who at the instant had come up to the stone-wall on which Jeremy
stood, surveying the camp and its surroundings.

"No, I didn't," retorted the lad; "but I wish Boston was _paved_ all
over with chestnut-burs, and that every pesky British officer in it
had to walk barefoot from end to end fourteen times a day, I do; and
the fourteenth time I'd order two or three Colony generals to take a
turn with 'em. General Gates for one."

"Come along, Jeremy," called his companion, who had strode across the
wall and gone on, regardless of the boy's words.

When Jeremy had ended his expressed wishes, he gathered up his
hatchet, dinner-basket, and coil of stout cord, and plunged through
the snow after his leader.

When he had overtaken him, the impulsive lad's heart burst out at the
lips with the words: "_We_ could take Boston _now_, just as easy as
anything--without wasting a jot of powder either. Skip across the ice,
don't you see, and be right in there before daylight. A big army lying
still for months and months, and just doing nothing but wait for folks
in Boston to starve out! I _say_ it's shameful; now, too, when the ice
has come that General Washington has been waiting all winter for."

"You won't help your country one bit by scolding about it, Jeremy.
You'd better save your strength for cutting willow-rods to-day."

"I'd cut like a hurricane if the rods were only going to whip the
enemy with. But just for sixpence a day--pshaw! I say, it don't pay."

"Look here, lad, can you keep a secret?"

"Trust me for that," returned Jeremy. Turning suddenly upon his
questioner, he faced him to listen to a supposed bit of information.

"Then why on earth are you talking to _me_ in that manner, boy?"
questioned the man.

"Why you _know_ all about it, just as well as I do; and a fellow
_must_ speak out in the woods or _somewhere_. Why, I get so mad and
hot sometimes that it seems as if every thought in me would burn right
out on my face, when I think about my poor mother over there,"
pointing backward to the three-hilled city.

The two were standing at the moment midway of a corn-field. The
February wind was lifting and rustling and shaking rudely the withered
corn-stalks, with their dried leaves. To the northward lay the
Cambridge camp, across the Charles River. To the south and east, just
over Muddy River and Stony Brook, lay the right wing of the American
Army, with here a fort and there a redoubt stretching at intervals all