_These entrances will hereinafter be referred to as the Boston, Concord and Bedford Roads respectively. Other village paths may be supposed to lead on to the Common at any convenient points._ _When the first member of the audience enters, it is twilight. He finds the life of the village going on with full realism of detail except that it is in no wise audible. He is looking at a soundless vision of the eighteenth day of April, one hundred and fifty years ago. Villagers are chatting about the doorway of the Buckman Tavern. They come in and go out. They wear long coats and smoke long pipes and drink long drinks. Some of them discuss a newspaper excitedly. What they are saying cannot be heard, for they play entirely in dumb show. A century and a half is too great a time to be bridged easily by sound._ _Silent as the rest a boy guards a flock of a few sheep in the center of the Common. Young girls, going about pleasure or business and quite free from any preoccupation with the serious matters which engross the tavern’s patrons, stop to chat with him._ _Presently a young farmer drives his cows in from pasture. Presently other farmers return from the fields, carrying the crude agricultural implements of their day. Presently another farmer drives his emptied truck wagon home from market._ _Presently a traveler on a jaded mare comes up the Boston Road and halts by the Buckman Tavern. The citizens gather about him greedily. Greedy, it would seem, for news. And he gives them news before he has finished his ale and ridden on down the Bedford Road._ _As the play’s commencement draws near, an old man comes out of the Meeting House. The children, playing about the Belfry, run into him and he admonishes them. Then he rings the bell. At first one cannot be quite sure of the bell. Then the spell becomes stronger and it does clang dimly through._ _Part One_ [Illustration] “_The Glorious Morning_” [_The Chronicler opens his book and begins to write._ _In the far distance, a bugler blows “Assembly.”_ _For the first time, the Chronicler lifts his head and looks at the audience._ _Just a little nearer than the bugle some horns play “Yankee Doodle.”_ _In the darkling tavern faint voices of men take up the chorus._ _A very little light shines upon the Chronicler’s figure. He rises and lifts his right hand._ _The Drummers play a long roll._ _Then the Chronicler speaks._] THE CHRONICLER (_Directly into the audience._) In the Book of American Freedom it has been written that the Town of Lexington, in the County of Middlesex, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, shall be designated as “The Birthplace of American Liberty.” This, says the book, is a fitting designation because the events which had their scene in Lexington on the glorious morning of the nineteenth of April one hundred and fifty years ago this year did forever mark and set aside the town to be a symbol of liberty to all free nations and all free peoples.