descended the stairs.

All was dark in the hall, excepting where the light shone from the
dining-room in which the Indians were pillaging the shelves and fighting
over their booty. How to get past the dining-room door was the question,
but the brave girl did not hesitate. Reaching the lower hall, she walked
very deliberately forward, softly but quickly passing the door, and
unobserved reached the room in which was the cradle.

She caught up the baby, crept back past the open door, and was just
mounting the stairs, when one of the savages happened to see her.

"WHIZ"--and his sharp tomahawk struck the stair rail within a few inches
of the baby's head. But the frightened girl hurried on, and in a few
seconds was safe in her father's arms.

As for the Indians, fearing an attack from the near-by garrison, they
hastened away with the booty they had collected, and left General
Schuyler and his family unharmed.

THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY

BY JOHN ANDREWS (ADAPTED) [5]

[Footnote 5: From a letter written to a friend in 1773.]

On November 29, 1773, there arrived in Boston Harbor a ship carrying an
hundred and odd chests of the detested tea. The people in the country
roundabout, as well as the town's folk, were unanimous against allowing
the landing of it; but the agents in charge of the consignment persisted
in their refusal to take the tea back to London. The town bells were
rung, for a general muster of the citizens. Handbills were stuck up
calling on "Friends! Citizens! Countrymen!"

Mr. Rotch, the owner of the ship, found himself exposed not only to the
loss of his ship, but to the loss of the money-value of the tea itself,
if he should attempt to send her back without clearance papers from the
custom-house; for the admiral kept a vessel in readiness to seize
any ship which might leave without those papers. Therefore, Mr. Rotch
declared that his ship should not carry back the tea without either
the proper clearance or the promise of full indemnity for any losses he
might incur.

Matters continued thus for some days, when a general muster was called
of the people of Boston and of all the neighboring towns. They met, to
the number of five or six thousand, at ten o'clock in the morning, in
the Old South Meeting-House; where they passed a unanimous vote THAT THE
TEA SHOULD GO OUT OF THE HARBOR THAT AFTERNOON!

A committee, with Mr. Rotch, was sent to the custom-house to demand a
clearance. This the collector s