Days grew long in Gilmanton, and weeds among the corn; The quoiting ground was grassy, and louder rang the rill; The wrestling match was over,--the smithy was forlorn,-- The spiders in the empty door had swung their webs at will,-- The champions had gone to Bunker’s smoky Hill, To try the quaint old-fashioned “lock” they practiced on the Green, And such a game of tough “square hold” the world has seldom seen! About the father? Only this;--he fought in Stark’s brigade, On Charlestown Neck, that dusty day. A splendid mark he made; He never flinched a single inch when British cannon played, But foddered up an old rail fence with Massachusetts hay, Stood out the battle at the rack, and stoutly blazed away! Lo, through the smoky glory, that human flower-deluce, The gray-eyed Mary Butler, Lieutenant Eastman’s wife! Her pallid cheek and brow like a holy flag of truce, Her heart as sweet and red as a rose’s inner life, No murmur on her lips, nor sign of any strife. Four days before the fight. Has the little woman heard From anybody Boston way? Nobody--not a word! Then up rose Mary Butler, and set her wheel at rest; She swept the puncheon floor, she washed the cottage pride,-- The cottage pride of three weeks old, and dressed him in his best,-- She wound the clock that told the time her mother was a bride, And porringer and spoon she deftly laid aside; She strung a clean white apron across the window panes, And swung the kettle from the crane, for fear of rusting rains; Then tossed her saddle on the bay and donned her linen gown, And took the baby on before,--no looking round or down! Full seventy miles to Cambridge town! Bring out your civic crown! I think ’twill fit that brow of hers who sadly smiled and said: “We’ll _know_ about your father, boy, and who is hurt or dead!” The maple woods that round her stand so solemn in the calm, Up and down are swaying slowly, like a singing-master’s palm, All together beating time,--not a soul to sing a psalm! “There’s been a dreadful battle!”--that’s what the neighbors said, “But when or where we cannot tell, nor who is hurt or dead.”