girlish
beauty, as we follow her through the black days of fear and of tension
preceding the outbreak of that war in which her lover played such a
prominent part; ours to enjoy her charming manner and sparkling wit,
and to respect with deep admiring a brave girl of the Massachusetts
colony who watched a great nation in its birth-throes, and whose name
is written in history not alone as Madam Hancock, but as Dorothy
Quincy, the girl who saw the first gun fired for Independence.

An inspiration and an example for the girls of to-day, at a time when
all good Americans are united in a firm determination to make the
world safe for democracy.

MOLLY PITCHER: THE BRAVE GUNNER OF THE BATTLE OF MONMOUTH

"Oh, but I would like to be a soldier!"

The exclamation did not come from a man or boy as might have been
expected, but from Mary Ludwig, a young, blue-eyed, freckled,
red-haired serving-maid in the employ of General Irving's family, of
Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Molly, as they called her, had a decided
ability to do well and quickly whatever she attempted, and her eyes of
Irish blue and her sense of humor must have been handed down to her
somewhere along the line of descent, although her father, John George
Ludwig, was a German who had come to America with the Palatines.

Having been born in 1754 on a small dairy farm lying between Princeton
and Trenton, New Jersey, Molly's early life was the usual happy one of
a child who lived in the fields and made comrades of all the animals,
especially of the cows which quite often she milked and drove to
pasture. Like other children of her parentage she was early taught to
work hard, to obey without question, and never to waste a moment of
valuable time. In rain or shine she was to be found on the farm,
digging, or among the live stock, in her blue-and-white cotton skirt
and plain-blue upper garment, and she was so strong, it was said, that
she could carry a three-bushel bag of wheat on her shoulder to the
upper room of the granary. This strength made her very helpful in more
than one way on the farm, and her parents objected strongly when she
announced her determination to leave home and earn her living in a
broader sphere of usefulness, but their objections were without avail.

The wife of General Irving, of French and Indian war fame, came to
Trenton to make a visit. She wished to take a young girl back to
Carlisle with her to assist in the work of her household, and a fri