“I’d like to know,” exclaims Marie, “if there weren’t any heroines as well as heroes in the time of the Revolution. Now down there in the Park to-day, while they were having their orations, and Mr. Higby got to talking about the Revolution—”

“Come now,” breaks in Harry, “you don’t mean to pretend you heard a word he said!”

“Indeed I do! I listened first-rate—along at first. Katy, mustn’t he stop interrupting? Well, all I was going to say was, that when he got to talking about the Revolution it was all about the forefathers that he got so eloquent, and never a word about the mothers! As if they weren’t patriotic, too, and of some account! Don’t you suppose they were?”

“Kate,” slyly observes her brother, “here’s another fine opportunity for you to hold forth on the subject of your great-great-grandmother.”

“Ah! just as though you weren’t every whit as proud of her as I am!”

“Oh, my! did you have a great-great-grandmother?” cries the enthusiastic Marie. “Do tell us about her.”

“Yes, do, Miss Katy,” says Harry, seconding the motion as he watches a sky-rocket shooting upward, leaving a gleaming train as it curves through the air. For this is the evening of the “Glorious Fourth,” and the speakers are all out in the porch, where a good view can be had of the display of fireworks down at the corner of the street.

“Well, then, Harry, you know about the battle of Cowpens, in South Carolina?”

“Yes, where the British thought they had won the day, sure, and Morgan brought up his dragoons, and they cut and slashed right and left, and put the Redcoats to flight, and took a lot of prisoners.”

“What are dragoons?” inquires Marie.

“Mounted troops—cavalry. Oh, but didn’t they pitch into ’em good with their swords! Wish I’d been there.”

“And then you know, Harry, how Cornwallis pursued Morgan, in hopes of recovering the prisoners; and how General Greene had to come to Morgan’s rescue. By the way, Walter, I don’t know exactly why, but somehow all I hear of Sherman in the last war reminds me of that General Greene.”

“And did your great-great-grandmother live around there anywheres?”

“Yes, Marie. But you mustn’t think of her as a grandmother at all, with gray hair and cap and spectacles; for she was only a young girl then. There’s a portrait of her painted a few years after. They have it at Uncle Robert’s—little Rob’s father, you know. There she sits, with her arms folded; and she wears a brocade silk, with much lace about the low neck and flowing sleeves; and her hair is combed straight up from the forehead over a roll, and coiled high at the back of the head, very much as the style is now—only I suppose it was all her own, for switches hadn’t yet been thought of.”

“And did she do something brave?”

“So the story goes. She was an orphan, you see, and lived with her uncle, who was a hot-tempered old Tory, and all his sons and daughters the same. But, perhaps because they weren’t as good to her as they might have been, she took it into her head to believe some other way—sympathized with the rebels, you know. But she took care not to let any one find that out, which no one was likely to, for she was so young, only sixteen—just two years older than you, Marie—people wouldn’t be questioning her about politics. Well, it was just at this time, when Cornwallis was chasing up Morgan, that there came one rainy evening to her uncle’s a small detachment of British troops, with some Americans belonging to Morgan’s force whom they had captured the day previous, and asked for lodgings for the night. Her uncle welcomed them heartily, and gave them a room where they could lock up their prisoners, and ordered Chloe, the black cook, to get up a grand supper for them. Grand? I don’t suppose it was what would be called a grand supper nowadays. I presume it consisted largely of game from the forest, venison, and the like—not much in the way of dessert and nick-nacks, you know. While the British were feasting in the dining-room, Kate—we may as well call her Kate, for I forgot to tell you that I was named after her—slipped into the kitchen, and managed, unseen, to fill a basket with some of that plentiful supper, and creep with it up a back stairway to the store-room or garret at the top of the house. Now the room where the prisoners were locked in was in the second story, and had no window; but in the ceiling there was a trap-door that opened into the garret. Kate raised this door—or rather, it was a mere piece of plank—and let down the basket by a rope. And the prisoners, looking up and catching sight of her friendly face by the light of the candle she held, were gladdened, you may be sure. Ah, poor fellows, and they were hungry, too; hadn’t had a mouthful for two days. (Indeed, they had been out in search of game. That was the way they happened to be caught.) ‘Was there any way under the sun for them to get out of there?’ they asked her. Yes; she told them of a way she had thought of, but they would have to be very still about it, and wait till everybody in the house had gone to sleep. Then she closed the door again, but she was careful to take the basket with her, lest the Red-coats might look in before retiring, and find it there and suspect something was wrong. They did look in, too. There were the prisoners, all secure. Then they locked and bolted the door again, and for further security stationed a guard outside. When Kate found out about the guard she trembled for her plans. But toward midnight she peeped into the hall and saw him nodding sleepily, for he and his comrades, as well as their officers, had been making free with her uncle’s wine. In those days it was the custom to keep quantities of wine even in private houses, and to use it freely at the table.”

“Nothing of that sort going on nowadays!”

“I am sorry to say so, Harry, but I suppose there is; though not so generally the practice, I am sure—at least, not in this country. Well, Kate crept up to the garret again, by the same way as before, and she lowered a ladder—oh, so still!—to those six prisoners, and one by one they climbed up softly through the little trap-door in the ceiling—oh, it was just the least mite of an opening, hardly large enough for a person to crawl through; but then I suppose that one could manage to squeeze through a pretty small space for the sake of regaining one’s liberty—”

“That’s so!” says Harry, speaking, doubtless, from experience.

“Now, you mustn’t interrupt again!” says Marie; “just when they’re all climbing up, too; and I’m so afraid that sentinel there in the hall outside will hear! But, oh, Katy, when they’re all up in the garret how ever is she going to get them away from there? Won’t somebody wake up and hear while she’s getting them all down that back stairway?”

“No, they didn’t go down that way. You see this garret was used for a store-room for flour and groceries, and the like; for the place was so far from any mill or market, that when they sent to the nearest town they used to purchase all those things in large quantities. So, for convenience in storing away articles, a stairway had been built up against the outside of the house.”

“Oh, and there was an outside door to the garret! What a dear, delicious old house, with stairways and trap-doors, and everything all fixed just right to help those poor prisoners off!”

“Now, you mustn’t interrupt again!” says a mocking voice.

“Down they went, under the dripping eaves; but when they reached the ground and held a whispered consultation, it came out that they hadn’t the slightest idea in which direction to go to join their commander; for they were all from the north, and perfectly unacquainted with the country. ‘Could the kind young lady give them some directions?’ ‘I will go as guide,’ she said. So they helped themselves to the six chargers of the six British officers sleeping snugly under her uncle’s roof, and she mounted her little sorrel pony, and away they went, through the rain and the darkness—slowly at first, lest the trampling of the horses’ feet should be heard, which likely would have been the case but for the ground being softened by the rain; after that they dashed along swiftly over hills and through forests, for it was a wild, uncultivated region through which their route lay. After riding a few miles they reached a rapid stream, so swollen by the freshets which prevailed just then—it was in January—so deep and rapid that it was almost impossible for the soldiers, even on their stout war-horses, to ford it, for there was no bridge. Kate and her little pony would surely have been swept away. So, as she could go no farther, she told them as clearly as she could how they were to turn to the right at such a cross-road, and to the left at another, and to the right again when they came to a certain old church; and if they kept straight ahead when they came to a certain tall pine tree, standing all alone by itself, they would reach the place where they expected to find Morgan. (As he was on the move all the time they couldn’t be so sure about that.) So, with a ‘God bless you!’ from the leader, which all his companions echoed, they plunged into the roaring torrent, and she turned back through the forest—where there were fierce bears and panthers, mind you; but fortunately the rain kept them in their dens that night.

“When she reached home, all was as dark and silent as when she left; and when she peeped out again from her room, there was the guard nodding as before; but not really asleep. He hadn’t heard a sound. Poor fellow, the British Colonel and the rest were going to have him shot for sleeping at his post, when, next morning, they found the prisoners had gone and the horses too. How furiously angry they were! But, oh, the uncle! his eyes flashed lightnings, and his voice was like the thunder. Kate was wakened by his raging and storming, with all the black people up before him to be cross-questioned, and they declaring that ‘O massa, dey wouldn’ a-helped dem rebel trash away fur nuffin in de hull worl’!’ If they had, their lives wouldn’t have been worth much. Kate knew that, or she might have asked some of them to assist her. She meant to bear all the blame herself.”

“Wasn’t she a trump, though!”

“Yes, Harry; but she trembled like a leaf all the time, dressing herself in a hurry, and rushing out to confess before them all, and plead for the sentinel’s life. ‘Oh, he wasn’t a bit to blame! he didn’t go to sleep at all, for she looked to see! We were so still about it that, oh, he couldn’t hear! and oh, don’t kill him, don’t!’ And then she almost fainted away. But the angry old uncle was angrier than ever. He ordered her to her room, and never to show her face again. But just at this point, when all is clamor and confusion, and the poor, pale, frightened girl is being dragged off in disgrace to her chamber, the house is suddenly surrounded by the combined forces of Greene and Morgan (for they met yesterday, and have been nearer by all the time than was supposed), and led by the American Captain whom she released last night, in walks General Greene himself, to thank her for her brave deed; and when she is led to the window, all those soldiers—ragged, weak with hunger, as they are, footsore and weary with continual marching—at the sight of her, just toss up their hats (those of them who have any) and cheer, and cheer, and cheer. And the British Colonel and his men are prisoners themselves in about two seconds—”

“Oh, jolly!”

“And the mad old Tory uncle’s wine-casks have to be tapped again, while the rebel army there before his eyes drinks to his niece’s health.”

“Jolly, jollier, jolliest!”

“You might suppose there wasn’t enough to go around; but you must remember that it was not such a very big army. How large should you say, Walter?”

“Probably not a larger number than would be included in two what in our last war were considered good-sized regiments. Hardly that, for I believe Greene left quite a force behind at his post on the Pedee river, when he pushed across country to join Morgan; and his whole command united couldn’t have amounted to more than two thousand.”

“Just think of it! And that wee little army, half-starved and poorly clothed, held in check the thousands of Cornwallis! No wonder the orators grow eloquent over our forefathers, is it, Marie?”

“But about Kate? Did that horrid old Tory of an uncle shut her up in her room after that?”

“Take care, Miss Marie, that ‘horrid old Tory of an uncle’ was a distant relative of ours.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to say anything against your relations, Mr. Walter; but then everybody knows you aren’t a bit like him, if you are a tease!”

“No,” Kate goes on, “they didn’t shut her up in her room, but she was treated very coolly all around the board, and as for her uncle, I believe he never spoke to her again. What made him particularly indignant was, that the British prisoners would insist that he was at the bottom of it all, and had set the trap for them himself. They had reason to be suspicious, for in that section one never could be certain who were Tories and who were not, so many of the people wavered in their opinions, favoring the royal cause one day and the rebels the next. Well, to wind up my story, Kate was so unhappy there, that she went to live with an aunt in Charleston till some two or three years after, when the war was all over, and she married—”

“Oh, wait, let me guess who!—the American Captain, now, didn’t she? How romantic! Then he was your great-great-grandfather!”

“Yes, and they came North, and lived and died right where Uncle Robert lives now—in the same house, only it has been altered several times since.”

The mention of “Uncle Robert” reminds Harry to ask if Kate has had any more letters lately from her little correspondent. Whereupon she produces this one, which she received to-day!

“Plucky little chap, ain’t he!” and Harry giggles too. “Divert his mind! ha, ha! But you don’t know anything about how it burns. I got my hand peppered that way once, and went into the cellar where it was cool, and walked the floor for three hours. I didn’t want any one to find out about it, for fear of a scolding, for I expect I was old enough to know better.”

But Marie, who has been quietly meditating meanwhile, suddenly breaks forth with, “I wish I had lived in the time of the Revolution! Then I would have had a chance to do something brave.”

“You!” laughs Harry. “I’ll warrant it would scare you half to death to hear a mouse nibble in the wall at night.” Which Marie, blushing guiltily, cannot deny.

“Well, anyhow, I’m going over home to find out if I haven’t got a great-great-grandmother, or something.”