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Page 12
"'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 musicians had concluded,
for the tune itself, and three more for those who had played it.
"More ale," called out Hand, and more ale was brought; and then Hand
proposed as a toast--"The memory of the men who fell on the 19th of
April, 1775." This was drank standing, and a short pause ensued.
FIFER'S STORY.
"Now," said Kinnison, "I expect that some of you men who know something
about them times shall keep your promise of following my story."
"I'll tell you a story," replied Brown, the fifer. "P'raps some of you
won't swallow it; but it's all fact, and that you'll find if you choose
to hunt for the papers. It's chiefly about me and my fife, and Hanson
and his drum."
"Pipe away, Brown," said Kinnison.
"Well, you see," began Brown, "Hanson and I were drummer and fifer in
Colonel Brooks' regiment, at Saratoga, and we were in the battle of
Stillwater, fought on the nineteenth of September. I'm not going to
'spin a yarn,' as the sailors say, in the way of an account of that
battle, for that has been said and sung often enough. It is sufficient
for me to say, that it was the hardest fought, and the bloodiest battle
that ever I saw, and Hans n and I were in the thickest of it, where the
bullets were hailing. Our regiment suffered a good deal in the way of
losing men, and I saw many an old friend fall near me. But at dusk, when
most of the Americans were ordered to camp, I and Hanson were unhurt.
Colonel Brooks kept the field when the other officers retired with their
forces. Some of the men of his regiment were tired and grumbled, but he
wanted to show the enemy that they had gained no advantage over us, and
that our spirits were as strong as when the day's work commenced. This
conduct you might have expected from what you have heard of Brooks'
character. He was all game--Brooks was. One of those whip or die men,
that are not to be found everywhere. Well, as I said, our regiment
remained on the field, and finally got into a skirmish with some of the
German riflemen. We knew they were German riflemen by the brass
match-cases on their breasts. In this skirmish, a ball struck me on the
hand, went through it, and knocked my fife clear away beyond our flank.
Well, I couldn't part with my Yankee Doodle pipe in that way, without
trying to get hold of it again. So I told Hanson, and he put down his
drum, and proposed that we should go and get it; and we did go out
together, while the balls were whizzing round our ears, and got the
pipe."
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