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Eliot Gregory - "Worldly Ways and Byways"

Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son - "Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee"

G. K. Chesterton - "The Man Who Was Thursday"

Xenophon - "Hiero"

Twilight Stories

V >> Various Authors >> Twilight Stories



We went to the show one night,
And it certainly was a great sight,
This tiger to see,
Fierce as he could be,
And roaring with all his might.



CHRISTMAS DAY.

The Christmas chimes are pealing high
Beneath the solemn Christmas sky,
And blowing winds their notes prolong
Like echoes from an angel's song;
Good will and peace, peace and good will
Ring out the carols glad and gay,
Telling the heavenly message still
That Christ the Child was born to-day.

In lowly hut and palace hall
Peasant and king keep festival,
And childhood wears a fairer guise,
And tenderer shine all mother-eyes;
The aged man forgets his years,
The mirthful heart is doubly gay,
The sad are cheated of their tears,
For Christ the Lord was born to-day.
SUSAN COOLIDGE.


They sat on the curbing
In a crowded row--
Two little maids
And one little beau,--
Watching to see
The big Elephant go
By in the street parade;
But when it came past,
Of maids there were none,
For down a by-street
They cowardly run,
While one little beau
Made all manner of fun--
Of the Elephant he wasn't afraid.



THE ONLY WOMAN IN THE TOWN.

One hundred years' and one ago, in Boston, at ten of the clock
one April night, a church steeple had been climbed and a lantern
hung out.

At ten, the same night, in mid-river of the Charles, oarsmen two,
with passenger silent and grim, had seen the signal light
out-swung, and rowed with speed for the Charlestown shore.

At eleven, the moon was risen, and the grim passenger, Paul
Revere, had ridden up the Neck, encountered a foe, who opposed
his ride into the country, and, after a brief delay, rode on,
leaving a British officer lying in a clay pit.

At mid-night, a hundred ears had heard the flying horseman cry,
"Up and arm. The Regulars are coming out!"

You know the story well. You have heard how the wild alarm ran
from voice to voice and echoed beneath every roof, until the men
of Lexington and Concord were stirred and aroused with patriotic
fear for the safety of the public stores that had been committed
to their keeping.

You know how, long ere the chill April day began to dawn, they
had drawn, by horse power and by hand power, the cherished stores
into safe hiding-places in the depth of friendly forest-coverts.

There is one thing about that day that you have NOT heard and I
will tell you now. It is, how one little woman staid in the town
of Concord, whence all the women save her had fled.

All the houses that were standing then, are very old-fashioned
now, but there was one dwelling-place on Concord Common that was
old-fashioned even then! It was the abode of Martha Moulton and
"Uncle John." Just who "Uncle John" was, is not now known, but he
was probably Martha Moulton's uncle. The uncle, it appears by
record, was eighty-five years old; while the niece was ONLY
three-score and eleven.

Once and again that morning, a friendly hand had pulled the
latch-string at Martha Moulton's kitchen entrance and offered to
convey herself and treasures away, but, to either proffer, she
had said: "No, I must stay until Uncle John gets the cricks out
of his back, if all the British soldiers in the land march into
town."

At last, came Joe Devins, a lad of fifteen years--Joe's two
astonished eyes peered for a moment into Martha Moulton's
kitchen, and then eyes and owner dashed into the room, to learn,
what the sight he there saw, could mean.

"Whew! Mother Moulton, what are you doing?"

"I'm getting Uncle John his breakfast to be sure, Joe," she
answered. "Have you seen so many sights this morning that you
don't know breakfast, when you see it? Have a care there, for
hot fat WILL burn," as she deftly poured the contents of a pan,
fresh from the fire, into a dish.

Hungry Joe had been astir since the first drum had beat to arms
at two of the clock. He gave one glance at the boiling cream and
the slices of crisp pork swimming in it, as he gasped forth the
words, "Getting breakfast in Concord THIS morning! MOTHER
MOULTON, you MUST be crazy."

"So they tell me," she said, serenely. "There comes Uncle John!"
she added, as the clatter of a staff on the stone steps of the
stairway outrang, for an instant, the cries of hurrying and
confusion that filled the air of the street.

"Don't you know, Mother Moulton," Joe went on to say, "that every
single woman and child have been carried off, where the
Britishers won't find 'em?"

"I don't believe the king's troops have stirred out of Boston,"
she replied, going to the door leading to the stone staircase, to
open it for Uncle John.

"Don't believe it?" and Joe looked, as he echoed the words, as
though only a boy could feel sufficient disgust at such want of
common sense, in full view of the fact, that Reuben Brown had
just brought the news that eight men had been killed by the
king's Red-coats, in Lexington, which fact he made haste to
impart.

"I won't believe a word of it," she said, stoutly, "until I see
the soldiers coming."

"Ah! Hear that!" cried Joe, tossing back his hair and swinging
his arms triumphantly at an airy foe. "You won't have to wait
long. THAT SIGNAL is for the minute men. They are going to
march out to meet the Red-coats. Wish I was a minute man, this
minute."

Meanwhile, poor Uncle John was getting down the steps of the
stairway, with many a grimace and groan. As he touched the
floor, Joe, his face beaming with excitement and enthusiasm,
sprang to place a chair for him at the table, saying, "Good
morning!" at the same moment.

"May be," groaned Uncle John, "youngsters LIKE YOU may think it
is a good morning, but I DON'T, such a din and clatter as the
fools have kept up all night long. If I had the power" (and now
the poor old man fairly groaned with rage), "I'd make 'em quiet
long enough to let an old man get a wink of sleep, when the
rheumatism lets go."

"I'm real sorry for you," said Joe, "but you don't know the news.
The king's troops, from camp, in Boston, are marching right down
here, to carry off all our arms that they can find."

"Are they?" was the sarcastic rejoined. "It's the best news I've
heard in a long while. Wish they had my arms, this minute. They
wouldn't carry them a step farther than they could help, I know.
Run and tell them mine are ready, Joe."

"But, Uncle John, wait till after breakfast, you'll want to use
them once more," said Martha Moulton, trying to help him into the
chair that Joe had placed on the white sanded floor.

Meanwhile, Joe Devins had ears for all the sounds that penetrated
the kitchen from out of doors, and he had eyes for the slices of
well-browned pork and the golden hued Johnny-cake lying before
the glowing coals on the broad hearth.

As the little woman bent to take up the breakfast, Joe, intent on
doing some kindness for her in the way of saving treasures,
asked, "Shan't I help you, Mother Moulton?"

"I reckon I am not so old that I can't lift a mite of cornbread,"
she replied with chilling severity.

"Oh, I didn't mean to lift THAT THING," he made haste to explain,
"but to carry off things and hide 'em away, as everybody else has
been doing half the night. I know a first-rate place up in the
woods. Used to be a honey tree, you know, and it's just as
hollow as anything. Silver spoons and things would be just as
safe in it--" but Joe's words were interrupted by unusual tumult
on the street and he ran off to learn the news, intending to
return and get the breakfast that had been offered to him.

Presently he rushed back to the house with cheeks aflame and eyes
ablaze with excitement. "They're a coming!" he cried. "They're
in sight down by the rocks. They see 'em marching, the men on
the hill, do!"

"You don't mean that its really true that the soldiers are coming
here, RIGHT INTO OUR TOWN," cried Martha Moulton, rising in haste
and bringing together with rapid flourishes to right and to left,
every fragment of silver on the table. Uncle John strove to hold
fast his individual spoon, but she twitched it without ceremony
out from his rheumatic old fingers, and ran next to the parlor
cupboard, wherein lay her movable valuables.

"What in the world shall I do with them," she cried, returning
with her apron well filled with treasures, and borne down by the
weight thereof.

"Give 'em to me," cried Joe. "Here's a basket, drop 'em in, and
I'll run like a brush-fire through the town and across the old
bridge, and hide 'em as safe as a weasel's nap."

Joe's fingers were creamy; his mouth was half filled with
Johnny-cake, and his pocket on the right bulged to its utmost
capacity with the same, as he held forth the basket; but the
little woman was afraid to trust him, as she had been afraid to
trust her neighbors.

"No! No!" she replied, to his repeated offers. "I know what
I'll do. You, Joe Devins, stay right where you are till I come
back, and, don't you ever LOOK out of the window."

"Dear, dear me!" she cried, flushed and anxious when she was out
of sight of Uncle John and Joe. "I WISH I'd given 'em to Col.
Barrett when he was here before daylight, only, I WAS afraid I
should never get sight of them again."

She drew off one of her stockings, filled it, tied the opening at
the top with a string-plunged stocking and all into a pail full
of water and proceeded to pour the contents into the well.

Just as the dark circle had closed over the blue stockings, Joe
Devin's face peered down the depths by her side, and his voice
sounded out the words: "O Mother Moulton, the British will search
the wells the VERY first thing. Of course, they EXPECT to find
things in wells!"

"Why didn't you tell me before, Joe? but now it is too late."

"I would, if I'd known what you was going to do; they'd been a
sight safer, in the honey tree."

"Yes, and what a fool I've been--flung MY WATCH into the well
with the spoons!"

"Well, well! Don't stand there, looking," as she hovered over
the high curb, with her hand on the bucket. "Everybody will
know, if you do, there."

"Martha! Martha?" shrieked Uncle John's quavering voice from the
house door.

"Bless my heart!" she exclaimed, hurrying back over the stones.

"What's the matter with your heart?" questioned Joe.

"Nothing. I was thinking of Uncle John's money," she answered.

"Has he got money?" cried Joe. "I thought he was poor, and you
took care of him because you were so good"

Not one word that Joe uttered did the little woman hear. She was
already by Uncle John's side and asking him for the key to his
strong box.

Uncle John's rheumatism was terribly exasperating. "No, I won't
give it to you!" he cried, "and nobody shall have it as long as
I'm above ground."

"Then the soldiers will carry it off," she said.

"Let 'em!" was his reply, grasping his staff firmly with both
hands and gleaming defiance out of his wide, pale eyes. "YOU
won't get the key, even if they do."

At this instant, a voice at the doorway shouted the words, "Hide,
hide away somewhere, Mother Moulton, for the Red-coats are in
sight this minute!"

She heard the warning, and giving one glance at Uncle John, which
look was answered by another, "no, you won't have it," she
grasped Joe Devins by the collar of his jacket and thrust him
before her up the staircase, so quickly that the boy had no
chance to speak, until she released her hold at the entrance to
Uncle John's room.

The idea of being taken prisoner in such a manner, and by a
woman, too, was too much for the lad's endurance. "Let me go!"
he cried, the instant he could recover his breath. "I won't hide
away in your garret, like a woman, I won't. I want to see the
militia and the minute men fight the troops, I do."

"Help me first, Joe. Here, quick now; let's get this box out and
up garret. We'll hide it under the corn and it'll be safe," she
coaxed.

The box was under Uncle John's bed.

"What's in the old thing any how?" questioned Joe, pulling with
all his strength at it.

The box, or chest, was painted red, and was bound about by
massive iron bands.

"I've never seen the inside of it," said Mother Moulton. "It
holds the poor old soul's sole treasure, and I DO want to save it
for him if I can."

They had drawn it with much hard endeavor, as far as the garret
stairs, but their united strength failed to lift it. "Heave it,
now!" cried Joe, and lo! it was up two steps. So they turned it
over and over with many a thudding thump; every one of which
thumps Uncle John heard, and believed to be strokes upon the box
itself to burst it asunder, until it was fairly shelved on the
garret floor.

In the very midst of the overturnings, a voice from below had
been heard crying out, "Let my box alone! Don't break it open.
If you do, I'll--I'll--" but, whatever the poor man MEANT to
threaten as a penalty, he could not think of anything half severe
enough to say and so left it uncertain as to the punishment that
might be looked for.

"Poor old soul!" ejaculated the little woman, her soft white
curls in disorder and the pink color rising from her cheeks to
her fair forehead, as she bent to help Joe drag the box beneath
the rafter's edge.

"Now, Joe," she said. "we'll heap nubbins over it, and if the
soldiers want corn they'll take good ears and never think of
touching poor nubbins"; so they fell to work throwing corn over
the red chest, until it was completely concealed from view.

Then he sprang to the high-up-window ledge in the point of the
roof and took one glance out. "Oh, I see them, the Red- coats.
True's I live, there go the militia UP THE HILL. I thought they
was going to stand and defend. Shame on 'em, I say." Jumping
down and crying back to Mother Moulton, "I'm going to stand by
the minute men," he went down, three steps at a leap, and nearly
overturned Uncle John on the stairs, who, with many groans was
trying to get to the defense of his strong box.

"What did you help her for, you scamp," he demanded of Joe,
flourishing his staff unpleasantly near the lad's head.

" 'Cause she asked me to, and couldn't do it alone," returned
Joe, dodging the stick and disappearing from the scene, at the
very moment Martha Moulton encountered Uncle John.

"Your strong box is safe under nubbins in the garret, unless the
house burns down, and now that you are up here, you had better
stay," she added soothingly, as she hastened by him to reach the
kitchen below.

Once there, she paused a second or two to take resolution
regarding her next act. She knew full well that there was not
one second to spare, and yet she stood looking, apparently, into
the glowing embers on the hearth. She was flushed and excited,
both by the unwonted toil, and the coming events. Cobwebs from
the rafters had fallen on her hair and home-spun dress, and would
readily have betrayed her late occupation, to any discerning
soldier of the king.

A smile broke suddenly over her face, displacing for a brief
second every trace of care. "It's my only weapon, and I must use
it," she said, making a stately courtesy to an imaginary guest
and straightway disappeared within an adjoining room. With
buttoned door and dropped curtains the little woman made haste to
array herself in her finest raiment. In five minutes she
reappeared in the kitchen, a picture pleasant to look at. In all
New England, there could not be a more beautiful little old lady
than Martha Moulton was that day. Her hair was guiltless now of
cobwebs, but haloed her face with fluffy little curls of silvery
whiteness, above which, like a crown, was a little cap of dotted
muslin, pure as snow. Her erect figure, not a particle of the
hard-working-day in it now, carried well the folds of a sheeny,
black silk gown, over which she had tied an apron as spotless as
the cap.

As she fastened back her gown and hurried away the signs of the
breakfast she had not eaten, the clear pink tints seemed to come
out with added beauty of coloring in her cheeks; while her hair
seemed fairer and whiter than at any moment in her three-score
and eleven years.

Once more Joe Devins looked in. As he caught a glimpse of the
picture she made, he paused to cry out: "All dressed up to meet
the robbers! My, how fine you do look! I wouldn't. I'd go and
hide behind the nubbins. They'll be here in less than five
minutes now," he cried, "and I'm going over the North Bridge to
see what's going on there."

"O Joe, stay, won't you?" she urged, but the lad was gone, and
she was left alone to meet the foe, comforting herself with the
thought, "They'll treat me with more respect if I LOOK
respectable, and if I must die, I'll die good-looking in my best
clothes, anyhow."

She threw a few sticks of hickory-wood on the embers, and then
drew out the little round stand, on which the family Bible was
always lying. Recollecting that the British soldiers probably
belonged to the Church of England, she hurried away to fetch
Uncle John's "prayer-book."

"They'll have respect to me, if they find me reading that, I
know," she thought. Having drawn the round stand within sight of
the well, and where she could also command a view of the
staircase, she sat and waited for coming events.

Uncle John was keeping watch of the advancing troops from an
upper window. "Martha," he called, "you'd better come up.
They're close by, now." To tell the truth, Uncle John himself was
a little afraid; that is to say he hadn't quite courage enough to
go down, and, perhaps, encounter his own rheumatism and the
king's soldiers on the same stairway, and yet, he felt that he
must defend Martha as well as he could.

The rap of a musket, quick and ringing on the front door,
startled the little woman from her apparent devotions. She did
not move at the call of anything so profane. It was the custom
of the time to have the front door divided into two parts, the
lower half and the upper half. The former was closed and made
fast, the upper could be swung open at will.

The soldier getting no reply, and doubtless thinking that the
house was deserted, leaped over the chained lower half of the
door.

At the clang of his bayonet against the brass trimmings, Martha
Moulton groaned in spirit, for, if there was any one thing that
she deemed essential to her comfort in this life, it was to keep
spotless, speckless and in every way unharmed, the great knocker
on her front door.

"Good, sound English metal, too," she thought, "that an English
soldier ought to know how to respect."

As she heard the tramp of coming feet she only bent the closer
over the Book of Prayer that lay open on her knee. Not one word
did she read or see; she was inwardly trembling and outwardly
watching the well and the staircase. But now, above all other
sounds, broke the noise of Uncle John's staff thrashing the upper
step of the staircase, and the shrill tremulous cry of the old
man defiant, doing his utmost for the defense of his castle.

The fingers that lay beneath the book tingled with desire to box
the old man's ears, for the policy he was pursuing would be fatal
to the treasure in garret and in well; but she was forced to
silence and inactivity.

As the King's troops, Major Pitcairn at their head, reached the
open door and saw the old lady, they paused. What could they do
but look, for a moment, at the unexpected sight that met their
view; a placid old lady in black silk and dotted muslin, with all
the sweet solemnity of morning devotion hovering about the tidy
apartment and seeming to centre at the round stand by which she
sat, this pretty woman, with pink and white face surmounted with
fleecy little curls and crinkles and wisps of floating whiteness,
who looked up to meet their gaze with such innocent
prayer-suffused eyes.

"Good morning, Mother," said Major Pitcairn, raising his hat.

"Good morning, gentlemen and soldiers," returned Martha Moulton.
"You will pardon my not meeting you at the door, when you see
that I was occupied in rendering service to the Lord of all." She
reverently closed the book, laid it on the table, and arose, with
a stately bearing, to demand their wishes.

"We're hungry, good woman," spoke the commander, "and your hearth
is the only hospitable one we've seen since we left Boston. With
your good leave I'll take a bit of this, and he stooped to lift
up the Johnny-cake that had been all this while on the hearth.

"I wish I had something better to offer you," she said, making
haste to fetch plates and knives from the corner-cupboard, and
all the while she was keeping eye-guard over the well. "I'm
afraid the Concorders haven't left much for you to-day," she
added, with a soft sigh of regret, as though she really felt
sorry that such brave men and good soldiers had fallen on hard
times in the ancient town. At the moment she had brought forth
bread and baked beans, and was putting them on the table, a voice
rang into the room, causing every eye to turn toward Uncle John.
He had gotten down the stairs without uttering one audible groan,
and was standing, one step above the floor of the room,
brandishing and whirling his staff about in a manner to cause
even rheumatism to flee the place, while, at the top of his voice
he cried out:

"Martha Moulton, how DARE you FEED these--these--monsters--in
human form!"

"Don't mind him, gentlemen, please don't," she made haste to say,
"he's old, VERY old; eighty-five, his last birthday, and--a
little hoity-toity at times," pointing deftly with her finger in
the region of the reasoning powers in her own shapely head.

Summoning Major Pitcairn by an offer of a dish of beans, she
contrived to say, under covert of it:

"You see, sir, I couldn't go away and leave him; he is almost
distracted with rheumatism, and this excitement to-day will kill
him, I'm afraid."

Advancing toward the staircase with bold and soldierly front,
Major Pitcairn said to Uncle John:

"Stand aside, old man, and we'll hold you harmless."

"I don't believe you will, you red-trimmed trooper, you," was the
reply; and, with a dexterous swing of the wooden staff, he mowed
off and down three military hats.

Before any one had time to speak, Martha Moulton adroitly
stooping, as though to recover Major Pitcairn's hat, which had
rolled to her feet, swung the stairway-door into its place with a
resounding bang, and followed up that achievement with a swift
turn of two large wooden buttons, one high up, and the other low
down, near the floor.

"There!" she said, "he is safe out of mischief for awhile, and
your heads are safe as well. Pardon a poor old man, who does not
know what he is about."

"He seems to know remarkably well," exclaimed an officer.

Meanwhile, behind the strong door, Uncle John's wrath knew no
bounds. In his frantic endeavors to burst the fastenings of the
wooden buttons, rheumatic cramps seized him and carried the day,
leaving him out of the battle.

Meanwhile, a portion of the soldiery clustered about the door.
The king's horses were fed within five feet of the great brass
knocker, while, within the house, the beautiful little old woman,
in her Sunday-best-raiment, tried to do the dismal honors of the
day to the foes of her country. Watching her, one would have
thought she was entertaining heroes returned from the achievement
of valiant deeds, whereas, in her own heart, she knew full well
that she was giving a little to save much.

Nothing could exceed the seeming alacrity with which she fetched
water from the well for the officers: and, when Major Pitcairn
gallantly ordered his men to do the service, the little soul was
in alarm; she was so afraid that "somehow, in some way or
another, the blue stocking would get hitched on to the bucket."
She knew that she must to its rescue, and so she bravely
acknowledged herself to have taken a vow (when, she did not say),
to draw all the water that was taken from that well.

"A remnant of witchcraft!" remarked a soldier within hearing.

"Do I look like a witch?" she demanded.

"If you do," replied Major Pitcairn, "I admire New England
witches, and never would condemn one to be hung, or burned,
or--smothered."

Martha Moulton never wore so brilliant a color on her aged cheeks
as at that moment. She felt bitter shame at the ruse she had
attempted, but silver spoons were precious, and, to escape the
smile that went around at Major Pitcairn's words, she was only
too glad to go again to the well and dip slowly the high,
over-hanging sweep into the cool, clear, dark depth below.

During this time the cold, frosty morning spent itself into the
brilliant, shining noon.

You know what happened at Concord on that 19th of April in the
year 1775. You have been told the story, how the men of Acton
met and resisted the king's troops at the old North Bridge, how
brave Captain Davis and minute-man Hosmer fell, how the sound of
their falling struck down to the very heart of mother earth, and
caused her to send forth her brave sons to cry "Liberty, or
Death!"

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