The Only Woman in the Town, and Other Tales of the American Revolution

by Sarah J. Prichard

  HOW ONE BOY HELPED THE BRITISH TROOPS OUT OF BOSTON IN 1776.

  It was Commander-in-chief Washington's birthday, and it was JeremyJagger's birthday.

  General Washington was forty-four years old that birthday, a hundredyears ago. Jeremy Jagger was fourteen, and early in the morning of the22d of February, 1776, the General and the lad were looking upon thesame bit of country, but from different positions. General GeorgeWashington was reviewing his precious little army for the thousandthtime; the lad Jeremy was looking from a hill upon the camp atCambridge, and from thence across the River Charles over into Boston,which city had, for many months, been held by the British soldiers.

  At last Jeremy exclaimed: "I say, it's too chestnut-bur bad; it is."

  "Did you step on one?" questioned a tall, hard-handed, earnest-facedman, who at the instant had come up to the stone-wall on which Jeremystood, surveying the camp and its surroundings.

  "No, I didn't," retorted the lad; "but I wish Boston was _paved_ allover with chestnut-burs, and that every pesky British officer in ithad to walk barefoot from end to end fourteen times a day, I do; andthe fourteenth time I'd order two or three Colony generals to take aturn with 'em. General Gates for one."

  "Come along, Jeremy," called his companion, who had strode across thewall and gone on, regardless of the boy's words.

  When Jeremy had ended his expressed wishes, he gathered up hishatchet, dinner-basket, and coil of stout cord, and plunged throughthe snow after his leader.

  When he had overtaken him, the impulsive lad's heart burst out at thelips with the words: "_We_ could take Boston _now_, just as easy asanything--without wasting a jot of powder either. Skip across the ice,don't you see, and be right in there before daylight. A big army lyingstill for months and months, and just doing nothing but wait for folksin Boston to starve out! I _say_ it's shameful; now, too, when the icehas come that General Washington has been waiting all winter for."

  "You won't help your country one bit by scolding about it, Jeremy.You'd better save your strength for cutting willow-rods to-day."

  "I'd cut like a hurricane if the rods were only going to whip theenemy with. But just for sixpence a day--pshaw! I say, it don't pay."

  "Look here, lad, can you keep a secret?"

  "Trust me for that," returned Jeremy. Turning suddenly upon hisquestioner, he faced him to listen to a supposed bit of information.

  "Then why on earth are you talking to _me_ in that manner, boy?"questioned the man.

  "Why you _know_ all about it, just as well as I do; and a fellow_must_ speak out in the woods or _somewhere_. Why, I get so mad andhot sometimes that it seems as if every thought in me would burn rightout on my face, when I think about my poor mother over there,"pointing backward to the three-hilled city.

  The two were standing at the moment midway of a corn-field. TheFebruary wind was lifting and rustling and shaking rudely the witheredcorn-stalks, with their dried leaves. To the northward lay theCambridge camp, across the Charles River. To the south and east, justover Muddy River and Stony Brook, lay the right wing of the AmericanArmy, with here a fort and there a redoubt stretching at intervals allthe distance between the camp at Cambridge and Dorchester Neck, on thesoutheast side of Boston. Behind them, to the westward, lay CedarSwamp, while not more than half a mile to the front there was afour-gun battery and Brookline Fort, on the Charles, near by.

  While Jeremy Jagger was pouring forth his words with vociferousviolence, the man by his side glanced eagerly about the wide field;but, satisfying himself that no one was within hearing, he said,resting his hatchet on the lad's shoulder while speaking: "See here,my boy. The brave man never boasts of his bravery nor the trustworthyman of his trustworthiness. How you learned what you know of the plansof General Washington I do not care to ask; but to-day and all dayskeep 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 thatit was grand to do, though not always _just what_ he was trying todo," responded the man, glancing kindly down upon the fresh, eagerlad, tramping through the snow, at his side. "Don't forget. 'Silenceis golden,' in war always. Not a word, mind, when you get home, aboutthe work of to-day."

  They were come now to a spot where the marsh seemed to be filled withsounds of wood-cutting. As they plunged into Cedar Swamp, the soundsgrew nearer and multiplied. It was like the rapid firing of muskets.

  Running through the swamp there was a trout-brook, that bore along itsborders a dense growth of water-willows.

  And now they advanced within sight of at least two hundred men andboys, every one of whom worked away as though his life depended oncutting a certain amount of willow-boughs in a given time.

  "What does it all mean?" questioned Jeremy.

  "It means," replied his companion, "work for your country to-day withall your might and main."

  "But, pray tell me," persisted Jeremy, "what under the sun the thingsare for, anyway. They're good for nothing for fire-wood, green."

  Mr. Wooster turned and looked at the lad and said: "A good soldierasks no questions and marches, without knowing whither. He also cuts,without knowing for what. Now, to work!" and, at the instant theymingled with the workmen.

  In less than a minute Jeremy's dinner-basket was swinging on awillow-bough, his coat was hanging protectingly over it (you mustremember that it contained Jeremy Jagger's birthday cake), and thelad's own arms were working away to the musical sounds of a hatchetbeating on a vast amount of "whistle-stuff," until mid-day and hungerarrived in company.

  At the signal for noon Jeremy Jagger began his birthday feast. Heperched himself on a stout willow-branch, hanging the basket on aconveniently growing peg at his right hand, and, by frequentexamination of the store within, was able to solace two or three lads,less fortunate than himself, who were taking the mid-day rest,refreshed by plain bread and cheese, seated on a branch, lower down onthe same tree.

  "It isn't _every_ day that a fellow eats his birthday dinner in thewoods," he exclaimed, by way of apology for the dainties he tosseddown to them in the shape of sugar-cake and "spice pie." "Aunt Hannahwas pretty liberal with me this morning. I wonder if she knewanything, for she said: 'I'd find plenty of squirrels to help eat it.'Where do you live, anyway?" he questioned, after he had fed them.

  "We live in Brookline," answered the elder.

  "Well, do you know what under the sun we are cutting such bundles offagots for to-day?" he slyly questioned, being beyond the hearing ofthe ears of his friend, and so safe from censure.

  "I asked father this morning," spoke up the younger lad (of not morethan nine years), "and he told me he guessed General Washington wasgoing to take Boston on the ice, and every soldier was going to take abundle of fagots along, so as to keep from sinking if the ice brokethrough."

  This bit of military news was received with shouts of laughter, thatechoed from tree to tree along the brook, and then the noon-day restwas over. The wind began to blow in cooler and faster from the sea,and busy hands were obliged to work fast to keep from stiffening underthe power of the growing frost.

  When the new moon hung low in the west and the sun was gone, thebrookside, the cart-path, even the swamp fell back into its accustomedsilence, for the workers, in groups of eight or ten, had from minuteto minute gone homeward, leaving huge piles of fagots near the logbridge.

  Jeremy went early to bed that night. His right arm was weary and hisleft arm ached; nevertheless, he went straightway to dreaming thatboth arms were dragging his beloved mother forth from Boston.

  At midnight his companion of the morning came and stood under hischamber window, and tapped lightly with a bean-pole against the glassto awaken him.

  Jeremy heard the sound, but in his dream thought it was a gun firedfrom one of the ships in the harbor at his mother, and himself, andBoston.

  "Jeremy, get up!" said somebody, touching his shoulder.

  "Come, mother!" ejaculated Jeremy, cl
utching at the air and utteringthe words under tremendous pressure.

  "Come yourself, lad," said somebody, shaking him a little roughly;whereupon Jeremy awoke. "Get up, Jeremy Jagger. Hitch the oxen to thecart. Put on the hay-rigging. Stay, I must help you to do that; buthurry."

  Jeremy rubbed his eyes, wondered what had become of his mother, andhow Mr. Wooster found his way into the house in the night, and lastly,what was to be done. Furthermore, he dressed with speed, and awakenedthe oxen by vigorous touches and moving words.

  "Get up! get up!" he importuned, "and work for your country, and maybe you won't be killed and eaten for your country when you are old."The large, patient eyes of the oxen slowly opened into the night, andafter awhile the vigorous strokes and voiceful "get ups" of theirmaster had due effect.

  Mr. Wooster helped to adjust the hay-rigging, and then the large-wheeledcart rolled grindingly over the frozen ground of the highway, until itturned into the path leading into the swamp, over which the snow lay inunbroken surface. Jeremy Jagger's was but the pioneer cart that night.A half-dozen rolled and tumbled and reeled over the uneven surface behindhim, to the log bridge. It was cold and still. As the topmost fagotwas tossed on the pile in his cart he drew off a mitten, thrust hisbenumbed fingers between his parted lips, and when he removed themsaid: "I hope General Washington has had a better birthday than mine."

  "I know one thing, my lad."

  Jeremy turned quickly, for he did not recognize the voice. Even thenhe could not discern the face; but he knew instantly that it was nocommon person who had spoken. Nevertheless, with that sturdy,good-as-anybody air that made the men of April 19th and June 17thfight so gloriously, he demanded:

  "What do you know?"

  "That General Washington would gladly change places with you to-night,if you are the honest lad you seem to be."

  "Go and see him in his comfortable bed over there in Cambridge," wasJeremy's response, uttered in the same breath with the word to hisoxen to move on. They moved on. The fagots reeled and swayed, the cartrumbled over the logs of the bridge, and boy, oxen and cart were soonlost to sight and hearing in the cedar thickets of the swamp.

  Through the next two hours they toiled on, Jeremy on foot, and oftenready to lie down with the healthy sleep that would not leave its holdon his weary brain.

  It was day-dawn when the fagots had been duly delivered at theappointed place and Jeremy reached home.

  He had been cautiously bidden to see that the cart was not leftoutside with its tell-tale rigging. He obeyed the injunction, shut theoxen in, gave them double allowance of hay, and was startled by AuntHannah's cheery call of: "Jerry, my boy, come to breakfast."

  "Breakfast ready?" said Jeremy.

  "Why, yes. I was up early this morning, and thought of you." And thatwas the only allusion Aunt Hannah made to his night's work. He longedto tell her and chat about it all at the table; but, remembering hispromise in the swamp, he said not a word.

  Six nights out of seven Jeremy and his oxen worked all night and sleptnearly all day.

  The brook in Cedar Swamp was robbed of its willows, and many anotherbit of land and watercourse suffered in a like manner.

  Then came the order to make the fagots into fascines. Two thousandsoldiers were got to work to effect this. Jeremy Jagger began tounderstand what was going on behind the lines at Roxbury. He was thehappiest lad in existence during the ensuing days. He forgot to eat,even, when the fascines were in making. Perceiving the manner in whichthey were formed he volunteered to help, and soon found he could drivethe cross supports into the ground, lay the saplings upon them, andeven aid in twisting the green withes about them, as well as anysoldier of them all.

  Bales of "screwed" hay began to appear in great numbers within thelines, and empty barrels by the hundreds sprang up from somewhere.

  And all this time, guess as every man might and did--the coming eventwas known only to the commander-in-chief and to the six generalsforming the council of war.

  Monday night, before sundown, Jeremy Jagger received an order. Itwas:

  March 4th.

  JEREMY JAGGER:

  With oxen and cart (hay-rigging on), be at the Roxbury lines by moon-rise to-night. Take a pocketful of gingerbread along.

  WOOSTER.

  With manly pride the boy set forth. He longed to put the note in hisaunt's hand ere he went; but she (long ago it seemed, though only afew days had passed) seemed to take no note of his frequent absences.He had scarcely gone a rod ere the cannon-balls began their march intoBoston from all the fortifications of the Americans; and in returnfrom Boston, flying north and south and west, came shot and shells.

  Undaunted and excited by the mere possibility of being hit, Jeremywent onward. When he arrived in Roxbury he found everybody andeverything astir. His cart was seized, filled with bundles of"screwed" hay, and, ere he knew it, he was in line with two hundredand ninety-nine other carts, marching forward to fortify DorchesterHeights. Before him went twelve hundred troops, under the command ofGeneral Thomas; before the troops trundled an unknown number of carts,filled with intrenching tools; before the tools were eight hundredmen. Not a word was spoken. In silence and with utmost care they trodthe way. At eight of the clock the covering party of eight hundredreached the Height and divided--one-half going toward the pointnearest Boston, the other to the point nearest Castle William, onCastle Island, held by the British.

  Then the working party began their labor with enthusiasm unbounded,wondering what the British general would think when he should beholdtheir work in the morning. They toiled in silence by the light of themoon and the home music of 144 shot and 13 shell going into Boston,and unnumbered shot and shell coming out of Boston. Gridley, whosequick night work at Breed's Hill on the sixteenth of June had startledthe world, headed the intrenching party as engineer.

  Poor Jeremy was not allowed to go farther than Dorchester Neck withhis first load. The bundles of hay were tumbled out and laid in line,to protect the supplying party, in case the work going on on the hillbeyond should be found out.

  The next time, to his extreme delight, he found that fascines were togo in his cart. When he reached Dorchester Height quick work was madeof unloading his freight, and, without a word spoken, he was orderedback with a move of the hand.

  Four times the lad and the oxen went up Dorchester Hill that night.The fourth time, as no order was given to return, Jeremy thought hemight as well stay and see the battle that would begin with the dawn.

  He left the oxen behind an embankment with a big bundle of hay to thefront of them; and after five minutes devoted to gingerbread he wentto work. Morning would come long before they were ready to have itunveil the growing forts to the eyes of Admiral Shuldham, with hisships of war lying in the harbor; or to the sentinels at CastleWilliam, on Castle Island, to the right of them; or to General Howe,with his vigilant thousands of Englishmen safe and snug in Boston, tothe north of them.

  Jeremy was rolling barrels to the brow of the hill they werefortifying, and tumbling into them with haste shovelful aftershovelful of good solid earth, that they might hit hard when rolleddown on the foe that should dare to mount the height, when a cautiousvoice at his side uttered the one word "Look!" accompanied with amotion of the hand toward Dorchester Neck.

  In the moonlight, past the bales of hay, two thousand Americans werefiling in silent haste to the relief of the men who had toiled allnight to build forts they meant to defend on the morrow.

  It was four o'clock in the morning when they came. Jeremy was tiredand sleepy too. His eyelids would drop over his eyes, shutting outeverything he so longed to keep in sight.

  "You've worked like a hero," said a kind voice to the lad. "It will behot work here by sunrise--no place for boys, when the battle begins."

  "I can fight," stoutly persisted Jeremy, nodding as he spoke; and, hadanybody thought of the lad at all after that, he might have been foundin the ox-cart, carelessly strewn over with hay, taking a nap.

  Meanwhile on came the mor
ning. A friendly fog hung lovingly around thenew hills on the old hills, that the Yankees had built in a night.

  Admiral Shuldham was called in haste from his bed by frightened men,who wondered what had happened on Dorchester Height. Castle Williamstood aghast with astonishment. Messengers went up the bay to tell thearmy the news.

  General Howe marched out to take a look through the fog at the oldfamiliar hills he had known so long, and didn't like the looks of thenew hats they wore. He wondered how in the world the thing had beendone without discovery; but there it was, larger a good deal thanlife, seen through the fog, and he knew also why it was that thecannon had been playing on Boston through the hours of three or fournights. He was angry, astonished, perplexed. He had a little talk withAdmiral Shuldham; and they agreed to do something. Yes, they _would_walk up and demand back the hills looking over into Boston. Transportscame hurrying to pier and wharf, and soldiers went bravely down andgave themselves to the work of a short sea voyage.

  Meanwhile Jeremy Jagger's nap was broken by a number of trenchingtools thrown carelessly over his back, as he lay asleep in his cart.

  "Halloo there!" he shouted, striving to rise from the not verycomfortable blanket that dropped in twain to the left and the right,as he shook off the tools and returned from the land of sleep toDorchester Heights and the 5th of March. He was just in time to hear avoice like a clarion cry out: "Remember it is the 5th of March, andavenge the death of your brethren."

  It was the very voice that had said in the swamp in the night that"General Washington would gladly change places with Jeremy Jagger."It was the voice of General Washington animating the troops for thecoming battle.

  Meanwhile a new and unexpected force arrived on the field of action.It came in from sea--a great and mighty wind, that tossed and tumbledthe transports to and fro on the waves and would not let them landanywhere save at the place they came from. So they went peacefullyback to Boston, and the Liberty Men over on the hills went on all dayand all night, in the rain and the wind, building up, strengthening,fortifying, in fact getting ready, as Jeremy told his aunt, when hereached home on the morning of the sixth of March, "for a visit fromKing George and all his army."

  The next day General Howe doubted and did little. The next and thenext went on and then on the morning of the 17th of March somethingnew had happened. There was one little hill, so near to Boston that itwas almost in it; and lo! in the night it had been visited by theAmericans, and a Liberty Cap perched above its head.

  General Howe said: "We must get away from here in haste."

  "Take us with you," said a thousand Royalists of the town; and he tookthem, bag and baggage, to wander up and down the earth.

  Over on Bunker Breed's Hill wooden sentinels did duty when the Britishsoldiers left and for full two hours after; and then two braveYankees guessed the men were wooden, and marched in to takepossession just nine months from the day they bade it good-by, becausethey had no powder with which to "tune" their guns.

  Over on Cambridge Common marched, impatient as ever, General Putnam,with his four thousand followers, ready to cross the River Charles andwalk once more the city streets of the good old town. On all the hillswere gathered men, women and children to see the British troopsdepart.

  Jeremy Jagger was up before the dawn on that sweetest of Sundaymornings in March, and he reached the Roxbury lines just as GeneralWard was ready to put his arms about Boston's Neck. The lad took hisplace with the five hundred men and walked by Ensign Richards' side,as he proudly bore the standard up to the gates, which EbenezerLearned "unbarred and opened." Once within the lines, Jeremy,unmindful of the crow's feet strewn over the way, made haste throughlane and street to his old home on Beacon Hill. "Could that be hismother looking out at him through the window-pane?" he thought, as hedrew near.

  She saw him. She knew him. But what could it mean that she did notopen the door to let him in; that she waved him away? It could not bethat she, his own mother, had turned Tory, that her face was grown sored and angry at the sight of her son.

  Jeremy banged away at the door. There was no answer.

  At last he heard the lifting of a sash, a head, muffled carefully,appeared from the highest window in the house, and a voice (the ladknew whose it was) said: "Go, Jeremy! Go away out of Boston as fast asyou can. I'll come to you as soon as it is safe."

  "Why, mother, what's the matter?" cried the boy.

  "Small pox! I've had it. Everybody has it. Go!"

  "Good-by," cried Jeremy, running out of Boston as fast as any Britishsoldier of them all and a good deal more frightened. He burst intoAunt Hannah's house with the news that he had been to Boston, that thesoldiers were all gone, that he had seen his mother, that she had thesmall-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 toeat."

  But Aunt Hannah did not wait to give the lad food, nor even to speakthe prayer of thanksgiving that went like incense from her heart. Shewent into the barn-yard and threw corn on the barn-floor, to which thehens and turkeys made haste. Closing the door, she summoned Jeremy tokill the largest and best of them.

  That Sunday afternoon the brick oven glowed with fervent heat, thewhite, fat offerings went in, and the golden-brown turkeys andchickens came out; and as each, in turn, was pronounced "done," AuntHannah repeated the words: "Hungry! hungry! hungry! Hungry allwinter!"

  The big clothes-basket was full of lint for wounds that now nevershould be made. Gladly she tossed out the fluffy mass, and packedwithin it every dainty the house contained.

  It was nearly sunset when Aunt Hannah and Jeremy started forth, withthe basket between them, to Mr. Wooster's house, hoping that he wouldcarry it in his wagon up to Boston. He was not at home.

  "Get out the cart," said Aunt Hannah to Jeremy, when they learned nohelp was to be obtained. She sat by the roadside watching the basketuntil the cart arrived.

  "I'm going with you," she said, after the basket was in; she climbedto the seat beside the lad, and off they started for Boston.

  It was dark when they reached the lines, and no passes granted, theofficers said, to go in that night.

  "But I've food for the hungry," said Aunt Hannah, in her sweetestvoice, from the darkness of the cart, "and folks are hungry in thenight as well as in the day."

  She deftly threw aside the cover from the basket and took out achicken, which she held forth to the man, saying: "Take it. It'sgood."

  He hesitated a moment, then seized it eagerly.

  "I know you," spoke up Jeremy, at this juncture. "You went up the Neckwith us this morning. I saw you."

  "Then you are the boy who got first into Boston this morning, are you,sir?"

  "I believe I did, sir."

  "Go on."

  The oxen went on.

  "Now, Jeremy, down with you and wait here for me. You haven't hadsmall-pox," said Aunt Hannah.

  "But the oxen won't mind you," said Jeremy.

  Aunt Hannah was troubled. She never had driven oxen.

  At the moment who should appear but Mr. Wooster. He gladly offered totake the basket and deliver it at Mrs. Jagger's door.

  "Don't go in, mind! Mother's had small-pox," called Jeremy, as hestarted.

  "I'm tired," gasped Aunt Hannah, who had done baking enough for asmall army that day, as she sat down to rest on the broad seat of thecart, and the two started for home. The soldier at the gate scarcelyheeded them as they went out, for roasted chicken "tasted so good."

  "I'm so glad the British are out of Boston," said Aunt Hannah, as shetouched home soil again and went wearily up the walk to the littledark house.

  "And so am I," said Jeremy to the oxen, as he turned them in for thenight; "only if I'd had my way, they wouldn't have gone without onegood fair fight. You've done your duty, anyhow," he added, soothingly,with a parting stroke to the honest laborer who went in last, "and youdeserve well of your country, too, for like G
en. Washington, you haveserved without hope of reward. The thing I like best about the man isthat he don't work for money. I don't want my sixpence a day forcutting willows; and--I won't--take it." And he didn't take it,consoling himself with the reflection "that he would be like Gen.Washington in one thing, anyhow."