fighting farmers?” he asked. “I’ll wager you’re of no use and, methinks,
only a hindrance to your regiment.”
Dick drew himself up proudly. “I have played the fife for the regiment
these many months,” he asserted stoutly, “and they do say there isn’t a
man in the army can put as much heart into a tune as I. It might chance
I could fight, too, if I were put to it.”
A chorus of laughter from the British officers greeted Dick’s last
assertion.
“You fight!”
“The little cock thinks he could fight!” they sneered, but the British
commander looked sternly at Dick as he spoke to him.
“There is too much of this idle boasting in the farmer army. I would put
an end to it.”
He motioned to an English lad, the boatswain’s boy, older and more
toughly built than Dick.
“Fight!” the officer commanded. “Let the Yankee fight one of King
George’s men!”
The two lads went at each other, rough and tumble. It was hardly a fair
fight. The English lad hit right and left with iron fists and Dick tried
to parry the blows, weak from his long marches and fasting. Dick’s
spirit and his courage were stronger than those of the other lad,
though. First one would be on top and then the other while the British
officers and Dick’s own men shouted,
“Down with the enemy of the King!” or, “Down with King George!”
It was one of the strangest and most memorable fights of the whole war
for independence because both lads felt that more than their personal
prowess was at stake. Dick fell under his assailant’s blows many times
but each time he struggled to his feet, caught his breath, and struck
back again.
“Enough!” the English lad cried at last and this battle, like so many
others, was a victory for the Colonies.
There was scant mercy showed by the British in those days but one could
not help but admire the pluck of the youngest soldier of the regiment.
The officer whose prisoner he was called Dick to him and patted him on
his curly head.
“A brave little cock indeed!” he said. “As a reward for your good
fighting, how would you like to have me give you your freedom?” he
asked.
“Oh, sir,” Dick cried, his whole face lighted with pleasure. “I should
like it very much, but—” he stepped nearer his own commander, “I do not
want to be released unless my Colonel may come with me.”
The British officer considered a moment. Then, in a sudden impulse of
kindness, he granted Dick’s request.
“Colonel Webb may go too, on parole,” he said.
Dick went home for a week in Hartford after his first fight. There had
never been such a hero as he among the other boys and girls. He could
not stir outside of his gate without a crowd of them following at his
heels, begging for tales of his adventures, a button, or a scrap of
lining from his coat. The little soldier did not care for fame, though.
He longed to be back in the thick of the fight so he put his fife to his
lips again and rejoined his regiment. They were glad to see him. They
had missed his cheerful tunes.
Dick was with the regiment when the great Kosciusko helped them to
fortify West Point. He marched over rough and frozen ground two hundred
miles to Morristown, but at the end of the weary way General Washington
greeted him. The winter of privation and exposure that followed was not
so hard for Dick to bear because he was sharing it with the great
Washington. No other boy had so great an honor.
Through the three years of his enlistment Dick faced whatever hardships
came to him without a whimper and the sound of his cheerful fife tunes
comes down to us through all these years as one of the helps to
America’s freedom. He was honorably discharged from the Continental Army
when he was a little more than thirteen years old and, with an escort of
two soldiers, he walked two hundred miles home.
No one asked him now what he could do for his country. Dick was the hero
of the children and everyone else in Hartford. When the Revolution was
over and the Stars and Stripes waved over the free Colonies Dick knew
that he had helped in winning his country’s independence.
BETSY’S GUEST
Betsy looked with delight at the dainty white frock spread out on the
big four-poster bed in the spare room.
It was early spring in the quaint old Southern town of Salisbury.
Through the windows of the big white house of the Brandon plantation
which was Betsy’s home came the sweet notes of the first mocking bird,
the singing of the farm hands as they ploughed the land for the first
planting, and the fresh odor of the pine trees.
A few years before Salisbury had seen the devastating ruin of war in its
lovely green borders. Now, in the year of our Lord and of America’s
independence, 1791, the South was peacefully planting and harvesting
once more. Barns and cellars and the home larders were full to
overflowing.
The next day was to bring a great event to Salisbury. The President of
the new United States, George Washington, and his cabinet were making a
tour of the South. They had driven in lordly, leisurely fashion in their
coaches through Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia. All Salisbury
would see the Greatest American in the morning.
[Illustration: TWO OF THE FARM HANDS]
The little town was ready for the President. He was to be met at the
village green by an escort of soldiers who would accompany him as he
toured the town, and flower girls were to head the procession.
Betsy Brandon was to be one of the flower girls and that was why she had
such a pretty new frock. It was made of the sheerest, white dotted swiss
with as many ruffles as a white rose has petals. And some of the ruffles
were caught up with bunches of tiny pink flowers and green leaves that
Betsy’s mother had made with her own clever fingers. A wide pink sash
lay on the bed, too, and a white hat with wide pink streamers and a
bunch of the same pretty pink flowers in front. Betsy was to wear pink
silk stockings and white slippers. Never, in all her life, had she been
allowed to wear such lovely things.
She touched the flowing ruffles and the soft silk of the sash, thinking
how happy she would be with the other little daughters of Salisbury in
the morning. She had not noticed that her mother had crossed the
threshold of the spare room and stood beside her looking down earnestly
into the little girl’s happy face. Mistress Brandon put her hand on
Betsy’s brown braids that were coiled neatly and tied about her head.
“My precious little daughter,” Mistress Brandon said, “there is
something that I must tell you.”
“Yes, mother,” Betsy looked smilingly into her mother’s sober face.
Her mother spoke quickly now and as if the words hurt her. “Your dear
Aunt Tabitha’s serving man has just come in great haste on horseback
from her plantation to say that his mistress is far from well and wishes
me to come to her at once with a supply of simples. I must go. The maids
are packing my basket and laying out my traveling cloak, and the horses
are harnessed and at the door.” She paused, in sorrow at the grief that
she saw suddenly in Betsy’s radiant face.
“Your father will not return for some days yet,” she added, and then
stopped.
There was a pause and then Betsy looked up bravely, saying just what her
mother had hoped and expected that she would, for she was a good little
girl.
“And Grandmother should not be left alone here because she is not well
and the maids are new,” Betsy said. Then, all at once, it seemed as if
she could not bear her disappointment. She threw herself into her
mother’s arms, burying her head in her shoulder. “I can’t be a flower
girl,” she sobbed. “I must stay at home to-morrow, and not see President
Washington. Oh, I can’t bear it; it seems as if I just can’t!”
Her mother stooped down and kissed her. “Any other little daughter
except my own brave little Betsy perhaps could not bear the
disappointment,” she said, “but she can. The Brandons come of a brave
old family, strong to fight and well able to bear whatever comes to
them. And think, too, dear, what sorrows came to our brave President
before he won the war for us. You can try to be as brave as he, dear
child, can you not?”
“Yes, mother.” Betsy was smiling again. She folded the dainty frock and
the sash and laid them away in one of the lavender-scented drawers of
the big mahogany bureau. And then she went downstairs, and did not shed
one tear as she kissed her mother good-bye and watched her drive away
between the magnolia trees that lined the long driveway of the
plantation.
It was a hard afternoon, though, for Betsy. The little girl who lived on
the next plantation came over to see Betsy’s dress and after she had
shown it to her, Betsy had to tell her that she would not have an
opportunity to wear it. She thought, too, that it would make her
grandmother feel badly if she were to know of her disappointment, so she
sat with her in her big, sunny room in the afternoon and read to her and
was a smiling little girl all the time. Late in the day Betsy went down
to the kitchen and made corn bread. She was almost as good a cook as was
her mother. The corn bread was as yellow as gold, and as light as sponge
cake.
The morning of the great day for Salisbury was as blue and gold as sky
and sun could make it. Betsy was up with the birds and gave the maids
their orders for the day, and looked over the supplies in the safe, as
the big locked cupboard for food was called, just as Mistress Brandon
would have done if she had been home. She opened all the windows of the
mansion to let in the sweet spring air. She filled the bowls and vases
with fresh flowers, and then she sat down with her sewing on the piazza.
Betsy was working a sampler in cross-stitch. Around the edge,
embroidered in bright crewels, was a border of flowers and bees, the
latter because of her initials. Inside, Betsy was working her name in
neat letters, the Lord’s prayer, and the date of her birth. Usually
Betsy liked nothing better than to be able to sit there in the quiet of
the piazza, shaded by its great pillars, the green lawn stretching below
the steps and her colored sewing in her lap. To-day, though, her eyes
left the bright worsted often to follow the line of the plantation
driveway that led away from the house and down toward the village.
Through the trees she had glimpses of fluttering white skirts and bright
ribbons. The flower girls, her little girl neighbors, were gathering and
taking their happy way down to the village green to meet Mr. Washington.
She could hear their merry voices and the sounds of fifes and drums. The
soldiers were starting, too.
Betsy could see, in imagination, how pretty and gay the town would be.
People in their carriages and coaches would be there from miles around.
Every one would be joyous and so proud to do honor to the Greatest
American. It was hours too early for him to be there yet, but here they
were gathering to greet him.
“I am brave, but it seems as if I must cry just a little bit,” Betsy
buried her head in her sewing. But before she had shed a tear, a man’s
voice startled her. She looked up.
He was very tall and straight, and wore the beautiful, rich costume of
the Colonies. His velvet knee breeches, silver-buckled shoes,
gold-embroidered coat, and white wig showed Betsy that he was a
personage of importance. But he stood before her with his three-cornered
hat in his hand and bowed to her quite as if she had been a young lady.
“Good morning, little lass of Salisbury,” he said in his deep, kind
voice, pointing to her sewing. “You are an industrious child, such an
one as I like to see growing up in this new land. You work betimes in
the day, and with the birds.”
Betsy rose and dropped a deep curtsey to the stranger. She must have
looked very winsome to him in her pink calico dress, white apron, and
with her cheeks flushed to a rose color in excitement.
“My mother has taught me that work comes before play, and always in the
morning,” Betsy explained. “What is your pleasure, sir!” she went on. “I
am the mistress of the Brandon plantation for the day. My mother is
called away by the illness of my Aunt Tabitha and I am taking care of
grandmother and the maids in her absence. It is a sore disappointment to
me, sir. I was to have been a flower girl in the village and walked with
our guest of honor of the day, Mr. Washington.”
The stranger came up the steps, and took a chair beside Betsy.
“You wanted very much to see him?” he asked. “Why?”
“Because President Washington is a great soldier, and the most important
man in the United States,” Betsy answered, her hands clasped, and her
eyes shining with excitement.
The man smiled. “I know him,” he said. “Did it ever occur to you, little
lass of Salisbury, that perhaps Mr. Washington is a great deal like
other Americans. He loves the earth,” he pointed to the wide expanse of
the fertile Brandon acres. “Perhaps, too, he likes to try new roads as I
have done this morning. I have come a long distance,” he said, “and am
tired and hungry. I left my carriage at the entrance to your plantation,
and the driveway looked so pleasant and quiet that I walked along it
until I came to your house. May I ask you for food and drink, little
Mistress of the Mansion?”
“Indeed, yes, sir!” Betsy sprang toward the door, but with her hand on
the latch she turned. “Do you like corn bread, sir,” she asked. “I made
some, myself, yesterday afternoon. It is delicious with our fresh milk,
half cream.”
“That would make a breakfast that I should like above all else,” the
stranger said, smiling. And he watched the graceful little figure as
Betsy slipped through the door. “A good daughter of America,” he said to
himself, “a housewife above all else.”
[Illustration: “LITTLE MISTRESS OF THE MANSION”]
In the twinkling of an eye, Betsy returned, carrying a daintily-spread
tray. On a white cloth there was set gold and white china, thin and
sparkling. The corn bread almost matched the gold, and a tall glass
goblet was filled to the top with foamy milk. Betsy’s guest ate as if no
meal had ever tasted so good to him before. He did not speak until he
had eaten the last crumb of the corn bread and drunk the last drop of
the milk. Then he rose to go.
“Many thanks, little Mistress of the Mansion,” he said, “for your very
gracious hospitality. I have been entertained most lavishly on the
journey I am now taking, but at no stopping place have I enjoyed it so
much. I want you to be comforted in your disappointment, my child, and
to realize that in serving and feeding a stranger you have done quite as
kind an act as if you had scattered flowers before your President.”
“Thank you very much, sir!” Betsy bowed again, and took the strong hand
the man gave her as he started down the steps. Then a sudden thought
came to her.
“May I ask your name, sir?” she asked. “I should like to tell my mother
when she returns.”
“You may, my child,” he replied. “It is George Washington.”
THE END
PATRIOTIC SONGS
The best Patriotic Songs of the United States and the Allied European
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Arranged for four part singing. Harmonized for use of children in the
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America—The Star Spangled Banner—Battle Hymn of the Republic—Columbia,
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Low—Hymn of the Marseillaise—God Save the King—March of the Men of
Harlech—Annie Laurie—Auld Lang Syne—When Johnny Comes Marching
Home—Swanee River.
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AMERICAN HEROES FROM HISTORY
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For Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Grades Cloth—262 pages—Illustrated—76
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PATRIOTIC SONGS
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THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY
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