paign. He was the brother of that brave young Howe who fell, fighting, at Ticonderoga in the French war. If he were half as good a soldier, the Americans had reason to fear his coming.

The evening of the 16th of June, a party of Americans were commanded to go over to Charlestown and fortify Bunker Hill. It was rumored that Governor Gage was going to take the hill and plant cannon there, and the patriots determined to be ahead of him. Under cover of the dark, the Americans climbed the hill, and began to work at throwing intrenchments of earth on its top. They made a mistake, however, and took Breed's Hill, instead of Bunker, the former being a quarter of a mile nearer Boston.

When the British got up in the morning of the 17th of June, and looked out over the river, there were the Americans, with pickaxes and spades, working away like so many ants on an ant-hill, with a great breast work of earth piled up in front of them. They hurried to get their cannon in readiness, and from Copp's Hill, in the north of Boston, they poured a rain of balls on Breed's Hill, while from their ships in the harbor they raked the embankment from another point. But they could do no harm in this way, so well were the Americans protected.

By noon they concluded they must make a more decided attack. Howe sent 3,000 men over the river, to go up the hill, and drive the Americans from their post. They went over in boats, and the Americans, who could see every movement, watched their coming. Other eyes watched too. The roofs of Boston were covered with people looking on. Many a woman, whose husband or son was crouching down behind that breastwork of earth, waiting the enemy's approach, looked eagerly over the river, and watched with fast beating heart every motion of the two armies. It was a terrible sight to gaze on, when your own heart's blood might flow in the coming battle.

Up the hill went the British soldiers, firing every moment as they climbed. At the top waited fifteen hundred men, crouched behind the embankment, silent as death. They had no bullets and powder to waste, till the British were close at hand.

"Aim low, boys," whispered Colonel Prescott, the patriot commander, “fire at their waistbands, and wait till you see the whites

of their eyes. Waste no powder."

When the redcoats were almost up the hill, their plumes nearly level with its crest, Bang! bang! went the fifteen hundred muskets

at once, and down went scores of brave Britishers, cut down as the scythe cuts the waving grain. At this moment, great volumes of flame and smoke rose from Charlestown in eight or ten places at once. It had been set on fire by the soldiers as they marched through the town.

The British fell back at the first fire, then they rallied again, and the Americans sent another volley among them. A second time they fell back in dismay. This time they waited long before renewing the attack, and hope beat high in the breasts of the men behind

the intrenchment. But the third time the British pressed on more firmly; they scaled the intrenchment; the Americans, many of them without powder, tried to beat them back with clubbed muskets,

and volleys of stones caught up from the redoubt; but their last resistance was in vain, the British had gained the summit, and the Americans, beaten backwards, fled down the hill, and retreated beyond Charlestown Neck. The last man to leave the field was Joseph Warren, one of the bravest and noblest of all who had gathered there that day. As he turned to follow his retreating companions, he was shot through the head and killed instantly. The battle had lasted two hours, and when the day ended, 1,100 men from the British ranks, 450 men from the Americans, were found to be lost in the encounter.

To-day, a grand monument rises from the summit where Warren fell, and on the grass-covered terraces which crown the hill, there

are no other signs of battle; hundreds of tall-masted ships crowd Boston harbor, where the British ships then rode at anchor; on the ruins of Charlestown, that day burnt to the ground, a thickly built city stands; on the summit of Copp's Hill, where the English planted their cannon, is an old cemetery with its mouldering gravestones. There, in the midst of the great city, sleep many of the forefathers of the old town. There, where some of my ancestors sleep, and very likely some of yours, the sunshine falls pleasantly on the crumbling old stones and the neglected paths overgrown with grass and burdocks. It is a century since these places resounded with the

thunder of British cannon, and no traces of the struggle are left there. Happily, our good mother Earth bears no scars from the battles fought on her bosom, but covers them quickly up with soft grass and tender flowers.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

WASHINGTON AND HIS ARMY.

Washington's Camps about Boston. - The Patriot Generals. - Story of Israel Putnam. - Dress of the Soldiers. - Pennsylvania Riflemen.. Story of a Marksman. - Washington's Anxieties.

THE ball had opened, and events followed each other thicker and faster. All those who had hesitated before, now took one side or the other. Before the summer was over, every colony, from New Hampshire to Georgia, was up in arms; the thirteen royal governors were pushed from their royal stools, and obliged to go office-hunting elsewhere.

Washington had gathered his army together, and gone to Massachusetts, which was for the present the head-quarters of both armies. Boston had been fortified all about by the British; and the patriots who had not left the city before the battle of Bunker Hill, were prisoners in their own homes. In return, Washington surrounded Boston with his whole army, and held the country all about.

He had several generals to help him bring order out of chaos, most of whom had gained military experience in the French and Indians wars. You can fancy it was no easy task to organize these raw recruits into an orderly and disciplined army. General Horatio Gates was one of the ablest of them all in this respect. Charles Lee of Virginia also did good service, and one of the most famous of all was Israel Putnam of Connecticut, whom the boys called "Old

One morning, on finding he had lost a large number of sheep during the night, Putnam declared he would set out and destroy the ferocious animal. He raised a party of neighbors, and they tracked the creature forty miles, till they came to her den. This den was a deep cave in the rocks, which a man could only enter by crawling on his hands and knees. They tried to smoke the animal out, but it was impossible. They set dogs in upon her, and the dogs came out with lacerated flesh, howling with pain. At length Putnam declared he would go in himself. Tying a rope round his legs, so that they might draw him out, when he should pull it a certain number of times, he crawled in slowly, holding a torch. He soon saw the eyes of the creature glaring from a corner of the cave. He gave the signal to be pulled out, and loading his gun outside, crawled in again, till he was close upon the monster. Then he fired, and, blinded by smoke, deafened by the noise of the gun, was pulled out again. For the third time he entered, and finding the animal was dead, he hauled her out by the ears, while his companions pulled him by the rope round his legs. His clothes were all torn off his back, and his face black with smoke and powder, but he had killed the wolf, and kept her skin as a trophy. Since then he had fought in the French and Indian wars, and wherever danger was, he was foremost.

You can form no idea what a task lay before Washington and his generals. Here was a great body of men hurried into the field from farms and workshops, with no more idea of military drill than a herd of sheep, with miserable old muskets, scanty supply of powder and balls, and no money to buy any. Then the dress of this provincial army was enough to excite the laugh which the British soldiers raised at them. Some of them were dressed in the long-tailed linsey-woolsey coats, and linsey-woolsey breeches, which had been spun and woven in farm-house kitchens; some wore smock-frocks like a butcher, also made of homespun; some wore suits of British broadcloth, so long used for Sunday clothes that they had grown rather the worse for wear; and every variety of dress and fashion figured in these motley ranks.

When General Washington rode grandly out on horseback, dressed in his fine blue broadcloth coat, with buff colored facings, buff waistcoat and breeches, a hat with black cockade, and a sword in an elegantly embroidered sword-belt, I think his heart must have sunk within him as he looked on his tatterdemalion army, and