“I’d like to know,” exclaims Marie, “if there weren’t any heroines as
well as heroes in the time of the Revolution. Now down there in the Park
to-day, while they were having their orations, and Mr. Higby got to
talking about the Revolution—”
“Come now,” breaks in Harry, “you don’t mean to pretend you heard a word
he said!”
“Indeed I do! I listened first-rate—along at first. Katy, mustn’t he
stop interrupting? Well, all I was going to say was, that when he got to
talking about the Revolution it was all about the forefathers that he got
so eloquent, and never a word about the mothers! As if _they_ weren’t
patriotic, too, and of some account! Don’t you suppose they were?”
“Kate,” slyly observes her brother, “here’s another fine opportunity for
you to hold forth on the subject of your great-great-grandmother.”
“Ah! just as though you weren’t every whit as proud of her as I am!”
“Oh, my! _did_ you have a great-great-grandmother?” cries the
enthusiastic Marie. “Do tell us about her.”
“Yes, do, Miss Katy,” says Harry, seconding the motion as he watches a
sky-rocket shooting upward, leaving a gleaming train as it curves through
the air. For this is the evening of the “Glorious Fourth,” and the
speakers are all out in the porch, where a good view can be had of the
display of fireworks down at the corner of the street.
“Well, then, Harry, you know about the battle of Cowpens, in South
Carolina?”
“Yes, where the British thought they had won the day, sure, and Morgan
brought up his dragoons, and they cut and slashed right and left, and put
the Redcoats to flight, and took a lot of prisoners.”
“What are dragoons?” inquires Marie.
“Mounted troops—cavalry. Oh, but didn’t they pitch into ’em good with
their swords! Wish _I’d_ been there.”
“And then you know, Harry, how Cornwallis pursued Morgan, in hopes of
recovering the prisoners; and how General Greene had to come to Morgan’s
rescue. By the way, Walter, I don’t know exactly why, but somehow all I
hear of Sherman in the last war reminds me of that General Greene.”
“And did your great-great-grandmother live around there anywheres?”
“Yes, Marie. But you mustn’t think of her as a grandmother at all, with
gray hair and cap and spectacles; for she was only a young girl then.
There’s a portrait of her painted a few years after. They have it at
Uncle Robert’s—little Rob’s father, you know. There she sits, with her
arms folded; and she wears a brocade silk, with much lace about the low
neck and flowing sleeves; and her hair is combed straight up from the
forehead over a roll, and coiled high at the back of the head, very much
as the style is now—only I suppose it was all her own, for switches
hadn’t yet been thought of.”
“And did she do something brave?”
“So the story goes. She was an orphan, you see, and lived with her uncle,
who was a hot-tempered old Tory, and all his sons and daughters the same.
But, perhaps because they weren’t as good to her as they might have been,
she took it into her head to believe some other way—sympathized with the
rebels, you know. But she took care not to let any one find that out,
which no one was likely to, for she was so young, only sixteen—just two
years older than you, Marie—people wouldn’t be questioning her about
politics. Well, it was just at this time, when Cornwallis was chasing
up Morgan, that there came one rainy evening to her uncle’s a small
detachment of British troops, with some Americans belonging to Morgan’s
force whom they had captured the day previous, and asked for lodgings for
the night. Her uncle welcomed them heartily, and gave them a room where
they could lock up their prisoners, and ordered Chloe, the black cook, to
get up a grand supper for them. Grand? I don’t suppose it was what would
be called a grand supper nowadays. I presume it consisted largely of game
from the forest, venison, and the like—not much in the way of dessert and
nick-nacks, you know. While the British were feasting in the dining-room,
Kate—we may as well call her Kate, for I forgot to tell you that I was
named after her—slipped into the kitchen, and managed, unseen, to fill a
basket with some of that plentiful supper, and creep with it up a back
stairway to the store-room or garret at the top of the house. Now the
room where the prisoners were locked in was in the second story, and had
no window; but in the ceiling there was a trap-door that opened into the
garret. Kate raised this door—or rather, it was a mere piece of plank—and
let down the basket by a rope. And the prisoners, looking up and catching
sight of her friendly face by the light of the candle she held, were
gladdened, you may be sure. Ah, poor fellows, and they were hungry, too;
hadn’t had a mouthful for two days. (Indeed, they had been out in search
of game. That was the way they happened to be caught.) ‘Was there any
way under the sun for them to get out of there?’ they asked her. Yes;
she told them of a way she had thought of, but they would have to be
very still about it, and wait till everybody in the house had gone to
sleep. Then she closed the door again, but she was careful to take the
basket with her, lest the Red-coats might look in before retiring, and
find it there and suspect something was wrong. They did look in, too.
There were the prisoners, all secure. Then they locked and bolted the
door again, and for further security stationed a guard outside. When
Kate found out about the guard she trembled for her plans. But toward
midnight she peeped into the hall and saw him nodding sleepily, for he
and his comrades, as well as their officers, had been making free with
her uncle’s wine. In those days it was the custom to keep quantities of
wine even in private houses, and to use it freely at the table.”
[Illustration: But in the ceiling there was a trap-door that opened into
the garret.—PAGE 38.]
“Nothing of that sort going on nowadays!”
“I am sorry to say so, Harry, but I suppose there is; though not so
generally the practice, I am sure—at least, not in this country. Well,
Kate crept up to the garret again, by the same way as before, and she
lowered a ladder—oh, so still!—to those six prisoners, and one by one
they climbed up softly through the little trap-door in the ceiling—oh,
it was just the least mite of an opening, hardly large enough for a
person to crawl through; but then I suppose that one could manage to
squeeze through a pretty small space for the sake of regaining one’s
liberty—”
“That’s so!” says Harry, speaking, doubtless, from experience.
“Now, you mustn’t interrupt again!” says Marie; “just when they’re all
climbing up, too; and I’m so afraid that sentinel there in the hall
outside will hear! But, oh, Katy, when they’re all up in the garret how
ever is she going to get them away from there? Won’t somebody wake up and
hear while she’s getting them all down that back stairway?”
“No, they didn’t go down that way. You see this garret was used for a
store-room for flour and groceries, and the like; for the place was so
far from any mill or market, that when they sent to the nearest town
they used to purchase all those things in large quantities. So, for
convenience in storing away articles, a stairway had been built up
against the outside of the house.”
“Oh, and there was an outside door to the garret! What a dear, delicious
old house, with stairways and trap-doors, and everything all fixed just
right to help those poor prisoners off!”
“Now, you mustn’t interrupt again!” says a mocking voice.
“Down they went, under the dripping eaves; but when they reached the
ground and held a whispered consultation, it came out that they hadn’t
the slightest idea in which direction to go to join their commander;
for they were all from the north, and perfectly unacquainted with the
country. ‘Could the kind young lady give them some directions?’ ‘I will
go as guide,’ she said. So they helped themselves to the six chargers
of the six British officers sleeping snugly under her uncle’s roof, and
she mounted her little sorrel pony, and away they went, through the rain
and the darkness—slowly at first, lest the trampling of the horses’ feet
should be heard, which likely would have been the case but for the ground
being softened by the rain; after that they dashed along swiftly over
hills and through forests, for it was a wild, uncultivated region through
which their route lay. After riding a few miles they reached a rapid
stream, so swollen by the freshets which prevailed just then—it was in
January—so deep and rapid that it was almost impossible for the soldiers,
even on their stout war-horses, to ford it, for there was no bridge. Kate
and her little pony would surely have been swept away. So, as she could
go no farther, she told them as clearly as she could how they were to
turn to the right at such a cross-road, and to the left at another, and
to the right again when they came to a certain old church; and if they
kept straight ahead when they came to a certain tall pine tree, standing
all alone by itself, they would reach the place where they expected to
find Morgan. (As he was on the move all the time they couldn’t be so sure
about that.) So, with a ‘God bless you!’ from the leader, which all his
companions echoed, they plunged into the roaring torrent, and she turned
back through the forest—where there were fierce bears and panthers, mind
you; but fortunately the rain kept them in their dens that night.
“When she reached home, all was as dark and silent as when she left; and
when she peeped out again from her room, there was the guard nodding as
before; but not really asleep. He hadn’t heard a sound. Poor fellow, the
British Colonel and the rest were going to have him shot for sleeping
at his post, when, next morning, they found the prisoners had gone and
the horses too. How furiously angry they were! But, oh, the uncle! his
eyes flashed lightnings, and his voice was like the thunder. Kate was
wakened by his raging and storming, with all the black people up before
him to be cross-questioned, and they declaring that ‘O massa, dey wouldn’
a-helped dem rebel trash away fur nuffin in de hull worl’!’ If they had,
their lives wouldn’t have been worth much. Kate knew that, or she might
have asked some of them to assist her. She meant to bear all the blame
herself.”
“Wasn’t she a trump, though!”
“Yes, Harry; but she trembled like a leaf all the time, dressing herself
in a hurry, and rushing out to confess before them all, and plead for
the sentinel’s life. ‘Oh, he wasn’t a bit to blame! he didn’t go to
sleep at all, for she looked to see! We were so still about it that, oh,
he couldn’t hear! and oh, don’t kill him, don’t!’ And then she almost
fainted away. But the angry old uncle was angrier than ever. He ordered
her to her room, and never to show her face again. But just at this
point, when all is clamor and confusion, and the poor, pale, frightened
girl is being dragged off in disgrace to her chamber, the house is
suddenly surrounded by the combined forces of Greene and Morgan (for they
met yesterday, and have been nearer by all the time than was supposed),
and led by the American Captain whom she released last night, in walks
General Greene himself, to thank her for her brave deed; and when she is
led to the window, all those soldiers—ragged, weak with hunger, as they
are, footsore and weary with continual marching—at the sight of her, just
toss up their hats (those of them who have any) and cheer, and cheer, and
cheer. And the British Colonel and his men are prisoners themselves in
about two seconds—”
“Oh, jolly!”
“And the mad old Tory uncle’s wine-casks have to be tapped again, while
the rebel army there before his eyes drinks to his niece’s health.”
“Jolly, jollier, jolliest!”
“You might suppose there wasn’t enough to go around; but you must
remember that it was not such a very big army. How large should you say,
Walter?”
“Probably not a larger number than would be included in two what in our
last war were considered good-sized regiments. Hardly that, for I believe
Greene left quite a force behind at his post on the Pedee river, when
he pushed across country to join Morgan; and his whole command united
couldn’t have amounted to more than two thousand.”
“Just think of it! And that wee little army, half-starved and poorly
clothed, held in check the thousands of Cornwallis! No wonder the orators
grow eloquent over our forefathers, is it, Marie?”
“But about Kate? Did that horrid old Tory of an uncle shut her up in her
room after that?”
“Take care, Miss Marie, that ‘horrid old Tory of an uncle’ was a distant
relative of ours.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to say anything against your relations, Mr. Walter;
but then everybody knows you aren’t a bit like him, if you _are_ a tease!”
“No,” Kate goes on, “they didn’t shut her up in her room, but she was
treated very coolly all around the board, and as for her uncle, I believe
he never spoke to her again. What made him particularly indignant was,
that the British prisoners would insist that he was at the bottom of
it all, and had set the trap for them himself. They had reason to be
suspicious, for in that section one never could be certain who were
Tories and who were not, so many of the people wavered in their opinions,
favoring the royal cause one day and the rebels the next. Well, to wind
up my story, Kate was so unhappy there, that she went to live with an
aunt in Charleston till some two or three years after, when the war was
all over, and she married—”
“Oh, wait, let me guess who!—the American Captain, now, didn’t she? How
romantic! Then he was your great-great-grandfather!”
“Yes, and they came North, and lived and died right where Uncle Robert
lives now—in the same house, only it has been altered several times
since.”
The mention of “Uncle Robert” reminds Harry to ask if Kate has had any
more letters lately from her little correspondent. Whereupon she produces
this one, which she received to-day!
“DEAR COZEN KATE AND WALTER:—to-moros the forth but my
Firecrackers are all used up alreddy but I don’t care I don’t
feal much like sellibrating ennyway you see Dick Deen and
Jimmy Jeffers an me we thot wed have sum fun so we toock a
hunting horn with sum powder in it an emptyd it onto a stone an
set a match to it but it didnt go off so i run up to see what
was the matter and pop off it went rite into my face tel yoo it
made me hop an everryboddy screemd an run for the Docter an he
cum an sed it wood get well after a while and then he an papa
both giggld but i coodnt see whare the fun was nor mama eether
she sed i must rite an tel you about it it wood divurt my mind
but to be careful about my Speling an the rest so I was.