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How One Boy Helped The British Troops Out Of Boston In 1776
by
“I’m going with you,” she said, after the basket was in; she climbed to the seat beside the lad, and off they started for Boston.
It was dark when they reached the lines, and no passes granted, the officers said, to go in that night.
“But I’ve food for the hungry,” said Aunt Hannah, in her sweetest voice, from the darkness of the cart, “and folks are hungry in the night as well as in the day.”
She deftly threw aside the cover from the basket and took out a chicken, which she held forth to the man, saying: “Take it. It’s good.”
He hesitated a moment, then seized it eagerly.
“I know you,” spoke up Jeremy, at this juncture. “You went up the Neck with us this morning. I saw you.”
“Then you are the boy who got first into Boston this morning, are you, sir?”
“I believe I did, sir.”
“Go on.”
The oxen went on.
“Now, Jeremy, down with you and wait here for me. You haven’t had small-pox,” said Aunt Hannah.
“But the oxen won’t mind you,” said Jeremy.
Aunt Hannah was troubled. She never had driven oxen.
At the moment who should appear but Mr. Wooster. He gladly offered to take the basket and deliver it at Mrs. Jagger’s door.
“Don’t go in, mind! Mother’s had small-pox,” called Jeremy, as he started.
“I’m tired,” gasped Aunt Hannah, who had done baking enough for a small army that day, as she sat down to rest on the broad seat of the cart, and the two started for home. The soldier at the gate scarcely heeded them as they went out, for roasted chicken “tasted so good.”
“I’m so glad the British are out of Boston,” said Aunt Hannah, as she touched home soil again and went wearily up the walk to the little dark house.
“And so am I,” said Jeremy to the oxen, as he turned them in for the night; “only if I’d had my way, they wouldn’t have gone without one good fair fight. You’ve done your duty, anyhow,” he added, soothingly, with a parting stroke to the honest laborer who went in last, “and you deserve well of your country, too, for like Gen. Washington, you have served without hope of reward. The thing I like best about the man is that he don’t work for money. I don’t want my sixpence a day for cutting willows; and–I won’t–take it.” And he didn’t take it, consoling himself with the reflection “that he would be like Gen. Washington in one thing, anyhow.”