering of
darkness saw the light of the beacon-flame burst forth, and the great
March wind blew it into fiercest glow. Every eye that saw the fire
there knew that it had been kindled with a purpose, and many feet from
house and hamlet set forth to learn the cause.
While Pussy and Ben were yet adding fagots to the fire, they heard a
voice crying out: "The young rascals shall be punished soundly for
this," and ere Pussy had time to explain or expostulate, a strong man
had Ben in his grasp.
"Stop that, sir!" cried the girl, rushing to the rescue with a burning
fagot that she had seized from the fire, and shaking it full in the
assailant's face.
By the light of it, the man saw Pussy and she saw him; and then both
began to laugh, while Ben rubbed his ears and wondered whether they
were both on his head.
"It means," spoke the girl, waving the still flaming brand toward
the east, "that the British left Boston this morning, and that
General"--(just here a dozen men were at the fire. Pussy raised
her voice and continued)--"Washington wants you all, every one of
you, to march straight to Governor Trumbull, and he'll tell you
what to do next."
"If that's the case," said the responsible man of the constantly-increasing
group after questioning Pussy, "we'd better summon the militia by the
ringing of the bell," and off they went in the direction of the village,
while Pussy and Ben went home.
The next day saw fifty men, well armed, and provisioned for three
days, on the road to Lebanon. They marched into town and into the now
famous war-office of Governor Trumbull, to his pleased surprise.
"Who sent you?" asked the governor, for it was not yet six hours since
the demand on the nearest town had been made.
"Who sent us?" echoed the lieutenant, looking confused and at a loss
to explain, and finally answering truthfully, he said: "It was a
young girl, your excellency. She lit a beacon fire on a hill and gave
the command that we report to you."
A laugh ran around the sides of the old war-office. The messenger who
had ridden from Cambridge sat upon the counter pressing his spurs into
the wood and heard it all.
"And who commissioned the girl as a recruiting officer?" questioned
the governor.
"I'm afraid," said the messenger, "I am the guilty party. I met a
young patriot in scarlet cloak who asked my news, and, I told her."
"Where is the girl's father?" demanded Governor Trumbull.
"He is with the army, at Cambridge," was the response.
"And his name?"
"Reuben Dean."
A scratch or two of the quill pen was heard on the open paper. It was
folded, sealed, and handed to the ready horseman, with the words:
"Reuben Dean; he is mentioned for promotion."
The words, as they were spoken by Governor Trumbull, were caught up
and gathered into a mighty cheer, for every man of their number knew
that Reuben Dean was worthy of promotion, even had his daughter not
gained it for him by her services as recruiting officer.