riots represented the great Republic which on that day was to
spring from their martyrdom. The rebellious colonists had
collected in the hamlets near Boston some military stores; these
the British officers in command at Boston resolved should be
seized and destroyed. Warned of their design Paul Revere made his
famous ride to arouse the country to resistance, and in the dead
of night Adams and Hancock went out to summon their comrades to
arms. As the last stars vanished before the dawn, the drum beat
to summon the patriots to action, and in response a little band
of about eighty men and boys assembled on the village green. Few
as they were in numbers, they presented a brave front as the
British regulars came up the quiet street, 200 strong. What
followed was not a battle, but a butchery. The minute-men refused
to surrender to Major Pitcairn's haughty demand, and a volley of
musketry, close and deadly, was poured on this devoted band. In
response only a few random shots were fired, which did absolutely
no harm, and then, seeing the hopelessness of resistance, the
commander of the minute-men ordered them to disperse. The
British, elated with their easy victory, pushed on toward
Concord, thinking that there another speedy success awaited them.
In this they soon bitterly learned their error. Although they
were reinforced on the way, when they reached that village they
were met by such a resistance as drove them back, broken and
disorganized, on the road they had so proudly followed in the
morning. Concord nobly avenged the slaughter at Lexington.

So much for what men did on that day, and let us see what share
the women had in its dangers and its sorrows. Jonathan Harris was
shot in front of his own house, while his wife was watching him
from a window, seeing him fall with such anguish as no poor words
of mine can describe. He struggled to his feet, the blood gushing
from a wound in his breast, staggered forward a few paces and
fell again, and then crawled on his hands and knees to his
threshold only to expire just as his wife reached him. Did not
this woman bear her portion of the martyrdom? Isaac Davis, a man
in the prime of life, went forth from his home in the morning,
and before the afternoon sunlight had grown yellow, was brought
back to it d