jest had to set an' hope that she would hold her
temper an' not go to slappin' back."

"She," as Solomon called the two loads, was a most exacting mistress.
They never left her alone for a moment. While one was putting away the
horses the other was on guard. They slept near her at night.

Israel Lockwood sat down for a visit with them when he brought their
food. While they were eating, another terrific thunder-storm arrived.
In the midst of it a bolt struck the barn and rent its roof open and
set the top of the mow afire. Solomon jumped to the rear wheel of one
of the wagons while Jack seized the tongue. In a second it was rolling
down the barn bridge and away. The barn had filled with smoke and
cinders but these dauntless men rolled out the second wagon.

Rain was falling. Solomon observed a wisp of smoke coming out from
under the roof of this wagon. He jumped in and found a live cinder
which had burned through the cover and fallen on one of the barrels.
It was eating into the wood. Solomon tossed it out in the rain and
smothered "the live spot." He examined the barrels and the wagon floor
and was satisfied. In speaking of that incident next day he said to
Jack:

"If I hadn't 'a' had purty good control o' my legs, I guess they'd 'a'
run erway with me. I had to put the whip on 'em to git 'em to step in
under that wagon roof--you hear to me."

While Solomon was engaged with this trying duty, Lockwood had led the
horses out of the stable below and rescued the harness. A heavy shower
was falling. The flames had burst through the roof and in spite of the
rain, the structure was soon destroyed.

"The wind was favorable and we all stood watching the fire, safe but
helpless to do anything for our host," Jack wrote in a letter.
"Fortunately there was another house near and I took the horses to its
barn for the night. We slept in a woodshed close to the wagons. We
slipped out of trouble by being on hand when it started. If we had
gone into the house for supper, I'm inclined to think that the British
would not have been driven out of Boston.

"We passed many companies of marching riflemen. In front of one of
these, the fife and drum corps playing behind him, was a young Tory,
who had insulted the company, and was, therefore, made to carry a gray
goose in his arms with this maxim of Poor Richard on his back: 'Not
every goose has feathers on him.'

"On the twentieth we reported to General Washington in Ca