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HE sacred work of preparation for Thanksgiving was at hand. Our kitchen
was fragrant with the smell of cinnamon, cloves, and allspice which we
boys were daily set to pound in the great lignum-vitae mortar. Daily the
great oven flamed without cessation; and the splitting of oven-wood kept
us youngsters so busy, that we scarce had a moment to play: yet we
did it with a cheerful mind, inspired by the general aroma of coming
festivity abroad in the house.
Behold us this evening around the kitchen-fire, which crackled and
roared up the wide chimney, brightening with its fluttering radiance the
farthest corner of the ample room. A tub of rosy-cheeked apples, another
of golden quinces, and a bushel-basket filled with ruby cranberries,
stood in the midst of the circle. All hands were busy. Grandmother in
one corner was superintending us boys as we peeled and quartered the
fruit,--an operation in which grandfather took a helping hand; Aunt Lois
was busily looking over and sorting cranberries, when a knock at the
door announced a visitor.
“Well, now, I s'pose that's Sam Lawson, of course,” snapped Aunt Lois.
Aunt Lois generally spoke with a snap; but about Thanksgiving time it
had a cheery ring, like the snapping of our brisk kitchen-fire.
“Good-evenin', Miss Badger and Miss Lois,” said Sam. “I see yer winders
so bright, I couldn't help wantin' to come in and help ye pare apples,
or suthin'.”
We boys made haste to give Sam the warmest welcome, and warmest place
in the chimney-corner, and to accommodate him with a tin pan full of
quinces, and a knife, when he was soon settled among us.
“Wal, this 'ere does look cheerful,--looks like Thanksgiving,” he began.
“Wal, Lordy massy! we've got a great deal to be thankful for in this
'ere land o' privileges; hain't we, deacon? I was a-comin' 'round by
Mis' Lothrop's to-day; and her Dinah, she told me the Doctor was gettin'
a great sermon out on the hundred and twenty-fourth Psalm: 'If it had
not been the Lord who was on our side when men rose up against us, then
they had swallowed us up.' He's a-goin' to show all our deliverances
in the war. I expect it 'll be a whale of a sermon, 'cause, when our
minister sets out to do a thing, he mos' generally does it up to the
handle. Tell ye what, boys, you must listen with all your ears: you 'll
never know what times them was if you don't--you don't know what liberty
cost us all. There's your gran'ther, now, he could tell ye: he 'members
when he went off to Lexington with his gun on his shoulders.”
“Why, grandfather! did _you_ go?” we both exclaimed with wide eyes.
“Well, boys,” said my grandfather, “'tain't worth talkin' about what I
did. I was in my mill that day, minding my business, when brother Con,
he burst in, and says he, 'Look here, Bill, the regulars are goin' up to
Concord to destroy our stores, and we must all go. Come, get your gun.'
Well, I said I was a miller, and millers were exempt from duty; but
Con wouldn't let me alone. 'Get down your gun,' says he. 'Suppose we're
going to let them British fellers walk over us?' says he. Well, Con
always had his way of me; and I got my gun, and we started out through
the woods over to Concord. We lived at Weston then, ye see. Well, when
we got on the brow of the hill, we looked over, and, sure enough, there
on burying-ground hill was the British regulars. The hill was all alive
with 'em, marching here and there in their scarlet coats like so many
bees out of a hive.
“'Con,' says I, 'jest look there. What are you going to do?'
“'Shoot some of 'em, I know,' says Con.
“And so we ran along, hiding behind trees and bushes and stone walls,
till we got near enough to get a shot at 'em. You see, they broke up
into companies, and went here and there about town, looking for the
stores; and then, as we got a chance here and there, we marked our men,
and popped, and then we'd run, and take aim somewhere else.”
“Wal, now, that are wa'n't the hull on't,” said Sam. “Why, there
was hundreds of fellers doin' just the same all round: it was jest
pop-pop-pop! from every barn, and every bush, and clump o' trees, all
along the way. Men was picked off all the time; and they couldn't
see who did it, and it made 'em mad as fury. Why, I 'member Mis' Tom
Bigelow, she that was Sary Jones, told me how they sot her mother's
house afire and burnt it down, 'cause their nigger man Caesar popped at
'em out o' the buttery window. They didn't tell him to; but Caesar, he
was full of fight, like all the rest on 'em. Lordy massy! the niggers
went for suthin' in them times! Their blood was up as quick as
anybody's. Why, there was old Pompey Lovejoy lived over by Pomp's pond
in Andover, he hitched up his wagon, and driv over with two barrels o'
cider and some tin dippers, and was round all day givin' drinks o' cider
to our men when they got het and thirsty and tired. It was a pretty warm
day for April, that was. Pomp has told me the story many a time. 'Twas
all the cider he had; but cider goes for suthin', as well as gunpowder
in its place, and Pomp's cider come jest right that day.”
“But grandfather,” said I, “what happened to you over there?”
“Well, you see,” said grandfather placidly, “I wasn't killed; but I come
pretty nigh it. You see, they sent into Boston for re-enforcements; and,
by the time we got to Lexington, Earl Percy was marching out with fresh
troops and cannon. Con and I were standing on the meetin'-house steps,
when there come a terrible bang, and something struck right over our
heads, and went into the meetin'-house. 'Why, Bill!' says Con, 'what's
that?'--'They've got cannon: that's what that is,' says I. 'Let's run
'round the other side.' So we did; but just as we got round there, there
come another bang, and a ball crashed right through the meetin'-house,
and come out of the pulpit window. Well, we saw there was no staying
there: so we run then, and got into a little clump of trees behind a
stone wall; and there we saw 'em go by,--Earl Percy on his horse, and
all his troops, ever so grand. He went on up to Concord. Fact is, if it
hadn't been for him and his men, those regulars would all have been cut
off: they wouldn't one of 'em have got back, for the whole country was
up and fighting. The militia came pouring in from Weston and Acton and
Billriky,--all the towns round. Then their Col. Smith was wounded, and
a good many others, and lots of 'em killed, and our minute-men coming
on 'em before and behind, and all around. But ye see, we couldn't stand
regular troops and cannon; and so, when they come on, we had to give
back. Earl Percy came up, and formed a hollow square, and they marched
into it, and so gave 'em time to rest.”
“Wal, there was need enough on't,” said Sam. “The regulars had been
hectored and picked, and driv 'round so from piller to post, that they
was dog tired. Jimmy Irwin, he was a little chap then; but he telled
me how he see the men jest threw 'emselves down on the ground, their
tongues trailing out o' their mouths like hunting-dogs. You see, they
had about two hundred wounded, and twenty eight or nine was taken
prisoners, and sixty-four killed outright: so Lord Percy had his hands
full o' takin' care o' the mess they'd got up.”
“Yes,” said my grandfather, “there were dead men lying all around the
road as we came back. There, boys!” he said, pointing to a gun and
powder-horn over the chimney, “we picked up these when we were coming
home. We found them on a poor fellow who lay there dead in the road:
there's some blood of his on it to this day. We couldn't help feeling it
was most too bad too.”
“Poor fellow! he wa'n't to blame,” said my grand-mother. “Soldiers have
to go as they're bid. War's an awful thing.”
“Then they shouldn't have begun it,” interposed Aunt Lois. “'They that
take the sword shall perish by the sword.'”
“Well, grandpapa,” said I, “what were the stores they went up to get?”
“They were stores laid up to enable us to go to war, and they were
'round in different places. There were two twenty-four-pounders that
they spiked, and they threw about five hundred pounds of ball into the
river or wells, and broke up sixty barrels of flour, and scattered it
about.”
“Wal,” said Sam triumphantly, “there was one lot they didn't get. Cap'n
Tim Wheeler had about the biggest lot o' wheat, and rye-flour, and
corn-meal stored up in his barn, with some barrels of his own. So when
this 'ere fine jay-bird of an officer came to him all so grand, and told
him to open his barn and let him look in, the cap'n, he took his key,
and walked right out, and opened the barndoor; and the officer was
tickled to pieces. He thought he'd got such a haul!
“'If you please, sir,' says the cap'n, 'I'm a miller, and got my living
by grinding grain. I'm a poor man. You can see my mill out there. I
grind up a lot o' grain in the winter, and get it ready to sell in the
spring. Some's wheat, and some's rye, and some's corn-meal; and this
wheat is mine, and this rye is mine, and this corn-meal is mine;' and,
when he spoke, he put his hand on his own barrels.
“'Oh! if this is your private property,' says the officer, 'we sha'n't
touch that: we don't meddle with private property.' And so he turned on
his heel, and the cap'n, he locked up his barn.”
“Was that telling the truth?” said I.
“Wal, you see it was true what he said,” said Sam. “Them bar'ls he laid
his hands on was hisn.”
“But Aunt Lois told me yesterday it was as bad to act a lie as to speak
one,” said I.
“Well, so I did,” said Aunt Lois. “The truth is the truth, and I 'll
stick to it.”
“But, Aunt Lois, would you have told him, and let him break up all those
barrels?”
“No, I shouldn't,” said Aunt Lois. “I should have done just as Cap'n Tim
did; but I should have done _wrong_. Right is right, and wrong is wrong,
even if I can't come up to it always.”
“What would you have done, grandfather?” said I.
My grandfather's mild face slowly irradiated, as when moonbeams pass
over a rock.
“Well, boys,” he said, “I don't think I should have let him break up
those barrels. If it was wrong to do as Cap'n Wheeler did, I think most
likely I should 'a' done it. I don't suppose I'm any better than he
was.”
“Well, at any rate,” said Aunt Lois, “what folks' do in war time is no
rule for ordinary times: every thing is upset then. There ain't any of
the things they do in war time that are according to gospel teaching;
but, if you boys were to do just as Cap'n Wheeler did, I should say you
lied by speaking the truth.”
“Well, well,” said my grandmother, “those were dreadful times. Thank the
Lord that they are past and gone, and we don't have such awful cases of
conscience as we did then. I never could quite see how we did right to
resist the king at all.”
“Why, the Bible says, 'Resist the devil,'” said Aunt Lois.
A general laugh followed this sally.
“I always heard,” said my grandfather, by way of changing the subject,
“that they meant to have taken Mr. Adams and Mr. Hancock and hung 'em.”
“Wal, to be sure they did,” said Sam Lawson. “I know all about that are.
Sapphira Clark, up to Lexington, she told me all about that are, one day
when I was to her house puttin' down her best parlor carpet. Sapphira
wa'n't but ten or eleven years old when the war broke out; but she
remembered all about it. Ye see, Mr. Hancock and Mr. Adams was a-staying
hid up at their house. Her father, Mr. Jonas Clark, was minister of
Lexington; and he kep' 'em quite private, and didn't let nobody know
they was there. Wal, Sapphira said they was all a-settin' at supper,
when her father, he heard a great rapping at the front-door; and her
father got up and went and opened it; and she looked after him into the
entry, and could just see a man in a scarlet uniform standing at the
door, and she heard him ask, 'Are Sam Adams and John Hancock here?'
And her father answered, 'Oh, hush! Don't mention those names
here.'--'Then,' says the man, 'I come to tell you the British troops
will be along by sunrise; and, if they are in your house, they'd better
escape right away.'”
“That must have been Col. Paul Revere,” said Aunt Lois. “He went all
through the country, from Boston to Concord, rousing up people, and
telling 'em to be ready.”
“Well, what did Mr. Adams and Hancock do?”
“Wal, they got ready right away, and slipped quietly out the back-door,
and made their way over to Burlington, and staid in the minister's house
over there out of the way of the battle.”
“What would the British have done with 'em, if they had caught them?”
said I.
“Hung 'em--high as Haman,” said my Aunt Lois sententiously. “That's
what they'd have done. That's what they'd 'a' done to them, and to Gen.
Washington, and lots more, if they'd had their way.”
“Oh, yes!” said grandfather, “they were mighty high-stepping at first.
They thought they had only to come over and show themselves, and they
could walk through the land, and hang and burn and slay just whom they'd
a mind to.”
“Wal, they found 'twas like jumping into a hornets' nest,” said Sam
Lawson. “They found that out at Lexington and Bunker Hill.”
“Brother Con was in those trenches at Bunker Hill,” said grandfather.
“There they dug away at the breastworks, with the bom'-shells firing
round 'em. They didn't mind them more than if they'd been hickory-nuts.
They kep' fellows ready to pour water on 'em as they fell.”
“Well, I never want to feel again as I did that day,” said grandmother.
“I was in Boston, visiting cousin Jemima Russel, and we were all out on
the roof of the house. The roofs everywhere were all alive with people
looking through spy-glasses; and we could hear the firing, but couldn't
tell how the day was going. And then they set Charlestown on fire; and
the blaze and smoke and flame rose up, and there was such a snapping and
crackling, and we could hear roofs and timbers falling, and see people
running this way and that with their children--women scared half to
death a-flying; and we knew all the time there was cousin Jane Wilkinson
in that town sick in bed, with a baby only a few days old. It's a wonder
how Jane ever lived through it; but they did get her through alive, and
her baby too. That burning Charlestown settled to fight it through: it
was so mean and cruel needless.”
“Yes,” said my grandfather, “that day settled the question that we would
be free and independent, or die; and, though our men had to retreat,
yet it was as good as a defeat to the British. They lost ten hundred and
fifty-four in point with a good many. They determined then killed and
wounded, and we only four hundred and fifty-three; and our men learned
that they could fight as well as the British. Congress went right to
work to raise an army, and appointed Gen. Washington commander. Your
gran'ther Stowe, boys, was orderly of the day when Gen. Washington took
the command at Cambridge.”
“Wal,” said Sam, “I was in Cambridge that day and saw it all. Ye see,
the army was drawn up under the big elm there; and Ike Newel and I, we
clim up into a tree, and got a place where we could look down and see.
I wa'n't but ten year old then; but, if ever a mortal man looked like
the angel of the Lord, the gineral looked like it that day.”
“Some said that there was trouble about having Gen. Ward give up the
command to a Southern man,” said my grandfather. “Gen. Ward was a brave
man and very popular; but everybody was satisfied when they came to know
Gen. Washington.”
“There couldn't no minister have seemed more godly than he did that
day,” said Sam. “He read out of the hymn-book the hundred and first
Psalm.”
“What is that psalm?” said I.
“Laws, boys! I know it by heart,” said Sam, “I was so impressed hearin'
on him read it. I can say it to you:--
'”Mercy and judgment are my song,
And since they both to thee belong,
My gracious God, my righteous King,
To thee my songs and vows I bring.
If I am raised to bear the sword,