y and unexpectedly dash out from a
brake, or from behind a rock, and the whizzing of his bullet was the
precursor of death. He followed the enemy to their very boats; and then,
turning his horse's head, returned unharmed to his household.

"'Where have you been, husband?'

"'Picking cherries,' replied Hezekiah--but he forgot to say that he had
first make cherries of the red-coats, by putting the pits into them."

"That old man was sure death," remarked Kinnison. "I knew the old fellow
well. He had the name of being one of the best shots around that part of
the country. I should never want to be within his range."

"The old man immortalized himself," said Hand.

"It served the 'tarnal rascals right," observed Hanson. "They only
reaped what they had sown. War's a horrible matter, altogether, and I
don't like it much; but I like to see it done up in that old man's
style, if it is done at all."

"I should like to have seen that royal officer that said he could march
through our country with three regiments," said Kinnison. "If he was
with Smith and Pitcorn that day, he saw there was a little of the
bulldog spirit in the Yankees."

"I think," observed Pitts, "we might have that old, heart-firing,
arm-moving tune called Yankee Doodle. Come, Brown, pipe."

"Ay," replied Brown, "that tune came out of this here fife
naturally--almost without my blowing it. For some time, I couldn't work
anything else out of it."

"Come, pipe and drum the old tune once more," cried Colson; and it was
piped and drummed by Brown and Hanson in the real old continental style.
The effect on the company was electric. Knives, and forks, and feet,
kept time to the well-known music. Some of the old men could scarcely
restrain themselves from attempting a cheer, and the young men felt
themselves stirred by a feeling of patriotism they had scarcely known
before. The spirit of 1775 dwelt in the music, and, as the quick notes
started from fife and drum, visions of farmers leaving the plough in the
furrow and shouldering the rusty and unbayoneted firelock--of citizens
leaving their business and homes to grasp the sword and gun--of
stout-hearted, strong-armed minute-men, untrained to war's manoeuvres,
marching and battling with the well-disciplined, war-schooled, and
haughty Britons, made confident by a more than Roman career of
victory--and of the glorious fight at Breed's Hill--came to the minds of
all present. Three cheers were given, when the musi