FullReads

“I’ll try as hard as I can,” promised Jeremy.

“No one can have tried his best without accomplishing something that it was grand to do, though not always just what he was trying to do,” responded the man, glancing kindly down upon the fresh, eager lad, tramping through the snow, at his side. “Don’t forget. ‘Silence is golden,’ in war always. Not a word, mind, when you get home, about the work of to-day.”

They were come now to a spot where the marsh seemed to be filled with sounds of wood-cutting. As they plunged into Cedar Swamp, the sounds grew nearer and multiplied. It was like the rapid firing of muskets.

Running through the swamp there was a trout-brook, that bore along its borders a dense growth of water-willows.

And now they advanced within sight of at least two hundred men and boys, every one of whom worked away as though his life depended on cutting a certain amount of willow-boughs in a given time.

“What does it all mean?” questioned Jeremy.

“It means,” replied his companion, “work for your country to-day with all your might and main.”

“But, pray tell me,” persisted Jeremy, “what under the sun the things are for, anyway. They’re good for nothing for fire-wood, green.”

Mr. Wooster turned and looked at the lad and said: “A good soldier asks no questions and marches, without knowing whither. He also cuts, without knowing for what. Now, to work!” and, at the instant they mingled with the workmen.

In less than a minute Jeremy’s dinner-basket was swinging on a willow-bough, his coat was hanging protectingly over it (you must remember that it contained Jeremy Jagger’s birthday cake), and the lad’s own arms were working away to the musical sounds of a hatchet beating on a vast amount of “whistle-stuff,” until mid-day and hunger arrived in company.

At the signal for noon Jeremy Jagger began his birthday feast. He perched himself on a stout willow-branch, hanging the basket on a conveniently growing peg at his right hand, and, by frequent examination of the store within, was able to solace two or three lads, less fortunate than himself, who were taking the mid-day rest, refreshed by plain bread and cheese, seated on a branch, lower down on the same tree.

“It isn’t every day that a fellow eats his birthday dinner in the woods,” he exclaimed, by way of apology for the dainties he tossed down to them in the shape of sugar-cake and “spice pie.” “Aunt Hannah was pretty liberal with me this morning. I wonder if she knew anything, for she said: ‘I’d find plenty of squirrels to help eat it.’ Where do you live, anyway?” he questioned, after he had fed them.

“We live in Brookline,” answered the elder.

“Well, do you know what under the sun we are cutting such bundles of fagots for to-day?” he slyly questioned, being beyond the hearing of the ears of his friend, and so safe from censure.

“I asked father this morning,” spoke up the younger lad (of not more than nine years), “and he told me he guessed General Washington was going to take Boston on the ice, and every soldier was going to take a bundle of fagots along, so as to keep from sinking if the ice broke through.”

This bit of military news was received with shouts of laughter, that echoed from tree to tree along the brook, and then the noon-day rest was over. The wind began to blow in cooler and faster from the sea, and busy hands were obliged to work fast to keep from stiffening under the power of the growing frost.

When the new moon hung low in the west and the sun was gone, the brookside, the cart-path, even the swamp fell back into its accustomed silence, for the workers, in groups of eight or ten, had from minute to minute gone homeward, leaving huge piles of fagots near the log bridge.