Sarah J. Prichard

“ A snag is an old tree or something that gets caught in the mud and is under the water,” corrected Harry.
“O!” said Kate, glad that Harry was blindfolded. “Well, we’ll have something else, then—a big storm, hills and mountains of running waves, awful thunder and lightning, and the ship gets struck by lightning—no, by a big wave, and tumbles all to pieces.”
“And the dolls all spill out and go floating off!” suggested Harry.
“How can you at such an awful time think of making fun?” asked Kate, “just as the ship had been struck by lightning, too!” ”

“ He burst into Aunt Hannah’s house with the news that he had been to Boston, that the soldiers were all gone, that he had seen his mother, that she had the small-pox and sent him off in a hurry.
“Tut! tut!” she cried. “It’s wicked to tell lies, Jeremy Jagger.”
“I’m not telling lies. Every word is true. Please give me something to eat.”
But Aunt Hannah did not wait to give the lad food, nor even to speak the prayer of thanksgiving that went like incense from her heart. She went into the barn-yard and threw corn on the barn-floor, to which the hens and turkeys made haste. ”

“ They look for the Turtle. Up it comes, a distant watch-light gleaming across its brass head disclosing its 112 presence. Once more it is in tow, and Lee is in the whale-boat.
Down the bay they go, until the lights from the fleet grow dangerously near.
On the wide, wind-stirred waters of New York Bay, Ezra Lee gets into the Turtle, and is cast off, and left alone, for the whale-boats return to New York.
With the rudder in his hand, and his feet upon the oars, he pursues his way. The strong ebb tide flows fast, and, before he is aware of it, it has drifted him down past the men-of-war. ”

“ At present I have not.”
“Would Neptune do it?”
“Neptune?”
“Why, yes. Don’t you remember asking me one day if I would sell him? and I will, papa, if it is to somebody who will treat him kindly and love him.”
“Kate, my dear, perhaps I may be compelled to take your offer; but we will see about it; and if I do, you shall have the finest pony—”
“O, papa! don’t,” cried Kate. “I don’t want any other pony, not as long as I live; it’s so dreadful to love anything that can be bought and sold. ”

“ Addressing the turkeys, she said: “You’re all up there, I see, and if you only knew enough; if you weren’t the dear, old, wise, stupid things that you are, I’ll tell you what you would do. After I’m gone in the house, and the door is shut, and nobody here to see, you’d get right down, and you’d fly off in a hurry to the deepest part of the wood to spent your Thanksgiving, you would. The cold of the woods isn’t half as bad for you as the fire of the oven will be.”
Becca finished her speech; the turkeys rustled in their feathers and doubtless wondered what it all meant, while she stood thinking. ”

“ Surely Kate had a very curious manner of feeling things that she could not see. He opened the door for her departure, and, closing it after himself, he said:
“Let me go across with you, Kittie. When the snow and ice come, we can’t slip over the near way any more.”
Over the stone wall they went, down the slope and through the meadow, and they had even emerged from the bit of woods before Harry found courage to ask:
“When you know of anybody who wants to buy Neptune, Kittie, will you come right away and tell me, because I know of a person who would like to own him?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ The dawn came at last, but the fog was not gone. It seemed denser than ever; boats went down the harbor and outside, but came back only too soon, to say that it was of no use, nothing could be done,—clear weather could alone solve the mystery.
If the day was long on the shore, it was yet longer to the lad in the boat. He rowed aimlessly; as dinner time came he looked at the fish, a few of which lay in the boat, and wondered if he could eat raw fish. He varied his rowing with sitting afloat and shouting. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Between the two lay grassy meadows—a depression in the level, up which the old ocean crept twice in the year, and also in great storms; a bit of a wood, beyond which came salt meadow again; and then the uplands, rising to the Point. It seemed a very short cut home to Kate. The bewitching greens that lay rolled in long and wide breadths for her feet to tread had all been prepared by Madame June, the best carpet-maker in the zone. Kate climbed the stone wall opposite Mrs. Dobson’s house, and not a soul saw her disappear into the grass behind it, save Josh, if indeed Josh has a soul. ”

“ Blue-Eyed Boy was admitted within the hollow square formed by the brigades on the spot where stands the City Hall. Within the same square was General Washington, sitting on horseback, and the great Declaration was read by one of his aids.
It is needless to tell how it was received by the eager men who listened to the mighty truths with reverent, uncovered heads. Henceforth every man felt that he had a banner under which to fight, as broad as the sky above him, as sheltering as the homely roof of home. ”

“ Kate Hallock was drawing near to Mrs. Dobson’s house in the lane. “Dear grandma!” she called, “I’m just perishing with hunger! I’m starved nearly to death! I’ve had no breakfast yet! Will you give me a piece of your rye bread and butter?”
The dear old lady’s curls were bound about with a muslin kerchief, for it was her morning for churning, and the stone jar, with its little wooden dasher, was waiting her hands when Kate’s plaint broke upon her hearing.
“Hungry! starving! no breakfast! What does it mean, Kittie Clover?” ”

“ The Turtle was drawn up under the grassy bank, where the long sedge half hid, and bushels of rock-weed and sea-drift wholly concealed it, and then, in a few carefully-chosen words, David Bushnell entrusted it to the watch and care of the boatmen.
“I am going to leave it here, and you with it, until I return,” he said. “Guard it with your lives if need be. If you handle it, it will be at the risk of life. If you keep it well, Congress will reward you.” ”

“ He trapped lobsters, caught crabs, dug clams, sat for hours together holding the line over the edge of his boat that rocked idly on summer seas, in the hope of catching a black fish a little larger than any other fisherman had caught; and perfectly delighted to spend his nights in throwing out and drawing in the long seines, in the hope of the heaviest haul of bass or bluefish that ever came to shore. This was the master, Captain Green, who proposed to spend two hours every day at Hallock Point. He could run down the harbor to the Point, tie up his boat, and then, after lessons, go outside. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ When the men, looking out for the nearest house to take Harry Cornwall into, after his fall from the pony, espied Grandma Dobson’s habitation, that dear old soul was at that window looking out over the bar, past the island, away across the miles of sea, thinking it just possible—at least she would look once more, it could do no harm, for the Snow. ”

“ The tears that the fiercest mosquito had failed to extort from Anna came now. “I wish I’d let her go,” she cried, fondly stroking Sleet. “At least she wouldn’t have been killed, and we’d had her again sometime, maybe; but now—I say, Valentine, are you going to give up Snow?”
“No, I ain’t,” stoutly persisted the lad, slapping with his broad palm the panting side of the calf, where mosquitoes still clung.
“But, my poor children,” said Mother Kull, “you will have to. It can’t be helped. If we refuse them, don’t you know, they will burn our house down.” ”

“ Kate disappeared behind Frank’s back, and he hoed away as fast as ever he could, until she returned and said:
“Frank, there’s twenty-seven rows.”
“Never can do it in the world! There’s ninety-three hills in every single row.”
“Won’t it be nice to help you pick the corn! Papa won’t call that having help about it, I know. O I wish it was time for harvest! Won’t it be just nice to have piles and piles of great ears, all your own! You’ll be most rich, won’t you, Frank?” cried Kate, joyously clapping her hands before the imaginary heaps of corn. ”

“ The brave man never boasts of his bravery nor the trustworthy man of his trustworthiness. How you learned what you know of the plans of General Washington I do not care to ask; but to-day and all days keep quiet and show yourself worthy of being trusted.”
“I’ll try as hard as I can,” promised Jeremy.
“No one can have tried his best without accomplishing something that it was grand to do, though not always just what he was trying to do,” responded the man, glancing kindly down upon the fresh, eager lad, tramping through the snow, at his side. “Don’t forget. ‘Silence is golden,’ in war always. ”

“ It is so sweet to drop little acts of kindness as we pass along our daily round. They may fall seemingly into the ground, but God knows that not one of them ever fails to do its own bright work somewhere for some one.
Kate Hallock went home with the empty basket, wondering what she should do with herself all the June afternoon. She thought that she would go past the field where Frank was at work and on down the lane leading to the sea. It would be nice and cool down there, and maybe she could dig some clams with her own hands, just enough for Frank’s supper. ”

“ Something of the olden music, of the loud acclaim, may swing around with the shadow and fall on your ears, since no motion is ever spent, no sound ever still.
On that night, when the grand burst of enthusiasm had arisen, Blue-Eyed Boy said to General Washington: “I am afraid, sir, if Congress had known, they never would have done it, never! It seemed easy to do it in Philadelphia, where everything is just as it used to be; but here, with all the British ships riding in, full of soldiers, and guns enough in them to smash the old State House where they did it! ”

“ As she drew near, she called out, “Frank! Frank! why in the world don’t you come to dinner? There is a gentleman at table who came to see papa on business, and I ran away after the soup—I couldn’t eat my dinner one bit, without you.”
“You’ll have to, I reckon,” returned Frank; “a poor fellow, like me, who has to hoe corn all day, can’t stop to eat.”
“O, Frank Hallock! for shame!” cried Kate, putting down her indignant foot without being able to make noise enough about it to disturb an earthworm. ”

“ In the long kitchen, as the heated hours went by, the brick oven was fired again and again until the very stones of the chimney expanded with glowing heat, and the last swallow forsook its ancient nest in despair. The sun was in the west when Mr. Porter, with a bag of wheat on one side of the saddle and a bag of rye on the other, appeared at the kitchen entrance and summoned help to unload, but his accustomed helpers were gone. Even Cato, the reliable, was missing. Phyllis and Nancy received the wheat and the rye. ”

“ If he takes the trouble to come here every day from the village, he may as well have two pupils as one.”
“And, papa,” suggested Kate, “why not three, as well as two? There is Harry, and you know how he has had to stay out of school with the plowing and the planting and the hoeing, and all sorts of things, and now he could get time just as well as not to run over for his lessons; and papa,” she added slyly, whispering the words in at his ear so that Frank might not hear, “Frank would have to study then, ’cause he would be ashamed to have Harry get ahead, a poor circus boy, you know!” ”

“ When every neighbor feels it a duty to carry intelligence from the last speaker he has met to the next hearer he may meet, news flies fast, so Goodwife Elderkin was prepared for the accost of Mr. Devotion. She did not linger long in the swamp, but, washing her hands free from mud in the water of the pond, walked swiftly home. By the time she reached her house, the gray pony and his rider were two miles away on the road to Canterbury. The cry of hunger and possible starvation in the town of Boston was spreading from village to village and from house to house. ”

“ Kate grew practical as the great, round, purple clover-heads nodded to her out of the tall grass. “Yes, I’ll get you, my beauties,” she cried. “Mother is so fond of dried grasses and things when the fall comes, and it’s just the time and chance to get some.” 58Presently her small hands were filled to their utmost capacity, and yet she had not half enough. Her apron proved too small before she had crossed a single field, and the first fence surprised her with her gathered-up dress skirt running over with bobbing grasses. ”