Summoning Major Pitcairn by an offer of a dish of beans, she contrived to say, under covert of it:
"You see, sir, I couldn"t go away and leave him; he is almost distracted with rheumatism, and this excitement to-day will kill him, I"m afraid."
Advancing toward the staircase with bold and soldierly front, Major Pitcairn said to Uncle John:
"Stand aside, old man, and we"ll hold you harmless."
"I don"t believe you will, you red-trimmed trooper, you," was the reply; and, with a dexterous swing of the wooden staff, he mowed off and down three military hats.
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 b.u.t.tons, one high up, and the other low down, near the floor.
"There!" she said, "he is safe out of mischief for awhile, and your heads are safe as well. Pardon a poor old man, who does not know what he is about."
"He seems to know remarkably well," exclaimed an officer.
Meanwhile, behind the strong door, Uncle John"s wrath knew no bounds.
In his frantic endeavors to burst the fastenings of the wooden b.u.t.tons, rheumatic cramps seized him and carried the day, leaving him out of the battle.
Meanwhile, a portion of the soldiery cl.u.s.tered about the door. The king"s horses were fed within five feet of the great bra.s.s knocker, while, within the house, the beautiful little old woman, in her Sunday-best-raiment, tried to do the dismal honors of the day to the foes of her country. Watching her, one would have thought she was entertaining heroes returned from the achievement of valiant deeds, whereas, in her own heart, she knew full well that she was giving a little to save much.
Nothing could exceed the seeming alacrity with which she fetched water from the well for the officers: and, when Major Pitcairn gallantly ordered his men to do the service, the little soul was in alarm; she was so afraid that "somehow, in some way or another, the blue stocking would get hitched on to the bucket." She knew that she must to its rescue, and so she bravely acknowledged herself to have taken a vow (when, she did not say), to draw all the water that was taken from that well.
"A remnant of witchcraft!" remarked a soldier within hearing.
"Do I look like a witch?" she demanded.
"If you do," replied Major Pitcairn, "I admire New England witches, and never would condemn one to be hung, or burned, or--smothered."
Martha Moulton never wore so brilliant a color on her aged cheeks as at that moment. She felt bitter shame at the ruse she had attempted, but silver spoons were precious, and, to escape the smile that went around at Major Pitcairn"s words, she was only too glad to go again to the well and dip slowly the high, over-hanging sweep into the cool, clear, dark depth below.
During this time the cold, frosty morning spent itself into the brilliant, shining noon.
You know what happened at Concord on that 19th of April in the year 1775. You have been told the story, how the men of Acton met and resisted the king"s troops at the old North Bridge, how brave Captain Davis and minute-man Hosmer fell, how the sound of their falling struck down to the very heart of mother earth, and caused her to send forth her brave sons to cry "Liberty, or Death!"
And the rest of the story; the sixty or more barrels of flour that the king"s troops found and struck the heads from, leaving the flour in condition to be gathered again at nightfall, the arms and powder that they destroyed, the houses they burned; all these, are they not recorded in every child"s history in the land?
While these things were going on, for a brief while, at mid-day, Martha Moulton found her home deserted. She had not forgotten poor, suffering, irate Uncle John in the regions above, and, so, the very minute she had the chance, she made a strong cup of catnip tea (the real tea, you know, was brewing in Boston harbor).
She turned the b.u.t.tons, and, with a bit of trembling at her heart, such as she had not felt all day, she ventured up the stairs, bearing the steaming peace-offering before her.
Uncle John was writhing under the sharp thorns and twinges of his old enemy, and in no frame of mind to receive any overtures in the shape of catnip tea; nevertheless, he was watching, as well as he was able, the motions of the enemy. As she drew near he cried out:
"Look out this window, and see! Much GOOD all your scheming will do YOU!"
She obeyed his command to look, and the sight she then saw caused her to let fall the cup of catnip tea and rush down the stairs, wringing her hands as she went and crying out:
"Oh, dear! what shall I do? The house will burn and the box up garret.
Everything"s lost!"
Major Pitcairn, at that moment, was on the green in front of her door, giving orders.
Forgetting the dignified part she intended to play, forgetting everything but the supreme danger that was hovering in mid-air over her home--the old house wherein she had been born, and the only home she had ever known--she rushed out upon the green, amid the troops, and surrounded by cavalry, and made her way to Major Pitcairn.
"The town-house is on fire!" she cried, laying her hand upon the commander"s arm.
He turned and looked at her. Major Pitcairn had recently learned that the task he had been set to do in the provincial towns that day was not an easy one; that, when hard pressed and trodden down, the despised rustics, in home-spun dress, could sting even English soldiers; and thus it happened that, when he felt the touch of Mother Moulton"s plump little old fingers on his military sleeve, he was not in the pleasant humor that he had been, when the same hand had ministered to his hunger in the early morning.
"Well, what of it? LET IT BURN! We won"t hurt you, if you go in the house and stay there!"
She turned and glanced up at the court-house. Already flames were issuing from it. "Go in the house and let it burn, INDEED!" thought she.
"He knows me, don"t he? Oh, sir! for the love of Heaven won"t you stop it?" she said, entreatingly.
"Run in the house, good mother. That is a wise woman," he advised.
Down in her heart, and as the very outcome of lip and brain she wanted to say, "You needn"t "mother" me, you murderous rascal!" but, remembering everything that was at stake, she crushed her wrath and b.u.t.toned it in as closely as she had Uncle John behind the door in the morning, and again, with swift gentleness, laid her hand on his arm.
He turned and looked at her. Vexed at her persistence, and extremely annoyed at intelligence that had just reached him from the North Bridge, he said, imperiously, "Get away! or you"ll be trodden down by the horses!"
"I CAN"T go!" she cried, clasping his arm, and fairly clinging to it in her frenzy of excitement. "Oh stop the fire, quick, quick! or my house will burn!"
"I have no time to put out your fires," he said, carelessly, shaking loose from her hold and turning to meet a messenger with news.
Poor little woman! What could she do? The wind was rising, and the fire grew. Flame was creeping out in a little blue curl in a new place, under the rafter"s edge, AND n.o.bODY CARED. That was what increased the pressing misery of it all. It was so unlike a common country alarm, where everybody rushed up and down the streets, crying "Fire! fire!
f-i-r-e!" and went hurrying to and fro for pails of water to help put it out. Until that moment the little woman did not know how utterly deserted she was.
In very despair, she ran to her house, seized two pails, filled them with greater haste than she had ever drawn water before, and, regardless of Uncle John"s imprecations, carried them forth, one in either hand, the water dripping carelessly down the side breadths of her fair silk gown, her silvery curls tossed and tumbled in white confusion, her pleasant face aflame with eagerness, and her clear eyes suffused with tears.
Thus equipped with facts and feeling, she once more appeared to Major Pitcairn.
"Have you a mother in old England?" she cried. "If so, for her sake, stop this fire."
Her words touched his heart.
"And if I do--?" he answered.
"THEN YOUR JOHNNY-CAKE ON MY HEARTH WON"T BURN UP," she said, with a quick little smile, adjusting her cap.
Major Pitcairn laughed, and two soldiers, at his command, seized the pails and made haste to the court-house, followed by many more.
For awhile the fire seemed victorious, but, by brave effort, it was finally overcome, and the court-house saved.
At a distance Joe Devins had noticed the smoke hovering like a little cloud, then sailing away still more like a cloud over the town; and he had made haste to the scene, arriving in time to venture on the roof, and do good service there.
After the fire was extinguished, he thought of Martha Moulton, and he could not help feeling a bit guilty at the consciousness that he had gone off and left her alone.
Going to the house he found her entertaining the king"s troopers with the best food her humble store afforded.
She was so charmed with herself, and so utterly well pleased with the success of her pleading, that the little woman"s nerves fairly quivered with jubilation; and best of all, the blue stocking was still safe in the well, for had she not watched with her own eyes every time the bucket was dipped to fetch up water for the fire, having, somehow, got rid of the vow she had taken regarding the drawing of the water.