Who Spoke Next | Page 7

bare heavens, and every heart was of bolder and better cheer as he passed.
His look never changed. It was just the same steady face, whatever went on before it; whether he saw us provincials beaten back, or watched a thousand British regulars pile their arms after the victory at Trenton.
He looked as he does in the great picture in Faneuil Hall, on the right, as you stand before the rostrum. He stands there, by his horse, just as I saw him before the passage of the Delaware, with the steady, serious, immovable look that puts difficulties out of countenance. It is the look of a man of sense and judgment, who has come to the determination to save the country, and means to transact that piece of business without fail.
I never saw that quiet, iron look change but once. I will tell you about it. It was one of those days after the battle of Trenton, when he tried to concentrate the troops that he had scattered over the country, to bring them to bear upon the British. His object was to show the enemy that they could not keep their foothold.
Between Trenton and Princeton he ordered the assault. The Virginians were broken at the enemy's first charge, and could not be rallied a second time against the British bayonets. General Washington commanded and threatened and entreated in vain.
We of New England saw the crisis, marched rapidly up, and poured in our fire at the exact moment, Judah Loring and I in the very front.
The British could not stand the fire. We gave it to them plenty, I tell you. Judah Loring loaded, and I fired over and over and over again, till it seemed as if he and I were one creature.
A musket, I should explain to you, feels nothing of itself, but only receives a double share of the nature of the man who carries it.
I felt ALIVE that day. Judah was hot, but I was hotter; and, before the cartridge box was empty, he pulled down his homespun blue and white frock sleeve over his wrist, and rested me upon it when he took aim. He was a gentle-hearted fellow, though as brave as his musket.
"She's so hot," says he, doubling his sleeve into his palm, "that I can't hold her; but I can't stop firing NOW!"
I met his wishes exactly, I knew by that word; for he always called every thing he liked, SHE. The sun was SHE; so was his father's old London-made watch; so was the Continental Congress.
General Washington saw the whole;--the enemy, driven back before our fire, could never be brought to look us in the face again. We held the ground;--the Virginia troops rallied; --General Washington took off his cocked hat, and lifted it high, like a finished gentleman, as he was. "Hurrah!" he shouted, "God bless the New England troops! God bless the Massachusetts line!" [Footnote: This was all fact, related by one who was present.] And his steady face flamed and gave way like melting metal.
Ah, what a set of men were those! I felt the firm trip-hammer of all their pulses beat through the whole fight, for we stood in platoon, shoulder to shoulder. I felt my kindred with every one of them. They had more steel in their nerves and more iron in their blood than other men. Not a man cared a straw for his life, so he saved from wrong and bondage the lives of them that should come after him.
That day's work raised hope in every man's heart through the land. Said I not well that it was the most glorious of my life?
I have but little more to say. I have said more than I meant to, more perhaps than was wise to say of my own glory. But the thought of those brave days of old makes one too talkative.
I must tell you, however, how I at last came here. Judah Loring brought me home safe; he was a very honest fellow, and seeing the initials scratched on my butt-end, and 'Lexington' underneath, he went there on purpose to find to whom I belonged.
My friend William claimed me, and I was again placed behind the old clock in the little parlor. His mother looked very calm, and almost happy, but not as she once did; she sighed heavily when William brought me home. William's wound in his arm healed after a while, but his arm was disabled. By great self-denial and exertion, his mother had got him into college, and he was to be a schoolmaster.
The sight of me was painful to this good woman, and she gave me to uncle John who kept me safely and, on the whole, honorably till his son placed me here.
There is one disgrace I have met