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Jeremy was rolling barrels to the brow of the hill they were fortifying, and tumbling into them with haste shovelful after shovelful of good solid earth, that they might hit hard when rolled down on the foe that should dare to mount the height, when a cautious voice at his side uttered the one word “Look!” accompanied with a motion of the hand toward Dorchester Neck.

In the moonlight, past the bales of hay, two thousand Americans were filing in silent haste to the relief of the men who had toiled all night to build forts they meant to defend on the morrow.

It was four o’clock in the morning when they came. Jeremy was tired and sleepy too. His eyelids would drop over his eyes, shutting out everything he so longed to keep in sight.

“You’ve worked like a hero,” said a kind voice to the lad. “It will be hot work here by sunrise–no place for boys, when the battle begins.”

“I can fight,” stoutly persisted Jeremy, nodding as he spoke; and, had anybody thought of the lad at all after that, he might have been found in the ox-cart, carelessly strewn over with hay, taking a nap.

Meanwhile on came the morning. A friendly fog hung lovingly around the new hills on the old hills, that the Yankees had built in a night.

Admiral Shuldham was called in haste from his bed by frightened men, who wondered what had happened on Dorchester Height. Castle William stood aghast with astonishment. Messengers went up the bay to tell the army the news.

General Howe marched out to take a look through the fog at the old familiar hills he had known so long, and didn’t like the looks of the new hats they wore. He wondered how in the world the thing had been done without discovery; but there it was, larger a good deal than life, seen through the fog, and he knew also why it was that the cannon had been playing on Boston through the hours of three or four nights. He was angry, astonished, perplexed. He had a little talk with Admiral Shuldham; and they agreed to do something. Yes, they would walk up and demand back the hills looking over into Boston. Transports came hurrying to pier and wharf, and soldiers went bravely down and gave themselves to the work of a short sea voyage.

Meanwhile Jeremy Jagger’s nap was broken by a number of trenching tools thrown carelessly over his back, as he lay asleep in his cart.

“Halloo there!” he shouted, striving to rise from the not very comfortable blanket that dropped in twain to the left and the right, as he shook off the tools and returned from the land of sleep to Dorchester Heights and the 5th of March. He was just in time to hear a voice like a clarion cry out: “Remember it is the 5th of March, and avenge the death of your brethren.”

It was the very voice that had said in the swamp in the night that “General Washington would gladly change places with Jeremy Jagger.” It was the voice of General Washington animating the troops for the coming battle.

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.