Of course the little boys could not see and hear of all this without a swelling of the heart and a prancing of the feet; for they were rather different from boys of these days! Hard indeed, thought they, if they couldn't form a company too! As for music, what was to hinder them from pounding it out of tin pans and pewter porringers? There is music in everything, if you can only get it out. Chickens' wind-pipes, when well dried, are very melodious, and so are whistles made of willow; and if you are fond of variety, there are always bones to be had, and dinner-horns, and jews-harps. Full of zeal for their country, the little boys on both sides of the river met together and formed quite a large company. They had two trials to begin with; firstly, they could not think of a name fine enough for themselves; and secondly, they could not get any sort of uniform to wear. Their mothers could not see the necessity of their having new suits just to play in; and it seemed for some time as if the little patriots would have to march forever in their old every-day clothes. "But they'll give us some new ones by and by, boys," said Willy. "My mother laughed last night, when I asked again, and that's a certain sure sign." "O, I thought we'd given that up," said Fred Chase. "Look here, boys," exclaimed Willy; "I've thought of a name; it's the 'Never-Give-Ups.' All in favor say 'Ay'!" "Ay! ay!" piped all the lads; and it was a vote. Perhaps it was a year before the Never-Give-Ups got their uniforms; but at last their mammas saw the subject in a proper light, and stopped their work long enough to dye some homespun suits dark blue, and trim them gorgeously with red. Willy's regimentals were not home-made; they were cut down from his father's old ones; and he might have been too well pleased with them, only Fred Chase's were better yet, being new, with the first gloss on, just as they had come from a store in the city of Boston. Fred was captain of the company. The boys had felt obliged in the very beginning to have it so, on account of a beautiful instrument, given him by his father, called a flageolet. True, Fred could not play on it at all, and had to give it up to Willy; but it belonged to him all the same. "Something's the matter with my lungs," said Fred, coughing; "and that's why those little holes plague me so; it's too hard work to blow 'em." The boys looked at one another with wise nods and smiles. They did not like Fred very well; but he was always pushing himself forward: and when a boy has a great deal of self-esteem, and a brave suit of clothes right from Boston, how are you going to help yourselves, pray? So Fred was captain, and Willy only a fifer.