is dream thought it was a gun fired
from one of the ships in the harbor at his mother, and himself, and
Boston.

"Jeremy, get up!" said somebody, touching his shoulder.

"Come, mother!" ejaculated Jeremy, clutching at the air and uttering
the words under tremendous pressure.

"Come yourself, lad," said somebody, shaking him a little roughly;
whereupon Jeremy awoke. "Get up, Jeremy Jagger. Hitch the oxen to the
cart. Put on the hay-rigging. Stay, I must help you to do that; but
hurry."

Jeremy rubbed his eyes, wondered what had become of his mother, and
how Mr. Wooster found his way into the house in the night, and lastly,
what was to be done. Furthermore, he dressed with speed, and awakened
the oxen by vigorous touches and moving words.

"Get up! get up!" he importuned, "and work for your country, and may
be you won't be killed and eaten for your country when you are old."
The large, patient eyes of the oxen slowly opened into the night, and
after awhile the vigorous strokes and voiceful "get ups" of their
master had due effect.

Mr. Wooster helped to adjust the hay-rigging, and then the large-wheeled
cart rolled grindingly over the frozen ground of the highway, until it
turned into the path leading into the swamp, over which the snow lay in
unbroken surface. Jeremy Jagger's was but the pioneer cart that night.
A half-dozen rolled and tumbled and reeled over the uneven surface behind
him, to the log bridge. It was cold and still. As the topmost fagot
was tossed on the pile in his cart he drew off a mitten, thrust his
benumbed fingers between his parted lips, and when he removed them
said: "I hope General Washington has had a better birthday than mine."

"I know one thing, my lad."

Jeremy turned quickly, for he did not recognize the voice. Even then
he could not discern the face; but he knew instantly that it was no
common person who had spoken. Nevertheless, with that sturdy,
good-as-anybody air that made the men of April 19th and June 17th
fight so gloriously, he demanded:

"What do you know?"

"That General Washington would gladly change places with you to-night,
if you are the honest lad you seem to be."

"Go and see him in his comfortable bed over there in Cambridge," was
Jeremy's response, uttered in the same breath with the word to his
oxen to move on. They moved on. The fagots reeled and swayed, the cart
rumbled over the logs of the bridge, and boy, oxen and cart were soon
lost to sight and hearin