f his comrades, Molly commanded them to carry
him to the shade of a near-by tree. And soon she had the satisfaction
of seeing a faint smile flicker over his face as she bent above him.
At that moment her keen ears heard General Knox give a command.

"Remove the cannon!" he said. "We have no gunner brave enough to fill
Hays's place!"

"No!" said Molly, hastening to the General's side and facing him with
a glint of triumph in her blue eyes. "The cannon shall not be taken
away! Since my brave husband is not able to work it, I will do my best
to serve in his place!"

Picking up the rammer, she began to load and fire with the courage and
decision of a seasoned gunner, standing at her post through long hours
of heat and exhaustion. When at a late hour the enemy had finally been
driven back with great loss, and Washington saw the uselessness of any
renewal of the assault, General Greene strode over to the place where
Molly Pitcher was still manfully loading the cannon, and gripped her
hand with a hearty:

"I thank you in the name of the American army!"

One can fancy how Molly's heart throbbed with pride at such
commendation, as she picked her way over the bodies of the dead and
wounded to the spot where her husband was propped up against a tree,
slowly recovering from his prostration, but able to express his
admiration for a wife who had been able to take a gunner's place at a
moment's notice and help to rout the British.

"That night the American army slept upon their arms; Greene, like his
Commander, taking his repose without couch or pillow, on the naked
ground, and with no other shelter than a tree beneath the broad canopy
of heaven. But this shelter was not sought, nor sleep desired, until
every wounded and hungry soldier had been cared for and fed with the
best food the camp could supply. Rising at dawn, Washington found the
enemy gone! They had stolen silently away with such rapidity as would,
when their flight became known, put them beyond the chance of
pursuit--and so the American army had been victorious at Monmouth, and
Molly Pitcher had played an important part in that victory."

She, too, had slept that night under the stars, and when morning came
she was still in the dusty, torn, powder-stained clothing she had worn
as cannonier, and afterward while working over the wounded. Her
predicament was a bad one when a messenger arrived from General
Washington requesting an interview with her. She, Molly Pitcher