“Now don’t waste your stones,” Eph orders his command. “Don’t fire one of them till you see them Ogdens keel over the rope and hear them holler. Then pelt away like Jehu, and whoop like an Indian, and they’ll think it’s the regular army.” The enemy came on _en masse_, they tripped over the rope so beautifully that Eph Stearns, boy and man, has laughed at the thought of it ever since, they fell kicking and struggling and tangled up as to legs and arms. Rattle and whiz came the stones in showers upon them, and, to crown all, the mule cavorted right down into the thickest of the scrimmage as if he had been Job’s war-horse smelling the battle afar. It was full ten minutes before the Ogden boys got themselves together again, and during that ten minutes the last long pull and strong pull had been given to the cannon and the iron giant was rolling comfortably homeward in Seneca’s wagon. Then the boys hot, exultant, shouting, made a wild break for the enemy as they came pelting over the brow of the hill. “Sneaks!” calls one, with a stone. “Thieves!” yells another. “At ’em--fight ’em!” shouts another, brandishing a big stick. “Let’s lay ’em out! thrash ’em!” “Hold on! Halt!” cries Captain Ethan with the voice of a trumpet and he springs to the front of his little troop and faces them, his arms aloft with a kind of impassioned dominance of voice and mien that hustles back the pell-mell advance. “Halt! Form in line!” he calls, and the wild crowd sway into a kind of half-circle about their captain. “Three cheers for Hennepin County and the Gun!” orders the captain. Shout, shout, shout. Oh, how they shouted! That wild hurrah rifted the clouds and shook the mountains. Then as the echoes died away, in the sharp interval of silence that followed, Captain Ethan faced around to the enemy: “Now, gentlemen, what will you have?” “Three cheers for Ogden County!” returned the leader. “Ogden County--without the Gun, amen!” piped up Eph like a fife. But the three cheers were lustily given. The old Vermont hills echoed and re-echoed again, and a vast deal of spleen spent itself in those six cheers. “Now, all hands!” commanded Captain Ethan Allen in ringing tones. “Now, both sides and everybody, give three cheers for the Green Mountain Boys and the Fourth of July!” Again, and doubly loud, roared out the great shouts. Again the mountains heard and the echoes reverberated around the sky. The stars listened, in their far heights, and knew that America was a stronger nation for the throb of patriotic feeling that pulsed through those hot young hearts and voiced itself in those fine huzzas. PAUL REVERE’S RIDE[K] By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW Every American boy and girl ought to know by heart the story of how Paul Revere on his famous ride called the minute-men to arms on the eve of the Battle of Lexington.