er. A
countryman, who had nothing but an oak stick to fight with, seized me
as I lay on the ground, and here I met with the first mortification of
my life--he actually used me to dig with. This was a contemptible
feeling in me, and I have since learned to be ashamed of it, and to
know that all labor is equally honorable, if it is for a good end. They
had not tools enough for making entrenchments, and they actually used
the bayonet, of which I had been proud, for this purpose. In the
confusion after the battle, I was forgotten. I was left at the bottom
of the works in the mud.

It was a hard thing for me to be parted from William, and to feel that
I should never be restored to my corner in his mother's room behind the
old clock; but I had a conviction that I had taken part in a great
work, and I enjoyed our triumphs greatly.

This, you will think, no doubt, was glory enough for one musket; but a
greater still was in reserve for me. It is with muskets as with men,
one opportunity improved opens the way for another, and every chance
missed is a loss past calculation; for every gain that might have grown
out of that chance is lost too.

Every one should remember that, as he fights his way through the battle
of life; and, when tempted to slacken his fire, think of what the old
revolutionary spirit, speaking through my muzzle, taught on that
day,--'hold on, and hold fast, and hold out. Never stop, stay, or
delay, but make ready!--present!--fire!--and, again and again, make
ready!--present!--fire!--till every round of ammunition is gone.'"

Here the dry, rusty, unmodulated tone, in which the old king's arm had,
up to this time, spoken, suddenly changed; and it seemed as if a
succession of shots had been let off. Then, bringing himself down to
the floor with a DUNT off of the little tea chest full of old shoes, on
which he had stood leaning against the brick chimney, exactly as he
used to do grounding arms seventy years ago, he quietly dropped back
into the drowsy tone of narrative, and proceeded:--

"Yes--never flag nor hang back. The greater the danger, the more do you
press up to the mark. So we did at Trenton in the Jerseys, on that most
glorious day of my life of which I am now about to tell you.

I must tell you that I had the honor of fighting under General
Washington; for I had been marched down to Trenton with a stout-hearted
teamster, named Judah Loring, from Braintree, Massachusetts, who, after
our battle at B