Grandmothers Story of Bunker Hill Battle

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Battle, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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Title: Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle
as She Saw it from the Belfry
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Illustrator: Howard Pyle
Release Date: June 26, 2007 [EBook #21941]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Grandmother's Story
of
Bunker Hill Battle
_as She Saw it from the Belfry_
by

Oliver Wendell Holmes
_With Illustrations by_
Howard Pyle
_Boston and New York_
Houghton Mifflin Company
The
Riverside Press Cambridge
MCMXXV
COPYRIGHT, 1875, BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.
COPYRIGHT,
1903, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
[Illustration]

_GRANDMOTHER'S STORY_
_of_
BUNKER HILL
_BATTLE_
'T is like stirring living embers when, at eighty, one remembers All the
achings and the quakings of "the times that tried men's souls;" When I
talk of _Whig_ and _Tory_, when I tell the _Rebel_ story, To you the
words are ashes, but to me they're burning coals.
I had heard the muskets' rattle of the April running battle; Lord Percy's
hunted soldiers, I can see their red coats still; But a deadly chill comes
o'er me, as the day looms up before me, When a thousand men lay

bleeding on the slopes of Bunker's Hill.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
'T was a peaceful summer's morning, when the first thing gave us
warning Was the booming of the cannon from the river and the shore:
"Child," says grandma, "what's the matter, what is all this noise and
clatter?
Have those scalping Indian devils come to murder us once
more?"
Poor old soul! my sides were shaking in the midst of all my quaking,
To hear her talk of Indians when the guns began to roar:
She had seen
the burning village, and the slaughter and the pillage, When the
Mohawks killed her father with their bullets through his door.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Then I said, "Now, dear old granny, don't you fret and worry any, For
I'll soon come back and tell you whether this is work or play; There
can't be mischief in it, so I won't be gone a minute"-- For a minute then
I started. I was gone the livelong day.
No time for bodice-lacing or for looking-glass grimacing;
Down my
hair went as I hurried, tumbling half-way to my heels; God forbid your
ever knowing, when there's blood around her flowing, How the lonely,
helpless daughter of a quiet household feels!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
In the street I heard a thumping; and I knew it was the stumping Of the
Corporal, our old neighbor, on that wooden leg he wore, With a knot of

women round him,--it was lucky I had found him, So I followed with
the others, and the Corporal marched before.
They were making for the steeple,--the old soldier and his people; The
pigeons circled round us as we climbed the creaking stair, Just across
the narrow river--oh, so close it made me shiver!-- Stood a fortress on
the hill-top that but yesterday was bare.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Not slow our eyes to find it; well we knew who stood behind it,
Though the earthwork hid them from us, and the stubborn walls were
dumb: Here were sister, wife, and mother, looking wild upon each
other, And their lips were white with terror as they said, THE HOUR
HAS COME!
The morning slowly wasted, not a morsel had we tasted,
And our
heads were almost splitting with the cannons' deafening thrill, When a
figure tall and stately round the rampart strode sedately; It was
PRESCOTT, one since told me; he commanded on the hill.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Every woman's heart grew bigger when we saw his manly figure, With
the banyan buckled round it, standing up so straight and tall; Like a
gentleman of leisure who is strolling out for pleasure, Through the
storm of shells and cannon-shot he walked around the wall.
At eleven the streets were swarming, for the red-coats' ranks were
forming; At noon in marching order they were moving to the piers;

How the bayonets gleamed and glistened, as we looked far down, and
listened To the trampling and the drum-beat of the belted grenadiers!
[Illustration]

[Illustration]
At length the men have started, with a cheer (it seemed faint-hearted),
In their scarlet regimentals, with their knapsacks on their backs, And
the reddening, rippling