en." "Oh,
they are hiding till the soldiers get nearer," said Sarah, "then we'll
hear the shots and the drum." "The drum!" exclaimed Rebecca, "how can
they use it? It is here. Father brought it home last night to mend.
See! the first boat has reached the sloop. Oh! they are going to burn
her. Where is that drum? I've a great mind to go down and beat it.
We could hide behind the sandhills and bushes." As flames began to
rise from the sloop the ardor of the girls increased. They found the
drum and an old fife, and, slipping out of doors unnoticed by Mrs.
Bates, soon stood behind a row of sandhills. "Rub-a-dub-dub,
rub-a-dub-dub," went the drum, and "squeak, squeak, squeak," went the
fife. The Americans in the town thought that help had come from
Boston, and rushed into boats to attack the redcoats. The British
paused in their work of destruction; and, when the fife began to play
"Yankee Doodle," they scrambled into their boats and rowed in haste to
the warship, which weighed anchor and sailed away as fast as the wind
would carry her.

A woman's piercing shriek suddenly startled a party of surveyors at
dinner in a forest of northern Virginia on a calm, sunny day in 1750.
The cries were repeated in quick succession, and the men sprang through
the undergrowth to learn their cause. "Oh, sir," exclaimed the woman
as she caught sight of a youth of eighteen, but a man in stature and
bearing; "you will surely do something for me! Make these friends
release me. My boy,--my poor boy is drowning, and they will not let me
go!" "It would be madness; she will jump into the river," said one of
the men who was holding her; "and the rapids would dash her to pieces
in a moment!" Throwing on his coat, the youth sprang to the edge of
the bank, scanned for a moment the rocks and whirling currents, and
then, at sight of part of the boy's dress, plunged into the roaring
rapids. "Thank God, he will save my child!" cried the mother, and all
rushed to the brink of the precipice; "there he is! Oh, my boy, my
darling boy! How could I leave you?"

But all eyes were bent upon the youth struggling with strong heart and
hope amid the dizzy sweep of the whirling currents far below. Now it
seemed as if he would be dashed against a projecting rock, over which
the water flew in foam, and anon a whirlpool would drag him in, from
whose grasp escape would seem impossible. Twice the boy went out of
sight, but he had reappeared the second