"What would you do for your country?"
"All you know, d.i.c.k, is how to play tunes on your grandfather"s fife."
The words hurt the little lad and his face flushed. He was about to retort, but the boys and girls scattered, some running ahead swinging their school bags, some stopping to look at the sweets in Dame Brewster"s bake-shop window. d.i.c.k waited until he saw that he was alone.
Then he hurried on down the street and he did not stop until he had reached the recruiting station and turned in at the gate.
The sun touched their ranks with gold and the summer wind carried the Stars and Stripes before them the day in 1777 when the new volunteer regiment left Hartford. It was on its long, weary way over rough roads to Peekskill on the Hudson, the headquarters of General Putnam. All Hartford was gathered on the wide piazzas and green streets to cheer the regiment on its way. All the children were there, too, waving their caps and bonnets.
All? No, one child was missing.
As the lines of blue swung along beneath the great old trees, the sound of a fife playing an old marching tune came piping above the shouting and the cheers of the crowd. Suddenly every one was quiet as the drummer came into sight and beside him a little lad of ten years, dressed in the uniform of the Colonies and playing a fife.
"Richard Jones!" the children whispered in excitement to each other. "It is our d.i.c.k, going to war with the regiment."
An old man leaning on his cane at the edge of the crowd took off his hat and called to d.i.c.k.
"Good-bye, little lad. If you play your fife as well as Grandfather taught you, it will put heart into the soldiers and strength in their arms. It was your fine piping that won you a place in the regiment, the youngest soldier of the Revolution. G.o.d save you and bring you back safe to us."
Hearing him, d.i.c.k stopped playing a moment and called out, "Good-bye, Grandfather. I"ll try to do my duty. Good-bye!"
Then he was lost to sight,-a little figure in a blue coat and knee breeches, Richard Lord Jones, enlisted at ten years in the army of the American colonies.
d.i.c.k could play the fife better than any one else in the regiment. It made the soldiers forget hunger and weariness and sleeplessness to have the little lad march at their head, his gay tunes marking the time for their ragged shoes. He fifed the regiment all the long way to White Plains and then up the Hudson to Peekskill where General Putnam was stationed and needed reinforcements. There he rested for a while, but not long. The British commander, General Clinton, appeared and captured two forts on the west side of the Hudson. General Putnam was obliged to retreat up the river.
It was a wild, adventure-filled retreat all the way. d.i.c.k had little but hard biscuit and raw, salt pork to eat. He marched through villages that were in flames from the fire brands of the British. He saw and was able to give information about a British spy who was condemned and shot. Then the division to which d.i.c.k belonged reached Long Island where it was commissioned to land at Huntington. The soldiers were in a common transport, though, without guns, and it was captured by a British man of war. d.i.c.k, the little fifer, was marched with his Colonel and officers and the militia, all picked men, into the presence of a British commander.
The little lad must have looked very strange to the Englishman. His shoes were so worn that his feet were on the ground and one could scarcely see the blue of his Continental uniform because of its dust and rags. He was pale from going without food and sleep, but he held his head very proudly and high. Not one of the prisoners was as brave as d.i.c.k as he marched into the presence of the enemy beside his Colonel, carrying his fife under his arm.
"Who is this boy?" the British officer demanded, frowning down on the lad. His tent was bristling with swords and crowded with other officers of the King in scarlet broadcloth and gold lace. It was indeed a fearful place for a little boy to be, but d.i.c.k answered bravely,
"A soldier of the Colonies, sir."
The British officer laughed.
"What can a little bantam c.o.c.k like you do for the cause of these fighting farmers?" he asked. "I"ll wager you"re of no use and, methinks, only a hindrance to your regiment."
d.i.c.k drew himself up proudly. "I have played the fife for the regiment these many months," he a.s.serted 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 d.i.c.k"s last a.s.sertion.
"You fight!"
"The little c.o.c.k thinks he could fight!" they sneered, but the British commander looked sternly at d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k.
"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 d.i.c.k tried to parry the blows, weak from his long marches and fasting. d.i.c.k"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 d.i.c.k"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. d.i.c.k fell under his a.s.sailant"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 d.i.c.k to him and patted him on his curly head.
"A brave little c.o.c.k 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," d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k"s request.
"Colonel Webb may go too, on parole," he said.
d.i.c.k 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 b.u.t.ton, or a sc.r.a.p 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.
d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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. d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.