The Only Woman in the Town, and Other Tales of the American RevolutionPrichard, Sarah J. (Sarah Johnson)
History
The Only Woman in the Town, and Other Tales of the American Revolution
Prichard, Sarah J. (Sarah Johnson)
Short stories; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Fiction
Meanwhile a new and unexpected force arrived on the field of action.
It came in from sea--a great and mighty wind, that tossed and tumbled
the transports to and fro on the waves and would not let them land
anywhere save at the place they came from. So they went peacefully
back to Boston, and the Liberty Men over on the hills went on all day
and all night, in the rain and the wind, building up, strengthening,
fortifying, in fact getting ready, as Jeremy told his aunt, when he
reached home on the morning of the sixth of March, "for a visit from
King George and all his army."
The next day General Howe doubted and did little. The next and the
next went on and then on the morning of the 17th of March something
new had happened. There was one little hill, so near to Boston that it
was almost in it; and lo! in the night it had been visited by the
Americans, and a Liberty Cap perched above its head.
General Howe said: "We must get away from here in haste."
"Take us with you," said a thousand Royalists of the town; and he took
them, bag and baggage, to wander up and down the earth.
Over on Bunker Breed's Hill wooden sentinels did duty when the British
soldiers left and for full two hours after; and then two brave
Yankees guessed the men were wooden, and marched in to take
possession just nine months from the day they bade it good-by, because
they had no powder with which to "tune" their guns.
Over on Cambridge Common marched, impatient as ever, General Putnam,
with his four thousand followers, ready to cross the River Charles and
walk once more the city streets of the good old town. On all the hills
were gathered men, women and children to see the British troops
depart.
Jeremy Jagger was up before the dawn on that sweetest of Sunday
mornings in March, and he reached the Roxbury lines just as General
Ward was ready to put his arms about Boston's Neck. The lad took his
place with the five hundred men and walked by Ensign Richards' side,
as he proudly bore the standard up to the gates, which Ebenezer
Learned "unbarred and opened." Once within the lines, Jeremy,
unmindful of the crow's feet strewn over the way, made haste through
lane and street to his old home on Beacon Hill. "Could that be his
mother looking out at him through the window-pane?" he thought, as he
drew near.
She saw him. She knew him. But what could it mean that she did not
open the door to let him in; that she waved him away? It could not be
that she, his own mother, had turned Tory, that her face was grown so
red and angry at the sight of her son.
Jeremy banged away at the door. There was no answer.
At last he heard the lifting of a sash, a head, muffled carefully,
appeared from the highest window in the house, and a voice (the lad
knew whose it was) said: "Go, Jeremy! Go away out of Boston as fast as
you can. I'll come to you as soon as it is safe."
"Why, mother, what's the matter?" cried the boy.
"Small pox! I've had it. Everybody has it. Go!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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